“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Jackson said.
“I didn’t know about your wife, Ivan,” Cronley said. “I’m sorry.”
Serov nodded solemnly.
Cronley was not surprised to realize that he really did feel badly for the Russian, that it wasn’t just the expected thing to say. In late October—not quite six months earlier—the drunk driver of a big rig had killed his bride, Marjorie Howell Cronley, as she drove her Buick into Washington on U.S. 1. They had been married the day before by a justice of the peace.
Serov went on. “Rozalina died of breast cancer at the Tomsk cancer hospital. We’d met there—the hospital is part of Tomsk National Research Medical Center—and were married there and then gone away, only to return for Rozalina to die there. We’d been married not quite twenty years.”
Twenty years? Cronley thought.
Jesus, I didn’t have twenty hours.
Serov paused as the waiter delivered the open champagne bottle, put it before Serov, then filled the others’ flutes with a fresh bottle.
Cronley lifted his flute.
“May I propose we toast your bride?”
“Thank you, James,” Serov said, clearly moved by the gesture.
He picked up his champagne flute, and when everyone else had raised theirs, he said, “To my beautiful Rozalina, now blessed with eternal peace.”
After everyone took a sip, Serov continued. “She married me against the wishes of her family. At the time, I thought it was because I was then an NKGB officer. But over the years, I came to understand it was because they thought I was a heathen. They were wrong. While I certainly wasn’t a devout, go to mass every day Christian—which is hardly the path to promotion within the NKGB—neither was I an atheist.
“The issue of religion—I suppose I should say Christianity—arose when Rozalina became seriously ill. We returned to Tomsk not for sentimental reasons but rather because it’s the best cancer facility in the Soviet Union, and I had by then risen sufficiently in rank so that I could get her admitted.”
Risen to general. What’s this colonel bullshit?
And to me? I know better.
When I first met you, you made it clear that dealing with a captain was beneath the dignity of a general.
“I could also arrange accommodations for her family in Tomsk—her father, a brother, and two sisters; her mother was dead—and did so. And they prayed, on their knees, every day at her bedside. I remember thinking, when she was gone, that maybe if I had dropped to my knees beside them, Rozalina would still be alive.”
He paused, cleared his throat, and went on. “I then did what any man alone in the world—”
“What do you mean alone?” Cronley interrupted.
“Well, my relationship with Rozalina’s family ended with her death. Mutually.”
“And you’d had no children?” Ginger asked.
Serov, his tone bitter and sarcastic, said, “God, despite the long hours Rozalina had spent praying on her knees, asking Him for children, had chosen not to bless us with even one. So, I was alone and did what any reasonable man would do, given the circumstances: I came back to Nuremberg and threw myself into my work. Life goes on.”
“Yes, it does,” Ginger said. “At first, you don’t think it will, but then something happens.”
She means me, Cronley thought.
Confirmation of that speculation came when he looked at her and she met his eyes and gave him a soft smile.
“I apologize for troubling you with my troubles,” Serov said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“No apologies are necessary, Colonel,” Jackson said.
Serov raised his champagne flute.
“Za to, chtoby sbyvalus mechty!” he said.
“Well, I’ll drink to that, whatever it means,” Ginger said.
“You were expecting Nostrovia! perhaps?”
“That’s what I’ve heard at the movies.”
“I understand,” Serov said. “Somebody should tell Hollywood that Nostrovia! as a toast is meaningless, and also that all Russians are not monsters. What I propose as a toast—Za to, chtoby sbyvalus mechty—means ‘Let our dreams come true.’”
“Well, I’ll drink to that,” Justice Jackson said.
“So will I,” Ginger said, and again met Cronley’s eyes and smiled at him.
Oh, Jesus! Cronley thought.
“Would it be impolitic of me to ask again how your investigation into the escape of Burgdorf and von Dietelburg is progressing?” Serov asked. “We’re all wondering how that could have happened.”
