“You were a weekend warrior?” Frade said, laughing.
“Indeed I was. And when we were nationalized, Company A was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky. They broke it up, and I found myself assigned to the 325th Mechanized Infantry, Major I. D. White Commanding. When they assigned him to Second Armored, Hell on Wheels, White took me with him.
“And then one day, in North Africa, Allen Dulles showed up at General White’s headquarters—White was then colonel commanding Combat Command A—and he asked me if I would be willing to accept an unspecified assignment involving great danger and parachuting behind enemy lines. I told him I would not. General White said, ‘Bob, I won’t order you to go, but I think you should.’
“The next thing I knew I was in Scotland learning how to jump out of airplanes and sever the carotid artery with a dagger.”
“Why did Dulles recruit you?”
“I speak Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and a little Hungarian. That had a good deal to do with it. I’ve got sort of a flair for languages.”
“So do I.”
“Dulles told me,” Mattingly said.
“Did you parachute behind enemy lines?”
“Twice into France and once into Italy.”
“That’s what those stars on the jump wings mean?”
“Uh-huh. And speaking of uniforms, when we get to the castle, we’re going to have to get you some uniforms. You can’t run around Berlin looking like a doorman. And we’ll have to get you some identification.”
They were now out of Frankfurt, moving rapidly down a two-lane, tree-lined highway. The headlights picked out here and there where trees had been cut down to serve as barriers, and where wrecked American and German tanks and vehicles had been shoved off the road.
[FIVE]
Schlosshotel Kronberg Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse, Germany 1920 19 May 1945
Following Dooley’s Mercedes, Enrico steered the Horch around a final corner and suddenly the hotel was visible. The massive structure looked like a castle. It was constructed of gray fieldstone and rose, in parts, five stories high. Lights blazed from just about every window. There was no sign of damage whatever.
“Hermann the butler—I kept him on—tells me that when I ordered the lights turned on, it was the first time they’d been on since September 1939,” Mattingly said.
Frade now saw something both unexpected and somehow out of place. An Army sergeant, a great bull of a black man with a Thompson submachine gun hanging from his shoulder, was marching a file of soldiers—all black, all armed with M-1 rifles—up to the entrance. After a moment, Clete realized that the sergeant was changing the sentries on guard.
“Stop right in front, Enrico,” Mattingly ordered.
When they got out of the car, the sergeant bellowed, “Ten-hut” and saluted crisply. Mattingly returned it as crisply. Clete, at the last second, kept under control his Pavlovian urge to salute.
People in doormen’s uniforms should not salute.
Everybody got out of the two cars and started up the stairs.
As they reached the entrance, a huge door was pulled inward by a very elderly man who had trouble doing so.
“Thank you,” Mattingly said in German, then added to Frade, “Faithful retainers. There’s about two dozen of them.”
“They don’t want to leave?”
“We feed them, generously, so there’s some they can take home. There’s not much food anywhere in Germany.”
Mattingly led the party across an elegantly furnished foyer into a well-equipped bar.
Someone in the bar called “Attention” and everybody stood.
“At ease,” Mattingly called.
Clete guessed that there were thirty or more men. All but a few were in uniform, half of these adorned with the standard rank and branch insignia. The other half had blue triangles around the letters U.S. sewn to the uniform lapels and to the shoulders where unit insignia were normally shown. There were perhaps eight men in civilian clothing, some of it close to elegant, some of it looking like it had come from the Final Reduction racks at Goodwill.
Mattingly led them through the bar to a smaller—but not small—room holding a large circular table and its own bar. There was an elderly man in a white jacket standing behind the bar.
“Would you please ask the general to join us?” Mattingly courteously ordered the barman in German. “And then that will be all, thank you.”
He signaled for everyone to take places around the table.
“This room is secure,” Mattingly announced. “I have it regularly swept. The result of that is that you’ll have to pour your own drinks—Honor System. A quarter for whiskey, ten cents for beer. There is a jar on the bar.”
He pointed and then went on: “The rule is that when any German enters the room, you stop your conversation in midsentence and don’t resume talking until the German has left. And I don’t mean that you can change the subject. I mean not a word. Clear?”
He looked around at everybody to make sure he had made the point.
The door opened. A slight, pale-faced man with sunken eyes, very thin hair, and wearing a baggy, nondescript suit came in.
“What I said before does not apply to this gentleman,” Mattingly said to the table, then raised his voice and addressed the man entering the room: “Good evening, sir.”
The man walked to where Frade was sitting with Mattingly and wordlessly offered his hand.
“General Gehlen,” Mattingly said, “this is Colonel Frade.”
Frade hurriedly got to his feet and put out his hand. He was surprised at Gehlen’s firm grip as he said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, General Gehlen.”
“I understand, Colonel,” Gehlen replied, “that you have been taking very good care of my men.”
How the hell could he know that?
“I have to tell you, sir,” Frade said, “that I have about half of them confined.”
“I rather thought you might consider that necessary,” Gehlen said. “But you are forgiven, providing, of course, that you’ve brought the money.”
He’s making some kind of joke.
Mattingly’s face shows he understands the joke.
But what the hell is he talking about?
