The Enemy of My Enemy

by W. E. B Griffin

  “There’s two million dollars and change in various currencies in there, Colonel. We took it away this morning from an archbishop who, acting for Cardinal von Hassburger, was in the process of delivering it to Odessa. We have reason to believe there are far more illicit funds—well over a hundred million—being held by the Vatican.”

  Waldron was unable to resist the temptation to look in the briefcase.

  “Jesus!” he said, shaking his head and sighing. “You realize, I hope, that you have just forced the United States to declare war on the Catholic Church, the Vatican?”

  “Not necessarily,” Serov said.

  “We . . . The government has to respond to this,” Waldron insisted.

  “What Cronley and I are hoping to do is enlist the Vatican in our noble cause.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it, Colonel,” Serov said. “The reason they’ve been hiding Odessa’s money is because they see themselves as allies of Odessa—the Nazis—in a holy war against godless communism. The enemy of my enemy, so to speak.”

  “That’s probably true, but so what?”

  “We hope to convince the Vatican first that we have no intention yet of broadcasting their connivance with Odessa to the world—” He glanced at Janice Johansen. “Key word ‘yet.’ Then we tell them what we have learned about the religion Saint Heinrich the Divine has started . . .”

  “What makes you sure they don’t already know?”

  “I don’t know that, but I am convinced that if they did, they would have considered the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine a far greater threat to them than even godless communism and would have really gone after them.”

  There was a pause, and then Waldron said, “I hate to admit this, but maybe you’re onto something. Big question: What makes you think they’ll even listen to you?”

  “We turned the archbishop and the bishop loose with the message that we’re willing to discuss the two million and change with the cardinal. And only the cardinal. We gave him the telephone number of the safe house so we can arrange to meet.”

  “And you know what happened at the safe house,” Cronley said.

  “You think he’ll call?”

  “If only about the two million alone,” Cronley said. “Why don’t we go there and see if he has?”

  “Ordinarily, that would be a no-brainer,” Waldron said, “but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But that brings us back to the real—perhaps I should say original—reason for this meeting.”

  “Which is?” Serov said.

  Waldron looked at Cronley. “There is considerable concern on the part of several people about your mental health.”

  “Oh, bullshit!” Cronley blurted.

  “Not only do you have a well-deserved reputation for being a legendary loose cannon, you also have a dangerous friend in Colonel Serov.”

  “I repeat: Oh, bullshit!”

  “This concern is shared by General Clay, Mr. Justice Jackson, and, perhaps most important, by Colonel Frade, who knows you better than anyone else.”

  “What . . .” Cronley began.

  “You agreed to Cletus’s message, so remain silent until I’m finished,” Waldron said. “Say ‘Yes, sir.’”

  After a pause, Cronley was about to reply but instead said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Various solutions to the problem were suggested even before this potential war with the Catholic Church came up and the risk of your involvement for the President and the DCI. These ranged from placing you in a psychiatric institution to sending you to stack snowballs in the Aleutian Islands—”

  “How the hell can I defend myself from this He’s bonkers charge?”

  Waldron looked annoyed at the interruption but allowed it. “One definition of bonkers is an individual’s inability to face unpleasant facts.”

  “Such as?”

  “The love of your life has just been murdered, leaving behind an orphan infant whom you love. You have delusions about assuming the role of his father.”

  “So what?”

  “You can’t have him, now or ever. Can you face that fact?”

  “I don’t consider it a fact.”

  “You were not married to Mrs. Moriarty. Fact?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have no legal rights at all with regard to the baby. Exactly who becomes his guardian will be decided in court between the Moriartys and the Calhouns. Colonel Frade said you’ve already traveled a rocky road with the Moriartys. True?”

  “Okay.”

  “They are going to press hard for custody of the child because he is the sole heir of his mother, who, Colonel Frade tells me, was a wealthy woman. Still with me?”

  “I’m hardly penniless. But go on.”

  “Colonel Frade tells me that the Calhouns—Mrs. Moriarty’s parents—would, in the best interests of the child, be reluctant to engage in a long and bitter court battle for his custody because they know that if they lost the battle, the Moriartys would probably refuse to let them have a meaningful relationship with the child, or any relationship at all. Do you think that’s true?”

  “Now that I think about it, yes.”

  “So, are you able to face the fact that when you passed the child to Mrs. Clay, that was the last contact you will have with him until he’s an adult?”

  Cronley didn’t immediately reply.

  A minute later, a tear slipped down his cheek.

  “Well?” Waldron challenged.

  Cronley cleared his throat. “I was thinking maybe if the fucking Moriartys let the Calhouns have Bruce overnight sometime, I could sneak in and see him. But that wouldn’t work, would it? They’d just keep the Calhouns from ever having him. I guess I’m fucked.”

  “You guess you’re fucked?”

  “I’m fucked. Period.”

  They stared at each other, then Waldron said, “Captain Cronley, you have just passed the Waldron Psychiatric Test, having proven to me that you can think rationally under the most stressful and painful conditions.”

