The Assassination Option

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I understand that you met my CIC chief in Vienna,” Greene said. “Colonel Stevens?”

  Cronley thought, Well, it didn’t take Greene long to hear about that, did it?

  “We had a visit from the CIC in Vienna, but I didn’t get his name,” Schultz said.

  “What was that about?”

  “Apparently one of the hotel managers heard two of my people speaking Russian, and turned us in as suspicious characters.”

  “He didn’t say what you were doing in Vienna.”

  “I didn’t tell him,” Schultz said.

  “So he said. He also said that one of his agents knew Cronley.”

  “As I understand that,” Schultz said, “they were apparently in CIC school together.”

  “Where they were students in Major Derwin’s class on Techniques of Surveillance,” General Greene said. “Which brings us, Cronley, to Major Derwin.”

  “Sir?”

  “Major Derwin wants to talk to you.”

  What the hell for?

  “Yes, sir?”

  “He didn’t tell me why, but he said he’d like to do so as soon as possible. What about today?”

  “Not today, sir. As soon as I load these gentlemen onto the Buenos Aires flight, I have to get back to Munich.”

  “Well, when can I tell the major you will have time for him?”

  “Sir, just about anytime after I get back to Munich. Anytime tomorrow.”

  “What’s so important, Cronley,” Colonel Mattingly demanded, “that you have to get back to Munich today? You don’t actually expect Major Derwin to come to Munich to ask you what he wants to ask you, do you?”

  “Colonel, if Major Derwin wants to ask me anything, I’ll be in Munich,” Cronley said.

  General Greene, before Mattingly could reply to that, said, “Why don’t we head for the generals’ mess? It’s always wiser to be earlier for an appointment with a general than late.”

  “Colonel Ashton,” Cronley asked, “would it be all right if I waited for you and Lieutenant Schultz here after I get a sandwich in the snack bar?”

  “Certainly.”

  “The guest list I got from General Smith’s aide has you on it, Cronley,” General Greene said. “You, Colonel Ashton, Lieutenant Schultz, and me.”

  Oh, so that’s why Mattingly’s pissed. He didn’t get invited to break bread with Beetle Smith and I did.

  That should delight me. But it doesn’t.

  I suppose I really am afraid of Colonel Robert Mattingly.

  [FOUR]

  The General Officers’ Mess

  The I.G. Farben Building

  Frankfurt am Main

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1159 16 January 1946

  General Walter Bedell Smith, trailed by his aide-de-camp, a full colonel, marched into the general officers’ mess, where General Greene, Ashton, Schultz, and Cronley were standing waiting for him just inside the door.

  “Homer, why don’t you check inside and see everything’s set up, and then catch a sandwich or something while we eat? This is one of those top secret lunches behind a curtain one hears about, and you’re not invited.”

  “Not a problem, General,” the aide said, smiling, and went into the dining room.

  “How are you, Paul?” Smith asked General Greene.

  “Holding up under difficult circumstances, General.”

  “Welcome to the club, General.”

  Smith turned to Cronley.

  “How are you, son? And how’s our midget friend holding up?”

  He means Tiny.

  “Very well, sir. Tiny’s holding the fort up in Munich.”

  “I’m Walter Smith, Colonel,” Smith said to Ashton. “I guess you’re the one I should have asked how he’s holding up.”

  “I’m all right, sir. Thank you.”

  “And you,” Smith said to Schultz, “by the process of elimination, must be ‘the chief’?”

  “Some people still call me that, General,” Schultz said.

  “Including Admiral Souers,” Smith said. “He tells me you two are old shipmates?”

  Cronley had never heard that before.

  Why not?

  “Yes, sir. That’s true.”

  “Actually, when he told me he was sending you to Europe, I thought I heard an implication that there is more to your relationship than just being old shipmates.”

  Schultz seemed to be framing his reply when he saw he didn’t have to. General Smith’s aide was walking quickly back across the room to them.

