Top Secret Read online

  “Oberstleutnant Bischoff is a highly trained, greatly experienced interrogator, our best.”

  “I can only repeat what I said, that I didn’t like what he was doing to Orlovsky and I saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere with him, so I took over the investigation. There’s no misunderstanding.”

  “With all respect, Herr Kapitän Cronley, I must protest.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “And I must ask you to reconsider. The Russian must be broken.”

  “I intend to get the information we both want from him.”

  “And is Oberst Mattingly aware of what you have decided to do?”

  “He didn’t want to hear it, but I told him anyway.”

  “And he approved?”

  “You miss the point, Mannberg. Colonel Mattingly doesn’t want to know anything about this situation. Since he didn’t tell me to ‘deal with the situation,’ he can hardly tell me not to deal with it, can he?”

  “But you have just said you have taken over the interrogation!”

  “And I have. From Mr. Dunwiddie, who shouldn’t have allowed Bischoff to interrogate my prisoner in the first place.”

  “Your prisoner?”

  “I’m the commanding officer of the Twenty-third CIC. And of Kloster Grünau. Since my men arrested this fellow, whoever he is . . .”

  “We know who he is!”

  “. . . then he’s my prisoner. So far as I know, recently discharged from POW status former soldiers have no authority to arrest anyone, much less any authority to detain anyone, or interrogate anyone, do they?”

  “This is not the reaction I expected from you,” Mannberg said. “Would you be willing to discuss this with General Gehlen?”

  “No.”

  “When he hears of our conversation, I feel sure he’ll report it to Colonel Mattingly.”

  “When I told Colonel Mattingly about what I had decided to do here, he didn’t want to hear it. I don’t think he’ll be any more interested in hearing Herr Gehlen try to tell him what I’ve decided to do here.”

  “You understand, you must understand, how important it is we get the names of our traitors.”

  “I do. And when I have them, I’ll tell you and then you and Herr Gehlen may offer your recommendations about what I should do with the people you have allowed to infiltrate the South German Industrial Development Organization and consequently put it under such an absolutely unacceptable risk of exposure.”

  “Frankly, Kapitän Cronley, I’m having trouble believing we’re having this conversation. I don’t like to think what General Gehlen’s reaction to it will be.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll know as soon as you tell him,” Cronley replied. “Is there anything else on your mind?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “And you’re sure you won’t change your mind about a drink?”

  “That’s very kind, but no thank you.”

  He offered his hand to Cronley, and then to Dunwiddie, and then walked out of the room.

  When Mannberg was out of earshot, Tiny said, “Absolutely fascinating. I’ve never seen anyone commit suicide before.”

  “You think that’s what I did?”

  “Gehlen will be on the phone to Mattingly thirty seconds after Mannberg tells him about this.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “We don’t have a secure line. Gehlen’s not going to get on an unsecure telephone and say, ‘Colonel Mattingly, let me tell you what your crazy young captain’s doing with the NKGB major we caught.’”

  “Then he’ll go to Frankfurt and tell him in person.”

  “Gehlen doesn’t want to go to Mattingly with this unless he has to. So before he does, he’ll try to reason with me. Or send Mannberg back to reason with me. I think it’ll take him two days—three, if we’re lucky—to realize I can’t be reasoned with. So we have that much time to get those names from Orlovsky.”

  “And if he doesn’t give them to us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If he does, Jim, then what are you going to do with him, send him to Argentina?”

  After a moment, Cronley said, “Now there’s a thought!”

  “You didn’t think of that?” Dunwiddie asked incredulously.

  Cronley’s face showed that he hadn’t.

  “I’m so glad to hear that you’ve really thought this problem through,” Dunwiddie said. “Answered all the little ‘What if’s’ that came to mind.”

  “I don’t think he’d believe me if I offered him Argentina,” Cronley said thoughtfully. “Why should he?”

  “You have an honest face?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Cronley said, still thoughtfully. And then he ordered, “Get Tedworth on the phone. Tell him to bring Orlovsky back upstairs—at oh-five-hundred tomorrow. He should have had enough time to do some thinking by then. And at midnight, wake him up and feed him his lunch. Something nice, just so he thinks it’s lunch. I want to keep him confused about what time it is.”

  [ FIVE ]

  Commanding Officer’s Quarters

  Kloster Grünau

  Schollbrunn, Bavaria

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0505 1 November 1945

  “Good afternoon, Major Orlovsky,” Cronley said as Staff Sergeant Lewis pulled the duffel bag from the Russian’s head.

  Orlovsky, who was again barefoot and covered with the blanket tied around his body, didn’t reply.

  “Captain, do you want me to take the cuffs off his ankles?” Lewis asked.

  “Maybe that won’t be necessary,” Cronley said. “That will depend on the major’s reply to what I’m going to ask him.”