  “Whoopee!”

  “Why don’t we get out of here and see if the cardinal has called the safe house?” Waldron asked. “Assuming the phone still works.”

  X

  [ONE]

  44-46 Beerenstrasse

  Zehlendorf, Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1614 21 April 1946

  When they had left for the OMGUS Compound, the street had been jammed with German police vehicles. Now the only Germans in sight were two policemen standing in the street, keeping people away from the safe house.

  Beerenstrasse was half jammed with American vehicles, many of them olive drab with military markings, others were Fords and Chevrolets bearing Army of Occupation civilian license plates.

  “Ivan, why do I suspect the presence of the Counterintelligence Corps?” Cronley quipped.

  They entered the building and found Colonel Mortimer Cohen, Colonel Louis Switzer, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Williams sitting side by side on a couch that had obviously been moved to the foyer from elsewhere in the damaged house.

  Switzer stood and looked from Serov to Janice Johansen to Waldron. He stopped on Cronley and immediately moved into CIC mode.

  “Captain, we’re in the middle of an investigation here, and while I’m unsure if you’re authorized to be in here—”

  “That’s bullshit, Colonel, sir.”

  “—I know unequivocally that it’s off-limits to the press and the NKGB and probably to this officer. Who are you, Colonel?”

  “Is that working?” Waldron asked, pointing to a telephone on a small table to one side of the sofa. “May I use it?”

  “I asked who you are, Colonel.”

  “And I asked to use the phone. You grant my request and I will grant yours.”

>   Cronley sighed. “Give him the goddamn phone.”

  Switzer locked eyes, then impatiently gestured toward the phone. Waldron picked up the receiver and dialed.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir,” Waldron then said, “but your CIC chief doesn’t want me in the safe house.”

  There was a reply, and then Waldron extended the phone to Switzer.

  “He wishes to speak with you, Colonel.”

  “Who is that?” Switzer demanded.

  Waldron didn’t answer.

  Switzer took the extended phone and snarled into it, “This is Colonel Switzer. Who am I talking to?”

  The man on the phone told him, and the rest of the conversation consisted of Colonel Switzer saying “Yes, sir” at least ten times.

  Cohen laughed after the fifth one, and when Switzer had hung up, Cohen said, “In law school, Lou, they teach you never to ask a question unless you’re sure of what the answer is going to be.”

  Switzer glared at Waldron, and said, “You sandbagged me, Colonel.”

  “Regretfully, Colonel, you left me no choice.”

  “The general and Janice stay, too,” Cronley said, then turned to Cohen. “Colonel, have we heard from the cardinal?”

  “Somebody called and left a number,” Cohen said. “I called the hospital and was told you were on your way here. I’ve been waiting for you and General Serov, especially since you have the briefcase.”

  Cohen consulted his notebook and dialed a number. Cronley went to him and put his head close to the handset.

  After the second ring, a male voice recited the number in German.

  “My name is Cohen,” Cohen announced.

  The voice, changing to accentless English, then said, “You, the Russian, and one other—no more than one other—may find it interesting to be at Platform 12 of the Am Zoo Bahnhof at twenty-thirty hours. Be in civilian clothing and unarmed.”

  Cohen replied, “Platform 12—”

  “I say again,” the voice interrupted, then repeated his original message verbatim.

  The line went dead.

  “He was reading that,” Cohen said as he replaced the receiver.

  “And he spoke with authority,” Serov said. “A senior officer carefully following the orders of someone even more senior.”

  “I don’t have any civvies,” Cohen said. “But I suspect that civvies order was to show us who’s boss. Fuck him. He called us first. We’re in charge.”

  “I vote for playing nice,” Cronley said. “I have—or I used to have—civvies upstairs in my room.”

  “You still do,” Ostrowski said as he came from the staircase into the foyer.

  “I vote with Cronley,” Serov said.

  “I wondered where you were, Max,” Cronley said.

  “Packing up the stuff of the guys we lost. And on that subject, what do I do with it?”

  “Send it to the Mansion. Maybe somebody can use it. We can’t send it to family in Poland, even if we had an address.” He gestured toward Serov and Cohen. “But first, Max, anything that’ll fit these gentlemen?”

  “I have no intention of wearing a dead man’s clothing,” Serov said.

  Cronley raised his eyebrows. “Well okay, then, Ivan, but I thought you just voted for making nice. When Colonel Cohen and I get back, we’ll tell you what happened at the Bahnhof.” Cronley turned to Ostrowski. “Let’s show Colonel Cohen where this stuff is.”

  Cronley started up the stairs. The others followed.

  Upstairs, Cronley walked into the two-room suite that he had briefly shared with Ginger and the baby.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Ostrowski took his meaning.

  “The CIC packed what little of her stuff was here and in the Duchess Suite. They got Father McGrath’s, too.”

  “I would have liked something of hers,” he said, then seemed somewhat surprised he’d said it aloud.

