Top Secret Page 18

  And there’s nobody on the road ahead of them, so what’s with the sirens?

  The first M-8 rumbled past them. The MPs in it looked down at them.

  Arrogantly, Cronley thought. More than suspiciously, but that, too.

  Then the second M-8 rumbled past.

  Cronley saw that its bulk had concealed what was behind it: an olive drab Packard Clipper. A small American flag was mounted on the right fender, and on the left was mounted a red flag with five stars in a circle.

  It was impossible to look into the Packard as it passed. The windows were darkened.

  “That has to be Eisenhower,” Cronley said.

  “God, you’re clever,” Rachel said, gently mocking him. Then she added, as a third M-8 passed them, bringing up the tail of the little convoy, “My love, even generals have to play golf.”

  “He’s headed to the Schlosshotel to play golf?”

  “Either that, or he’s going to your meeting. I’d bet on the golf.”

  “And he needs that armored column to get to the golf course?”

  “Ike didn’t think he needed it either. He hates it. Actually, he said it was preposterous. But he finally deferred to the professional judgment of General Greene.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Those MPs are really CIC agents.”

  “Really?” His surprise was evident.

  “You didn’t know that CIC is in charge of protecting Ike and Patton and people like that?”

  “Not until just now.”

  “And running those security details is an additional duty for Tony. My husband.”

  “Fascinating. And you know what else is fascinating? There’s nobody coming either way on the road.”

  “So?”

  “So if I kissed you nobody would see.”

  She caught his hands and held them against the seat between them.

  “Tony heard rumors that die-hard Nazis or Communists were going to try to assassinate Ike and General Patton. He didn’t think they were all that credible, but you don’t take chances. He went to General Greene, and General Greene went to Ike and Patton and told them he thought the threat was credible. Ike finally gave in and accepted. General Patton said he could protect himself, thank you just the same. So, now you know.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “I’m surprised you’re not riding around in one of those M-8s. You’re CIC and an Armor second lieutenant.”

  “Actually, I’m Cavalry and a captain . . .”

  “Only since last week,” she interrupted.

  “. . . and they pulled me out of the Basic Officer Course at Fort Knox when I wasn’t quite halfway through it.”

  “Why’d they do that?”

  “They needed someone to run the CIC. What do I have to do to get you to kiss me?”

  “Put your hands behind your back and promise to keep them there.”

  “Deal.”

  She looked in his eyes. “Oh, Jimmy, what are we going to do?”

  “Stop talking.”

  Approximately forty-five seconds later, Rachel pushed him away, said, “You better get that lipstick off,” and then set about repairing her own.

  When they were moving up the road again, Rachel said, “I’m really sorry we did that.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “I won’t be able to think of anything else for the next twenty-four hours.”

  And then she groped him.

  VI

  [ ONE ]

  Schlosshotel Kronberg

  Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1020 1 November 1945

  A captain wearing the aiguillette and lapel insignia of an aide-de-camp to a brigadier general got out of an armchair in the lobby as Rachel and Jimmy entered. He walked up to them.

  “Paul,” Rachel said.

  “Rachel, the general said if you don’t have time to wait for the colonel in the tearoom, we can take him into Frankfurt when this is over.”

  “I’ll wait,” Rachel said. “Paul, this is Captain Cronley.”

  The captain smiled and put out his hand. “Who I will now take off your hands. If you’ll come with me, Captain?”

  “Thank you for everything, Mrs. Schumann,” Cronley said.

  “My pleasure, Captain. Perhaps we’ll see one another again.”

  —

  The captain led Cronley across the lobby to a corridor, and then down the corridor to a door. There were two men standing by the door. They were wearing blue triangle insignia; Cronley guessed they were CIC agents. One of them opened the door and the other waved Cronley through it.

  He found himself in what he decided was a private dining room. Three tables had been put together end-to-end at the far side of the room. There were more than a dozen officers at them. One of them, in the center, was Rear Admiral Souers. There were two brigadier generals—one of whom was General Greene. And Colonel Mattingly with three other full colonels. And a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel—

  Jesus, that’s Clete! What the hell is he doing here?

  —then several other lieutenant colonels, including Lieutenant Colonel Schumann, whom Cronley had not seen since the incident at Kloster Grünau, and then several majors.

  Some were wearing SHAEF shoulder insignia and a few had the new EUCOM shoulder insignia, a variation of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force flaming sword insignia, made necessary when SHAEF had become European Command. The rest had what looked like a striped ball on their shoulders. This was the insignia of Army Ground Forces, which adorned the shoulders of many warriors assigned to the Pentagon.

  “I’m glad you could finally find time for us, Cronley,” Admiral Souers said. His tone was amused, not sarcastic. Several of the officers at the tables chuckled. “Take a seat, son.”

  Souers indicated a row of a dozen straight-backed chairs against the wall behind Cronley. He had just settled into one when Souers stood and barked, “Attention on deck!”

  Three men entered the room.

