Top Secret

by W. E. B Griffin

  “General Clay got out of the L-4, greeted me cheerfully, and said he hoped I had coffee and a couple of doughnuts, as he hadn’t had any breakfast. As we walked here, he said, ‘One of the first things you’re going to have to do is extend that runway. My pilot wasn’t sure he could land on it.’

  “I said, ‘Sir, that isn’t a runway.’

  “‘It will be,’ he said. ‘And I have a few other little changes to make to Colonel Mattingly’s plans for this place.’ It took him about an hour. I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that he was Corps of Engineers—you don’t think of general officers as having a branch of service—but he quickly showed he was one hell of an engineer. Anyway, he said, ‘Get me a sheet of plywood. We’ll use it as a plat.’

  “And then he sketched the village, freehand, on this”—he pointed to the sheet of plywood—“with a grease pencil, and showed me where he wanted the fences to be, the barracks for the American guards, and the tent city for the Poles . . . the Polish.”

  “Those men in the dyed fatigues?” General Greene asked.

  “Yes, sir. They’re former Polish soldiers. They’d been German POWs. He said they didn’t want to go home because the Russians were now running Poland, so Ike had decided he wasn’t going to make them go home. He said they’d make good guards around our installations and to put them to work. General Clay said if you wanted to keep them on, after the compound is open, we could start building barracks for them.”

  “Start building, Colonel,” Mattingly said. He turned to Cronley. “What do you think, Cronley?”

  “I’m like you, Colonel. I didn’t expect anything like this.”

  “Well, I suggest you’d better get used to it. It looks to me as if this place is just about ready for you to move into it, and that’s what you’re going to do, the minute it’s ready.”

  “I’d estimate a week, sir, to complete everything,” Colonel Bristol said.

  “Colonel,” Major McClung said, “have you been told we’re going to put an ASA listening station in here?”

  “No,” Bristol said simply.

  “Well, we are,” General Greene said. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “I don’t know what that will entail, sir.”

  McClung said, “A building . . .”

  “That should be no problem.”

  “. . . and an antenna farm near the building.”

  “I’m back, Major, to I don’t know what that will entail.”

  “Why don’t you come back and show him in the morning, McClung?” General Greene ordered. “My stomach is growling and I’ve already seen what I came to see.”

  [ SEVEN ]

  The Main Dining Room

  Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten

  Maximilianstrasse 178

  Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  2215 2 November 1945

  Rachel had teased him to erection on the drive back to Munich, but had then withdrawn her hand.

  When they reached the hotel, Cronley decided that was the last he would see of her tonight—and for a while. It already was late and after dinner everyone would retire, the Schumanns together. And after he flew Clete to Frankfurt first thing in the morning, he would fly back to Kloster Grünau, not to Munich.

  She was now sitting across from him in the alcove off the main dining room, but her foot was out of range of his ankle.

  She’s lucky her husband doesn’t show any signs of even suspecting what she was doing to me in the front seat. Correction. I’m lucky . . . we’re both damned lucky.

  —

  “I want to say this while everyone’s here,” Frade announced as they were having their dessert. “I’ve decided to send my deputy, Major Max Ashton, over here to assume command of this end of Operation Ost . . .”

  Shit, Cronley thought. So I am being relieved.

  And I had just about decided my half turning of Orlovsky had kept me my job.

  “. . . Not only is the Pullach compound too much for one man to handle, but those Pentagon types—Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley—who are going to be at Pullach for General Magruder worry me.

  “As most of us saw, they are very much aware they outrank Captain Cronley. What I’m going to do as we’re flying back to Washington is try to convince General Magruder that Colonel Parsons would be much more valuable sitting at his Pentagon desk than he would be here. If he doesn’t agree—and I don’t think he will, as it’s pretty clear to me that they are very much interested in having Army G-2 take over Operation Ost—then I’m going to go to Admiral Souers and tell him what I’m thinking. I’ll probably lose that battle as the admiral doesn’t need one more fight with the Pentagon. In other words, over my objections, Parsons will probably show up at Pullach.

  “If that happens, Colonel Mattingly, I would appreciate it if you would whisper in Parson’s ear that while he might outrank Major Ashton, he doesn’t outrank you.”

  “Consider it done,” Mattingly said, smiling.

  “Now, as far as who runs Pullach: Cronley dealt with a serious problem out there in the last few days to the complete satisfaction of Colonel Mattingly, General Gehlen, and me.”

  To Mattingly’s complete satisfaction? That’s hard to believe.

  “What sort of a problem? May I ask?” Colonel Schumann asked.

  “You may ask, Colonel, but Colonel Mattingly and I have decided the fewer people who know about it, the better. I’m sure you’ll understand. The point is Cronley has established a close rapport with General Gehlen that I found at first hard to believe. But it’s real, and I am not going to endanger it by telling Gehlen that Major Ashton will now be running things.

  “So Cronley will run General Gehlen, so to speak, answering only to me. And Major Ashton will run everything else, answering to both Colonel Mattingly and me.

