The Assassination Option Read online

  ALSO BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  HONOR BOUND

  HONOR BOUND

  BLOOD AND HONOR

  SECRET HONOR

  DEATH AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  THE HONOR OF SPIES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  VICTORY AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  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

  CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS

  BOOK 1: TOP SECRET

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  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)

  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)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2014 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

  Griffin, W. E. B.

  The assassination option : a clandestine operations novel / W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth.

  p. cm.—(A clandestine operations novel ; 2)

  ISBN 978-0-698-16463-5

  1. Intelligence officers—United States—Fiction. I. Butterworth, William E. (William Edmund).

  II. Title.

  PS3557.R489137A94 2014b 2014040663

  813’.54—dc23

  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

  ALSO BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  EPIGRAPH

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  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 ]

  [ SIX ]

  PART VII

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  [ FIVE ]

  PART VIII

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART IX

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  [ FIVE ]

  [ SIX ]

  [ SEVEN ]

  PART X

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  [ FIVE ]

  PART XI

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART XII

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  [ FIVE ]

  [ SIX ]

  [ SEVEN ]

  [ EIGHT ]

  [ NINE ]

  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 SO
E 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, despite his youth, who 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

  He spent his life fighting Communism and Juan Domingo Perón

  OUR NATION OWES THESE PATRIOTS A DEBT BEYOND REPAYMENT.

  PROLOGUE

  Early in 1943, at a time when victory was by no means certain, Great Britain, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States of America—“the Allies”—signed what became known as “the Moscow Declaration.” It stated that the leaders of Germany, Italy, and Japan—“the Axis Powers”—would be held responsible for atrocities committed during the war.

  In December of that year, the Allied leaders—Prime Minister Winston Churchill of England, General Secretary Joseph V. Stalin of the Soviet Union, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States—met secretly in Tehran, Iran, under the code name Project Eureka. The meeting later came to be known as the Tehran Conference.

  At a dinner in Tehran on December 29, 1943, while discussing the Moscow Declaration, Stalin proposed the summary execution of fifty thousand to one hundred thousand German staff officers immediately following the defeat of the Thousand-Year Reich. Roosevelt thought he was joking, and asked if he would be satisfied with “the summary execution of a lesser number, say, forty-nine thousand.”

  Churchill took the Communist leader at his word, and angrily announced he would have nothing to do with “the cold-blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their country,” adding that he’d “rather be taken out in the courtyard and shot myself” than partake in any such action.

  The war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of Germany.

  In London, on August 8, 1945, the four Allied powers—France, after its liberation, had by then become sort of a junior member—signed “the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis Powers.”

  “The London Agreement” proclaimed that the senior Nazi leaders would be tried on behalf of the newly formed United Nations at Nuremberg, and that lesser officials would be tried at trials to be held in each of the four zones of occupation into which Germany was to be divided.

  The Soviet Union wanted the trials to be held in Berlin, but the other three Allies insisted they be held in Nuremberg, in Bavaria, in the American Zone of Occupation. Their public argument was that not only was Nuremberg the ceremonial birthplace of Nazism, but also that the Palace of Justice compound, which included a large prison, had come through the war relatively untouched and was an ideal site for the trials.

  What the Western Allies—aware of the Soviet rape of Berlin and that to get the Russians out of the American Sector of Berlin, U.S. General I.D. White had to quite seriously threaten to shoot on sight any armed Russian soldiers he found in the American Sector—were not saying publicly was that they had no intention of letting the Soviet Union dominate the trials.

  They threw a face-saving bone to the Russians by agreeing that Berlin would be the “official home” of the tribunal.

  The London Agreement provided that the International Military Tribunal (IMT) would, on behalf of the newly formed United Nations, try the accused war criminals. It would consist of eight judges, two named by each of the four Allied powers. One judge from each country would preside at the trials. The others would sit as alternates.

  Interpreters would translate the proceedings into French, German, Russian, and English, and written evidence submitted by the prosecution would be translated into the native language of each defendant. The IMT would not be bound by Anglo-American rules of evidence, and it would accept hearsay and other forms of evidence normally considered unreliable in the United States and Great Britain.

  The IMT was given authority to hear four counts of criminal complaints: conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

  It has been argued that the Russians obliged the Western Allies by agreeing to hold the actual trials in Nuremberg in a spirit of cooperation. It has also been argued that there was a tit-for-tat arrangement. If the Russians agreed to Nuremberg, the Americans and the English would not bring up the Katyn Massacre.

