The Assassination Option Read online

  There were four rooms on the ground floor of the building and a large, single room on the second. The military government liaison officer—which was one of the cover titles Captain Cronley was going to use—lived there. A bathroom had been added to the second floor when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had hastily converted the village of Pullach into the South German Industrial Development Organization Compound.

  The original bathroom on the ground floor and the kitchen had been upgraded to American standards at the same time. The main room on the ground floor held office furnishings. A smaller room provided a private office for the military government liaison officer. There was a small dining room next to the kitchen, and a smaller room with a sign reading LIBRARY held a substantial safe and a desk holding a SIGABA system. This was a communications device, the very existence of which was classified Secret. It provided secure, encrypted communication between Pullach, Kloster Grünau, Berlin, Washington, D.C., and Mendoza and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

  There were five men in the downstairs office: Major Harold Wallace, a trim thirty-two-year-old wearing “pinks and greens”; James D. Cronley Jr.; First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie, who like Cronley was wearing an olive-drab Ike jacket and trousers; Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger, in pinks and greens whose lapels bore small embroidered triangles with the letters US in their centers; and finally, a civilian, a slight, pale-faced forty-three-year-old with a prominent thin nose, piercing eyes, and a receding hairline. His name was Reinhard Gehlen, and he was wearing an ill-fitting, on-the-edge-of ragged suit. As a generalmajor of the Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht, Gehlen had been chief of Abwehr Ost, the German intelligence agency dealing with the “Ost,” which meant the East, and in turn the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

  Gehlen and Cronley were sitting in upholstered chairs, drinking coffee. Major Wallace and First Sergeant Dunwiddie were seated at one of the desks as Hessinger hovered over them, like a schoolteacher tutoring backward students, as they signed sheafs of forms.

  Finally, Hessinger proclaimed, “That’s it. You are now a civilian and can no longer say cruel and unkind things to me.”

  He spoke with a thick, somewhat comical German accent. A German Jew, he had escaped Nazi Germany and went to the United States in 1938. Shortly after his graduation, summa cum laude, from Harvard College, he had been drafted. Physically unable to qualify for an officer’s commission, he had been assigned to the Counterintelligence Corps and sent to Germany, where it was believed he would be very useful in running down Nazis and bringing them to trial.

  He was now doing something quite different.

  “Aw, come on, Fat Freddy, my little dumpling,” Dunwiddie said, skillfully mocking Hessinger’s thick accent, “when have I ever said anything cruel or unkind to you?”

  Cronley laughed out loud. Major Wallace and General Gehlen tried, and failed, not to smile.

  “Whenever have you not?” Hessinger said. “Now can I trust you to deliver these documents to General Greene’s sergeant? Or am I going to have to send them by courier?”

  “Freddy,” Cronley asked, “why couldn’t we have done what you just did tomorrow in the Farben Building? For that matter, why does this civilian have to go to Frankfurt to have Greene pin on his bars?”

  “Because you can’t be commissioned the day you get discharged as an enlisted man. That’s what the regulations say. General Greene’s sergeant was very specific about that, and when I checked, he was right. And he said General Greene thought it would be a nice thing for him to do.”

  And it will also serve to remind everybody that he’s a general, and I’m a brand-new captain.

  “Maybe Colonel Mattingly will be there,” Cronley said. “Maybe we can ask him to pin on your bars. I’d love to see that.”

  “Let that go, Jim,” Dunwiddie said. “If it doesn’t bother me, why are you bothered?”

  “Because I am a champion of the underdog, and in particular of the retarded underdog.”

  “You guys better get down to the bahnhof if you’re going to catch the Blue Danube,” Major Wallace said.

  The Blue Danube was the military train that ran daily in each direction between Vienna and Berlin.

  “We’re not taking the Blue Danube,” Cronley said.

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. One, I can’t afford to take two days off just so this fat civilian can get his bars pinned on by General Greene.”

  “And two?”

  “General Gehlen cannot ride the Blue Danube. Americans only.”

  “You’re taking General Gehlen?”

  “We’re going to drive to Kloster Grünau, where I have some things to do. In the morning, we’re going to fly to Eschborn. There, if I can trust Freddy, we will be met by a vehicle assigned to the 711th Quartermaster Mess Kit Repair Company, which will transport us to the Farben Building. That is set in concrete, right, Freddy?”

  “The ambulance will be at Eschborn,” Hessinger confirmed.

  “You’re asking for trouble with those mess kit repair bumper markings on those ambulances, Jim,” Major Wallace said.

  “The bumpers read MKRC. It’s not spelled out.”

  “And if some MP gets first curious and then nasty?”

  “Then I will dazzle him with my CIC credentials,” Cronley said. “Which is another reason I’m going to Frankfurt. I want to ask General Greene about not only keeping the credentials after January second but getting more, so I can give them to half a dozen of Tiny’s guys.”

  “Does Colonel Mattingly know you’re bringing the general with you?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Cronley said simply. And then went on, “After Tiny becomes an officer, we will all get back in the ambulance, go back to Eschborn, get back in the Storch, and come back here. God willing, and if the creek don’t rise, we should be back before it gets dark.”

