Top Secret

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I’ve always felt that suppression of the Russian Church was one of the worst mistakes Stalin made,” Gehlen said. “And the proof of that is that he has not been able to stamp out Christianity. After Chauncey brought this up, I remembered that at least half of the people we’ve turned have been Christians.”

  “I thought we were listening to what Sergeant Dunwiddie has to say,” Frade said not very pleasantly.

  “And if he is a Christian,” Dunwiddie continued, “then he is very much aware of his Christian duty to protect his wife and children. We’ve already seen suggestions of that.”

  “We’re back to ‘so what?’” Frade said.

  “When the Germans attacked what they believe is Holy Mother Russia—and, tangentially, I’ve always been curious about why an atheist state uses the term ‘Holy Mother Russia’ so often—it was his patriotic duty to defend it.”

  “And, at the risk of repeating myself, so what?”

  “We’ve done nothing to the Soviet Union, actually the reverse. So why are they attacking the United States? If we can get him to ask himself that, and then prove we’re the good guys by making a bona fide effort to get his family out of Russia . . .”

  Frade looked at him a long moment, then said, “Dunwiddie, if you were in Orlovsky’s shoes, remembering you didn’t get to be an NKGB major by being stupid, would you believe General Gehlen or Captain Cronley or me when one of us said, ‘Trust me . . .’ What the hell’s his name? Konstantin. ‘Trust me, Konstantin, if you change sides, we’ll get your family out of Russia and set you up with a new life in Argentina’?”

  “I might if a priest told me that,” Dunwiddie said.

  “You have two options there, Sergeant, if you think it through. You either dress up some guy as a priest—who your pal Konstantin would see through in about ten seconds—or you find some priest willing to go along with you. How easy do you think that will be?”

  “You already have a priest,” Dunwiddie said evenly.

  “What priest? Wait . . . you mean Father Welner? You’re suggesting I bring Welner here from Argentina to deal with Orlovsky?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Jesus, Clete!” Jimmy blurted. “That would work.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Frade said. “That’s preposterous.” He stopped. “On the other hand, it just might work.”

  “That’s what Sergeant Dunwiddie and I concluded, Colonel,” Gehlen said. “The question then becomes: Will Father Welner be willing to participate?”

  “General, the question our wily Jesuit friend will ask himself is: ‘What’s in this for me?’ ‘Me’ being defined as the Society of Jesus. And from what I’ve seen of them—and Welner—he will regard this as a heaven-sent opportunity. They get no-cost-to-them access to a senior NKGB officer and they get an ‘I owe you’ from both me and you. And probably from General Martín as well. That’s the only downside I see, Martín being brought into this.”

  “What I was asking was: Isn’t Father Welner likely to consider the moral implications of him being used to turn Major Orlovsky? The first thing we want from Orlovsky is the names of my people he—the NKGB—has turned. And Father Welner knows what will happen to them when we know who they are.”

  “When Father Welner was explaining to me how things were in Argentina, and God knows I needed an explanation—”

  “Otto Niedermeyer told me that you were very close to Father Welner, but never offered an explanation of how that came to happen,” Gehlen interrupted.

  Frade correctly interpreted it to be more of a question than a statement.

  “He was my father’s confessor and best friend,” Frade said. “Because my father was about as religious as I am, and had good reason to hate the Church—”

  “‘Hate the Church’?” Gehlen parroted in surprise.

  Frade paused before deciding to answer the question.

  “My mother was a convert to Roman Catholicism,” he said finally. “After having been warned that a second pregnancy would be very dangerous, she dutifully obeyed the Catholic rules forbidding contraception and died in childbirth. After her funeral, the next time he entered a church was at his own funeral. You heard he was assassinated?”

  “At the orders of the SS,” Gehlen said. “Otto told me. I’m very sorry.”

  “On the day of my father’s funeral, Welner came to me. He said that whether or not I liked it, he considered himself my priest, my confessor, and hoped that he and I could become as close as he and my father had been.