  “All set up, sir.”

  “Thanks, Homer. See you in forty-five minutes. Wait a minute. You’re going to Buenos Aires today, right? How are you going to get out to Rhine-Main?”

  From the look on General Greene’s face, this was news—surprising news—to him, but he reacted quickly to it:

  “I’ll send them in one of my cars, General,” he said.

  “Homer, lay on a Packard for these gentlemen,” General Smith said. “If there’s no spare, use mine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “General, that’s not necessary,” Schultz said.

  “I understand that chiefs feel free to argue with admirals, Chief, but please don’t argue with a general. A wounded warrior and the executive assistant to the director of Central Intelligence deserve no less than one of our Packards. Do it, Homer.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  What did he call El Jefe? “The executive assistant to the director of Central Intelligence”?

  And Greene’s face showed he had never heard that before, either.

  Smith took El Jefe’s arm and led him across the dining room.

  “We’ll be in Ike’s dining room,” he said. “Ike’s in Berlin.”

  Ike’s dining room turned out to be an alcove off the main room, the windows of which provided a panoramic view of the bombed-out ruins of buildings as far as the eye could see.

  There was a table, now set at one end for five, but capable, Cronley guessed, of seating ten, maybe a dozen people comfortably.

  Smith stood behind the chair at the head of the table, and indicated where the others were to sit. El Jefe and General Greene were seated close to Smith, and Cronley found himself seated across from Ashton.

  A waiter in a starched white jacket appeared. Cronley guessed he was a sergeant.

  “There will be no menus today,” General Smith announced. “I’m really pressed for time. Anybody who doesn’t like a steak, medium rare, a baked potato, and green beans is out of luck. Charley, serve the food and then draw the curtain and make sure we’re not interrupted.”

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter said.

  Serving the food and putting two silver coffee services on the table took very little time.

  “Okay,” General Smith said. “General Eisenhower really wanted to be here today, but our Russian friends in Berlin are being difficult. And the reason he wanted to be here—and the reason he asked Admiral Souers to send someone senior over here—is because he wanted to hear from someone who knows what’s really going on with Operation Ost. More precisely, he’s concerned about the level of threat of exposure. And since there is, I devoutly hope, no paper trail, that will have to be word of mouth. And I think we should start by hearing the opinion of the junior officer involved. Captain Cronley.”

  Shit!

  Cronley stood up.

  “Sir—”

  “Sit down, please,” General Smith said, “and tell me the first thing that comes to your mind vis-à-vis Operation Ost being compromised.”

  Oh, what the hell. When in doubt, tell the truth.

  “Sir, the first thing that comes to my mind is that we just started to make a paper trail.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Smith said softly. “And whose
idea was that?”

  “My . . . I guess he could be called my administrative officer. Staff Sergeant Hessinger.”

  “And you thought this idea of your staff sergeant was a good idea?”

  “Sir, Hessinger said something to the effect that eventually somebody is going to want to look at our records. And if that happens, and we say, ‘We haven’t been keeping any records,’ that’s not going to be an acceptable answer.”

  “And I agreed, General,” Schultz said. “And told Cronley to start making after-action reports on everything of significance that’s happened at Kloster Grünau—”

  “Where?” Smith interrupted.

  “The monastery,” Schultz furnished.

  General Smith nodded his understanding.

  “And at the Pullach compound. And about everything else he’s done of significance anywhere.”

  “And who gets these after-action reports?” Smith asked.

  “Colonel Ashton,” Cronley said. “As responsible officer for Operation Ost. And he sits on them, hoping that no one will ever want to see them.”

  General Smith considered that for a full thirty seconds.

  “Your sergeant was right, Cronley,” he said. “Napoleon said, ‘An army travels on its stomach,’ but the U.S. Army travels on its paper trails. If this thing blows up in our faces, and we didn’t have any kind of a paper trail, (a) they wouldn’t believe it, and (b) in the absence of a paper trail, we could be accused of anything. I think General Eisenhower would agree. I also think it would be a good idea if I had a look at them, in case they needed . . . what shall I say? . . . a little editing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

  “Not your decision to make,” Smith said. “Chief, what about it?”

