Curtain of Death Read online

  “I appreciate this, Homer. Thank you.”

  “No thanks required. I was asked to provide my best CIC agent. I have done so.”

  “Nevertheless, thanks, Homer.”

  “You’re welcome, Jack. Now don’t embarrass me.”

  [ FOUR ]

  Suite 507

  Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten

  Maximilianstrasse 178

  Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  0815 24 January 1946

  Cronley came out of the corridor into the office. He was wearing ODs with triangles.

  “I thought you’d still be in bed,” he said to Claudette, who was sitting, in triangled pinks and greens, at her desk. “You all right?”

  “Under the circumstances.”

  “Wallace and the general won’t be here until nine-thirty or later.”

  “Later. The major called just now. They’re about to take off from Eschborn.”

  “That’ll get them here about eleven-thirty. Dette, you sure you don’t want to go back to bed?”

  “Duty calls,” she said. “Besides, when I lie down, I start to feel that sonofabitch’s knife at my throat. And I hear Florence losing it.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry. I should . . .”

  “Jim, if you’re thinking you should have tried to comfort me last night . . .”

  “I should have.”

  “Jim, you coming to my room last night would have been ill-advised. I thought that through . . .”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I guess I decided to take the coward’s way out.”

  “Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. You were right.”

  “Thank you. Which brings us back to why don’t you go back to bed?”

  Lieutenant Thomas Winters walked into the office.

  “That’s why,” Claudette said softly. “Duty calls.”

  She raised her voice: “Good morning, Lieutenant. How can I help you?”

  Winters saluted Cronley.

  “Lieutenant Winters reporting for duty, sir.”

  “We don’t do much saluting around here,” Cronley said, as he returned it. “And never when somebody’s wearing triangles.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Winters handed Cronley a thin stack of mimeographed orders.

  Cronley read them, and handed them to Claudette.

  “Take over, Administrative Officer,” he ordered. “Get our bureaucracy rolling.”

  Claudette read the orders:

  SECRET

  HEADQUARTERS

  U.S. Constabulary

  APO 701, N.Y.

  23 January 1946

  E*X*T*R*A*C*T

  SPECIAL ORDERS 21:

  PARA 4:

  Following Off Hq & Hq Company 11th Constabulary Regt APO 723 NY trans PCS this date WP Mil Detachment, Central Intelligence Directorate-Europe, APO 907. Mvmt Dep auth.

  Winters, Thomas H. lLT Arty 0638383

  Moriarty, Bruce T. 2LT Cav 0558281

  Auth: VOCG U.S. Constabulary 23 Jan 1946

  E*X*T*R*A*C*T

  By Command of Maj Gen Harmon:

  Bruce T. Nettles

  Bruce T. Nettles

  Colonel, AGC

  Adjutant General

  SECRET

  Claudette looked up from the orders. “Welcome, welcome, Lieutenant Winters!”

  He smiled. “Thank you . . .”

  “This is Miss Colbert, Lieutenant Winters,” Cronley said, “who, as I mentioned, is our administrative officer. If she decides to like you, she may allow you to call her Dette. If she decides not to like you, you’ll be in the deep doo-doo.”

  “Duly noted,” Winters said, smiling, and put out his hand to Claudette. “You can—and I hope you will—call me Tom.”

  “Welcome, Tom,” Claudette said. “Where’s the other one? And does that ‘Dep Auth’ apply to both of you, and if not, to which one of you?”

  “You will notice, Winters, that our Dette is already asking the piercing questions for which she is famous. And where is Bonehead?”

  “‘Bonehead’?” Claudette parroted.

  “When Lieutenant Moriarty and I were Fish at our beloved Texas A&M,” Cronley explained, “he was chastised for his hair being too long. So he got another haircut, which also failed to meet the high standards imposed on us by upperclassmen, who were kindly introducing us to la vie militaire, so he shaved his skull.”

  “You were at A&M with this Lieutenant Moriarty?” Claudette asked.

  Cronley nodded. “For four long years. Which brings us back to, where is he?”

  “He’s in Fritzlar, waiting for the wrath of Colonel Fishburn to fall on his head.”

  “He still shaves his head?” Claudette asked

  “Ginger, Mrs. Bonehead, cured him of that,” Cronley said. “To answer your original question, both of these officers are married men.”

  “Children?” she asked.

  “That will occur shortly in both cases,” Cronley said.

  “‘Wrath of Colonel Fishburn’?” Claudette parroted again.

  “The commanding officer of the 11th Constabulary Regiment is not going to like losing these two officers, which he will learn of as soon as a copy of these orders come to his attention. Which will be when, Tom?”

  “We fly—Constab Headquarters flies—a daily round-robin messenger service to all the regiments. I’d guess Colonel Fishburn will get a copy of these orders before noon.”

  “Whereupon his anger will likely fall on Bonehead,” Cronley said.

  The door opened again and Hessinger walked in.

  “You’re a little late, Freddy,” Cronley greeted him. “Had a little trouble getting the fräulein to go back to her village, did you?”

  “Ach, du lieber Gott,” Hessinger said resignedly.

  “Lieutenant Winters, this is my executive assistant, Mr. Hessinger,” Cronley said.