  He waited until Orlovsky’s eyes had time to adjust from the darkness of the duffel bag to the light in the sitting room.

  “Have you had a little time to think about what’s going to happen when they take you to NKGB headquarters in Berlin after they find you sitting tied up on the street by the Brandenburg Gate?”

  “Of course I have,” Orlovsky said.

  “You think they’re going to be just a little disappointed in you, allowing yourself to get caught here?”

  Orlovsky didn’t reply.

  “And wonder what information you shared with us?”

  Orlovsky’s face remained expressionless.

  “And I’m sure you’ve thought they are going to wonder if you really didn’t tell us a thing. And the unlikelihood that they will believe you when you assure them that you lived up to your obligations as an NKGB officer. And what that will mean for you. And I don’t just mean your being subjected to a lengthy interrogation.”

  “Maybe we could save a little time, Captain Cronley, if I told you I’ve given my situation a good deal of thought.”

  “Including what’s very likely to happen to your family?”

  Orlovsky exhaled audibly.

  “There’s not much I can do about that, is there?” Orlovsky asked.

  “So, right now, you see the most likely scenario for your future is that after you fail to convince whoever runs the NKGB in Berlin that you lived up to your obligations as an NKGB officer, you will be shot in the back of your head, and your family will be sent to Siberia to remind other people like you of the price their families will pay for their failures.”

  “Or that you will . . . dispose . . . of me here.”

  “Which would have the same effect on your family. Consider this, Konstantin. If you don’t show up, simply disappear, the NKGB won’t really know that we’ve turned you, will they? They’ll think we simply disposed of you. In that case, I submit there’s a chance—a slight one, I admit—that they’ll decide you died in the line of duty, and are a hero of the NKGB. That would work to encourage others, and if they treated your family we
ll . . . you can see where I’m going with this . . .”

  The telephone on the sideboard rang.

  Sonofabitch! Why did that have to go off right now?

  Cronley gestured for Dunwiddie to answer it and snapped, “I’m not available.”

  “No,” Orlovsky said, “I don’t see where you’re ‘going with this.’”

  “Your other option is to let me arrange for you to disappear. And I don’t mean into an unmarked grave here in the monastery cemetery.”

  “Twenty-third CIC, Dunwiddie.”

  “Disappear? How would I disappear? And you can’t keep me in that cell forever.”

  “I can arrange for you to go somewhere safe.”

  “I doubt that. I’m a little surprised that you really thought you could offer me a refuge someplace in exchange for those names and I would turn them over to you.”

  “What about if I got you refuge somewhere, after which you would give me the names?”

  “I’m sorry, Captain Cronley is not available.”

  “And once you had given me the names, and I establish they are the names of the people you’ve turned, I put Gehlen to work getting your family out of Russia. You know he’s got well-placed people in Moscow.”

  “You cannot expect me to take you seriously?”

  “Sir, could I have Captain Cronley call you in ten minutes?”

  “I’m perfectly serious, Konstantin. I’m offering you a new life in Argentina.”

  “Why would you expect me to believe something like that?”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m telling you the truth, you mean? I’m not promising we can get your family out of Russia, but I’m promising I’ll make Gehlen try. If you were a man, you’d take the chance to do whatever you could for your family.”

  “You sonofabitch!”

  Dunwiddie carried the telephone to Cronley and extended it to him.

  “I don’t give a damn who it is. Tell him I’ll call him back.”

  “Mattingly,” Dunwiddie said.

  Oh, shit!

  Cronley took the telephone.

  “Colonel, I can’t talk to you right now. I’ll call you—”

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Cronley? You’ll talk to me whenever I want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What the hell is going on down there?”

  “Sir, I’m interrogating . . . our guest.”

  “At five o’clock in the morning?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The interrogation is over.”

  Cronley didn’t reply.

  “The answer I expect is, ‘Yes, sir.’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll discuss that situation when I see you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How soon can you be at Eschborn?”

  “Eschborn?”

  “Goddamn you, Cronley, when I ask you a question, I expect an answer. How soon can you be at Eschborn?”

  “Well, it’s about a three-hour flight, give or take. And I don’t know when daybreak is . . .”

  “You can be there sometime around ten hundred hours,” Dunwiddie furnished softly. “Daybreak here is about oh-six-thirty. Plus three hours. Around ten hundred, maybe a little before.”

  That means Tiny heard what Mattingly was saying. Which means Orlovsky heard what Mattingly was saying. Shit!

  “Not until ten hundred hours?” Mattingly asked.

  Which means he heard Tiny.

  “Somewhere around ten hundred, yes, sir.”

  “Why can’t you leave right now?”

  “Colonel, I have to be able to see the runway to take off.”

  “Why can’t you shine jeep or truck headlights on the runway?”

  “Because I don’t want to kill myself, sir. Substituting headlights for landing lights is an emergency procedure. Is this some kind of an emergency?”

