Top Secret

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Thank you, sir,” Cronley said softly.

  “Get out of here, Cronley. Hie thee to thy monastery!”

  Cronley came to attention and saluted crisply. Wilson returned it as crisply. Cronley executed an about-face movement and marched to the office door.

  [ TWO ]

  Kloster Grünau

  Schollbrunn, Bavaria

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1235 29 October 1945

  Two machine gun jeeps were blocking the road, and Cronley had to make two low-level passes over what was to be his runway—very low and very slow passes, with the window open so they could see his face—before the jeeps started up and moved out of the way.

  He put the Storch down smoothly, taxied to the end of the “runway,” and shut down the engine.

  “It would appear that I have cheated death once again,” he said to Schröder.

  Schröder’s expression did not change.

  “May I ask where we are?” Schröder said.

  “No.”

  Tiny walked toward the airplane. Cronley made a slight hand signal to him, which he hoped would make Dunwiddie salute him and—more important—play the respectful role of a non-com dealing with an officer.

  Dunwiddie understood. He saluted crisply and Cronley returned it.

  “Two things, Sergeant,” Cronley ordered. “Have your men push the aircraft off the strip, and then have them put a tarpaulin over it. And then get someone to escort this gentleman while he’s here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dunwiddie said, and gestured for one of the jeeps to come to them.

  When the jeep stopped before him, Dunwiddie pointed to the machine gunner, a corporal, and ordered: “You will escort this gentleman until you are relieved.”

  “You got it, First Sergeant.”

  Dunwiddie pointed to the driver.

  “You go to the barracks and get enough men to push this airplane up beside the chapel. Then put a tarp over it so it’ll be hard to see from the air.”

  The jeep driver, a sergeant, nodded, and the moment the corporal had tied down his Browning and jumped free of the jeep, turned it around and drove off.

  “You can get out now, Herr Schröder,” Cronley said in German.

  They set out for the headquarters building, Cronley and Dunwiddie walking side by side. Schröder walked behind them as the corporal, now cradling a Thompson submachine gun like a hunter’s shotgun, followed him.

  As they approached the building, Cronley saw General Reinhard Gehlen and Oberst Ludwig Mannberg standing just outside. That made moot the question he had had in his mind about how he was going to get one or the other of them out of the mess in order to explain the situation.

  Cronley also saw on Schröder’s face that he recognized one of them. Or both.

  “Good afternoon, Herr Cronley,” Gehlen said courteously.

  “I hope my arrival didn’t disturb your lunch, sir.”

  “It did, but the sound of a Storch coming in here caused my curiosity to overwhelm my hunger.” He looked closely at Schröder. “We know one another, don’t we?”

  Schröder snapped to rigid attention, clicked his heels, bobbed his head, and said, “Herr General, I had the honor of flying the general on many occasions. In Poland and the East, Herr General.”

  “I thought you looked familiar,” Gehlen said. “Schröder, isn’t it?”

  Schröder bobbed his head and clicked his heels again.

  “Herr General, I am flattered that the general remembers.”

  “We don’t do that here, Schröder,” Mannberg said. “The war is over and we are no longer in military service.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”

  “And,” Mannberg added, drily sarcastic, “it would follow that since we are no longer in military service, neither do we have military rank.”

  “Corporal, take our guest around the corner, please,” Cronley said, “while I have a word with these gentlemen.”

  Schröder went around the corner of the building with the corporal three steps behind him.

  Gehlen looked expectantly at Cronley to see what he wanted.

  “General, how would you feel about Schröder joining us here?”

  “In connection with that Storch he just flew in here, you mean?”

  Cronley nodded.

  “The Storch, and another one, is now ours,” he said.

  “I think he could prove quite useful. But I suspect you have some doubt?”

  “Yes, sir. You think he can be trusted?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Could you tell me why?”

  “Because right now he’s wondering whether he’s going to be put to work, or be shot for having seen too much,” Gehlen explained.

  Cronley thought there was a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

  “Exactly what has he seen?”

  “Mannberg and myself,” Gehlen said, more than a little condescendingly.

  Cronley felt a wave of anger rise. He recognized it and waited until he felt he had it under control before he replied.

  “General, keeping in mind that three days ago I was a second lieutenant, you’re going to have to have a little patience when I ask what you and Oberst Mannberg, with your far greater experience, consider to be dumb questions.”

  “The general meant no disrespect, Hauptman Cronley,” Mannberg said.

  “Actually, quite the opposite, Hauptman Cronley,” Gehlen said. “My problem with you is that I’ve seen—and I mean seen here, not what you did in Argentina, but that also obviously applies—what a competent intelligence officer you are, and I sometimes forget there probably are . . . how do I say this? . . . certain gaps in your professional experience.”

  “My professional experience can be written inside a matchbook cover with a thick grease pencil,” Cronley said. “And the gaps in it make a hole somewhat larger than the Grand Canyon. And I think you both are fully aware of that.”

  Mannberg laughed.

  “Is something funny?” Cronley snapped.