  The two shook hands.

  “I’m sure Mr. Hessinger will have some clever ideas about how we’re going to get Mrs. Winters, Lieutenant and Mrs. Moriarty, and their household goods down here from Fritzlar,” Cronley said.

  Claudette handed Hessinger the orders.

  “Fact bearing on the problem,” Cronley said, “both ladies are in the family way. Conspicuously so.”

  “How much household goods are involved?” Hessinger asked. “Specifically, could we get it all in the back of an ambulance?”

  Winters thought that over before replying, “Unless Bruce and Ginger have more than I think they do, yeah.”

  “POVs?” Hessinger asked.

  “I have a Plymouth, Bruce has a Buick, a great big one, a Roadmaster. I was thinking that my Barbara could ride with Ginger in that and Bruce could drive my Plymouth—”

  “It’s not that simple, Tom,” Cronley interrupted.

  “I suggest we send two ambulances, four Poles, and four of Tiny’s Troopers,” Hessinger said. “The Poles could drive the POVs. On the road, it would be one ambulance with the household goods, then the POVs and then the second ambulance with Tiny’s guys.”

  “That’d work,” Cronley said, after thinking it over. “Set it up, Freddy. Get them on the road as soon as you can.”

  “Sir, I’m a little confused,” Winters said.

  “That’s par for the course around here. What are you confused about?”

  “‘Poles’ and ‘Tiny Troopers’?”

  “For security,” Cronley said. “We had a little problem last night.”

  “What kind of a problem?”

  Cronley visibly considered what he should say. Then he shrugged and said, “Four guys—probably NKGB agents—tried to kidnap Dette and one of our WAC ASA cryptographers just after midnight.”

  “Holy Christ!” Winters exclaimed. And then, “What h
appened?”

  “Dette shot three of them and wounded the fourth guy in the shoulder,” Cronley said.

  “By shot, you mean killed, right?” Winters asked, looking at Claudette in disbelief.

  She shrugged.

  My God, she did kill three people! And wounded a fourth man!

  “And to answer the question in your mind,” Cronley said, “your wife, and Bonehead’s Ginger, are going to be perfectly safe in the Pullach compound. Well, as safe as three barbed wire fences and a battalion of guards can make them.”

  “I didn’t know about this when you were in Fritzlar,” Winters said.

  “It hadn’t happened when we were in Fritzlar,” Cronley said, a bit impatiently. “So, what you do now is get on the phone to Bonehead. We’ve got encrypted lines, but if we used one now, Colonel Fishburn would hear about it, and I’d rather have him learn of the transfers from the orders when he gets them. Talk in tongues, in case anybody is listening . . .”

  “Anybody meaning the NKGB?”

  “And the FBI and maybe the CIC and the CID. So whenever you have to get on an unsecure line here—and always make every effort not to get on an unsecured line—talk in tongues.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to do that, sir.”

  “Without saying it in so many words, tell Bonehead to have your wives pack everything up and have it ready to load in the ambulances either late tonight or first thing in the morning. Got it?”

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  “I think maybe I should go with the ambulances,” Hessinger said.

  He wants to play an active role.

  “You’re needed here.”

  “I could be back tomorrow night.”

  “Somebody with DCI credentials should go,” Claudette said. “I could.”

  Cronley looked at her, then said, “Okay, Freddy. I need Dette here. You go. How about this? We fly you up there. When you’re on the Air Corps side of the base, call Mrs. Moriarty and have her meet you in the PX or someplace. Tell her what’s going on, get her and Mrs. Winters to pack their stuff. Then, either tonight—or in the morning, when they’ve left Fritzlar—you fly back.”

  “That’d work,” Hessinger said.

  “Or I could go, sir,” Winters said. “And do the same thing. I came here in an L-4, and . . .”

  “You’d like to be with your wife?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s understandable,” Cronley said.

  But unless I make it clear right now that this is DCI, and not a Constabulary regiment, where you can ask for—and get—time off to deal with family problems, this will quickly get out of hand.

  Was getting him and Bonehead and their very pregnant wives transferred here yet more proof that I’m a loose cannon fucking things up because I don’t think things through?

  “I need you here, Winters. Sorry. What did you say about coming here in an L-4?”

  “Colonel Wilson arranged that, sir. It’s the one we get.”

  On the other hand, he didn’t remind me his wife is pregnant, and couldn’t I please reconsider his request? And he said “we.”

  Doesn’t that confirm my snap character judgment that he’s a good, duty-first officer?

  “Where is it?”

  “Schleissheim.”

  Schleissheim was the Munich Military Post airfield.

  “Well, we can’t leave it there,” Cronley said. “So what’s going to happen now is we’ll get in the Kapitän, and Freddy will take us to Schleissheim and then drive to the Compound. We’ll get in the Piper Cub and fly it to the Compound. While that’s going on, Dette, you will call the Compound and tell Max—”

  “Max is taking your guest to the monastery,” Claudette interrupted.

  “I stand corrected. You will tell the Pole duty officer and the trooper NCOIC to load up the ambulances and head for the Air Corps, repeat Air Corps, side of the base at Fritzlar, where Freddy will meet them and tell them what to do.

