“Not Captain Dunwiddie?”
Max Ostrowski and two Poles came into the bar.
“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. So who’s minding the store?” Cronley said, as he reached for the bottle of Johnnie Walker.
“If I were you, I’d think about going easy on that, Jim,” Henderson said.
“But you didn’t just shoot a teenaged girl in the forehead, did you?” Cronley replied, as he filled his glass.
“A teenaged girl?” Ostrowski asked.
“Yeah, Max, a teenaged girl. I got her right here.” He put his index finger on his forehead. “It made a large exit wound in the rear of her cranium.”
“What the hell happened?”
“My current scenario, Mr. Ostrowski,” Cohen said, “is that parties unknown—most likely Odessa, but we cannot exclude other possible parties—attempted to assassinate Super Spook. They did so by intercepting him and Lieutenant Winters as they took a shortcut back road from Soldier’s Field airfield.”
“Did you take that shortcut road to the airfield, Winters?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you notice anyone following you?”
“No, sir.”
“That suggests to me that the malefactors knew that Cronley had gone off somewhere in his airplane, and that he inevitably would return. When Winters got in Cronley’s Horch . . . which was here, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Winters said.
“Whoever Odessa—or whoever—has here in Farber Castle assumed he was headed for Soldier’s Field, and would take the shortcut road back here once he picked up Cronley. And he—or maybe she—got on the telephone and told them to put their in-place assassination scenario into play.”
“Yeah,” Henderson said softly.
“May I ask questions?” the MP colonel asked.
“What I want you to do for us, Bruce—”
“In other words, Morty, I don’t get to ask questions?”
“I may not answer your questions, but go ahead.”
“Why does whoever did this want to kill Mr. Cronley?”
“A lot of people, with good reason, would like to see Super Spook sent to Fiddler’s Green. Now what I want you to do, Bruce, is see if you can find out who owns the Audi, and see if you can find out who the man in the 385th Station Hospital is. And who the young woman is.”
“I’ll get right on it,” the MP colonel said.
“Mr. Ziegler is ex-CID,” Cronley said. “Can I send him with you?”
“Why not?” the MP colonel said.
“What I have to do is get on the SIGABA and get the word to Colonel Wallace and General Greene,” Henderson said. “And I suggest that the rest of you move your discussion somewhere where you know no one’s listening. Did you think about having your room here swept, Cronley?”
“It gets swept once a day.”
“Good thinking.”
[THREE]
The Duchess Suite
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1835 24 February 1946
The door opened and Janice Johansen walked in.
“They threw you out of the bar, right?” she greeted the men in the room, who were sitting in chairs gathered in a rough circle around the enormous bed.
No one replied.
She went to the dressing room and returned with a chair and joined the circle.
“So what are you talking about that you don’t want anyone, especially me, to hear?”
“Something we don’t want to see on the front page of Stars and Stripes,” Cohen said.
“Okay, what?”
“Somebody tried to whack me,” Cronley said.
“Well, they apparently missed. Who somebody?”
That’s all of her reaction?
Not “Oh, my God! Are you all right, Adonis?”
Or words to that effect?
“You came in at the tail end of a long discussion in which it was decided we don’t know,” Cohen said. “The suspects are Odessa and the NKGB.”
“Why would the Russians want to whack Cronley?”
“I embarrassed ol’ Ivan when we got Mattingly back. Am I forgiven, or did he come to Nuremberg to kidnap, or whack, me?”
“I confess I’ve been a little curious about his piety,” she said. “Why is Odessa pissed at you? I mean, specifically at you.”
“Probably because they know I’m after von Dietelburg. Maybe I’m getting close, and that’s why they want to take me out.”
“The word that he’s been asking the wrong kind of questions could have come out of the prison. They know you talked to Kaltenbrunner and Macher,” Ostrowski said.
“Actually, Max,” Cohen said, “I’ve always been more worried about things being smuggled out of the prison than getting smuggled in. Orders, for example. In this case, to Odessa. This new man, Cronley, is asking the wrong kind of questions. Take him out.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, Colonel,” Ostrowski replied. “You’re right. What I saw was how easy it is for the prisoners to get messages out. Orders to Odessa or somebody else. Not necessarily written. Verbal. And even coded verbal. ‘PFC Smith, please get word to my wife that I have no further problems with my ingrown toenail.’”
“Obviously, you’ve been giving some thought to the prisoners and their guards?” Cohen said. It was a question.
“I’ve been nosing around ever since I heard Casey was going to be undercover. I really like the youngest DCI agent.”
“And?”
“Well, the guards are just kids. Not nearly as smart as Casey. And that Casey, unless he’s far more clever than we have any right to expect him to be, is in some danger. And it would be a lot easier to whack him than it would be to whack Cronley, especially since Cronley will now have one of my people around twenty-four hours a day covering his back.”
“What?” Cronley asked.
Ostrowski smiled at Cronley.