  “Yes,” Mannberg said. “That colorful expression of annoyance, I’m afraid, did not translate very well into German.”

  “I was speaking German?” Cronley blurted.

  So I didn’t have my temper firmly in hand.

  “You sounded like a Strasbourger on his fourth liter of beer,” Mannberg said.

  “That’s bad.”

  “But you made your point,” Gehlen said, “and it was taken, Hauptman Cronley. I apologize for not understanding. You were—as you should have been—concerned that taking Schröder here might pose security problems. When I so quickly suggested I didn’t think it would be a problem, you wondered—as you should have—how quickly I had made that decision. I thought it should have been obvious to you. My mistake. One of the gaps in your experience is that you have had no experience in the East.”

  By East he means Russia.

  Why are these guys so reluctant to say Russia?

  Gehlen met his eyes a long moment, then went on: “Let me tell you what it was like in the East when Schröder was flying me and Mannberg around at the front. It was understood that under no circumstances could we fall into the hands of the Red Army. Specifically, Schröder knew that when we took off, there was an explosive charge aboard the Storch that I would detonate, or he would, if it appeared there was any chance at all that we were going to go down behind the Red Army’s lines.

  “Even after the flight, or flights, Schröder understood that it was unacceptable for him to be captured with knowledge of the location of any Abwehr Ost detachment or the like. He gave his word as an officer to die honorably by his own hand in that circumstance.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Cronley said softly.

  “When you brought him here, and he saw Mannberg and me, he naturally assumed the same s
ecurity protocol would be in place here. And I’m sure he knows the Red Army is looking for any former member of Abwehr Ost.

  “Schröder knew the moment we saw and recognized one another that he would not be allowed to leave in possession of such intelligence. I had those facts, plus my knowledge that he was a courageous and trustworthy officer—as well as a very good pilot—in mind when I made what appeared to you to be a casual decision about whether he would be useful here.”

  Gehlen let that sink in a moment, and after Cronley nodded, went on: “My mistake, Hauptman Cronley, was to forget about those gaps in your experience, and again, for that I apologize.”

  “There’s no need to apologize, General,” Cronley said. “The problem as I see it is that I’m afraid we’ve only begun to learn how large those gaps, those many gaps, in my experience are.”

  “And your decision about Schröder?” Gehlen asked.

  “I suggest we take him inside, give him lunch, and welcome him to Kloster Grünau.”

  Gehlen nodded, and then smiled.

  “An expression Colonel Mattingly uses frequently seems appropriate here,” he said, and then quoted, “‘The true test of another man’s intelligence is to what degree he agrees with you.’”

  “I’m flattered, sir,” Cronley said, and then raised his voice: “Corporal!”

  The corporal appeared around the corner of the building a moment later, prodding Schröder ahead of him with the muzzle of his Thompson.

  “Lower that muzzle, Corporal,” Cronley ordered. “Herr Schröder has been declared one of the good guys.”

  A look of enormous relief flashed over Schröder’s face.

  Not that I doubted what Gehlen said about Schröder wondering if he was about to be shot, but if I needed proof, there it was on Schröder’s face.

  “Pass the word,” Cronley continued. “And then find First Sergeant Dunwiddie and ask him if he’s free for lunch.”

  “Yes, sir,” the corporal said.

  “Come with us, Schröder,” Gehlen said. “And while we have lunch, I’ll try to determine where you’ll be most useful around here.”

  —

  “So, what we’re going to do now,” Dunwiddie said, as the discussion about the airplanes and Schröder and his men died down, “is send a couple of trucks—probably it would be better to send four—to Sonthofen to pick up the other airplane, the mechanics, and the parts. Right?”

  Cronley made a Time out signal with his hands and announced, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “That’s always dangerous,” Tiny said.

  “Kurt, now that you know what’s going on here, what about your men?” Cronley asked.

  “What Hauptman Cronley is asking, Schröder,” Mannberg said, “is (a) whether you trust them to keep their mouths shut about what they might see here, and (b) whether they understand what will happen to them if they talk. We simply cannot have them talking, even to their wives.”

  It took Schröder a good fifteen seconds to frame his reply.

  “Two of them served with me in the East,” he began. “When I tell them the same security protocol we had there will apply here, they will understand. If they don’t wish to subject themselves to that protocol, I won’t bring them here.”

  “And the third man?” Mannberg asked.

  “He is a brother of one of the men who was with me in the East. If he is reluctant to accept the protocol, then I will not bring either of them here.”

  “How long would it take you to hold this conversation, conversations, with them?” Cronley said.

  “Do I understand that I am to return to Sonthofen with the trucks?”

  “Answer my question, please.”

  “Thirty minutes or so. No longer than that.”

  “And how long would it take to tell them, ‘Say nothing to anyone, I will return here shortly’? With confidence that they would obey that order?”

  “You’ve lost me, Jim,” Dunwiddie said.

  “It would take me twice as long to say that than it did for you to say it. Because I would say it twice, to make sure they understood.”

