“He implied that, Colonel.”
“Cronley, show the major your credentials,” Frade ordered.
Cronley did so.
“When I saw Twenty-three CIC on your vertical stabilizer,” the major said, as he handed them back, “I cleverly deduced the CIC might somehow be involved in this. You’re sure you can’t tell me how?”
“I can tell you this much: What I am going to do is exfiltrate Admiral Sidney Souers, who is senior counselor to President Truman, out of Germany into Washington, D.C. He’s been here conferring with General Eisenhower.”
“Yes, sir, I know. We’ve had your airplane under heavy security since it arrived.”
“I’d love to know how the FBI came up with that me-smuggling-Nazis-out-of-Germany theory.”
“No telling, Colonel. But it does make you wonder if the FBI is as perfect as they would have us all believe, doesn’t it?” He paused. “I’m sorry about all this, Colonel.”
“Forget it. You were just doing your job.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”
“Two things. You can take me to my airplane and arrange for Cronley to top off the tanks in the Storch.”
“Why don’t I send for a fuel truck and then take you to your airplane in my car?”
“How about having the Follow me lead Cronley and his Storch to the Connie?” Frade asked. “That way I will have to take my suitcase out of the airplane just once instead of unloading it into your car, et cetera?”
“Done,” the major said. “I’ll have the fuel truck meet us at your Constellation.”
“I will go in the Storch,” Frade said. “Even with a Follow me to lead him, Cronley—he learned to fly last week—would probably get lost between here and there in your great big airport.”
The major laughed out loud.
“Colonel, thanks for not being sore about this. The FBI came into my office, waving their credentials. And, frankly, I’ve heard the rumors about Nazis escaping to South America. I just . . .”
“I probably would have reacted the same way.”
“That’s very good of you, sir.”
“I will mention what happened to General Smith,” Frade said. He turned to Cronley. “All right, Special Agent Cronley. Into the airplane, and please remember to engage your brain before starting the engine.”
The major laughed out loud again.
“I’ll follow you over there,” he said.
—
“What was that comedy routine all about?” Cronley asked, as he taxied the Storch across the airfield. “You sounded like a combination of Jack Benny and Will Rogers.”
“Pay attention, Jimmy,” Frade snapped, his tone making clear that he was deadly serious. “The damned FBI showing up here poses a greater threat to what we’re doing—on several fronts—than the people the NKGB has turned. High on this list is the distinct possibility that when Mattingly hears about it—and we have to assume he will—he will immediately shift into Cover His Ass mode and decide to throw you to the wolves. And I won’t be here to protect you.”
“You think he may already have done that? How come the FBI was here in the first place?”
“I don’t know. They may have just put the SAA Connie under surveillance to see if I was going to sneak Nazis onto it. That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, because I’d be a fool to do that with Admiral Souers aboard. But on the other hand, the FBI does a lot of things that don’t make sense.”
“They asked, specifically, if I was James D. Cronley Junior.”
“Well, they’ve been looking for you since you were in Washington. Maybe they spotted you at the Schlosshotel Kronberg or the Vier Jahreszeiten. Anyway, they know you’re here. They regard you as the weakest link in the fence we’ve built around Operation Ost. And they really want to know about that. J. Edgar Hoover would really like to have that on Truman. And it would be almost as good—maybe better—for them to find out this renegade operation of the President is holding an NKGB officer they haven’t told Army G-2 they have. And are taking him, or have taken him, to Argentina.”
“Understood.”
“Yeah, I think you do.”
“Practically, what can happen? Say I can’t manage to dodge them? Say they show up at Kloster Grünau? I kept Colonel Schumann out of there, and he had, arguably, a right to know what’s going on in there. They don’t. What are they going to do? Complain to whom? Mattingly would have to tell them that what’s going on there is none of their business. Otherwise, he would be the guy who blew Operation Ost and that would be the same thing as betraying the President.”
“Okay. But they don’t know that, Jimmy. What they know is that there is a twenty-two-year-old junior Army officer who they think knows all about Operation Ost. With reason, they feel all they have to do is wave their FBI credentials in his face, he’ll piss his pants, then tell them anything they want to know.”
“You don’t think what happened just now might make them wonder about that?”
“You mean your wiseass crack? ‘What did this Cronley guy do, rob a bank?’”
“Yeah.”
“That was clever, but all it really did was make that FBI guy decide, ‘Okay, I can’t deal with this wiseass now. I’ll have to wait until Frade is gone. No problem. All things come to he who waits.’”
“I’m not going to blow Operation Ost, Clete.”
“Don’t underestimate the FBI. They’re not stupid, and right now they’re under a lot of pressure—if not from Hoover himself, then from Clyde Whatsisname, his deputy—to find out whatever they can about Operation Ost. You’re going to have to be very careful.”
“Clyde Whatsisname?”