  “Spare me your smart-ass lip, Cronley.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On that subject, when you get here, you will speak only when spoken to. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t want the subject of your interrogation to come up. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir. Colonel, what’s going on at Eschborn?”

  “I just told you, goddamn it, that you are to speak only when spoken to. That means you don’t ask questions. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get to Eschborn ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A change in the buzz on the line told Cronley that Mattingly had broken the connection.

  Cronley handed the phone to Dunwiddie, then looked at Orlovsky.

  “That was my colonel, Konstantin. He calls every so often to tell me how good a job I’m doing.”

  “I’ve had colonels like that,” Orlovsky said. “I suppose this Argentina fantasy was his idea?”

  “No. It’s my idea. He doesn’t know about it, and I’m not going to tell him.”

  “In other words, it wasn’t a valid offer?”

  “The offer is valid.”

  “Without your colonel’s knowledge or permission?”

  “Yeah. Without his knowledge or permission.”

  “Why should I believe that?”

  “Because it’s the only hope you have to do something for your family.”

  Cronley turned to Sergeant Lewis and ordered, “Lewis, uncuff the major. Get him something to eat, and when he’s finished take him back to his cell.”

  [ SIX ]

  U.S. Army Airfield H-7

  Eschborn, Hesse

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0955 1 November 1945

  Cronley parked the Storch on the grass across the tarmac from Base Operations and got out. He chocked the wheels and walked across the tarmac to see about getting the Storch fueled.

  Aside from getting fuel, he didn’t know what to do. Mattingly’s Horch was nowhere in sight, and he didn’t know if he was expected to go to the Schlosshotel on his own, or just wait for whatever was to happen in Base Ops.

  The question was answered the moment he walked through the Base Ops door. There were half a dozen officers and non-coms in the foyer.

  And a woman. She advanced on him.

  “Captain Cronley, I’m Rachel Schumann, Colonel Schumann’s wife. Do you remember me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She gave him her hand and he shook it.

  “General Greene asked me to pick you up and take you out to the Schlosshotel for the meeting.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  “My car is right outside,” Rachel said, quickly reclaiming her hand.

  “Mrs. Schumann, I have to see about getting my tanks topped off.” He pointed to the Flight Planning/Weather room. “It’ll take me just a minute.”

  “I’ll wait in the car. It’s a Chrysler Town and Country.”

  “It’ll take me just a minute,” Cronley repeated, and then watched her as she walked out of the building.

  What the hell is going on?

  —

  Cronley slid onto the front seat of the wooden-sided station wagon, closed the door, and turned to Rachel. She had the engine running, and started off.

  Well, I guess I don’t get a welcoming kiss. Or a fond little grope.

  What did you expect?

  “We’re going to have to stop meeting this way,” Cronley said. “People will start to talk.”

  She chuckled.

  “Rachel, what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know. Or I don’t know much.”

  “Tell me what you do know.”

  She nodded. “Tony got in very late last night from Kassel. This morning—he was going into work late, after lunch—we
were having breakfast when General Greene called. He told Tony to come out to the Schlosshotel right then. Tony’s driver had been told to pick him up for work at thirteen hundred, so with no staff car Tony asked me to run him to the hotel. When I was dropping him off, General Greene said he needed a favor. You were flying into Eschborn and needed a ride. So here I am.”

  “What’s going on at the hotel?”

  “All I know is that General Greene called the meeting. Putting you and Tony at the meeting . . .”

  “And Mattingly?”

  “I saw that enormous car of his in the parking lot . . .”

  “His Horch?”

  “Is that what it is? It suggests he’s part of the meeting. Putting you and my husband and Colonel Mattingly at the meeting makes me think it has to do with what you’re doing at wherever you are in Bavaria.”

  “Kloster Grünau.”

  “But that’s just a guess.”

  “Good guess. Did anyone ever tell you you have very sexy knees?”

  “Eyes off my knees and hands in your lap,” Rachel said, pulling down the hem of her skirt.

  They were now on the rather narrow, curving two-lane road leading to the Schlosshotel from the airstrip.

  “You haven’t told me what you know about this meeting,” Rachel said.

  “Mattingly called me at five this morning. He was more than a little pissed when he learned how long it was going to take me to get up here. That’s all I know. Except that when I get here, I’m not to speak unless spoken to, and I am forbidden to ask questions.”

  There suddenly came from behind the sound of a siren.

  Sirens, plural, Cronley thought as he turned to look behind the Chrysler.

  He saw two M-8 armored cars—sort of light tanks, with wheels rather than tracks—coming up the road.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Rachel steered the car to the side of the road and stopped.

  “I think it’s golf time,” she said.

  “What?”

  The M-8s were almost to them. Cronley saw they had chrome sirens and flashing red lights mounted on them. The men wore white Military Police accoutrements and chrome-plated steel helmets. He also saw they weren’t going as fast as he had thought.