Top Secret

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Well, I agree with you. I’ll see what I can do with Mattingly.”

  “I don’t think he’ll want to make Colonel Schumann unhappy, either. Where do you want the radio?”

  “Where would you recommend?”

  “Your quarters. In a closet in your room where nobody can see it.”

  “You going to tell McClung’s lieutenant, or should I?”

  “You go out there and tell him. Officers don’t like enlisted men telling them what to do.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “I am constantly amazed at all the things you have never heard.”

  “Officers don’t like smart-ass sergeants reminding them how dumb they are, either.”

  “I can’t help being a smart-ass sergeant. I went to Harvard.”

  “Did I ever tell you I wanted to go to Harvard?”

  “No.”

  “They wouldn’t let me in.”

  “Why not?”

  “My parents are married.”

  “That’s funny. I like that. But enough of this camaraderie—since they wouldn’t let you into Harvard, I will tell you that means no more friendly good-fellowship . . .”

  “I never heard that.”

  “I am not surprised. Let’s get back to business. How do you plan to get the NKGB-er from where he is now onto the Argentine airplane?”

  “Before or after we bury him—maybe before we execute him—we load him onto a Storch. And then, obviously, I fly him to Frankfurt.”

  “We come back to Frankfurt in a minute, Jimmy. Let’s talk about the burying of him.”

  “Okay. I don’t have much experience in this sort of thing, and happily defer to your expertise.”

  “Fortunately for you, we have an expert in this sort of thing—his name is Gehlen—at Kloster Grünau. What I propose to do is work this plan out between you and me. And then, when we agree on what we think should be done, we bring General Gehlen in on it. That okay with you, Jimmy?”

  Cronley thought that it was strange—even funny—that Hessinger, whom he thought of as an overeducated clerk, had even come up with a plan. But he liked him, and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  “Fine,” Cronley said. “Go ahead.”

  “The problem is that we have to do something that will look like the real thing to different groups of people. We have to fool not only the Germans who the NKGB has turned—and since we don’t know who they are, that means all the Germans—and just about all of Dunwiddie’s men.”

  “Why do we have to fool Tiny’s people?”

  “Because if they know what’s really going on they will talk about it, and there goes the secret.”

  “Point taken.”

  “We can’t do this with just Dunwiddie and Technical Sergeant Tedworth, so the first thing we have to do—”

  “Why can’t we do it with just Tiny and Tedworth?”

  “Who’s going to dig the grave and carry the body to it? And then fill it up again?”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re going to have to get five more of Tiny’s people involved.”

  “Five? Just to dig the grave and—”

  “Three to dig the grave and two to drive the ambulance.”

  “What ambulance?”

  “The one we’re going to send to that airfield near Frankfurt, the one by the senior officers’ club.”

  “Eschborn? Why are we going to send an ambulance . . . Oh, you mean one of the transport vehicles?”

  “Of course. Why would we send an ambulance to Eschborn?”

  “Freddy, why are we going to send anything to Eschborn?”

  “Because that’s the way we’re going to get the NKGB-er onto Rhine-Main airfield. Nobody’s going to look for a Russian agent in the back of an ex-ambulance with 711TH QM MKRC painted on its bumpers. But I am getting ahead of myself. We start with H hour, like they started D-day at Normandy.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Let me explain. We have things over which we have no control. One is when the Argentine airplane will leave Frankfurt. Another is when we shoot the NKGB-er. There we have a problem, as that has to happen in the dark, after we have the grave dug. So that is one piece of information we have to have. Three pieces. One, how long it will take to dig the grave. Two, how long it will take to carry the body from the chapel to the grave. And three, how long it will take to fill in the grave.

  “So we start with H hour. That will be when we shoot him. In that connection, I suggest that there be three shots. With a .45 pistol. They’re very noisy. One shot to wake everybody up and, thirty seconds later, two more shots so everybody knows what they heard was shooting.

  “Now, as I started to say, the next number we need, what we have to find out, is how long it is going to take to dig the grave. When you get back up there, and I suggest you do this in the dark, take the gravediggers out in the country someplace and have them dig a grave. In the dark. Simulating as much as possible what they will do when they actually dig the grave. Say that takes an hour. Add a half hour. That means the shooting would take place at H hour minus one-point-five. You understand all this?”

  Cronley nodded.

  “There are a lot of other blanks to fill in,” Hessinger went on. “For example, how long does it take to fly from Kloster Grünau to Eschborn?”

  “We better figure on three hours.”

  “Then, presuming you would take off from Eschborn as soon as you could, when you had enough light to see the runway . . . You understand where I’m going with this?”

  “Yeah, I do. And I’m impressed, Freddy.”

  “I think of it as sort of a chess game. Now, another time we need is how long it will take to drive the ambulance from Eschborn to Rhine-Main.”

  “Depending on the time of day, an hour to an hour and a half.”

  “And what time of day would the airplane take off?”

  “That we could control,” Cronley said. “To a degree.”

  “How big a degree?”