  “Keep your seats, please, gentlemen,” the tallest among them said, and then, smiling at Cronley, took the straight-backed chair next to him.

  He took a pack of Chesterfields from the pocket of a linen golf jacket. By the time he got a cigarette to his lips, one of the officers with him, a full colonel wearing the aiguillette and lapel insignia of an aide-de-camp to a general of the Army, had a flaming Zippo waiting.

  “Good morning, sir,” Souers said.

  “Admiral. It’s good to see you,” General of the Army Dwight David Eisenhower said.

  “With your permission, sir?” Souers asked.

  Ike gave permission with a wave of the cigarette in his hand.

  Jimmy saw the general’s fingers were deeply yellow tobacco-stained.

  “I think, with a couple of exceptions,” Souers said, “we all know one another. The exceptions are my Marine aide-de-camp. While Lieutenant Colonel Frade is a Marine—a distinguished one, he has the Navy Cross—he’s not really my aide. That’s to keep people from asking questions. Colonel Frade has been running OSS operations in the Southern Cone of South America.

  “The other officer who needs introduction is sitting next to General Eisenhower. Not one of the colonels, the captain. Captain Cronley is the officer charged with protecting Gehlen and Company.”

  Cronley saw Cletus Frade looking at him. Frade’s face was expressionless.

  What did I expect? That he’d wave at me, or wink, with General Eisenhower sitting next to me?

  Frade nodded his head, just perceptibly. Cronley, deciding Eisenhower couldn’t see him, winked.

  “I sort of thought that’s who you probably were,” Gene
ral Eisenhower said, turning to Cronley. “The President told me what you did in South America. Well done, son. I’m glad I’ve had this chance to meet you.”

  He gave Cronley his hand.

  Cronley said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “How do I get this started?” Souers asked rhetorically. “First things first is usually a good idea.

  “Everyone knows that the OSS is now history. When that happened, as you all know, the Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS was transferred to the State Department and everything else to the War Department, with orders to shut everything down as quickly as possible.

  “There was an exception to this otherwise blanket order. The President ordered the War Department to continue certain OSS operations which he considered necessary in the national interest.

  “The Strategic Services Unit under Brigadier General John Magruder”—Souers pointed to one of the one-stars at the table—“was established under the assistant chief of staff, Intelligence, and assumed responsibility for certain of these operations, the ones that could not be turned off like a lightbulb.

  “About the most important, and most secret, of these operations has been variously known as Operation Gehlen, Operation Ost, and is now, or will shortly be, the South German Industrial Development Organization.

  “Most of you know something about General Gehlen turning over to the OSS, specifically to Colonel Mattingly of OSS Forward”—he turned and pointed to Mattingly—“all the files and assets of Abwehr Ost, said assets including agents in place in the Kremlin and the names of NKGB agents who had infiltrated the Manhattan Project.

  “What only a few of you know—and I really hope only a few—is the price General Gehlen asked, and we paid and are paying, for General Gehlen’s cooperation.”

  He stopped and looked at Eisenhower.

  “You’re on a spot, aren’t you, Admiral Souers?” Eisenhower asked.

  He took a drag on his cigarette and then slowly exhaled the smoke through thoughtfully pursed lips.

  “Okay,” Ike finally said. “And I offer this with the caveat that I’m prepared to deny it under oath, with both hands on a Bible. When Allen Dulles came to me and told me what Gehlen wanted, I knew I didn’t have the authority to give him what he wanted. So I went to the one man who had that authority, he heard me out, and then said, ‘Go ahead.’”

  Cronley’s eyes slowly scanned the room.

  Everybody knew he meant President Truman.

  I wonder why he didn’t just say it?

  “Thank you, sir,” Souers said, and then continued: “The price Gehlen demanded was the protection of his men, and their families—including those of his men who were Nazis—from the Soviets. We met that price, and are continuing to meet it.

  “We hid—are hiding—some of Gehlen’s people in a former monastery in Bavaria and have moved some of them to Argentina.” He turned and looked at Colonel Schumann. “That’s the secret within the secret of Operation Ost. Some people, including the secretary of the Treasury, the Soviets themselves, the FBI, and Colonel Schumann, got wind of it somehow, and started looking into the operation. Schumann almost got shot when he got too close.

  “That’s why you’re here today, Colonel. The rumor is true, Colonel. But from today your mission is to protect that secret, not make it known to all those people who with very good reason are furious that we’re protecting some very despicable people.

  “It has been debated at the highest level whether the intelligence we have already received and will receive in the future is worth the price we have to pay for it. The commander in chief has concluded it is.

  “Now, what are we doing here? What’s the purpose of this meeting?

  “On January first, 1946, or shortly thereafter—in other words, two months from now—President Truman will establish by Presidential Finding an organization to be called the Central Intelligence Group. Congressional authority for the CIG will follow as quickly as that can be accomplished. It is the President’s intention to send my name to the Senate for confirmation as director of the CIG.