  When Cronley, Gehlen, and Dunwiddie were in the car—an Opel Kapitän, now painted olive drab and bearing Army markings—Dunwiddie said, “You didn’t tell Major Wallace about what happened at Kloster Grünau.”

  “You noticed, huh?”

  “You going to tell me why not?”

  “First of all, nothing happened at Kloster Grünau. Write that down.”

  “You mean two guys we strongly suspect were NKGB agents penetrated Kloster Grünau, tried to kill Tedworth, were killed by Ostrowski, and then buried in unmarked graves, that ‘nothing’?”

  “If I had told Wallace about that incident that never happened, he would have felt duty bound to tell Mattingly. Mattingly, to cover his ass, would have brought this to the attention of at least Greene, and maybe the EUCOM G2. A platoon of EUCOM brass, all with Top Secret clearances, all of whom are curious as hell about Kloster Grünau, would descend on our monastery to investigate the incident. It would be both a waste of time and would compromise Operation Ost. As Captain Cronley of the Twenty-third CIC, I can’t tell them to butt out. So I didn’t tell Wallace. Okay?”

  “Okay. Incident closed.”

  “Not quite. I haven’t figured out what to do with Ostrowski.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That I haven’t figured out what to do about . . . or with him.”

  “For example?”

  “You do hang on like a starving dog does to a bone, don’t you, Mr. Dunwiddie?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Among other things, he could fly one of our Storchs. He used to fly Spitfires.”

  “That would mean we would have an ex-Luftwaffe pilot and a Polish DP flying airplanes we’re not supposed to have in the first place. And among what other things?”

  “The OSS used to have civilian employees. Maybe the Directorate of Central Intelligence can.”

  “Interesting thought,” General Gehlen said. “Ostrowski is an interesting man.”

  “With all respect, sir,” Dunwiddie said,
“whenever you and Captain Cronley agree on something, I worry.”

  [TWO]

  Office of the Chief, Counterintelligence Corps

  Headquarters, European Command

  The I.G. Farben Building

  Frankfurt am Main

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1145 29 December 1945

  Major Thomas J. Derwin, who was thirty-four, five feet ten, weighed 165 pounds, and to whose green tunic lapels were pinned the crossed rifles of Infantry and whose shoulder bore the embroidered insignia of Army Ground Forces, pushed open the door under the sign identifying the suite of offices of the chief, Counterintelligence Corps, European Command.

  Derwin was carrying two canvas suitcases, called Valv-Paks. He set them down just inside the door and looked around the office. There were four people in it. One of them, sitting behind a desk, was a Women’s Army Corps—WAC—chief warrant officer, an attractive woman in her late twenties. She was wearing the female version of pinks and greens—a green tunic over a pink skirt.

  The three men were wearing OD Ike jackets and trousers. One of them was a stocky, nearly bald master sergeant. He was sitting behind a desk next to the WAC’s desk. Sitting slumped in chairs before the master sergeant’s desk were a captain—a good-looking young guy—and an enormous black man whose uniform was bare of any insignia of rank.

  As they rose to their feet, Derwin realized he knew the captain.

  Cronley, he thought. James D. Cronley Jr. I had him in a Techniques of Surveillance class at Holabird. They were so short of officers in Germany that they pulled him out of school and sent him over here before he finished. Then I saw him again at the officers’ club at Holabird a couple of months ago. He said he was in the States as an escort officer for some classified material.

  And then, immediately, Derwin knew he was wrong.

  What the hell. I’ve just spent twenty-six hours flying over here. Brain-wise, I’m not functioning on all six cylinders. Which is not going to help me when I meet my new boss. First impressions do matter. That captain is not Cronley. Cronley’s a second lieutenant. Amazing physical resemblance.

  “May I help you, sir?” the master sergeant asked.

  “I’m Major Derwin, Sergeant. Reporting for duty.”

  “Yes, sir, we’ve been expecting you,” the WAC said. “I’ll let the general know you’re here.”

  She went to an interior door and pushed it open.

  “General, Major Derwin is here.”

  “Captain,” Derwin asked, “has anyone ever told you that you bear a striking resemblance to a second lieutenant named Cronley?”

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said, smiling. “I’ve heard that.”

  A stocky, forty-three-year-old officer with a crew cut appeared in the inner office door. His olive-drab uniform had the single star of a brigadier general on its epaulets.

  That has to be my new boss, Brigadier General H. Paul Greene, chief, Counterintelligence, European Command.

  And he looks like the tough sonofabitch everybody says he is.

  General Greene looked at the WAC.

  “Why didn’t you tell me these two were here?”

  The captain answered for her.

  “We’re waiting for General Gehlen, sir. He said he’d like to be present, and I thought it was a nice gesture on his part, so I brought him along.”

  Did he say “General Gehlen”? Not, certainly, Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen?

  “And where is General Gehlen?”

  “As we tried to sneak in the back door, General Smith’s convoy rolled up,” Captain Cronley replied. “He asked the general if he had a few minutes for him, and of course General Gehlen did.”