  “After the airplane is refueled and the passengers loaded, we could arrange for the takeoff to be delayed, say, two hours. But we couldn’t arrange for it to take off before it was ready.”

  “What about this? Could we arrange for the airplane to be ready to take off at . . . I don’t know what I’m asking here.”

  “You mean, could we arrange for the airplane to take off at, say, ten o’clock in the morning? Make that eleven—three hours after I took off from here at, say, seven? Plus an hour to get to Rhine-Main from Eschborn. Yeah. We would just have to delay it from taking off the night before. That could be done.”

  “How?”

  “By getting on the Collins and talking to the SAA Constellation.”

  “I didn’t know the Argentine airplanes have Collins radios. Our kind of Collins radios.”

  “I’ll make sure the one that’s coming here for Orlovsky does.”

  “You can see where we have a lot of work to do.”

  “I think that’s what’s known as an understatement.”

  “Well, we have until nine o’clock to work on it.”

  “Until nine? What happens at nine?”

  “You call Mrs. Colonel Schumann and say, ‘Good morning, Mrs. Schumann, what can I do for you this morning?’ That’s what happens at nine.” Hessinger stood. “Let’s go to the office and get this started.”

  “What about Major Wallace? We can’t let him see what we’re doing.”

  “If he went to the Signal Battalion officers’ club last night, he won’t come into work until ten, if then.” He paused. “Leave money for the waiter. I read an Army Regulation that officers aren’t supposed to take gifts from enlisted men.”

  [ TWO ]

  0905 4 November 1945

  “Hello?”

  “Good
morning. How did you sleep?”

  “You heard from Colonel Frade? We can go to the monastery?”

  “No word from him yet. Would you like to meet in the dining room before we go to Pullach?”

  “You mean for lunch?”

  “I meant now, for breakfast.”

  “Meet me in the dining room at twelve-thirty.”

  Click.

  Apparently, the bloom is even further off the rose than I originally thought.

  “What I would suggest,” Sergeant Hessinger said, “is that I stay here and think about what we are going to do with the NKGB-er, and you take the Kapitän and drive out to Pullach and see the ASA lieutenant. And while you’re driving out there, and while you are driving back, you think what you can do to make Mrs. Colonel Schumann happy. Right now I have the feeling she doesn’t like you very much.”

  [ THREE ]

  The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound

  Pullach, Bavaria

  The American Zone of Occupied Germany

  0935 4 November 1945

  Cronley’s Opel Kapitän stopped at the outer roadblock to the compound. It was guarded by three Polish guards armed with carbines and dressed in black-dyed U.S. Army fatigues.

  One of them walked up to the staff car, took a good look at Cronley, then signaled to the others to move the barrier—concertina barbed wire nailed to a crude wooden framework—out of the way. When they had done so, he signaled that Cronley could enter.

  That won’t do, Cronley decided as he drove slowly to the second roadblock.

  That guy saw a staff car and a man in uniform and just passed me in. He should—at least—have asked me for my identification.

  And that concertina wire has to go, too. If we’re going to pretend that what’s going on in here is an industrial development organization, the entrance can’t look like a POW enclosure.

  And maybe get those Poles some different uniforms. So they look like cops, not soldiers.

  And, obviously, the sooner I get some of Tiny’s people down here the better.

  —

  Two hundred yards down the road, there was another checkpoint. More Poles in dyed fatigues, but also an American soldier, a stocky technical sergeant armed with a .45 as well as a carbine.

  He walked up to the Kapitän and waited for Cronley to roll down the window.

  “You from the CIC?” the sergeant asked.

  “That’s what’s painted on the bumpers, Twenty-three CIC,” Cronley replied.

  “Where’s Captain Cronley?” the sergeant asked.

  Obviously, the sergeant does not think I could be a captain.

  Well, there are very few twenty-two-year-old captains.

  “My name is Cronley.” He produced his CIC credentials.

  The sergeant saluted. Cronley returned it.

  “Sorry, Captain.”

  “I look so young because I don’t drink, smoke, fornicate, or have impure thoughts,” Cronley said. “I’m actually thirty-six.”

  The sergeant laughed.

  “Yeah, you are. Sir, there’s a Signal Corps lieutenant looking for you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At your quarters.”

  “My quarters?”

  “You’re going to be the CO of whatever this is, right?”

  Cronley nodded.

  “Then your quarters are right next door to the general offices. You know where that is?”

  Cronley nodded again.

  “There’s a sign on it. Says ‘Military Government Liaison Officer.’ In English. And in German.”

  “I think I can find it. Thanks.”

  —

  Three minutes later, having passed through the third, inner checkpoint—this one manned by three Polish guards and two American soldiers—he found a Signal Corps lieutenant he thought was the one looking for him. He and three soldiers were sitting in a three-quarter-ton truck parked in front of a small house. It was next to the larger building on which was a sign identifying it as the GENERAL-BÜROS SÜD-DEUTSCHE INDUSTRIELLE ENTWICKLUNGSORGANISATION.