  “Sweetie,” Janice said, “that would only make things worse.”

  “Former love of my life, nothing could possibly make things worse.”

  “Why don’t you have Max pack up your stuff and move it to the Press Club? It’s right across the park.”

  “Except that would be moving into the Press Club with you.”

  “I’m available, Janice,” Ostrowski said.

  Janice gave both of them the finger.

  “If you should happen to see me at the Zoo Bahnhof, pretend not to recognize me,” she said, and walked out of the room.

  [TWO]

  Platform 12

  Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten

  Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  2035 21 April 1946

  As they walked toward the platform beside the cardinal’s train, Cronley did not see Janice but knew she was in the station watching.

  What he did see was the locomotive of the cardinal’s train. Papal flags flapped on either side of the front of the engine’s boiler. There was something wrong with the picture, and it took him a moment to figure it out.

  The locomotive usually was detached from the railroad cars that it had brought into the station and the cars were backed in next to the platform, usually by a special locomotive.

  There was some reason Cardinal von Hassburger did not want the locomotive detached from his train. And then Cronley saw the first car behind the locomotive was customized, its paint glossy and bearing the papal crest on its sides.

  That’s probably the cardinal’s personal car. Or maybe the Pope’s?

  There’s obviously things inside—maybe a radio or a teletype—that required power from the locomotive.

  Or maybe water from the engine’s supply to flush a toilet or even provide hot water for the cardinal’s shower.

  Do cardinals take showers or do they take baths?

  Does a cardinal remove that little red hat before stepping into his shower or bath?

  Cronley was brought out of his reverie when a very large, very good-looking man in a business suit and clerical collar stepped into their path.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in what sounded like American English. “I’m Father Kent. Would you be good enough to follow me?”

  * * *

  —

  The gate to Platform 12 was guarded by two large American MPs and two smaller German policemen.

  “These gentlemen are with me,” Father Kent announced, first in English to the MPs and then in German to the others.

  “Relax, Ivan,” Cronley said. “Despite what Morty said, I think you look splendid in your borrowed civvies.”

  Serov looked pained and shook his head in resignation.

  They were passed onto the platform. The MPs eyed them, but without much curiosity.

  You should pay better attention, Sergeant, Cronley thought.

  You’re looking at a Russian general and an American colonel in hand-me-down clothes. Plus, a natty captain in a snazzy Argentine tweed jacket and gray flannel trousers.

  Father Kent waved them onto the forward observation platform of the papal car, where a second muscular young priest opened the door to the car, and said, also in American English, this one with a distinctive Bostonian accent, “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen. His Grace will be with you momentarily.”

  When he stepped into the wood-paneled compartment, Cronley sensed there was something fishy about it.

  It was obviously a private reception room, a place the cardinal could receive visitors he didn’t want to meet in public. It was furnished with a low table, a three-seater leather couch, and a half dozen matching armchairs. The only decoration in the compartment was a large crucifix on the wood-paneled wall separating the compartment from the rest of what Cronley guessed was the other two-thirds of the car.

  There were three panels, on each of which were three vents six inches long
and two inches wide, equally spaced from top to bottom. He didn’t pay much attention to them until he thought he saw a light on the other side of the center vent of the center panel.

  Cronley studied it more closely. Then the light was gone—and another came on inside the lower vent on the right panel.

  Cronley touched Cohen’s arm and discreetly pointed out the panels and the vents. Cohen looked, then nodded but didn’t say anything.

  As Cronley looked at the paneled wall, the door to the left of the wall opened, and the archbishop he had last seen in the Hotel Majestic stepped into the compartment.

  He was wearing a black, ankle-length garment that Cronley remembered was called a cassock.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Please be seated.”

  He settled into one of the armchairs.

  “I suppose it is too much to hope that you’ve come to return the stolen property. Yet, as it’s said, ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast.’”

  “I didn’t catch your name, Your Grace, the last time we met,” Serov said.

  “Dietl, Franz Dietl . . . No comment about the stolen property?”

  “I can only hope,” Cronley said, “that you weren’t holding your breath in anticipation of getting Odessa’s money returned.”

  The archbishop chuckled.

  “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “We wanted to talk to the cardinal,” Serov said.

  “His Eminence, sadly, is not available at this time.”

  “Pity,” Cohen said. “I was hoping to put his mind at rest. But since he’s occupied, there’s no point in this meeting. We’ve already talked to you. You have our number if His Eminence can ever find a few minutes for us.”

  “Enough!” Serov snapped. “Hassburger, if you don’t come out from behind those panels right now and stop this bullshit, I will be forced to conclude that you’re not interested at all in solving our mutual problem.”

  “You can’t talk to . . . His Emin—” the archbishop began and then cut himself off.

  There was no response from behind the panels.

  “Let’s go,” Cronley said, and stood up.

  Serov and Cohen rose and followed him to the door through which they had entered the room. They had almost reached it when there was a fresh voice.