  Cronley nodded, then turned to Tiny.

  “What’s going to happen now is that Schröder and I are going to fly back to Sonthofen. When we land, Schröder will deliver that little speech to his men. I will then get out of Storch One, and Schröder will immediately get in Storch One and fly back here. I will then get in Storch Two and fly it back here. When I land, you and Schröder and four trucks will go to Sonthofen, pick up the mechanics and the parts, and drive very slowly and carefully back here.”

  When he saw that everyone was considering his remarks with what appeared to be little enthusiasm, Cronley provided amplification.

  “If we fly Storch Two back here, that will (a) get it out of Sonthofen immediately, (b) eliminate the risk of it getting damaged while moving it by truck, and (c) questions will not be raised by anyone about a Storch with U.S. Army markings being driven down the roads to here.”

  Gehlen and Mannberg nodded their understanding and acceptance. Schröder’s face remained expressionless.

  Tiny asked, “And I’m going with the trucks? Why?”

  “Because, Marshal Earp, you have your marshal’s badge with which you can dazzle anybody who wants to ask you about anything.”

  “Marshal Earp?” General Gehlen asked.

  “He was a famous American cowboy, General,” Mannberg said.

  “A U.S. Marshal,” Cronley corrected him. “In the Arizona Territory before it became a state. He and his brothers and a dentist named Doc Holliday were involved in—I should say won—a famous gunfight in the O.K. Corral in Tombstone.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t in the O.K. Corral, but near it,” Tiny further clarified.

  Gehlen, Mannberg, and Schröder obviously had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Ready to go flying, Kurt?” Cronley said.

  Schröder stood.

  Cronley handed him the zipper jacket Lieutenant Colonel Wilson had given him.

  “Put this on,” he ordered. “If we find ourselves in the hands of the MPs or anyone else asking questions, your answer is you are under orders to answer no questions without the permission of Colonel Robert Mattingly, deputy commander, Counterintelligence, European Command. Got it?”

  Schröder nodded, and then repeated, as if to fix it in his memory, “Colonel Robert Mattingly, deputy commander, Counterintelligence, European Command.”

  “That’s it,” Cronley confirmed, and then turned to General Gehlen. “When I get back, I want to see our guest.”

  Gehlen nodded.

  [ THREE ]

  Kloster Grünau

  Schollbrunn, Bavaria

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1705 29 October 1945

  The machine gun jeeps were already moving off the road when Cronley made his first pass over Kloster Grünau. He decided they had seen—or heard—the Storch approaching.

  When he turned and made his approach, he saw that a small convoy—a lead machine gun jeep, the Opel Kapitän, two GMC 6×6 trucks, and a trailing machine gun jeep—was lined up on the road from Kloster Grünau.

  Tiny’s ready to go, he thought. Why not? It’s a long ride to Sonthofen and back.

  Only two trucks; Schröder must have told him he wouldn’t need four.

  And then his attention was abruptly brought back to what he was doing—flying.

  He was far to the left of the runway; winds had blown him off his intended track.

  Well, I guess we’re going to need a windsock.

  He corrected his approach and touched gently down where he had originally intended to land.

  Not bad, Eddie Rickenbacker!

  Especially for someone who professes to hate flying.

  Who are you kidding? You love flying and re
ally missed it.

  He completed the landing roll, turned the Storch, and taxied to the convoy at the end of the runway. He saw Tiny and Schröder get out of the Kapitän.

  Cronley shut down the engine and opened the window.

  Schröder, smiling, made a gesture with his hand demonstrating Cronley’s last-second efforts to line up with the runway.

  “I was thinking we might need a windsock,” Cronley said.

  “I think that’s a very good idea.”

  “On the way to Sonthofen, why don’t you tell Sergeant Dunwiddie here how to make one?”

  “Why don’t you tell Tedworth how to make one,” Dunwiddie challenged, “while Herr Schröder and I are bouncing down the bumpy roads in the dark?”

  “Because as an officer I am dedicated to preserving the privileges of rank,” Cronley said piously.

  Dunwiddie smiled and shook his head.

  “Speaking of officers,” he said, “Mattingly called. I didn’t think you wanted him to know what you were really doing, Charles Lindbergh, so I told him you were off in a jeep somewhere, and I would have you call him when you got back. That was about an hour ago.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll call him. Have a nice ride.”

  I’ll call him after I see the Russian NKGB agent.

  He nodded and smiled at Schröder, then in a loud voice called out “Clear!” and started the engine. He taxied back down the runway to where a dozen soldiers were waiting to push the Storch off the runway and out of sight.

  —

  Cronley found Mannberg in the officers’ mess bar. He was reading Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Army newspaper, over a cup of coffee.

  Cronley sat beside him and said, “When you’re through with the Stripes, I’d like to see the NKGB agent.”

  “Of course,” Mannberg replied, and laid the newspaper down.

  Cronley could see that Mannberg was unhappy.

  “I don’t want to interfere in any way with your interrogation,” Cronley said. “I just want to see him.”