  If these guys came on the Blue Danube train from Frankfurt, where did they get the truck?

  The sign on the smaller building was only slightly smaller.

  UNITED STATES MILITARY GOVERNMENT LIAISON OFFICER

  US-MILITÄR REGIERUNG LIAISON OFFIZIER

  —

  Clever intelligence officer that I am, I guess that’s what Mattingly decided they should call the commanding officer. You really wouldn’t want to hang a sign that read OFFICE OF THE CIC OFFICER IN COMMAND OF THIS OPERATION WE DON’T WANT ANYBODY TO KNOW ABOUT.

  —

  Cronley pulled the Kapitän in beside the truck and got out. The lieutenant got out of the truck and walked over to the staff car. So did the men with him. They were all sergeants, he saw, a sergeant, a staff sergeant, and a technical sergeant.

  “You’re from the Twenty-third?” the lieutenant asked.

  Cronley nodded.

  “Where’s Captain Cronley?”

  “You’re looking at him.”

  The lieutenant’s eyebrows rose.

  That’s two people in a row who can’t believe that sweet-faced Little Jimmy Cronley could possibly be a captain.

  No. Not two. Five. Two of the sergeants look incredulous. The older one, the tech sergeant, looks disgusted.

  And I really can’t get indignant, because they’re right; I shouldn’t be a captain.

  More important, I really have no business being put in charge of this place.

  When did Frade say Major—what’s Polo’s name?—Major Maxwell Ashton III is going to get here?

  “Sir, I’m not trying to be difficult,” the lieutenant said, “but have you got some identification?”

  Cronley produced his CIC credentials.

  “I look younger than I am,” Jimmy volunteered, “because I don’t drink, smoke, fornicate, or have impure thoughts.”

  I didn’t even think before that came out of my mouth.

  Maybe what I really should be is a Special Services comedian, entertaining the troops.

  The lieutenant and the tech sergeant laughed.

  “Maybe I should try that,” the lieutenant said. He put out his hand. “Sir, my name is Stratford”—he pointed at the sergeants one at a time—“and this is Tech Sergeant Mitchell, Staff Sergeant Kramer, and Sergeant Fortin.”

  Cronley shook their hands. None of them said a word.

  “Sir, we’ve got a system for you,” Stratford said. “I guess you know that?”

  Cronley nodded.

  “I think you also know what kind of a system,” the lieutenant said. “The one classified Top Secret.”

  “I’ve been wondering where you got it,” Cronley said.

  “Major McClung . . .” He paused, asking with his eyes if Cronley knew who he meant.

  “Iron Lung. Also known as ‘the Whisperer.’”

  That got smiles from the two junior sergeants, a look of displeasure from the tech sergeant, and an uncomfortable smile from Lieutenant Stratford.

  “Major McClung,” Stratford went on, “had one system in the vault with the crypto machines. There was a sign on it, ‘Not to Be Issued Without Specific Authorization from CO, ASA Europe.’ I guess we now have that authorization. You have the access code, right? Otherwise we’re just spinning our wheels.”

  “I have the access code for the SIGABA at Kloster Grünau, if that’s what you mean,” Cronley said.

  “Major McClung told us we’re not supposed to say out loud either of the two things you just said out loud,” Technical Sergeant Mitchell said.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Mitchell, I’ll keep that in mind,” Cronley said, then turned to Stratford. “What do you mean, without the code we’ll be spi
nning our wheels?”

  “Well, we can install those unnamed devices, but they won’t work without the access code. Major McClung didn’t give it to us.”

  “Probably because he didn’t have it,” Cronley replied. “How long is it going to take you to get these nameless devices up and running?”

  “Not long. The ASA guys here in Munich—the ones who are going to move in here—put up the antennas with the antenna farm they’re going to use. They were not told what they were for and know better than to ask. They ran a buried cable over there.”

  He pointed between the headquarters and liaison officer buildings. Cronley saw a coil of heavily insulated cable.

  “So all we have to do is run that into wherever you want these installed in your building.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Before we do: Major McClung said he thinks you know how to operate these things, but not how to maintain them. True?”

  “True.”

  “All of us have Top Secret clearances . . .”

  “What about Lindbergh?”

  “Lindbergh?”

  “Top Secret–Lindbergh.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Major McClung has. He’s got one. That’s the clearance we work under here.”

  “So where does that leave us, sir?”

  “I don’t know. You were saying?”

  “The major said you can have us—one of us, several of us, or all of us—for as long as you need us.”

  “To keep these nameless devices running, as well as install them?”

  Lieutenant Stratford nodded.

  “The system here,” Stratford said, “and at that other place we’re not supposed to say out loud. I thought you might want to make up your mind about what you’re going to need before we install these things.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of Major McClung,” Cronley said. “Let me think about it.”

  And he did so out loud: “So, if I said just one of you would be enough to set up the system here, and at the other place, the rest of you could wait in the truck and would not know what actually happened to those things we’re not supposed to talk about?”