“Hoover’s deputy director. Admiral Souers told me he’s the guy in charge of the private files—usually detailed reports of sexual escapades—Hoover uses to hold over people, especially politicians.” He paused and chuckled. “Jimmy, please tell me you’re not fucking somebody you shouldn’t be fucking. That would be all we need right now. The Federal Blackmail Institution would love to have something like that on you.”
Jimmy laughed, because he knew that was the reaction Clete expected.
But I am fucking somebody I shouldn’t be fucking.
And I can’t afford to have—what did Clete call it?—the Federal Blackmail Institution catch me doing it.
Okay. Auf Wiedersehen, Rachel! Affair over!
You go back to the colonel and the kiddies.
And I try to start thinking with my head instead of my dick.
It never should have started. What the hell was I thinking?
Then he repeated: “I’m not going to blow Operation Ost.”
“I wish I was as confident about that as you are.”
“What do you want me to do, say it again? Okay. I’m not going to blow Operation Ost.”
“When was the last time you saw a grown man pout?”
“What?”
“Pout. You know, stick your lip out and look sad so everybody feels sorry for you.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
“Enrico,” Clete said. He pointed.
They were approaching the Constellation. Sergeant Major Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired, was sitting on the stairway leading up the open rear door of the aircraft. His Remington Model 11 riot shotgun was in his lap.
And he was indeed pouting.
“I didn’t want to take him to the meeting at the Schlosshotel Kronberg. It would have been awkward all around. So I made him stay with Gonzo Delgano. ‘For just overnight.’ And then you and I went to Munich the next morning . . .”
“And he’s really pissed.”
“Yup. And he’s really pissed.”
“He loves you, Clete.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Cronley and Frade
got out of the Storch.
Enrico pretended not to see them.
“Enrico, you want to help me with my bag?” Frade called.
Rodríguez walked to the Storch, said, “Teniente,” to Cronley, and took Frade’s bag.
He ignored Frade.
“Actually, Enrico, that’s Capitán,” Frade said.
“Capitán,” Enrico said, and marched with Frade’s bag to the ladder and carried it up and into the airplane.
“How long are you going to be invisible?” Jimmy asked.
“God only knows. Enrico can stay pissed—pout—longer than my wife.”
“Here comes my gas truck.”
“As soon as you’re topped off, get out of here and down to Munich. Try to confuse the FBI about where you’re going. You probably won’t be able to, but try.”
“At the risk of repeating myself, Colonel, sir, I’m not going to blow Operation Ost.”
“So you said.”
“And here comes the admiral,” Frade said, pointing.
A convoy was approaching the Constellation. First an M-8 Armored Car, then a Packard Clipper with a four-star license plate, then a Buick Roadmaster with a one-star plate, and then another M-8.
“Major Johansen is dazzled by all those stars,” Frade said. “Good.”
“What?”
“We will now make our manners to the deputy commander in chief, U.S. Forces, European Theatre. With a little luck, he will be cordial, and the Air Force major will see that you have friends in high places and decide it’s highly unlikely that people like you and me would be sneaking Nazis—or anyone else—out of Germany. That may very well come in handy when you are trying to sneak your buddy Konstantin through his airport.”
The convoy stopped. Drivers jumped out and opened doors. General Walter Bedell Smith, Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, and a full colonel wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp to a four-star general got out of the Packard Clipper.
Frade saluted crisply.
“Good morning, sir!” he barked.
Smith, Souers, and the aide-de-camp returned the salute.
“Ready to go, are we, Frade?” Souers said.
“We just got here ourselves, sir. But we should be.”
“I don’t think you have met Colonel Frade, have you, Beetle?” Souers said. “And I know you haven’t met Captain Cronley.”
Brigadier General John Magruder and Colonel Jack Mullaney got out of the Buick and walked quickly up to them, obviously determined not to miss anything.
They arrived in time to hear General Smith ask, “The officer who found the U-234?”
“Yes, sir,” Frade said. “That’s him.”
“Well done, son,” General Smith said, pumping Jimmy’s hand.
“Thank you, sir,” Cronley said.
Gonzalo Delgano came down the stairs. He was wearing his SAA uniform.
“Don Cletus, we’re ready to go anytime you are.”
“Gentlemen, this is Captain Delgano,” Frade said. “South American Airways chief pilot.”
Hands were shaken.
The drivers of the staff cars carried luggage aboard.
“Have a nice flight,” General Smith said.
“Thank you for all your courtesies and hospitality,” Admiral Souers said.
He shook Cronley’s hand and then waved for Frade to precede him up the stairs.
Clete put his hand out to Jimmy and said, “We’ll be in touch.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Aw, hell,” Frade said. “In Argentina, men can kiss their friends.”
He hugged Jimmy and wetly kissed his cheek.
“Be careful, Little Brother,” Frade said, then quickly climbed the stairs. Admiral Souers followed him.
“Only a Marine would dare to do that,” General Smith said, chuckling.
“Captain Cronley,” Major Johansen said, “if you refuel your aircraft here, the Constellation will have to wait until you’re finished.”
“Then let me get out of here,” Cronley said.
“Why don’t we all get out of the way?” General Smith said, and motioned for his aide-de-camp to get into the Packard.