Talk about brass balls!
The odds are ninety-nine to one that you arranged it!
“I’ll let Jim answer that, Colonel,” Jackson said. “He’s in charge of the investigation.”
“Well, Ivan—”
“Excuse me, Jim,” Serov interrupted him and snapped his fingers to attract the attention of a waiter hovering nearby.
“Herr Oberst?” the waiter said.
Serov pointed to the table where Tiny Dunwiddie and Max Ostrowski were sitting with the nurse and the baby.
“Send a bottle of the champagne to that table with my compliments,” he said.
“Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”
“Curiosity overwhelms me,” Serov said. “Who is the infant whose protection requires the services of two of DCI’s best agents? And the attention of a very senior Army nurse?”
“That’s John Jay McCloy’s love child, Ivan,” Cronley said. “I suppose that now that you’ve spotted them, that secret’s no longer so secret.”
“My God, Jim,” Jackson said. His tone suggested he was more amused at the injecting of the assistant secretary of war than shocked.
“That is my son,” Ginger said, evenly.
Cronley was not finished.
“We’re all friends here, Ivan. So, tell me—what’s the gossip on Lubyanka Square? Does Nikolaevich Merkulov go home to Mrs. Merkulov every night? Or does he have a little something on the side? Maybe a ballet dancer?”
Serov’s face went white and his eyes flashed. He stood up.
“Sometimes, Cronley, you go too far,” he said, angrily. He nodded his head toward Jackson. “You’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Justice. I just remembered an appointment.”
He stormed out of the dining room.
Everyone at the table exchanged glances.
“Was that wise, Jim?” Jackson asked.
“It was stupid,” Ginger snapped.
“Oh, good ol’ Ivan’ll be back,” Cronley replied. “He wants something. I told him the escape is off-limits here.”
“What?” Jackson asked.
“I haven’t figured that out yet. But I will.”
“To change the subject, where are you going to start?” Jackson asked.
“Specifically?”
Jackson nodded.
“You remember when Colonel Cohen said that if Odessa was behind the break, he thought they were trying to free somebody besides von Dietelburg and Burgdorf?”
“I do.”
“Well, I think I know who they were after.”
“Who?”
“Standartenführer Oskar Müller and SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Heimstadter. I’m going to start with them.”
“Who are they?” Ginger asked.
Cronley flashed her an impatient look.
Jackson picked up on it.
“Get used to that, Cronley. If we’re going to hide Ginger in plain sight, the more she knows about everything, the better. I suggest you take that to heart.”
Ginger looked very pleased.
Cronley had a look of resignation, then nodded.
“Toward the end of the war, my love,” he said, “when it looked as if the German rocket facility at Peenemünde was about to be captur
ed by either the Russians or the Americans—we ultimately took it—Brigadeführer Heimstadter and Standartenführer Müller decided the best way to make sure that the thousand-odd slave workers there didn’t tell either the Reds or the Amis what Wernher von Braun and his friends had been up to was to kill them. First, they made the slave workers dig an enormous hole—a mass grave. Then, until the bullets ran out, the Germans lined them up at the edge of the grave and shot them in the back of the head. They fell into the hole. When bullets ran out, the Germans pushed them into the grave alive, then buried them with a bulldozer.”
“My God!” Ginger said.
“Really bad Nazis. Presuming the break was staged by Odessa, what Cohen thinks—and I agree—is that Odessa wanted Heimstadter and Müller but then learned that von Dietelburg and Burgdorf were in the prison and sprung those two bastards instead. Which confirms that von Dietelburg and Burgdorf are more important to Odessa than just about anyone else.”
Cronley looked around the table, then added, “This afternoon, I’m going to the prison and shake up Heimstadter and Müller a little before I really start talking to them, which I will do immediately on my return from Strasbourg tomorrow.”
“You’re going where?” Ginger asked.
