Top Secret
Page 42
Gehlen laughed.
“Can you handle that, General?”
“Of course.”
“That’s what you’re going to call him?” Tiny asked. “Why? It has some meaning?”
“Felix Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka,” Cronley said.
“He was not a very nice man, Tiny,” Gehlen said. “He said a lot of terrible things, but what most people remember was his hope that the bourgeoisie would drown in rivers of their own blood.”
“An evil and godless man!” Father Welner blurted with, for him, unusual bitterness.
“Orlovsky will probably be flattered,” Cronley said.
“How are you going to get him on the airplane if he doesn’t want to go?” Welner asked.
“Poor Felix, ill and delirious, will be strapped to a stretcher,” Cronley said.
“And if he calls out for help in his delirium?” Tiny asked.
“He will also be wrapped in bandages like a mummy,” Cronley said. “But I’d like to dope him, if I could figure out a way to do that.”
“That can be arranged,” Gehlen said. “I’ll have a word with one of my physicians.”
“You do that, please, General, while I get on the SIGABA,” Cronley said, and then turned to Staff Sergeant Lewis. “I think you’ll enjoy Buenos Aires, Lewis.”
[ EIGHT ]
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM VATICAN
VIA VINT HILL TANGO NET
1635 GREENWICH 8 NOVEMBER 1945
TO SAILOR ATTN HANSEL
COPY TO TEX
1-URGENT REPEAT URGENT YOU ARRANGE DEPARTURE FROM RHINE-MAIN 1600 9 NOVEMBER.
2-BE PREPARED TO ACCEPT JESUIT AND MEDICAL TECHNICIANS WHO WILL BE ACCOMPANYING ILL AND PROBABLY UNCONSCIOUS PATIENT BEING SENT TO BUENOS AIRES FOR TREATMENT BY DOCTOR CLETUS.
3-ACKNOWLEDGE.
ALTARBOY
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
[ NINE ]
Das Gasthaus
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1105 9 November 1945
Staff Sergeant Harold Lewis Jr. pulled open the door to the cell under the chapel and Staff Sergeant Petronius J. Clark, who was carrying a napkin-covered tray, entered ahead of him.
Both had brassards emblazoned with a red cross, identifying them as medics, around their right arms.
“Lunch, Konstantin,” Lewis said. “A hot roast beef sandwich and French fries.”
“Thank you very much, but I’m not really hungry.”
Cronley entered the cell.
“I’d eat, if I were you,” Cronley said. “It’s going to be some time before you’ll have the opportunity again.”
Orlovsky didn’t reply.
Father Welner entered the cell and leaned against the near wall.
“Bad news for you, I’m afraid, Orlovsky,” Cronley said. “The game’s over. By that I mean you can abandon hope that you’re going to be sprung from durance vile.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“You were winning. Now you’re losing. You’re good, very good. You even had General Gehlen going for a while. But it’s over.”
“What’s this?” Orlovsky asked, pointing to the tray Sergeant Clark had put on a small table. “The hearty meal the condemned man gets before he’s executed?”
“You’re so good, Orlovsky,” Cronley went on, “that I don’t really know if you really would welcome a bullet in the back of the head, or whether that’s just more of your bullshit.”
“You are not going to be shot, Konstantin,” Welner said. “I promise you that. What’s going to happen to you is that you’re being sent to Argentina.”
Orlovsky looked at him with cold eyes. “You’re pretty good yourself, Father. You almost had me convinced your sole interest in this was the salvation of my soul.”
“Not my sole interest. I was, I am, also interested in the lives and souls of your wife and children. Presuming, of course, that you really have a family back in Russia.”
“We should know that soon enough,” Cronley said. “General Gehlen has already issued orders to see if there really is an Orlovsky family in Russia and, if there is—frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised either way—to get them out of Holy Mother Russia and to Argentina.”
“You would do that as a gesture of Christian charity, right?” Orlovsky asked sarcastically.
“No,” Cronley said sharply. “If there is a Mrs. Orlovsky, and if we get her to Argentina, maybe she can talk some sense into you. But enough of this. Time flies. Last chance to eat your lunch, Major Orlovsky. Or is it Colonel Orlovsky?”
Orlovsky didn’t reply.
“Okay, Sergeant Clark,” Cronley said.
The enormous non-com wrapped his arms around Orlovsky.
“Doctor!” Cronley called.
A slight German in a white coat, who looked undernourished, came into the room.
“I need his buttocks,” he said in heavily accented English.
Sergeant Clark bent Orlovsky over the small table, knocking the food tray off in the process.
Gehlen’s doctor inserted—stabbed—a hypodermic needle into Orlovsky’s buttocks, and then slowly emptied it into him.
Orlovsky almost instantly went limp.
“Do you wish that I bandage him now?” the doctor asked.
“Might as well do it now.”
As he wrapped Orlovsky’s head in white gauze, eventually covering everything but his eyes and his nostrils, the doctor explained what Lewis could expect and what he was to do.