  “Freddy, on his arrival at the Compound, will send the Kapitän back here with two or three Poles in it. The Poles, who will have by then been instructed never to get more than ten feet from you, Miss Colbert, will then drive you to the Compound.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Claudette protested. “I can take care of myself.”

  “That was not a suggestion,” Cronley said. “Meanwhile, at the Compound, Lieutenant Winters and I will shoot touch and goes until he feels confident in his ability to do it by himself. We will then park the Piper, and taking Major Bischoff with us in a Storch, fly to the monastery so that Konrad can have a nice long chat with our guest.

  “Once that’s been set up, we’ll go back to the Compound. By then, it is to be hoped, Winters will have absorbed enough of my expert instruction to be able to land the Storch at the Compound. If we live through that, we will tell General Gehlen and Colonel Mannberg what we have learned about our guest at the monastery, and what Bischoff thinks we might learn in the future. Got it?”

  “One more fact bearing on the problem,” Claudette said. “Major Wallace said to reserve a room here, long term, for a CIC agent named Hammersmith. What’s that all about?”

  “You said Hammersmith?”

  “CIC Supervisory Special Agent John D. ‘Jack’ Hammersmith.”

  “If that’s who I think it is, he’s a heavy-duty CIC agent I knew when I was in Marburg. He used to be a major, now that I think about it. I have no idea what it’s about. Probably something to do with what happened to you last night. Ready, Freddy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  III

  [ ONE ]

  Kloster Grünau

  Schollbrunn, Bavaria

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1005 24 January 1946

  “Follow me through, Tom,” Cronley ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Winters replied, and put his hand very lightly on the stick of the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch, and then put his feet very lightly on the rudder pedals.

  “First we put the flaps down,” Cronley said, as he pointed the nose of the aircraft at a dirt road just outside a small compound in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps.

  Flaps came out of the trailing edge of the aircraft’s wing.

  The Storch—a high-wing three-seater with long-legged landing gear, hence Storch, which is German for “stork”—was painted a dull black. Visible on the wings and fuselage from, say, fifty feet, but no farther than that, were the insignias identifying it as a military aircraft in the service of the U.S. Army.

  “Which of course slows us down,” Cronley said conversationally, “which, in turn, causes the leading edge of the wing, previously held in place by air pressure, to drop.”

  Winters looked up at the wing in time to see the leading edge drop.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “No man is without sin,” Cronley said. “Which in turn slows us down even more, at the same time giving us a little more lift.”

  Ten seconds later he said, “Which permits us to land at about forty kilometers an hour. I presume you’ve noticed the airspeed and altimeter give readings in klicks?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The wheels chirped as they touched down.

  “Which in turn permits us to stop in about two hundred, two hundred fifty feet.”

  The Storch slowed and stopped.

  “That’s amazing,” Winters said. “It stalls at forty kilometers?”

  “A little under that,” Cronley said, and then added, “You have the aircraft. Taxi to the end of the runway and turn it around.”

  When Winters reached the end of the runway—which was actually a dirt road—he saw that two jeeps were waiting for them. One, with a pedestal-mounted .50 caliber Browning machine gun, held two Poles. The other held a first sergeant, a black man, and a man in triangle ODs.

/>   “You want me to go through that again,” Cronley asked, “or do you think you can take off and land safely at your present skill level?” He paused, but before Winters could reply, he added, “If you make me go through it again, I will be annoyed. If you bend my bird trying to get it back onto the ground, I will really be annoyed. Your call.”

  “He’s going to take off again?” a third voice, belonging to the man in the third seat, came over their headsets.

  “I’m waiting for him to tell me, Konrad,” Cronley said.

  “May I get out now, Herr Cronley?” Major Konrad Bischoff said.

  “No. I want him to try this in a maximum weight—or nearly maximum weight—condition. Think of yourself as a sandbag, Konrad.”

  “Gott im Himmel!”

  “Major Bischoff apparently doesn’t have much faith in your flying skill, Lieutenant Winters. How about you?”

  Winters replied by advancing the throttle. Ten seconds and two hundred fifty feet later, the Storch was airborne.

  —

  “Congratulations, Lieutenant,” Cronley said eight minutes later. “By the power vested in me, I declare that you have passed your Storch check-ride. You are also herewith designated Aviation Officer, Military Detachment, DCI-Europe.”

  “This is one hell of an airplane,” Winters said.

  “It is,” Cronley agreed. “It is also irreplaceable, so keep that in mind while you’re flying it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shut it down, and then we will have a look at our guest.”

  “You keep saying that,” Winters said. “Who’s your guest?”

  “One of the guys who tried to kidnap Dette and Florence. Max brought him here from the 98th General Hospital so that he and Konrad can have a little chat.”

  “What is this place?” Winters said. “Am I allowed to ask?”

  “Yeah. You’re now in DCI. As soon as I can get Dette to make them up, you’ll get DCI special agent credentials. You’re supposed to know everything—well, almost everything—that’s going on. If you don’t know, ask. Consider that an order.”

  “Bonehead, too?”

  “Yeah, Bonehead, too.”