“Excuse me, General?” Frade asked.
“The money, Clete,” Mattingly said. “Graham’s half a million dollars. Please don’t tell me you don’t have it.”
Oh, shit!
“I wasn’t told to bring any money,” Frade said. “And that half a million I signed for—I thought those were funds for other OSS business. My wife’s got it put away in the safe in our house in Buenos Aires.”
“The best-laid plans of mice and men,” General Gehlen said.
“Clete, how soon can you get it here?” Mattingly asked.
“I was about to say on the next SAA flight to Lisbon. But that won’t work. The only SAA pilots I’d trust with it on are this rescue-the-diplomats mission.”
“Well, then you’ll just have to go get it,” Mattingly said. “That’s what, ten, twelve days at the most? I can have some money flown from London. Not that much. But enough to get started. You do have the money, right? You can get it here?”
Clete nodded, then said, “What’s it for?”
“That’s something else we’ll get into after we have a drink and our supper.”
VIII
[ONE]
The Private Dining Room The Garden Lounge Schlosshotel Kronberg Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse, Germany 1930 19 May 1945
“You’re not drinking, Clete?” Mattingly asked as he looked around the huge circular table.
Even with “everybody”—General Gehlen, Frade, Stein, Boltitz, von Wachtstein, Rodríguez, Delgano, Peralta, Vega, Dooley, and Mattingly—sitting around the table, there were enough empty chairs for twice that many people.
Clete had the irreverent thought that it looked like only half of the Knights of the Round Table had shown up for King Arthur’s nightly briefing.
“W
hen are we flying to Berlin?” Frade responded, and when Mattingly’s face showed the answer confused him, he smiled benignly at Dooley and went on: “You’ll learn, Dooley, if they ever let you fly big airplanes, like Hansel and me, that it’s best to do so clear-eyed and not hungover.”
Mattingly frowned at Frade.
“In the morning,” Mattingly said, “you’re all going to Berlin—or that’s the plan.”
“Pour your beer back in the bottle, like a good boy, Dooley,” Frade said.
“Kiss my ass,” Dooley said.
“I’m going to ask you, Colonel Frade, and you, Colonel Dooley, to try to control your somewhat less than scintillating wit,” Mattingly said. “If you can’t, I’ll stand both of you at attention.”
“Yes, sir,” Frade said. “Sorry.”
“Turning to what happens now,” Mattingly said. “The problem of the Russians being difficult in Berlin was already being discussed at SHAEF, and a possible solution thereof had been reached when South American Airlines—more accurately, the Republic of Argentina—was added to the problem.
“The Argentine ambassador in Washington approached the State Department and asked them about flight clearances for their mercy mission. Not being aware of the Russians’ mischief, the State Department in effect said, ‘Not a problem. We will go to General Marshall and have him tell Eisenhower to take care of it.’
“Marshall’s message arrived during a staff conference, at which David Bruce was present and the subject of the Russians was under discussion.
“Eisenhower’s first reaction was to quickly decide that the Argentines would just have to wait until the problem was solved. Beetle Smith—you know who he is? Ike’s chief of staff—had another view.
“General Smith didn’t think the Russians should be allowed to ban Argentine—or any civilian—aircraft from flying from the American zone of occupation over the Russian zone into the American zone of Berlin any more than they should be allowed to question our right to fly military aircraft in and out.
“David Bruce agreed with General Smith—they usually do agree on just about everything—and then threw something else into the equation, something previously not known to SHAEF.
“South American Airways, David told Ike and Beetle—words to this effect—was an OSS asset, or close to one. Not only that, but the pilot of the Constellation at that moment over the South Atlantic en route to Lisbon was actually the OSS man in charge of the asset, a Marine lieutenant colonel who was held in very high regard by Allen Dulles.
“And there was one more fact bearing on the problem, David Bruce said. The advance element of OSS Europe was already outside of Frankfurt. General Smith asked who was running it, and David Bruce told him, whereupon the Supreme Commander said words to this effect: ‘Mattingly used to work for General White, right? He’s the officer who flew over Berlin when the Russians were still taking it in one of White’s L-4s? The right man, for once, in the right place. Let him deal with this.
“‘He might even be able to keep White and Patton from starting World War Three. Tell the Argentine OSS man to report to Mattingly, and tell the Eighth Air Force to give Mattingly whatever he thinks he needs. Keep me advised. Next problem?’
“Shortly thereafter, David Bruce dumped the problem in my lap.
“Now, there are several reasons that it is important that I deal with this to General Eisenhower’s complete satisfaction. Not least among them is that he, so far, has not joined the chorus singing, ‘Shut down the OSS now; it’s not needed’ into President Truman’s ear.
“If I—forgive the egotism—if we can handle the problem of the Russians trying to keep us out of Berlin, Allen Dulles and/or David Bruce can go to Ike and ask his assistance to keep us alive. He may not give it. Ike unfortunately thinks General Marshall walks on water, but we have to try.”
“Sir,” Frade said, “how do you plan to deal with it?”
Mattingly’s face showed that he appreciated both being called “Sir” and Frade’s tone of voice.