  After a moment, Schultz said, “Hand-carry them to General Smith personally. Either you or Tiny.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Back to the basic question, Cronley: What is your assessment of the risk of exposure of Operation Ost? Increased, diminished, or no change?”

  “Greatly diminished, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Sir, just about all of General Gehlen’s Nazis are already in Argentina. There’s a dozen, maybe twenty, still unaccounted for in Eastern Europe. If we can get them out, either to West Germany or Italy, we’ll use the Vatican to get them to Argentina. I mean, we’re no longer going to use SAA to transport them.”

  “If you’re right, and I have no reason to doubt that you are, that’s good news,” General Smith said. “Colonel Ashton, what’s your assessment of the same thing, this blowing up in our faces in Argentina?”

  “Sir, I’ll probably regret saying this, but I don’t think it’s much of a problem, and the chances diminish by the day.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Schultz answered for him: “General, the only people looking for Nazis in Argentina are the FBI. And since Juan Domingo Perón and the Catholic Church don’t want any Nazis found, the FBI is going to have a very hard time finding any.”

  “You don’t sound as if you’re rooting for the FBI,” Smith said. “Doesn’t that make you uncomfortable?”

  “No, sir, it doesn’t. President Truman and General Eisenhower getting burned by J. Edgar Hoover over Operation Ost is what makes me, and Admiral Souers, uncomfortable.”

  “I’d forgotten that you have spent so much time in South America,” General Smith said, but it was a question, and everybody at the table knew it.

  When Schultz didn’t reply immediately, Smith made a statement that was clearly another question: “Chief, in the lobby just now, I said that I thought, when he told me he was sending you to Europe, that Admiral Souers was implying there’s more to your relationship than being old shipmates. Then Homer appeared before you could reply. Or saved you from having to reply.”

  “You sure you want me to get into that, General?”

  “Only if you’re comfortable telling me.”

  “Comfortable, no, but the admiral trusts you, which means I do, and I think you have the right to know,” Schultz said. “So okay. The admiral and I were shipmates on battleship USS Utah in 1938. He was then a lieutenant commander and I had just made chief signalman. About the time he made commander, and went to work for the chief of Naval Intelligence, the Navy sent me to Fort Monmouth, in New Jersey, to see what the Army Signal Corps was up to. My contact in ONI was Commander Souers. I kept him up to speed about what the Army was developing—radar, for one thing—and, more important, what became the SIGABA system.”

  “It’s an amazing system,” General Smith said. “You were involved in its development?”

  “Yes, sir, I was. In 1943, I installed a SIGABA system on a destroyer, the USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, which then sailed to the South Atlantic to see what kind of range we could get out of it. To keep SIGABA secret, only her captain and two white hats I had with me knew what the real purpose of that voyage was.

  “We called at Buenos Aires, official story ‘courtesy visit’ to Argentina, which was then neutral. Actual purpose, so that I could get some SIGABA parts from Collins Radio, which were flown down there in the embassy’s diplomatic pouch.

  “A Marine captain comes on board, in a crisp khaki uniform, wearing naval aviator’s wings, the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the third award of the Purple Heart . . .”

  “Cletus?” Cronley asked.

  “Who else? Anyway, he tells the skipper he understands that he has a SIGABA expert on board and he wants to talk to him. Cletus Frade is a formidable guy. The skipper brings Captain Frade to the radio shack.

  “He says he’s heard I’m a SIGABA expert. I deny I ever heard of SIGABA. ‘What is it?’

  “He says, ‘Chief, if you ever lie to me again, I’ll have you shot. Now, are you a capable SIGABA repairman or not?’