  “I’m well aware this command structure would look very odd on a Table of Organization, but that’s the way it’s going to be.” He paused and smiled. “As they told me on my very first day in the Marine Corps, ‘If you don’t like the way things are run around here, learn to.’”

  When that got the chuckles Frade expected, he stood up.

  “Say ‘good night’ to the nice people, Captain Cronley. We have to get up with the birds to go flying.”

  —

  Cronley showed Frade to his room, two doors down from his, and asked, “What did you tell Mattingly about Orlovsky?”

  “I told him that I had made it perfectly clear to you that you were going to let General Gehlen handle it.”

  “You’re devious, Colonel.”

  “Thank you,” Clete said.

  Then he punched Jimmy affectionately on the shoulder and went into his room.

  —

  Ten minutes later, as Cronley came out of the shower, there was a knock at the door.

  That has to be Rachel. Is she out of her mind?

  A moment later, she pushed past him into the room.

  “What about your husband?”

  “He, the general, and Iron Lung are having a nightcap. We have thirty minutes, maybe a little more.”

  “And if we don’t and he goes to your room and you’re not there?”

  “I’ll tell him I took a walk.”

  By then she was sitting on the bed, removing her shoes.

  Their mating didn’t take long, which Cronley decided was probably because of what she had done to him going to Pullach and back.

  As she dressed, she asked, “What was that serious problem you dealt with to everybody’s satisfaction, and Colonel Frade didn’t want to talk about?”

  “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, that means I can’t.”

  She didn’t press the question, and three minutes later she was gone.

  But something about her asking it bothered him.

  He could
n’t define what bothered him, and decided it was just feminine curiosity.

  He took another shower and fell into bed.

  IX

  [ ONE ]

  Schleissheim U.S. Army Airfield

  Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0645 3 November 1945

  Cletus Frade followed Jim Cronley into the Weather/Flight Planning room at Base Operations and watched as a sergeant gave Cronley a weather briefing.

  Then he followed Cronley to a row of what looked like lecterns, or headwaiter’s tables, where pilots, standing up, prepared their flight plans.

  “What do you think of the weather, Jimmy?”

  “It’s a little dicey. And since I will be transporting a senior officer, I thought I’d file IFR.”

  “Could you make it to Kloster Grünau VFR?”

  “In this kind of weather, the only way to get into Kloster Grünau International is by following CC Flight Rules. But, yeah, I could. I will, after I drop you off in Frankfurt, if that’s what you’re asking. Not a problem.”

  “CC for Chasing Cows?” Clete asked, smiling.

  Jimmy smiled back and nodded.

  “What would happen if you took off from here on a Local VFR, closed it out in the air, and then went CC to Kloster Grünau?”

  “You want to go to Kloster Grünau? What about Frankfurt?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Why are we going to sneak into Kloster Grünau?”

  “Because General Gehlen called last night and said he would really like a word with me before I go to Argentina. And I don’t want Mattingly to know I had a final word with General Gehlen before I went to Argentina. Which means that after I have a final word with General Gehlen, before you fly me to Frankfurt so that I can go to Argentina you should avoid telling Colonel Mattingly—”

  “That you had a final word with General Gehlen before you went to Argentina?”

  “My, you are clever for a young Army officer.”

  They were smiling at each other.

  “Don’t let this go to your head, Colonel, sir, but after you go to Argentina, I will miss you.”

  “Yeah. Me, too, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy folded the aerial chart on which he had been about to prepare his flight plan and stuffed it in his jacket.

  Then the two of them walked out of the Weather/Flight Planning room and the Base Operations building and started looking for the Storch.

  [ TWO ]

  Kloster Grünau

  Schollbrunn, Bavaria

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0740 3 November 1945

  As the Storch made the final approach to Kloster Grünau, Clete saw an ambulance parked just off the end of the runway and of course felt compelled to comment: “Oh, an ambulance is on station. I guess they’ve seen you try to land here before.”

  Jimmy didn’t reply.

  When he touched down, the ambulance followed the Storch down the runway to the tarpaulins beside what had been the chapel. Frade could now see that First Sergeant Dunwiddie was behind the wheel of the ambulance and General Reinhard Gehlen in the passenger seat beside him.

  Frade and Cronley got out of the Storch, and General Gehlen got out of the ambulance.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I thought it was important.”

  “Not a problem,” Frade said.

  Gehlen indicated that Frade should get in the seat he had just left.

  “No, sir,” Cronley said. “The colonel will ride in the back, where he can apologize to me for making yet another hasty judgment.”

  Frade looked at him expectantly.

  “If the colonel looks closely he will notice that while this vehicle began life as a Truck, a three-quarter-ton four-by-four Ambulance, it is no longer used in that capacity. The colonel will notice there are no red crosses on the sides or the roof. Additionally, if the colonel looks at the door, he will see the legend INDIGENOUS PERSONNEL TRANSPORT VEHICLE #5, and if he looks at the bumpers he will see that the markings indicate it is in the service of the 711TH QM MKRC. That stands for ‘Quartermaster Mess Kit Repair Company.’”