  “I didn’t know what his motives were, whether he was trying to put me in his pocket for the good of the Church or whether it really was because of the personal relationship he said he had with my father. I suppressed the urge to tell him to get lost. Over time, I have come to believe that it was probably a little of both. He and my father had been very close. And now I was sitting on the throne of my father’s kingdom. Jesuits like to get close to the guy on the throne. Anyway, truth being stranger than fiction, the wily Jesuit and I became, we are, good friends.

  “When he was explaining to me how Argentina worked, he said the primary reason Argentina tilted heavily toward the Axis had less to do with their admiration for Adolf Hitler and National Socialism than it did with what they had seen in the Spanish Civil War. That had been a war, they believed, between the Christian forces of Franco and the godless Republicans, read Communists. The Germans made sure the Argentines knew the Republicans had murdered four thousand–odd priests—”

  “And thirteen bishops,” Gehlen said.

  “So you think that’s true, that the Republicans murdered priests and nuns out of hand?” Frade asked.

  “And bishops. I saw evidence of one such sacrilege one beautiful spring day in 1937.”

  “You saw it?” Cronley blurted.

  Gehlen nodded.

  “I think I missed the actual sacrilege by an hour. Maybe two. My team—I was then a brand-new major—and I were driving down a road near Seville. As we approached a picturesque little village, there was a priest hanging from every other telephone pole. And then when we got to the center of the little village, we found, lying in a massive pool of blood in front of the burned-out church, a dozen nuns who had obviously been violated before they were murdered. And a bishop tied to a chair. He had been shot in the back of the head. Our sergeant theorized that he had been forced to watch the raping of the nuns, but there is of course no way we could know that for sure.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Cronley exclaimed.

  “Captain Cronley gets the prize for today’s most inappropriate blasphemy,” Frade said darkly.

  “I think that was an expression of disgust, rather than blasphemy,” Gehlen said.

  “Possibly,” Frade said. “I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Before we got off the subject, I was about to say that I don’t think Father Welner will have any moral problems helping us turn an NKGB officer. I suspect he feels—for that matter, the Catholic Church feels—much the same way about Communists as General Philip Sheridan felt about the Indians on our Western plains.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “General Sheridan was quoted as saying that the only good Indian was a dead one,” Frade said.

  “That’s a bit brutal,” Gehlen said. “But Communism poses the greatest threat to Roman Catholicism there has ever been, and I’m sure the Vatican is fully aware of that.”

  “My grandfather,” Frade said, “who is the exact opposite of an admirer of the Catholic Church, says that to understand the Catholic Church you have to understand that its primary mission is its preservation.”

  Gehlen didn’t reply to that. He said, instead, “Dunwiddie has recognized another problem: Unless we can get Orlovsky out of here and to Argentina without the wrong people learning about it . . .”

  He left the sentence unfinished, but Frade took his meaning.

  “Y
eah,” Frade agreed. His face showed that he had both not considered that problem and was, without much success, trying to find a solution.

  “Shoot him,” Cronley said. “And then bury him in the dark of night and in great secrecy, in an unmarked grave in the Kloster cemetery.”

  Frade understood that immediately, too.

  “That’d work. I presume, General, that despite Captain Cronley’s determination to conduct Orlovsky’s burial in the greatest secrecy it would not go unnoticed?”

  “I think we could count on that, Colonel,” Gehlen said.

  “And then,” Frade said, “you’re going to have to figure a way to get the corpse from its unmarked grave and get it onto a Connie in Frankfurt without anybody—”

  “Without anybody,” Gehlen said, laughing, “dropping to their knees in awe at a second resurrection.”

  “I’ll leave the solution to that problem in your capable hands,” Frade said. “Not that I think, with Sergeant Dunwiddie’s exception, that you’re all that capable, but because I really have to get to Rhine-Main now.”

  “Thank you very much,” Gehlen said. “Your confidence in us inspires me.”