  “I tell him I am. He asks me if I know anything about the RCA 103 Radar—which was also classified Top Secret at the time—and I tell him yes. He says, ‘Pack your sea bag, Chief, orders will soon come detaching you from this tin can and assigning you to me.’

  “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I’m not worried. The skipper’s not going to let anybody take me off the Alfred Thomas. Who the hell does this crazy Marine think he is? The chief of Naval Operations?

  “At 0600 the next morning, so help me God, there is an Urgent message over the SIGABA. Very short message. Classified Top Secret–Tango, which security classification I’d never heard of until that morning. ‘Chief Signalman Oscar J. Schultz detached USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, assigned personal staff Captain Cletus Frade, USMCR, with immediate effect. Ernest J. King, Admiral, USN, Chief of Naval Operations.’

  “At 0800, Cletus is waiting for me on the wharf. In civvies, driving his Horch convertible, with a good-looking blond sitting next to him. It’s Dorotea, his Anglo-Argentine wife. He says we’re going out to the ranch, and should be there in time for lunch.

  “‘Sir,’ I say, ‘what’s going on here?’

  “‘Congratulations, Chief, you are now a member of Team Turtle of the Office of Strategic Services. The team’s out at the ranch. What we do, among other things, is look for German submarines, supposedly neutral ships that supply German submarines, and then we sink them or blow them up or arrange for the Navy to do that for us. We use the RCA 103 Radar to find them, and the SIGABA to pass the word to the Navy. So we need you to keep those technological marvels up and running.’”

  “That’s quite a story,” General Smith said.

  “Yeah. But let me finish, General, it gets better.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” General Smith said.

  “So we go out to the ranch. I found out later that it’s about as big as Manhattan Island. Really. Cletus owns it. He inherited it, and a hell of a lot else, from his father, who was murdered at the orders, so the OSS guys told me, of Hein
rich Himmler himself when it looked like El Coronel Frade was going to become president of Argentina.

  “And I met the team. All a bunch of civilians in uniform. Well, maybe not in uniform. But not professional military men, if you know what I mean. No offense, Polo.”

  “None taken, El Jefe. That’s what we were, civilians in uniform. On those rare occasions when we wore uniforms.”

  “Admiral Souers—by then he was Rear Admiral, Lower Half—finally learned that I’d been shanghaied off the USS Alfred Thomas. He got a message to me saying that he couldn’t get me out of Argentina, but I could still be of use to the Office of Naval Intelligence by reporting everything I could learn about what Frade and Team Turtle were up to. The admiral said that it was very important to ONI.

  “By then, I’d already heard about the trouble Clete was having with the naval attaché of our embassy—a real asshole—and the FBI and some other people supposed to be on our side, and I’d gotten to know the OSS guys. So first I told Clete what the admiral wanted, told him I wasn’t going to do it, and then I got on the SIGABA and told the admiral I wasn’t going to report to ONI on Team Turtle and why.

  “I got a short message in reply. ‘Fully understand. Let me know if I can ever help with anything Frade needs.’”

  “And then one thing led to another, General,” Ashton said. “First, El Jefe became de facto chief of staff to Frade, and then de jure. Or more or less de jure. Without telling El Jefe that he was going to, Clete got on the horn—the SIGABA—to Admiral Souers and told him he was going to ask the Navy to commission El Jefe and was the admiral going to help or get in the way?”

  “Two weeks later,” El Jefe picked up the story, “the naval attaché was forced to swear me in as a lieutenant, USNR. The attaché couldn’t say anything, of course, but that really ruined his day, which is why I asked Clete to have him ordered to do it.”

  General Smith chuckled.

  “The reason I look so spiffy in my uniform is that it’s practically brand-new,” El Jefe said. “I don’t think it’s got two weeks’ wear on it.”

  “You didn’t wear it because you were too cheap to buy more gold stripes when you were made a lieutenant commander,” Ashton said. “Or when Clete got you promoted to commander so you’d outrank me and could take command of what was still the OSS, Southern Cone, when he took off his uniform.”