  General Smith? General Walter Bedell Smith, chief of staff to General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander in chief, European Command?

  “And that surprised you?” General Greene said, chuckling.

  “No, sir, it did not.”

  “You’re Derwin?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m Major Derwin.”

  The general’s face showed he was thinking.

  “Okay, everybody come in,” he said finally. “They call that ‘killing two birds with one stone.’”

  He turned and they followed him into the office.

  There was an elegantly turned out, handsome colonel of Armor slouched on a couch before a coffee table. He wore a green Ike jacket over pink trousers. His trousers were pulled up high enough to reveal highly polished Tanker boots.

  The general went behind his desk.

  Derwin marched up to it, came to attention, and saluted.

  “Sir, Major Thomas G. Derwin reporting for duty.”

  The general returned the salute, said, “You may stand at ease,” then extended his hand. “Welcome to EUCOM CIC, Major. How was the flight?”

  The general gestured for the captain to sit, and he did so, in an armchair at one end of the coffee table.

  “Long and noisy, sir.”

  “I am having symptoms of caffeine deficiency,” the general said, raising his voice.

  “Antidote on the way, General,” a female voice called.

  A moment later, the WAC chief warrant officer pushed a wheeled tray holding a silver coffee service into the room.

  “We can pour our own coffee, Alice—or get Cronley to pour it . . .”

  Did he say Cronley?

  “. . . and then no calls except from the Command Group. When General Gehlen appears, show him in.”

  “Yes, sir,” the WAC officer said.

  “Cronley, what’s Gehlen doing here?” the Armor colonel asked, somewhat unpleasantly.

  “He said that he’d like to be present, so I brought him along.”

  “Was that necessary?” the colonel asked.

  “I thought it was appropriate,” Cronley replied.

  The colonel doesn’t like Captain Cronley. And Cronley—twice—didn’t append “sir” when replying to the colonel’s questions.

  But he—and Greene—let him get away with it.

  “Bob, this is Major Derwin. Major, this is Colonel Robert Mattingly, my deputy,” the general said.

  “Welcome to EUCOM, Major,” Mattingly said, and offered his hand.

  “Coffee, Cronley, coffee,” General Greene said.

  “Yes, sir,” Cronley said. He stood up and started pouring coffee for everybody.

  When he got to Derwin, Derwin asked, “Have we met, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

  “At Holabird?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sonofabitch is smiling. What’s so funny?

  The master sergeant appeared at the door.

  “Sir,” he announced, “Generals Smith and Gehlen.”

  General Smith, a tall, trim, erect officer who was in ODs, and General Gehlen walked into the office. Everyone rose and stood to attention.

  I’ll be damned, Derwin thought. That is him, Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen, former chief of Abwehr Ost, the intelligence agency of the German high command, dealing with the Ost . . . which meant the Russians.

  What the hell is he doing here?

  With General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s Number Two?

  What’s going on here?

  “Rest, gentlemen, please,” Smith said. “General Gehlen just told me what he was doing in Frankfurt, and I invited myself to the ceremony. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Yes, sir, of course,” General Greene said, not quite succeeding in concealing his surprise.

  General Smith turned to Captain Cronley.

  “Cronley, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I had no idea who you were, Captain, just now at the rear entrance. Until General Eisenhower corrected me a few minutes ago, I thought the Captain Cronley who is
to be chief, DCI-Europe, was going to be a barnacle-encrusted naval officer formerly on Admiral Souers’s staff.”

  General Greene and Colonel Mattingly dutifully chuckled at General Smith’s wit.

  Major Derwin wondered, What the hell is DCI-Europe? And who the hell is Admiral Souers?

  “No, sir. I’m just a simple, and junior, cavalryman.”

  “Well, you may be junior, Captain, but you’re not simple. General Eisenhower also told me the circumstances of your recent promotion. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  He offered Cronley his hand.

  “Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

  General Smith turned to the enormous black man.

  “Now to the second case of mistaken identity,” he said, and then asked, “Son, are you still a first sergeant?”

  “Sir, at the moment I’m sort of in limbo. I was discharged yesterday.”

  He spoke softly in a very deep voice.

  “Then I will call you what I used to call your father,” General Smith said, “when, in the age of the dinosaurs, I was his company commander and your dad was one of my second lieutenants: Tiny.”

  “That’s fine with me, sir.”

  “Tiny, I had no idea until just now, when General Gehlen told me, that you were even in the Army, much less what you’ve done and what you’re about to do. Just as soon as things slow down a little, you’re going to have to come to dinner. My wife remembers you as a tiny—well, maybe not tiny—infant.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir.”

  “Homer, where the hell is the photographer?”

  A full colonel, wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp to a four-star general, stepped into the office.

  “Anytime you’re ready for him, General,” he said.

  The general waved the photographer, a plump corporal carrying a Speed Graphic press camera, into the room.

  “What’s the protocol for this, Homer?” General Smith asked.

  “First, the insignia is pinned to his epaulets, sir . . .”

  “General Greene can do the left and I’ll do the right,” General Smith said.

  “And then he takes the oath with his hand on a Bible.”