“He will start to regain consciousness in approximately three to four hours, depending on his natural resistance to the narcotic. The sign of this will be the fluttering of his eyes. His eyelids. You will then inject him again. I have prepared ten hypodermic needles for that purpose. You understand?”
“Got it,” Lewis said.
The doctor then wrapped Orlovsky’s hands with gauze and put them in two slings across his chest.
“The greatest risk to his well-being will be during the flight to Frankfurt in the Storch. As soon as possible, get him into a horizontal position. If there are signs of distress, get him on his feet and walk him around.”
“Got it,” Lewis said.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Cronley ordered.
Staff Sergeant Clark, without apparent effort, scooped the Russian up in his arms.
Cronley had an off-the-wall thought: He looks like a bridegroom carrying his bride to the nuptial bed.
Ten minutes later the Storch carrying Cronley, Father Welner, and Orlovsky broke ground. The second Storch, carrying Kurt Schröder and Sergeants Lewis and Clark stuffed in the back, lifted off thirty seconds later.
[ TEN ]
Rhine-Main USAF Base
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone, Occupied Germany
1550 9 November 1945
Captain Hans-Peter von Wachtstein of South American Airways was standing at the foot of the stairway to the passenger compartment of the Ciudad de Mendoza when two former ambulances rolled up to it. Standing with him was Major Johansen, the assistant base provost marshal, and a handful of military policemen, two of them lieutenants.
Cronley was glad to see Major Johansen, whom he had telephoned when they had landed at Eschborn and asked to meet him at the plane. Getting Orlovsky and Father Welner onto the plane wasn’t going to be a problem. Getting Sergeants Clark and Lewis onto the Constellation wasn’t either, but since they had no orders or travel documents, getting them to stay on the plane was likely to be difficult. He thought Major Johansen might prove helpful if he couldn’t bluff his way with his CIC c
redentials.
“Captain von Wachtstein,” Cronley greeted him. “Nice to see you again, sir.”
Hansel played along.
“Mr. Cronley. How are you?”
“Major, I see you’ve already met Captain von Wachtstein.”
“We’ve been chatting,” Johansen said. “How’ve you been, Cronley?”
“Overworked and underpaid.”
“Sounds familiar,” Johansen said.
Father Welner joined them.
“What we’re going to need for the patient, Captain von Wachtstein,” the Jesuit said, “is someplace where he can be placed horizontally. Where he can rest. I think there’s a spot immediately behind the cockpit?”
“Can he climb that?” von Wachtstein said, pointing to a narrow ladder leading to the door in the fuselage immediately behind the cockpit.
“He’s unconscious,” Cronley said.
“Who is this patient?” Major Johansen asked.
I’m glad he’s asking that question, not one of his lieutenants.
It was smart of me to think of calling him.
And now the other shoe will drop.
“Show Major Johansen your passport, Father Welner,” Cronley said as he handed Dzerzhinsky’s Vatican passport to him.
“Russian, huh?” Johansen said. “That name is vaguely familiar.”
That’s the other damned shoe dropping!
You had to be a smart-ass with Dzerzhinsky’s name, didn’t you?
“Of Russian ancestry, obviously,” Welner said. “But now he’s a citizen of Vatican City.”
“So I see,” Johansen said, handing both passports to the priest.
Sergeants Clark and Lewis appeared, with an unconscious Orlovsky strapped securely to a stretcher.
“There is a bed for our patient in a small area behind the cockpit,” Cronley said, pointing. “Captain von Wachtstein will suggest the best way to get him there.”
After a moment’s thought, Hansel said, “If you two could carry him up the passenger stairway, and then down the aisle . . .”
“Not a problem, sir,” Sergeant Clark said.
He bent over the stretcher, unfastened the buckles, picked Dzerzhinsky up, and then, cradling him in his arms, walked without apparent effort up the passenger stairway. Lewis followed.
“Sturdy fellow, isn’t he?” Major Johansen observed.
“Well, that’s it,” Cronley said. “Thank you for waiting, Captain von Wachtstein.”
“Happy to oblige.”
“When you get close to Buenos Aires, it might be a good idea to call ahead to have an ambulance and a stretcher waiting.”
“I can do that.”
“Have a nice flight,” Cronley finally said. “You, too, Father Welner.”
“I’m sure it will be less stressful than my last flight. God bless you, Jim.”
He then started up the stairway.
Von Wachtstein shook Cronley’s hand, and then Major Johansen’s, and started toward the crew ladder.
“Captain,” one of the MP lieutenants said. “Don’t forget those two medics you have onboard.”
“They’re going,” Cronley said.
“Sir, I didn’t see any passports or travel orders,” the lieutenant said to Major Johansen.
Johansen looked at Cronley. Cronley turned so that only Johansen could see his face, and put his finger in front of his lips.
Johansen looked at him for a long moment.
“Not a problem, Stewart,” Johansen said. “It’s an intelligence matter. You didn’t see those medics get on that airplane. I’ll explain later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Both sets of stairs were pulled away, and the doors closed.
There came the sound of engines starting, as Cronley shook Major Johansen’s hand and then walked toward the ambulances.