  What is known—provable beyond doubt—is that in 1943 the Germans took a number of captured American officers from their POW camp to the Katyn Forest, about twelve miles west of Smolensk, Russia.

  The American officer prisoners were a mixed bag of Medical Corps officers, Judge Advocate General’s Corps officers, and officers of the combat arms. In the latter group was Lieutenant Colonel John K. Waters, an Armor officer who had been captured in Tunisia. He was married to the former Beatrice Patton. His father-in-law was General George S. Patton. Waters later became a four-star general.

  At Katyn, there were several recently reopened mass graves. As the Americans watched, other mass graves were reopened. They contained the bodies of thousands of Polish officers who had surrendered in 1940 to the Red Army when the Russians invaded Poland from the East and Germany from the West.

  The Germans told the Americans that the Polish officers had been taken from the Kozelsk prisoner-of-war camp to the forest in 1940—shortly after the surrender—by the Soviet NKVD. There, after their hands had been wired behind them, they were executed by pistol shots into the back of their heads.

  The Germans permitted the American doctors to examine the corpses and to remove from their brains the bullets that had killed them. It was the opinion of the American doctors that the bodies had in fact been so murdered and had been decomposing since 1940.

  The Americans were then returned to their POW camp. The bullets removed from the brains of the murdered Polish officers were distributed among them.

  It is now known that there was some communication, in both directions, between the Allies and American prisoners of war in Germany. It is credible to assume that the prisoners who had been taken to Hammelburg managed to tell Eisenhower’s headquarters in London what they had seen in the Katyn Forest, and possible, if by no means certain, that they managed to get the bullets to London, as well.

  Very late in the war, in March 1945, General Patton gave a very unusual assignment to one of his very best tank officers, Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W. Abrams, who then commanded Combat Command B of the 4th Armored Division. Abrams had broken through the German lines to rescue the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, and was later to become chief of staff of the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army’s main battle tank today is the Abrams.

  The official story was that Patton told Abrams he feared the Germans would execute the American POWs being held in Oflag XIII-B, in Hammelburg, Germany, then fifty miles behind the German lines, when it appeared they would be liberated by the Red Army.

  Abrams was ordered to mount an immediate mission
to get to Hammelburg before the Russians did and to liberate the Americans. In the late evening of March 26, 1945, Task Force Baum—a company of medium tanks, a platoon of light tanks, and a company of armored infantry, under Captain Abraham Baum—set out to do so.

  The mission was not successful. It was mauled by the Germans. When word of it got out, Patton was severely criticized for staging a dangerous raid to rescue his son-in-law. He denied knowing Colonel Waters was in Oflag XIII-B. When, shortly afterward, Oflag XIII-B was liberated by the Red Army, Waters was not there.

  It later came out that Waters and 101st Airborne Division Second Lieutenant Lory L. McCullough (an interesting character, who learned that he had been awarded a battlefield commission only after he had been captured during Operation Marketgarden) had escaped from captivity while the Germans had been marching the prisoners on foot toward Hammelburg and had made their escape to North Africa through the Russian port of Odessa on the Black Sea.

  When this came out, there was some knowledgeable speculation that Patton had known Waters was in Oflag XIII-B, and had been worried, because of Waters’s knowledge of the Katyn Forest massacre, that if the Red Army reached Hammelburg before the Americans, Waters would have been killed by the Red Army to keep his mouth shut.

  Why else, this speculation asked, would Waters have elected his incredibly dangerous escape with McCullough rather than just stay where they were and wait in safety to be liberated?

  The Katyn Forest Massacre was not unknown in the West. The Polish government in exile had proof of it as early as 1942. When they requested an investigation by the International Red Cross, Russia broke diplomatic relations with the Poles. Churchill had not wanted to annoy his Russian ally, and Roosevelt believed it was Nazi propaganda. The Russians wouldn’t do anything like that.

  And then, at the very end of the war, Major General Reinhard Gehlen, who had been chief of Abwehr Ost, the German military intelligence agency dealing with the Soviet Union, added some further light on the subject.

  Gehlen had made a deal with Allen W. Dulles, who had been the Office of Strategic Services station chief in Berne, Switzerland, to turn over all of his assets—including agents in place in the Kremlin—to the OSS in return for the OSS protection of his officers and men, and their families, from the Red Army.