“We are going to Strasbourg to see what Colonel Jean-Paul Fortin knows, or has heard, or can find out for me, about the prison break. We’ll take Father McGrath and, of course, the baby and the nurse.”
“And bodyguards?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, sir. We’ll need another car. Everyone won’t fit in the Horch. Max Ostrowski will drive the other car. That’s enough security.”
“Okay,” Jackson said. “Let me know what Fortin comes up with. And now I’m going to have to leave you.”
[TWO]
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1505 15 April 1946
There were three U.S. Army staff cars parked in a line at the stairs to the palace when Cronley drove up in the Horch convertible sedan.
Ginger Moriarty, who was holding Baby Bruce, stood on the steps with Father J-for-Jack McGrath and Tiny Dunwiddie.
On the right of the steps were five men wearing U.S. Army uniforms. The lapels of their Ike jackets had blue-and-white patches reading U.S. that identified them as civilian employees of the Army.
They were, in fact, DCI agents.
Cronley got out of the car and went to Dunwiddie.
“What’s going on, Tiny?”
“Mr. Justice Jackson called and told me to make sure you didn’t go off to Strasbourg alone.”
“You mean, without bodyguards? Guess he didn’t agree with me that Max was enough.”
“Precisely. So here we are.”
“Fortin will think we’re invading.”
“Give the commandant my regards, Jim,” Dunwiddie said. “And now I will return to my duties. Any orders, mon chef?”
“Get on the horn to your godfather and make sure Casey is here when we get back.”
“I hear and obey, mon chef,” Dunwiddie replied. He turned to the others. “Have a nice trip.”
Dunwiddie walked to the row of staff cars, got in the first one, and drove away. As he did, one of the DCI agents left the others, went to a second staff car, and got in behind the wheel. The remaining agents walked to Cronley and the others.
“Interesting man,” Father McGrath said. “I couldn’t tell if he dislikes you intensely or if you’re friends.”
“A little of both, but mostly very good friends.”
“What was that about his godfather?”
“Tiny’s Norwich. So was his father, class of ’20. And so was General White. He’s Tiny’s godfather.”
Max Ostrowski walked up to Cronley.
“Tiny said a lead staff car and a trail car, with the Horch in the middle. That okay with you? And who sits where?”
“I suppose that’s better than using M8 armored cars.”
“Is all this security really necessary?” Father McGrath asked.
“Jackson wants to keep you all alive,” Ostrowski said. “And he’s not been unreasonable.”
Ostrowski then pointed to the door of the Horch. There were four indentions in it, covered with fresh paint.
“Those look like bullet holes,” Father McGrath said, making it a question.
Ginger’s eyes grew wide. “Bullet holes?”
“Repaired bullet holes,” Ostrowski said.
Oh, goddamn you, Max, Cronley thought.
Ginger didn’t have to hear this!
Wait . . .
“Actually,” Cronley said, “a couple months back, at the end of February, Tom Winters and I were ambushed while taking a shortcut from the airport to here. Turned into a Wild West gunfight. We got the bad guys—they were Odessa—who had Schmeissers. One of them was an eighteen-year-old girl. I shot her in the forehead.”
Cronley felt Ginger’s horrified eyes on him.
If that doesn’t buttress my argument that Ginger had better find some nice insurance salesman instead of a guy who people are trying to whack—and, sooner or later, will succeed—I’ll have to think of something else.
There was silence, which was then broken by Ostrowski: “We’re back to who sits where?”
[THREE]
Hôtel Maison Rouge
Rue des Francs-Bourgeois 101
Strasbourg, France
2005 15 April 1946
Colonel Jean-Paul Fortin, a trim forty-year-old, marched purposely into the hotel dining room and up toward the table where Cronley and the others were sitting. He was wearing a U.S. Army olive-drab Ike jacket and trousers, and had removed his kepi from his head. Shoulder boards identified him as colonel. He was accompanied by a similarly uniformed officer whose boards identified him as a captain.