  Frade chuckled, then said, “When I spoke with Admiral Souers last night, I told him we’d go wheels-up at noon. The admiral does not like to be kept waiting.”

  “Do you want to see Major Orlovsky before you go?” Gehlen asked.

  “Your call, General.”

  “Chauncey?” Gehlen said.

  “Sir, I think a brief visit. Shake his hand, tell him you’re off to Argentina and look forward to seeing him there. That’s it.”

  “I agree,” Gehlen said.

  “Then that’s what I’ll do. Jimmy, after you drop me at Rhine-Main, I want you to go back to Munich. You are authorized to tell Sergeant Hessinger that we’re going to take Orlovsky to Argentina. Only, repeat only, Sergeant Hessinger. Not Major Wallace. Make sure Hessinger knows he’s not to tell Wallace or Mattingly anything about this. I’m telling you this, giving you this order, before witnesses. My stated reason for this is that if this thing blows up in our faces, Mattingly and Wallace will be off the hook. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if they don’t know about it, they can’t get in the way,” Frade added.

  “You consider that a problem?” Gehlen asked.

  “Colonel Mattingly,” Frade said, “is very skilled in the fine art of covering his ass. I’m just helping him do that.”

  Gehlen shook his head and smiled.

  “Let’s go see Major Orlovsky,” Frade said. “And while I’m doing that, Jimmy, you can top off the tanks in the Storch.”

  “How about some breakfast first, and then top off the tanks?”

  “Have the mess make us some bacon-and-egg sandwiches,” Frade ordered. “We can eat them on the way to Rhine-Main. We can’t make Admiral Souers wait for us.”

  [ THREE ]

  Rhine-Main USAF Base

  Frankfurt am Main, Hesse

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1100 3 November 1945

  “Rhine-Main Ground Control, Army Seven-Oh-Seven,” Cronley said into his microphone. “Request taxi instruction to parking location of South American Airways Lockheed Constellation tail number Double-Zero-Five. If you can’t see me, I am a Storch aircraft on taxiway sixteen left.”

  There was no reply, just sixty seconds of hiss. Finally, Cronley called again. “Rhine-Main, Army Seven-Oh-Seven. Do you read me?”

  “Army Seven-Zero-Seven, hold one,” Ground Control replied.

  “They seem to have lost your airplane,” Cronley said to Frade.

  “What the hell?” Frade replied.

  “Army Seven-Zero-Seven, Rhine-Main Ground. Be advised South American Airways Double-Zero-Five is parked in a secure area and you are not, repeat not, authorized to enter secure area.”

  “Rhine-Main Ground, Army Seven-Oh-Seven. Be advised I have the captain of South American Double-Zero-Five aboard. What do I tell him?”

  “What the hell?” Frade asked again.

  There was another sixty seconds of nothing but hiss before Rhine-Main replied: “Army Seven-Zero-Seven, Rhine-Main Ground. Hold in present position. A Follow me will meet you.”

  “Seven-Oh-Seven understands hold for Follow me.”

  The Follow me—a jeep painted in a yellow-and-black checkerboard pattern, with a large sign reading FOLLOW ME mounted on its rear—came racing onto the taxiway ninety seconds later. It was accompanied by two Military Police jeeps, each holding four military policemen. The Follow me turned and backed up to the nose of the Storch. The MP jeeps began to take up positions on either side of the Storch. When they had done so, the Follow me started to move.

  “What the hell’s going on, Clete?”

  “Whatever it is, Jimmy, I don’t like it.”

  The Follow me led them away from the terminal, and finally to a remote airfield compass rose. Three staff cars were parked on the grass beside the rose.

  An MP captain carrying an electric bullhorn walked onto the compass rose.

  “Pilot, shut down your engine and exit the aircraft!” he ordered.

  “Why do I think we’re under arrest?” Jimmy said.

  —

  When he had shut down the Storch and was starting to climb down from the aircraft, three men in civilian suits and snap-brim hats and an Air Force major got out of the staff cars.