[ ELEVEN ]
Park Hotel
Wiesenhüttenplatz 28-38
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone, Occupied Germany
1705 9 November 1945
Cronley took a healthy sip of his double Dewar’s scotch whisky—to which, he decided, he was most certainly entitled—and went through his mental To Do list.
The major item—Orlovsky—was off the list obviously. So was the potential problem of someone questioning Kurt Schröder’s right to fly a U.S. Army Storch. He had flown back to Kloster Grünau immediately after dropping off Clark and Lewis at Eschborn. The ambulances would return to Kloster Grünau in the morning, after picking up Cronley at the hotel and then driving him to Eschborn to pick up his Storch.
Only two things remained to be done, he concluded, and the sooner he did them the better.
“Hand me that telephone, please, Sergeant,” he said to the American non-com supervising the bar. The bartenders and waiters were German.
“It’s for official use only, sir,” the bartender said somewhat righteously.
“Is that so? Hand it to me, please.”
The phone was reluctantly slid across the bar to him.
“Munich Military 4474,” Cronley ordered into the receiver.
When that order had been passed along and the phone in Munich was ringing, Cronley extended it to the sergeant, who put it to his ear.
The sergeant heard, clearly, and Cronley less so, “Twenty-third CIC, Special Agent Hessinger speaking, sir.”
“Okay, Sergeant?” Cronley asked, gesturing for the handset to be returned to him.
The sergeant did not reply as he did so.
“This is Special Agent Hoover, Special Agent Hessinger,” Cronley said. “The package is on the way as of 1515 hours. Please advise Colonel Norwich and Sergeant Gaucho immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” Hessinger said.
“I should be in Rome about noon tomorrow, weather permitting.”
“Yes, sir. Be advised your friends from Washington are still looking for you.”
“How kind of them. Please give them my best regards and tell them I’m making every effort to fit them into my busy schedule.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nice to talk to you, Special Agent Hessinger.”
“And to you, sir.”
Cronley put the handset in its cradle, then slid the telephone back across the bar.
“Thank you so much, Sergeant.”
If the FBI had tapped Hessinger’s phone—and if Hessinger thought they had, it was ninety-nine percent certain they had—it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that Special Agent Hoover was Captain James D. Cronley Jr. giving them the finger. It might take them a little longer to conclude that Colonel Norwich was First Sergeant Chauncey Dunwiddie and even longer to decide that Sergeant Gaucho was Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Frade, USMCR, but eventually they would.
It didn’t matter. Fat Freddy understood that he was now to go out to the Pullach compound to get on the SIGABA and send an URGENT to Tex that von Wachtstein was on his way to Buenos Aires with Orlovsky and the Jesuit—who would explain everything—as of three-fifteen Frankfurt time. Dunwiddie would get a copy of that message, plus one of his own, telling him that Cronley would be back at Kloster Grünau at noon tomorrow. The FBI could not tap the SIGABA.
That the FBI would eventually catch up with him was a given. But they didn’t know where he was right now, which would give him time to deal with the last item on the To Do list. That item was spelled Schumann, Mrs. Rachel.
Cronley drained his Dewar’s and ordered another.
And then I will go to my room and call Mrs. Rachel Schumann.
—
As he crossed the lobby of the hotel toward the elevator bank, Cronley saw something he hadn’t noticed before. There was a Class VI store. For reasons he couldn’t even guess, the Army classified hard liquor as Class VI supplies, and the places that sold such
spirits to officers as Class VI stores.
He bought a quart bottle of Haig & Haig scotch whisky and took it to his room, sampling its contents before picking up the telephone to call Rachel.
—
Rachel answered on the third ring.
“If you can’t talk, say ‘wrong number’ and hang up.”
“I’ve been waiting and waiting to hear from you.”
“Well, I’ve been busy. Rachel, I don’t have your Leica.”
“I know that, sweetheart. Where are you?”
“In the Park Hotel. You know, by the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof?”
“What are you doing there?”
“Well, it was too late for me to fly home, so I’m spending the night here. Rachel, we have to talk.”
“What are you doing in Frankfurt?”
“Actually, what I was doing was putting that Russian you’re always asking about on an airplane.”
Now, that wasn’t smart. Why the hell did you tell her that?
What the hell. It doesn’t matter. Orlovsky’s gone.
“You put him on an airplane? What was that all about?”
“If I told you, I would have to kill you.”
“Have you been drinking, Jimmy?”
“What gave you that idea? Rachel, we have to talk.”
“What room are you in?”
He had to look at the telephone to get the room number.
“Four-oh-seven.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Can’t we just talk on the phone? What’s the colonel going to think when he comes home for supper and you’re gone?”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” She chuckled. “And don’t start without me, baby.”
Then she hung up.
Cronley thought he might as well have another little taste while he was waiting for her.
[ TWELVE ]
Room 407, Park Hotel
Wiesenhüttenplatz 28-38
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone, Occupied Germany
0905 10 November 1945
The telephone rang, and when Cronley answered it, he was told that his ride was waiting for him.