Cronley stood up as the officers approached the table. Fortin wrapped his arms around him affectionately.
“Dunwiddie telephoned to say you were coming,” he greeted Cronley. “I expected you at the office, but then DuPres spotted your Nazimobile parked outside.”
“We’re having dinner. There was no place to eat on the way over. Join us?”
“I’ll join you, but Pierre and I have had our dinner.”
He motioned for the other officer to bring them chairs. When he had, they sat down. Fortin signaled for a waiter.
“Bring cognac,” he ordered.
“Everybody,” Cronley then announced, “this is Colonel Jean-Paul Fortin, who tries but usually fails to maintain the peace in Strasbourg. And this is Capitaine Pierre DuPres. I don’t know what he did wrong, but as punishment Pierre was assigned to Jean-Paul as his deputy.”
DuPres laughed.
“Jean-Paul, this is Mrs. Virginia Moriarty and Father Jack McGrath. You know Max.”
“Enchanté,” Fortin said, taking Ginger’s hand and kissing it. “And you are here why, madame?”
Cronley said, “Ginger, who is the widow of Lieutenant Moriarty, is with me.”
“The gentleman who made the mistake of taking a nap in your bed?”
“Uh-huh. End of the interrogation, mon colonel. And before you say something—or, worse, do something stupid—be advised that Father McGrath is Anglican, Church of England, not Roman Catholic.”
“Isn’t that a meaningless distinction, James?” Fortin said.
“Your ignorance is showing again, Jean-Paul,” Cronley replied.
“You may find this hard to believe,” DuPres said to no one in particular, “but they’re really quite fond of each other.”
“Well, you could have fooled me,” Ginger said.
“There’s a rumor going around,” Cronley said, “that when a Catholic priest says something that annoys Colonel Fortin, next thing you know the priest is trying to swim in the Rhine.”
/> “Which is hard to do,” Max Ostrowski added, “after someone has shot you in the elbows and knees with a .22.”
Cronley saw Ginger was looking at Ostrowski with disbelief that turned into horrified realization Fortin was not denying the implied accusation.
She shouldn’t be hearing this.
She shouldn’t be here.
Which means I shouldn’t have brought her.
Which is yet another indication that we shouldn’t be together—that she’d be far better off with any of the nice, safe guys her parents are trying to match her with.
Mother asked what I was thinking. And the truth is—pardon my French—I was thinking with the head of my dick.
And, wow, I’ve really fucked this up . . .
“Dunwiddie didn’t say why you were coming,” Fortin said, and added, “with a priest.”
“I like to think of myself as a scholar/priest, Colonel,” McGrath said. “My specialty is heretical religions. I’m in Germany looking into the one that Heinrich Himmler started.”
“Am I supposed to believe that you and James are simply friends? And that you have no connection with the DCI?”
McGrath shrugged, then said, “Let me throw this up for your edification. I trust you’re familiar with Colonel Cletus Frade of the DCI?”
Fortin nodded.
“When Colonel Frade was a fighter pilot on Guadalcanal,” McGrath went on, “I was the fighter group’s chaplain. Cletus asked me to help him find out more about Himmler’s heretical religion. I’m happy to do so.”
“And that’s what you’re doing in Strasbourg?” Fortin pursued.
“You must be the very good—relentless—intelligence officer Jimmy tells me you are,” McGrath said. “Actually, I’m in Strasbourg for several reasons. First, on the way, Jimmy told me about Saint Heinrich the Divine’s Wewelsburg Castle—”
“I’m having trouble believing any of that,” Fortin put in.
“Well, I’m very interested in getting a look at it,” McGrath said. “And, second, I’m here because Mrs. Cronley—Jimmy’s mother—made me promise to hold him to his promise to look in on the widow of her recently deceased nephew, Jimmy’s cousin.”
“I presume you’re talking about the late SS-Sturmführer Luther Stauffer,” Fortin said, but it sounded like a question.
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 7