  When both Frade and Cronley were out of the airplane, the three men and the major walked closer. One of them produced credentials and announced, “Federal Bureau of Investigation. Let’s see some identification.”

  “Major, I am Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Frade, U.S. Marine Corps—”

  “I told you I wanted to see your identification,” the FBI agent snapped, interrupting him.

  “. . . And I am on a mission classified Top Secret–Lindbergh,” Frade finished.

  “God damn you,” the FBI agent said, “I said I want to see your identification.”

  “Major, if this civilian swears at me again, I’m going to punch him into next week,” Frade said.

  “On the ground. Get on your knees and then lay on your stomach!” the FBI agent ordered furiously.

  Frade turned to the Air Force major. “I will show you my identification, Major.”

  “On the goddamned ground, goddamn it!” the FBI agent barked.

  The Air Force major, looking very uncomfortable, quickly walked past the FBI agents and saluted. Frade returned it.

  “Sir, I’m Major Johansen, the assistant base provost marshal. May I see your identification?”

  Frade produced it. The major examined it, and Frade, very carefully.

  “The colonel is who he says he is,” Johansen said. “Lieutenant Colonel Frade, U.S. Marine Corps.”

  “And the other one? Who is he?”

  “Major Johansen,” Frade said, “what I want you to do right now is call General Walter Bedell Smith—Frankfurt Military 1113—in the Farben Building—”

  “I asked who this other man is,” the FBI agent snapped. “It is a federal crime, a felony, to interfere with an agent of the FBI in the execution of his office. I am asking for the last time for the identity of this young man. Specifically, are you James D. Cronley Junior?”

  Jimmy snapped back: “What did this Cronley guy do, rob a bank?”

  “Get on the phone now, Major,” Frade said. “That is a direct order.”

  The major looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Yes, sir.”

  He signaled for one of the jeeps to come to them. When it had, he gestured for the driver to hand him the microphone of the shortwave radio behind the rear seat.

  “This is Major Johansen,” he said into it. “Get on the telephone and call Frankfurt Military . . .” He looked at Frade.

 
“One-one-one-three,” Frade furnished.

  “Tell them Colonel Frade, USMC, is calling for General Smith. Then stand by to relay both parts of the conversation if we can’t hear him,” the major ordered. He turned to Frade. “This shouldn’t take long, sir.”

  Everyone heard whoever was on the other end of the shortwave net reply to Johansen, “Frankfurt Military 1113. Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Frade said.

  “Office of the deputy commander, Sergeant Major King speaking, sir.”

  “Colonel Frade calling for General Smith,” Major Johansen said.

  “Hold one, please, Colonel,” the sergeant major said.

  The major handed Frade the microphone.

  “Colonel,” a new voice said. “This is General Porter. General Smith is en route with Admiral Souers to meet you at Rhine-Main. He may already be there. But is there something I can do for you?”

  “Hold one, please, General,” Frade said. He turned to the FBI agent. “Are you going to fold your tent and get the hell out of here, or would you like me to tell General Porter what he can do for me?”

  The FBI agent glared at Frade for a moment.

  “You haven’t heard the last of this, Colonel.” He then gestured to the others to follow him.

  “No, thank you, sir,” Frade said. “Just checking. I’m at Rhine-Main.”

  “Have a nice flight, Colonel,” General Porter said.

  “Thank you, sir. Frade out.”

  The FBI agents got in one of the staff cars and it drove off.

  Frade handed the microphone to the Air Force major.

  “Thank you, Major.”

  “May I ask, sir, what that was all about?”

  “You can ask, but I can’t tell you,” Frade said, smiling. “If I did, I’d have to kill you.”

  The major chuckled.

  “On the other hand, you can tell me what the FBI told you about us. And that’s not in the order of a suggestion.”

  “Sir, he said that they were investigating the exfiltration of Nazis from Germany into Argentina.”

  “He told you we were suspected of exfiltrating Nazis out of Germany? Into Argentina?”