“I was playing chess with Justice Jackson when Tiny called to give me a heads-up on what had happened to you. When I told Justice Jackson what had happened, he asked, ‘What about Jim’s bodyguard?’ I told him you didn’t think you needed one. To which he replied, ‘Get him one right now, and keep one on him from now on.’ To which I replied, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Justice, sir.’”
Cohen chuckled.
“Janice, Jim was just about to tell us what happened in Strasbourg,” Cohen said.
“How’d you know I was in Strasbourg?”
“I’m CIC. We know everything about everything.”
“Well, since you asked, I told Cousin Luther that he has until two-thirty tomorrow to give me von Dietelburg or I will let Colonel Fortin have him. He knows that Fortin has expressed an interest in shooting him in the knees and elbows with a .22 and then seeing how well he can swim.”
“You think he’ll cave under a threat like that?” Dunwiddie asked. “It doesn’t seem very credible to me. The caving or the .22s in the knees.”
“There is a legend, one that I’m sure Cousin Luther has heard. It alleges that shortly after the French returned to Strasbourg, a priest was sent swimming that way. The legend further alleges that the priest—for the good of the Catholic Church—didn’t do enough to try to convince the Milice and the SS that Fortin’s family really didn’t know where Fortin was. I also offered him a new life in bucolic Paraguay. That, I think, may work.”
“And if he doesn’t cave? You’re going to let Fortin throw him in the Rhine?” Dunwiddie pursued.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, to coin a phrase.”
“Wallace told you to offer him Paraguay?” Cohen asked.
“Actually, the subject never came up between us.”
“So you’re not going to send him to
Paraguay?” Cohen asked.
“If he gives me von Dietelburg, I am. I have high hopes that Colonel Stroessner, once he gets to know Cousin Luther, will put him in front of a firing squad. He does that to unrepentant Nazis.”
“And you don’t believe Cousin Luther is repentant?” Dunwiddie asked.
“Tiny, I know a little something about Colonel Fortin’s interrogation techniques. Anyone who doesn’t tell Fortin what he wants to know is a fool, or thinks he is responsible to a higher power. Cousin Luther has many character flaws, but he’s not a fool.”
“You think he’s part of this Nazi religion crap?” Dunwiddie asked.
“He may be. What I do know is he thinks he’s still alive because Fortin doesn’t want to annoy the chief, DCI-Europe—the former chief, DCI-Europe—by sending his cousin for a swim. I have now told him Fortin will get him if he doesn’t come up with von Dietelburg by half past two tomorrow. I suspect Cousin Luther could give Wallace lessons in How to Protect One’s Own Ass, and will see the light.”
“Two questions, Super Spook,” Cohen said. “How are you going to get him to Paraguay? And how are you going to Cover Your Ass—presuming you’re successful—when Colonel Wallace finds out what you’ve done without his permission?”
“I’m going on the SIGABA tonight and tell Ashton and Frade in Buenos Aires that I will require passage on the next available flight for a French Nazi and his wife who want to go to Paraguay. That will probably see Cletus or von Wachtstein in the pilot’s seat on the next SAA flight to Berlin.
“Fortin will transfer Cousin Luther and wife to the French Zone of Berlin. If by then we have von Dietelburg in the bag, the Stauffers will get on the plane.”
“And if Colonel Wallace finds out what you’re up to before you have von Dietelburg and/or before they get on the plane?”
“I will cross that bridge—those bridges—if I get to them.”
“I can’t imagine why General Seidel and Colonel Wallace think of you as a dangerous loose cannon,” Cohen said, and went on. “You didn’t answer my question. What do you think Wallace is going to do when he finds out what you’ve done?”
“If it works, he’ll take credit for the success of DCI-Europe in taking out Odessa’s head man.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“He can truthfully tell Oscar Schultz that I didn’t tell him anything about what I was doing. And that if he had known, he would have stopped me, as my trying to take down Odessa was not only not my business, but would distract me from my primary duty of protecting Justice Jackson.”
“Have you thought about that? That your primary duty is protecting Justice Jackson?” Cohen asked.
“That was all I thought of until you took me on a tour of Wewelsburg Castle. That changed things. And Max doesn’t need my help to protect Justice Jackson.”
“I really would like to see that place. As promised,” Janice said.
“So would I,” Tiny said.
“Colonel, Winters could drop them off tomorrow morning on his way to the Compound,” Cronley said.
“Okay. I’ll call and tell my people to give them the tour.”
“But how would they get back?” Cronley said. “I suspect that my morning will be occupied chatting with Wallace, and I have to stick around here to hear from Fortin, or maybe even have to fly to Strasbourg.”
“How to get back is one of those bridges to be crossed when we get to it,” Janice said.
“I think I better tell El Jefe what happened before he hears it from Wallace,” Cronley said. “So I think I better get on the SIGABA right now.”
—
When Cronley went into the corridor outside the Duchess Suite, there was a Polish special agent of the DCI sitting there with a Thompson submachine gun in his lap.
“There’s a car outside?” Max asked him.
“Two, sir. Yours and one for Mr. Cronley.”