  “Okay, okay,” Frade said. “Can I get in it now? It’s as cold as a witch’s teat out here.”

  “Not until I’m finished,” Cronley said.

  Frade was about to snap, “Finish later,” but he saw the amused smile on Gehlen’s face and held his tongue.

  “The other four indigenous personnel transport vehicles of the 711th QM MKRC are, in fact, used to transport indigenous personnel. But those indigenous personnel are not mess kit repairers, but, in fact, associates of General Gehlen. The 711th Quartermaster is a figment of Dunwiddie’s imagination. That keeps curious people from asking the wrong questions.”

  “Got it,” Frade said. “How much longer is this lecture going to go on?”

  “Not much longer, bear with me. Now, Indigenous Transport Vehicle #5, this one, is a deception within a deception, thanks again to the genius of First Sergeant Dunwiddie. This vehicle, as you will soon see, has two armchairs mounted inside where they used to put stretchers. When the senior staff of Kloster Grünau has something to talk about we don’t wish to share with anyone else, we get in what is now our Truck, a three-quarter-ton four-by-four Mobile Secure Room and drive out on the runway.”

  “Clever,” Frade said.

  “Which is what I suspect the general had in mind today. Do you have any questions, Colonel, sir, or is everything clear in your mind?”

  “How do I open the back door?”

  “I will accept that as an apology for your cruel remarks about my reputation as a pilot.”

  “Shut up, Jimmy,” Frade said, smiling, “and get in the goddamned truck. Or whatever the hell it is.”

  —

  Frade settled himself in one of the armchairs, looked around, saw a table with a coffee thermos and mugs on it, and said, “Nice. And clever.”

  Gehlen turned from the front seat. “Yes, it is. And Dunwiddie does get the credit. Shortly after Sergeant Tedworth arrested Major Orlovsky and we had to deal with the unpleasant fact that the NKGB is among us, I mentioned idly that I was a bit concerned that our conversations in Jim’s office might be overheard. He told me he’d been working on a solution, then took me for a ride in this.”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Frade said. “Are the people the NKGB turned—I suppose I mean Orlovsky turned—becoming a greater problem?”

  “They are, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, what I thought you should hear.”

  “Okay. Shoot. Anything you have to say I’ll listen to.”

  “How about anything First Sergeant Dunwiddie has to say?”

  The question took Frade by surprise.

  “Excuse me?” he asked.

  “Your hesitation—indeed, your not answering that question at all—proves that Sergeant Dunwiddie was right again.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, General.”

  “As I told you I was going to, I took Dunwiddie with me when I talked to Major Orlovsky. After our first chat—we’ve had three with him, the last at midnight, just before I called you—Dunwiddie said that he thought he had detected in Orlovsky something I hadn’t.”

  “Which was?” Frade asked.

  Gehlen didn’t reply directly. Instead, he said, “I thought he was wrong, or perhaps reaching, as you Americans say, for a straw. But in the second meeting, I approached the subject at its fringes, and began to see what Dunwiddie suspected.”

  “Which was?”

  Again Gehlen ignored the question.

  “What Dunwiddie suspected was not only possible but likely. Improbable, I had thought at first. Now I thought it was likely. So after the second chat with our friend Konstantin, I asked Chauncey . . .”

 
“Chauncey?” Frade interrupted.

  “. . . how he would suggest I attempt to exploit the window he had opened. He suggested that I permit him to try exploiting what he saw. After some thought, and frankly without a great deal of enthusiasm, I told him to go ahead. So we had our third chat with Friend Konstantin. Two minutes into Chauncey’s interrogation, it was clear that he was right in his assessment of the chink in Orlovsky’s armor—and well on the way to cracking the chink wide open.”

  “What chink?” Frade said.

  And was again ignored.

  “At that point, we stopped. Or I told Chauncey to stop. When we were alone, I told him that what we had to do now was get you to come back. Obviously, we couldn’t discuss this on the telephone. Whoever my traitors are, they are capable of tapping our telephone lines and probably are doing so.

  “Chauncey said that the call would have to come from me. That you would not be inclined to either believe him or trust his skill. Or his judgment. So I called. Before he tells you what he has done, and what he believes we should do, I want to say that I called you because I think he’s absolutely right.”

  Frade looked at Dunwiddie in the driver’s seat.

  “Okay, Dunwiddie, let’s hear it.”

  “Major Orlovsky is a Christian, Colonel,” he began.

  “We don’t ordinarily think of NKGB officers as being Christians, do we?” Frade asked thoughtfully.

  “No, sir. I am presuming his superiors are unaware of it.”

  “I presume you’re telling me he takes it seriously?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s my take.”

  “So what?”

  “Two things, sir. He might already be questioning the moral superiority of the Communists.”

  “And you believe, I gather, that the Soviet Union is governed by acolytes of Marx and Lenin? Heathen acolytes, so to speak?”

  “I know better than that, Colonel,” Dunwiddie said. “What I’m suggesting is that if Orlovsky is a—what?—sincere Christian, then he can’t be comfortable with state atheism and what the Communists have done to the Russian Orthodox Church.”