“At this moment, Colonel Frade, a small convoy of Air Force vehicles, under the command of a captain, is attempting to drive to Berlin. The convoy consists of two trucks and a jeep. One of the trucks is a mobile aircraft control tower. The other contains supplies.
“There is an autobahn—a superhighway patterned after the New Jersey Turnpike—running between Hanover, which is in the British zone, and Berlin. More specifically, more importantly, to the American zone of Berlin.
“The Soviets have blocked the autobahn at Helmstedt—at the border between East and West Germany. It’s just over one hundred miles—one hundred seventy kilometers—from Helmstedt to the American zone of Berlin. If the Air Force people can get past the Helmstedt roadblock, they can be at Tempelhof in under three hours. Once there, they will immediately put the control tower into operation.”
“Sir, what air traffic are they going to control?” Frade asked.
“At first light, Piper Cubs—L-4s—flying between General White’s Division Rear, on the Elbe, and Berlin. At about oh-nine-hundred hours, an Air Forces C-54, having flown out of Frankfurt, will contact Tempelhof Air Forces Field and ask for approach and landing instructions. After it discharges its cargo, it will again contact the tower, to file a flight plan back to Rhein-Main. And once it crosses the East/ West Border, a South American Airways Constellation will be cleared by Rhein-Main to proceed to the U.S. air base at Tempelhof.
“The idea is that not only do we have a right to fly into Berlin, but we are in fact doing it.”
“Sir, with respect,” Frade said, “it seems that scenario depends almost entirely on this Air Forces captain being able to talk his way past the Russians blocking the highway.”
“In other words, ‘Is there a Plan B?’ Yes, there is. In the event the Mobile Control Tower can’t get past the Russians at Helmstedt—it may, as the Air Forces captain is actually one of us, a bright chap, and actually a lieutenant colonel, and we may be lucky—but if we’re not, an Air Forces C-54 will take off at oh-eight-hundred from Rhein-Main and head for Tempelhof. It will have aboard air traffic controllers and their equipment. And me. Once that’s up and running, we shift to clearing the SAA Constellation for flight to Tempelhof.”
“And what if the Russians shoot down the C-54?” Frade asked.
“We anticipate that—probability eighty percent—they will attempt to turn the C-54 with threatening aerial moves by their fighters. We anticipate that these fighters will be YAK-3s.”
Peter von Wachtstein offered: “If you get in a fight with one or more of them, Dooley, get him to chase you in a steep climb, and then, in a steep dive, turn inside him. Try to get his engine from the side; it’s well armored on the bottom.”
“What makes you think Dooley might get in a fight with them?” Mattingly asked.
“You’ve fought YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“I was shot down twice by YAK-3s,” von Wachtstein said, “before I learned how to fight them. Put your stream of fire into his side.”
“I hadn’t planned to get into the rules of engagement yet, but since the subject has come up,” Mattingly said, “Colonel Dooley, you will select four of your best—and by best, I mean most experienced, levelheaded—pilots and by oh-seven-hundred tomorrow brief them on what is expected of them.
“You will escort the C-54 from the border across East Germany to Berlin. I’ve got an information packet for you with more details, but briefly here, on takeoff from Rhein-Main, the C-54 will circle the field until attaining an altitude of ten thousand feet and a cruising speed of two hundred twenty-five miles per hour—as fast as a C-54 can fly. General Halebury told me that inasmuch as fuel consumption is not a factor—it’s right at two hundred seventy miles from Rhein-Main to Tempelhof—that extra speed would be justified both by reducing flight time and making it easier for the faster P-38s to stay with it.
“The C-54 will then fly northeast on a straight line to Berlin. The compass heading will be forty-eight-point-four d
egrees.
“This is your call, Dooley, but General Halebury suggested that you place your aircraft two thousand feet above and that far behind the C-54. This will, the general suggests, place you in the best position to interdict any Russian aircraft intending to divert the C-54 from its course or altitude.”
“Sir, with respect, General Halebury is not a fighter pilot,” Dooley said. “I’d like to go a little higher.”
“Well, then fuck him,” Frade offered. “What does Halebury know? Do it your way, Dooley.”
Mattingly’s head snapped angrily to Frade. But when he saw the smile on everyone’s face, including that of General Gehlen, he didn’t say what he had originally intended to say.
Instead, he said, “I suppose I should have known it was too much to hope that you could contain your wit.”
“Did this general have any sage advice as to how Dooley and his guys are supposed to interdict the YAKs?” Frade asked. “You’re talking about bluffing them, right?”
“I think I’d rephrase that,” Mattingly said. “What Dooley and his aircraft are going to have to do, presuming the YAKs appear, is make them think it would be ill-advised for them to threaten the C-54 by flying dangerously close to it.”
“And the way I’m supposed to do that is fly dangerously close to the YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“I don’t see any other way to make them behave, do you?” Frade asked seriously.
“The Russians will be under specific orders,” von Wachtstein said. “If those orders are to shoot down the C-54, they’ll do just that. Without warning. If their orders are to harass the C-54 with the thought that might make the C-54 pilot turn around, that’s all they’ll do. Unless, of course, there’s someone very senior in one of the YAKs, in which case they would follow his lead.”
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