Major Johansen and Cronley saluted as the convoy drove off the compass star.
Cronley got back in the Storch and fired it up as ground crews moved fire extinguishers into place for the starting of the Constellation’s engines. The Follow me jeep flashed its lights as a signal it was ready for Cronley to follow him.
The fuel truck and Major Johansen’s staff car followed the Storch to the threshold of a runway.
The Constellation, running on two engines, came down the taxiway and lined up with the runway.
As Cronley got out of the Storch, the Constellation started the other engines and ran them up.
And then started to roll.
Jimmy watched it take off.
And suddenly felt very much alone.
—
He showed the fuel truck crew where the tanks were. Topping them off took no more than a few minutes, but by the time they were finished, the Constellation was out of sight.
That reinforced Jimmy’s feeling of being very much alone.
He turned to Major Johansen.
“Thanks for everything, Major,” he said, and saluted.
“Have a nice flight,” Johansen said. “And come back. The next time, I promise not to meet you like you’ve just robbed a bank.”
“I just may take you up on that, sir.”
Ninety seconds later, he reported, “Rhine-Main Departure Control. Army Seven-Zero-Seven rolling.”
As he broke ground and pointed the nose of the Storch south, he thought that he could easily make Munich in less than two hours. It was about 300 kilometers from Frankfurt am Main to Munich, and the Storch cruised at about 170 kilometers per hour.
Then he remembered that Frade had ordered him to try to confuse the FBI about his destination.
He said, “Shit!” and reached for the microphone.
“Rhine-Main Area Control, Army Seven-Oh-Seven. Change of flight plan. Close out Direct Rhine-Main Schleissheim. Open Direct Rhine-Main Eschborn for passenger pickup.”
It was a flight of only a few minutes, and it took him over Hoechst.
Right down there is where Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Schumann and their children have their quarters.
What the hell was I doing, screwing a colonel’s wife? A married woman with children?
Well, it may have had something to do with the fact that in a twenty-four-hour period, I had been married, my wife was killed, and the President of the United States pinned captain’s bars on me.
Not to mention what happened at the mouth of the Magellan Straits.
I was understandably under an emotional strain. That just might have had something to do with my stupidity.
On the other hand, I do have a tendency to do amazingly stupid things, don’t I? As well as an extraordinary ability to justify whatever dumb fucking thing I may have done—such as fucking somebody I shouldn’t be fucking, as Clete so aptly put it.
Well, at least Rachel’s down there and I’ll be in Munich or at Kloster Grünau.
And ne’er the twain shall meet, as they say.
“Eschborn, Army Seven-Oh-Seven, at fifteen hundred feet, three miles south. I am a Storch aircraft, I say again, Storch aircraft. Request straight-in approach to Runway Thirty-five. I have it in sight.
“Eschborn, Army Seven-Oh-Seven at the threshold of Three-five. VFR to Hersfeld. Request takeoff permission.
“Hersfeld, Army Seven-Oh-Seven, request approach and landing. I am a Storch aircraft, I say again, Storch aircraft, at fifteen hundred four miles south of your station.
“Hersfeld, Army Seven-Oh-Seven understands Number Two to land on Three-three after an L-4.
> “Hersfeld, Army Seven-Oh-Seven . . . Oops! I came in a little long. I’d better go around. I should be able to get it on the ground the next try. Please close out my VFR flight plan at ten past the hour. Thank you.”
When I am absolutely sure that I’m out of sight of the Hersfeld tower, in the interest of pilot safety I will climb to say five hundred feet and go to Munich.
[ FOUR ]
Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten
Maximilianstrasse 178
Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1655 3 November 1945
And what am I going to do, Cronley wondered, as he reached for the doorknob of Suite 507, if Sergeant Freddy Hessinger has taken off for the day? Go look for him in that whorehouse? Or if Major Harold Wallace is here?
Sergeant Hessinger was at his ornate desk in his usual pinks-and-greens officer’s uniform. The door to Wallace’s office was closed; there was no way to tell if he was in it or not.
“I was wondering where you were,” Hessinger greeted him.
It came out, “I vus vondering vair you vur.”
Cronley managed not to smile.
“Your girlfriend has been looking for you,” Hessinger added.
Jesus Christ! Does Freddy know?
Cronley sat down in one of the two upholstered chairs facing Hessinger’s desk before asking what he hoped would sound like an innocent question.
“What girlfriend would that be?”
“Mrs. Colonel Schumann, that one.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Cronley hoped that question also sounded innocent.
“She telephoned twice and came in once. I think she wants you to buy her dinner.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because she is a colonel’s wife and he went to Vienna and left her here and you are a captain and she thinks she’s entitled.”
“Screw her.”
“I don’t know how nice that would be, but I do know it would be very dangerous. Colonel Schumann is not a nice man.”
“Speaking of nice men, where is Major Wallace?”
“He is at the bar of the officers’ club.”
“Here in the hotel?”
Top Secret Page 30
