Death at Nuremberg Read online

  BOOKS BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  HONOR BOUND

  BOOK I: HONOR BOUND

  BOOK II: BLOOD AND HONOR

  BOOK III: SECRET HONOR

  BOOK IV: DEATH AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK V: THE HONOR OF SPIES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VI: VICTORY AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: EMPIRE AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BROTHERHOOD OF WAR

  BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS

  BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS

  BOOK III: THE MAJORS

  BOOK IV: THE COLONELS

  BOOK V: THE BERETS

  BOOK VI: THE GENERALS

  BOOK VII: THE NEW BREED

  BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS

  BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS

  THE CORPS

  BOOK I: SEMPER FI

  BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS

  BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK

  BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND

  BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE

  BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT

  BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES

  BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH

  BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE

  BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!

  BADGE OF HONOR

  BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE

  BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS

  BOOK III: THE VICTIM

  BOOK IV: THE WITNESS

  BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN

  BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS

  BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS

  BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE

  BOOK IX: THE TRAFFICKERS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK X: THE VIGILANTES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK XI: THE LAST WITNESS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK XII: DEADLY ASSETS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK XIII: BROKEN TRUST

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  MEN AT WAR

  BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES

  BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS

  BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES

  BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS

  BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VI: THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: THE SPYMASTERS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  PRESIDENTIAL AGENT

  BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT

  BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE

  BOOK III: THE HUNTERS

  BOOK IV: THE SHOOTERS

  BOOK V: BLACK OPS

  BOOK VI: THE OUTLAWS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: COVERT WARRIORS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VIII: HAZARDOUS DUTY

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS

  BOOK I: TOP SECRET

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK II: THE ASSASSINATION OPTION

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK III: CURTAIN OF DEATH

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK IV: DEATH AT NUREMBERG

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  as William E. Butterworth III

  THE HUNTING TRIP

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by W. E. B. Griffin

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Griffin, W. E. B., author. | Butterworth, William E. (William Edmund), author.

  Title: Death at Nuremberg : a clandestine operations novel / W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV.

  Description: New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, [2017] | Series: Clandestine operations ; 4

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016047501 (print) | LCCN 2016058640 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399176746 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698410572 (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States. Central Intelligence Agency—Fiction. | Intelligence officers—United States—Fiction. | Cold War—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Spy stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3557.R489137 D44 2017 (print) | LCC PS3557.R489137 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016047501

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Books by W.E.B. Griffin

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Part I [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  Part II [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  Part III [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  Part IV [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  Part V [ONE]

  [TWO]

  Part VI [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  Part VII [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  [SIX]

  Part VIII [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  Part IX [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  [SIX]

  Part X [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  [SIX]

  Part XI [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  Part XII [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  [SIX]

  Part XIII [ONE]

  [TWO]

  Part XIV [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  Part XV [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

 
Part XVI [ONE]

  [TWO]

  [THREE]

  [FOUR]

  [FIVE]

  [SIX]

  [SEVEN]

  About the Authors

  26 July 1777

  “The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged.”

  George Washington

  General and Commander in Chief

  The Continental Army

  FOR THE LATE

  WILLIAM E. COLBY

  An OSS Jedburgh First Lieutenant who became director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  AARON BANK

  An OSS Jedburgh First Lieutenant who became a colonel and the father of Special Forces.

  WILLIAM R. CORSON

  A legendary Marine intelligence officer whom the KGB hated more than any other U.S. intelligence officer—and not only because he wrote the definitive work on them.

  RENÉ J. DÉFOURNEAUX

  A U.S. Army OSS Second Lieutenant attached to the British SOE who jumped into Occupied France alone and later became a legendary U.S. Army intelligence officer.

  FOR THE LIVING

  BILLY WAUGH

  A legendary Special Forces Command Sergeant Major who retired and then went on to hunt down the infamous Carlos the Jackal. Billy could have terminated Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s but could not get permission to do so. After fifty years in the business, Billy is still going after the bad guys.

  JOHNNY REITZEL

  An Army Special Operations officer who could have terminated the head terrorist of the seized cruise ship Achille Lauro but could not get permission to do so.

  RALPH PETERS

  An Army intelligence officer who has written the best analysis of our war against terrorists and of our enemy that I have ever seen.

  AND FOR THE NEW BREED

  MARC L

  A senior intelligence officer who, despite his youth, reminds me of Bill Colby more and more each day.

  FRANK L

  A legendary Defense Intelligence Agency officer who retired and now follows in Billy Waugh’s footsteps.

  AND

  In Loving Memory Of

  Colonel José Manuel Menéndez

  Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired

  OUR NATION OWES THESE PATRIOTS A DEBT BEYOND REPAYMENT.

  I

  [ONE]

  Schlosshotel Kronberg

  Hainstrasse 25, Kronberg im Taunus

  Hesse, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1955 17 February 1946

  Captain James D. Cronley Jr. sat in the back of an olive-drab 1942 Chevrolet staff car in his “pinks and greens,” which is how officers referred to the “Class A” semi-dress uniform, puffing on a long black cigar, despite a sign on the back of the front seat that read both NO SMOKING! and RAUCHEN VERBOTEN!

  Jim Cronley was a six-foot-tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed Texan. The crossed sabers on his lapels identified him as a cavalryman, and his shoulder insignia—a three-inch yellow circle outlined in black, with a C in the center pierced by a red lightning bolt—identified him as a member of the U.S. Constabulary, which policed the American Zone of Occupied Germany.

  Three and a half hours before, the telephone on his desk in the Compound, which housed the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation (South German Industrial Development Organization) in Pullach, a small village about twenty miles from Munich, had flashed a red button, which had caused him to say “Shit!” as he reached for it.