  “In the interim, the President has given me responsibility for running what’s left of the OSS, and what has been transferred to the War Department until CIG is up and running.

  “The CIG will be a peacetime version of the OSS. It will take over such things, including covert operations, such as Operation Ost.

  “When the President told me of his plans, he said that one of his greatest concerns was the security of Operation Ost in the next two months. During, in other words, the final shutting down of the OSS and the transfer of General Magruder’s Strategic Services Unit in the Pentagon to the CIG.

  “The very next day, the President asked me to represent him at the funeral services of a young woman killed in a tragic automobile accident. Her husband, whom the President knows and admires, is an officer serving overseas who could not return for the interment.”

  “The President told me about your wife, Captain Cronley,” General Eisenhower said. “I’m very sorry, son.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I wonder if you’d feel so kindly toward me if you knew that when you flashed by that Town and Country station wagon on your way here, I was in it, not remembering my dead bride, but wondering how I could get into Mrs. Colonel Schumann’s pants.

  “When I got to Texas,” Souers went on, “I found Colonel Frade there. The . . . deceased . . . young woman, I learned, was his cousin and he had flown up from Buenos Aires for the funeral. General Donovan had told me specifically that I should not be surprised at anything Colonel Frade did.

  “So I called President Truman and told him Frade was in Texas and did the President want to see him about the next sixty-day problem before Frade returned to Argentina?

  “The President replied that while he would be happy to meet with Colonel Frade, he thought it would be best to have a meeting with all the concerned parties, that he didn’t have to participate, and that, because most of the concerned parties were in Germany, the meeting should be held there—here—and as soon as possible.

  “I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And here we all are.”

  He paused, visibly made up his mind, and then continued: “I said a moment ago that Colonel Frade had flown up from Buenos Aires for the interment of his cousin. I think it germane to tell you that he did so at the controls of a Lockheed Constellation of South American Airways.

  “South American Airways, an Argentine corporation, is an OSS asset. Colonel Frade is the airline’s managing director—what we would call the president or chairman of the board. SAA has proved very useful in the discreet movement of people and certain files from Europe to Argentina.

  “So I was not surprised when Colonel Frade suggested we use the SAA Constellation he’d flown to Midland to fly from there to Washington, pick up General Magruder and his people, and then fly to here.

  “We did so. En route, Colonel Frade informed me that while he would have been happy to provide the aircraft free of charge, he could not do so because of Colonel Juan D. Perón.

  “Currently Argentina’s secretary of Labor and Welfare, secretary of War, and vice president, Perón, in Frade’s judgment, is soon to become president of the Argentine Republic.

  “He also sits on the board of directors of SAA, where, Frade tells me, he has been ‘making noises’ to the effect that SAA should be an Argentine government entity and not a ‘private capitalistic enterprise,’ especially one he strongly suspects is owned and run by American intelligence by whatever name.

  “Frade has so far been able to keep Perón’s hands off SAA, but feels that Perón learning that SAA has been making pro bono, so to speak, flights for the U.S. government would likely permit him to seize SAA now, rather than waiting until he becomes president.

  “The OSS funds remaining are just about exhausted, so one of the problems we are going to have to deal wit
h here today is funding SAA so that we can keep it as long as possible. And then decide what to do when, inevitably, and most likely sooner than later, Perón takes it over.

  “General Eisenhower, I think I have said everything I have to say right now. Is there anything you wish to add, sir?”

  Eisenhower stood. He put a Chesterfield to his lips and his aide-de-camp produced the Zippo. Ike took a deep drag.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I think I can sum this up in a few words. The exigencies of the current political situation vis-à-vis the Soviets have laid on your shoulders one hell of a burden. I have every confidence that you will successfully deal with it, because I have, as the President does, absolute confidence in Admiral Souers and every officer in this room.” He paused. “Right down to the young captain beside me.” That earned him the chuckles he expected. “And now I hear the summons of the links. Thank you for coming.”

  Eisenhower touched Cronley’s shoulder, smiled at him, and then walked out of the room. His aides followed.

  The only reason he was here was to make sure everybody knows that what we’re doing has his and Truman’s approval.

  Souers waited until the door had closed after Eisenhower, and then said: “A break is in order. There’s coffee and doughnuts in the tearoom, out the door, down the corridor, and turn right. And while you’re drinking your coffee, if you happened to introduce one another, that’d kill two birds with one stone. We’ll reconvene back here in half an hour.” He looked at his watch. “Say at eleven-thirty.”

  —

  Cronley saw that both Mattingly and Frade were walking toward him.

  Jimmy thought that Frade looked just about as impressive in his uniform as Mattingly did in his.

  Jesus, he really is a lieutenant colonel. I don’t think I took that in until just now, when I saw him in his Marine Corps uniform.

  On the other hand, I really am a captain, and who would have believed that?

  I have a hard time believing it, even looking in a mirror.

  But Eisenhower called me “captain” and who am I to argue with a five-star?

  Mattingly got to him first.