“Fine.”
The man with the submachine gun stood up and followed them as they went down the curving stairway to the lobby and then outside. As they went down the stairway outside the hotel, two Ford staff cars pulled up to them.
Ostrowski walked to the first car and opened both doors.
“You may sit, sir, wherever it pleases you.”
Cronley looked in the front seat, saw that a Thompson was lying across it, gave Ostrowski the finger, and then got in the backseat.
“There’s more room back here,” he said to the man who had followed him from the Duchess Suite.
[FOUR]
The Mansion
Offenbach Platz 101
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2020 24 February 1946
“Fulda, Cronley, James, for Schultz, Oscar, in Washington.”
“Vint Hill.”
“Cronley, James, for Oscar Schultz.”
“DCI.”
“Cronley, James, for Oscar Schultz.”
“Schultz.”
“James Cronley for you, sir. The line is secure.”
“Put him through.”
“Mr. Cronley, Mr. Schultz is on a secure line.”
“What’s up, Jimmy?”
“Somebody tried to kill me a couple of hours ago.”
“Who?”
“Probably Odessa.”
“You okay?”
“More or less.”
“Who does Wallace think was responsible?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him.”
“You want to explain why you called me and not him? You ever hear of command channels?”
“Tony Henderson called him a few minutes ago.”
“Tony works for me. Not Wallace. If he called anybody, he should have called me.” He paused. “Oh, shit! Okay. Starting at the beginning, tell me what happened.”
“I had been in Strasbourg—”
“What the hell were you doing in Strasbourg? You’re supposed to be sitting on Justice Jackson.”
“And when I came back, Tom Winters met me at the airport. On the way to the Farber Palast—”
“To the what?”
“On a back road, we were bushwhacked. Very professionally.”
“Not very professionally. You’re still alive. What happened to the bushwhackers?”
“I killed one, and wounded—I don’t know how bad—the other one.”
“When Justice Jackson hears about this, he’ll shit a brick.”
“He already knows.”
“And?”
“He told Max Ostrowski to put a bodyguard on me.”
“You should have thought about doing that ten seconds after you heard they whacked Moriarty. They were after you, not that poor sonofabitch. That brings us to who are they?”
“As I said, probably Odessa.”
“I was thinking the Russians. You made an ass of Serov, getting Mattingly back. Made an ass of him in front of his bosses. He might think taking you out would restore his reputation. I don’t believe his story that he’s in Nuremberg to sit on the Russian judges.”
“I think it’s Odessa.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m getting close to von Dietelburg. Or think I am. That’s what I was doing in Strasbourg.”
“The guy you think is running Odessa? Wallace sent you to Strasbourg to look for him?”
“No. He didn’t know anything about me looking for von Dietelburg. Or going to Strasbourg.”
“Jesus Christ, Jimmy. You’re as bad as Cletus Frade! A fucking three-star loose cannon. And you didn’t get to grab von Dietelburg in Strasbourg? Or even get any idea where to look for him, right?”
“I find out tomorrow, before half past two, whether or not I’m going to be told where to look for him.”
“Reliable source?”
“If
he tells me anything at all, I think it’ll be reliable.”
“Turn him over to that Frog, the one who runs DST. What’s his name?”
“Commandant Fortin.”
“I hear he’s really a colonel. And also that he could take a rock from the Kremlin wall and have it singing ‘La Marseillaise’ in fifteen minutes. I know you know him, so the question, Loose Cannon, is how well? Is he in that legion of people you’ve royally pissed off, or will he do us a favor?”
“He’ll do us a favor. Actually—”
“Mr. Schultz, it’s Vint.”
“What the hell do they want?” Schultz snapped.
“Fulda has a Colonel Wallace on the line, sir. He insists on speaking to you immediately. He says it’s urgent.”
“Does he know who I’m talking to?”
“No, sir.”
“Make sure he doesn’t find out. Hold One, Vint Hill.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jimmy, give your source to Fortin. Tell him I said to do whatever it takes to make your source give us von Dietelburg. I really want to close down Odessa and the way to do that is nail this sonofabitch. Say, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll get back to you, Jimmy. Vint Hill, put Colonel Wallace through.”
“Fulda, Vint Hill. I have Mr. Schultz on a secure line for Colonel Wallace.”
Cronley’s line went dead.
[FIVE]
When he came out of the bedroom closet in which Florence Miller had installed the SIGABA system, he found her sitting on her bed.
She got quickly to her feet.
“Sit,” Cronley ordered. She remained standing.
“I heard what happened,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. How did you hear? And what?”
“I put that major . . . Henderson? . . . on the SIGABA and happened to overhear what he told Colonel Wallace.”
“Major Anthony ‘Tony’ Henderson is one of the good guys, Flo. He reports to Oscar Schultz, not Wallace. What did he tell Wallace?”
“That when Lieutenant Winters was driving you from the airport to the Farber Palast, somebody opened up on you with a Schmeisser.”
Death at Nuremberg Page 22