  His office was in a small, neat building identified by a sign on its small, now snow-covered lawn as the Office of the OMGUS Liaison Officer. OMGUS was the acronym for Office of Military Government, U.S.

  It was, de facto, the headquarters of DCI-Europe, the Directorate of Central Intelligence, which had been formed several months before to replace the Office of Strategic Services by President Harry S Truman and answered only to him.

  The OMGUS sign was an obfuscation, a smoke screen, so to speak, to conceal the truth. So was the Constabulary shoulder insignia on Jim Cronley’s tunic. He was not assigned to the Constabulary. He was listed on the War Department’s “Detached Officer Roster,” which is classified Secret, as being assigned to the Directorate of Central Intelligence.

  He was, in fact, chief, DCI-Europe.

  So was the South German Industrial Development Organization an obfuscation to conceal what had once been Abwehr Ost—Intelligence East—of the Wehrmacht. Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen had made a deal with Allen Dulles, then the OSS station chief in Switzerland, not only to surrender to the Americans but to bring with him all his assets, which included agents inside the Kremlin, and to place him and them at the service of the Americans. In exchange, Dulles agreed to protect Gehlen’s officers and enlisted men, and their families, from the Russians.

  “Cronley,” Cronley had said into the handset of the secure telephone.

  “ASA Fulda, sir. Hold for Major Wallace.”

  The Army Security Agency was charged with making sure the Army’s communications network was not compromised, and, in addition to other services, providing secure encrypted telephone, Teletype, and radio communications.

  “Major Wallace, we have Captain Cronley on a secure line.”

  “You’re invited to Colonel Bob Mattingly’s ‘Farewell to USFET’ party.”

  “I must regretfully decline the kind invitation.”

  “It will be held at Schlosshotel Kronberg.”

  “As I have a previous social engagement.”

  “So put on your pinks and greens and get in your airplane within the next thirty minutes. A car will be waiting for you at Eschborn.”

  “No.”

  “And wear your DSM.”

  “I was told I wasn’t supposed to wear it.”

  “This is a special occasion.”

  “I ain’t gonna wear the damned thing, which is sort of moot, since I ain’t going to fly up there to play nice with Mattingly.”

  “When you get an order, Captain Cronley, the correct response is ‘Yes, sir.’”

  After a ten-second pause, Cronley said, “Yes, sir.”

  More obfuscation was in play here.

  In order to make DCI-Europe seem less important than it was, to have it sort of fade into the background, it was decided that it be commanded, as far as anyone outside of DCI was concerned, by a junior officer. Such an officer was available in the person of Jim Cronley, who had just been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and promoted from second lieutenant to captain at the verbal order of the President of the United States. The Citation stated that he had demonstrated at the risk of his own life not only valor above and beyond the call of duty but a wisdom far beyond that to be expected of an officer of his age and rank while engaged in a classified operation of great importance.

  DCI-Europe was important, and not only because it was involved in surreptitiously keeping former members of Abwehr Ost, and their families, many of them Nazis, out of the hands of the Russians by surreptitiously flying them to Argentina. This activity, should it become public knowledge, would have seen Truman—who had authorized Allen Dulles to make the deal with Gehlen—very possibly impeached, even if Eisenhower, who had brought the deal to Truman, agreed to fall on his sword to save the commander in chief.

  Under these conditions, it was obviously necessary to have some experienced intelligence officer looking over Cronley’s shoulder to “advise” him and, should it become necessary, to take DCI-Europe over. Such an officer was available in the person of Major Harold Wallace, who had been commander of OSS-Forward until its dissolution, and was now assigned to USFET Counterintelligence.

  And there was more obfuscation here, too. In order to keep “Army G-2 off my back,” as Wallace, a full colonel, had phrased it, he had taken t
he eagle off his epaulets and replaced it with the golden leaf of a major and allowed the Army to think Colonel Robert Mattingly was actually commanding OSS-Forward.

  Major Wallace was given command of the XXVIIth CIC Detachment in Munich, from which position he was able to look over the activities of the XXIIIrd CIC Detachment, commanded by Captain James D. Cronley, which had been established to provide Cronley with a credible reason for being in Munich, in the hope that people would not connect him with DCI-Europe at the Compound.

  Originally, Cronley was not told of Wallace’s role, but he soon figured it out. They worked out an amicable relationship, largely because Cronley accepted that Wallace could give him orders.

  [TWO]

  As Cronley entered the lobby of the Schlosshotel, a bellman snatched his canvas Valv-Pak from his hand and led him to the desk.

  “I’m going to need a room,” he said to the clerk.

  “I’m very sorry, Captain, the Schlosshotel Kronberg is a senior officers’ hotel.”

  “I thought this was a low-class dump the moment I walked in,” Cronley said, his automatic mouth having gone into action.

  Another clerk rushed over.

  “Sind Sie Hauptmann Cronley, Herr Hauptmann?”

  “Ja.”

  The clerk switched to English.

  “We’ve put you in 110, Captain. Your bag will be there whenever it’s convenient for you to go there.” He handed Cronley a key, which came attached to a brass plate with the number on it.

  “Captain Cronley,” a voice said in his ear, “if you’ll come with me, sir?”

  He turned to see a naval officer, a full lieutenant, who had the silver aiguillettes of an aide-de-camp dangling from his shoulder.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the admiral’s aide, sir,” he replied, his tone suggesting “dumb question.”

  “What admiral?”

  The lieutenant didn’t reply, instead gesturing for Cronley to follow him. Cronley did so, out of the lobby and down a corridor, where the lieutenant opened half of a double door, gestured for Cronley to precede him, and then bellowed, “Admiral, Captain Cronley.”