The Assassination Option

by W. E. B Griffin

  “You mean you were fooling around with Colonel Schumann’s wife?”

  And here we are at decision time. Do I tell her everything, or not?

  I don’t have any choice.

  She’s either part of this team, or she’s not.

  And I can’t send her back to the ASA because (a) she’s already learned too much about Freddy, and now about me, and (b) I believe what they say about hell having no fury like a pissed-off female, and (c) she would have every right to be thoroughly pissed off because she’s done nothing wrong.

  So once again, it’s fuck Ludwig Mannberg’s firm belief that if you really want to trust your intuition, don’t.

  “Turn that around, Dette. Rachel Schumann was fooling around with me. More accurately, she was making a three-star fool of me.”

  “She was into the erotic attraction of your innocence and naïveté, is that what you’re saying?”

  “In hindsight, I don’t think she liked me at all. I think she held me in great contempt . . . and, from her viewpoint, rightly so. She was playing me like a violin, to coin a phrase.”

  “Her viewpoint?”

  “That of an NKGB operative. And for all I know, an NKGB officer. Probably an NKGB officer.”

  “You’re telling me this colonel’s wife was a Russian spy?”

  “Him, too.”

  “My God!”

  “Welcome to the wonderful world of intelligence.”

  “What information did she want from you?”

  “Whatever she could get about Kloster Grünau and Operation Ost generally, and whatever she could get about Likharev specifically.”

  “You’re implying she got it. From you.”

  “She got what she wanted to know about Likharev. From me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that he wasn’t buried in an unmarked grave at Kloster Grünau, despite an elaborate burial we conducted for him in the middle of the night. That he was in fact on his way to Argentina. And because I gave her that information, people died and were seriously wounded—Americans and Argentines—in Argentina, and the NKGB damned near managed to take out Likharev.”

  “You’re sure about all this?”

  “I’m sure about all this.”

  “Then there was something fishy about the explosion that killed this woman? Her and her husband?”

  “Listen carefully. The only thing I know is that there was an explosion. That said explosion was investigated by everybody and his brother, including Major Wallace, who thought, still thinks, which we had better not forget, that Schumann was a fine officer and a good friend—and nothing fishy was uncovered.”

  “But you have your suspicions, right?”

  “Next question?”

  “So what do I do with my Gregg notes?”

  “Transcribe them accurately and in full, give them to Freddy, who already knows everything, and don’t tell Freddy we had this little chat. Questions?”

  “No, sir,” she said, then, “Yes, one. A big one. Where the hell did I get the idea you’re naïve and innocent?”

  “Does that mean I’ve lost the erotic appeal that went along with that?”

  “Perish the thought! I meant nothing of the kind!”

  “Put the car in gear, please, Miss Colbert. Before we get in trouble, we better go see the general.”

  She did so, and then parroted, “‘We better go see the general’?”

  “Yeah. I think it’s important that you get to know one another. And when we finish, you can bring Freddy up to speed on what he had to say. Thereby sparing me from having to do so.”

  [THREE]

  Office of the U.S. Military Government Liaison Officer

  The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound

  Pullach, Bavaria

  The American Zone of Occupied Germany

  1205 16 January 1946

  As they were passing through the final roadblock and into the inner compound, the massive sergeant manning it, when he was sure Colbert was concentrating on the striped barrier pole as it rose, winked at Cronley and gave him a thumbs-up in appreciation of her physical attributes. Cronley winked back.

  When they went into the “Military Government” building, they found General Reinhard Gehlen, Colonel Ludwig Mannberg, Major Konrad Bischoff, and Captain Chauncey Dunwiddie sitting around a coffee table.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you could finally find time for us in your busy schedule,” Dunwiddie greeted Cronley sarcastically. “Where the hell were you?”

  Cronley’s mouth went on automatic: “‘Where the hell were you, sir?’ is the way you ask that question, Captain Dunwiddie,” he snapped.

  His anger dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Tiny? You got out of the wrong side of the bed?” He turned to Gehlen and the others. “Sorry to be late. Couldn’t be helped. I was being interrogated by Major Derwin.”

  “The CIC IG?” Tiny asked incredulously. “What was that about?”

  “This is getting out of hand,” Cronley said. “Time out.” He made the Time out signal with his hands.

  “This meeting is called to order by the chief, DCI-Europe, who yields to himself the floor. First order of business: Gentlemen, this is Miss Claudette Colbert. She is now Mr. Hessinger’s deputy for administration. She comes to us from the ASA, where she held all the proper security clearances. You already know Colonel Mannberg, Dette, and you may know Captain Dunwiddie. That’s former Major Konrad Bischoff, of General Gehlen’s staff, and this, of course, is General Gehlen.”

  “Mannberg has been telling me about you, Fraulein,” Gehlen said, and bobbed his head. “Welcome!”

  “Your call, General,” Cronley said. “Do you want to start with why you wanted to see me, or why I was delayed getting out here?”

  “Actually, I’m curious about the major,” Gehlen said. “Derwin, you said?”

  “Yes, sir. Major Thomas G. Derwin. When Colonel Schumann died, Major Derwin was sent from the CIC School to replace him as the CIC/ASA inspector general. When I was a student at the CIC School, I was in Major Derwin’s classes on the Techniques of Surveillance. Major Derwin was known to me and my fellow students as ‘Dick Tracy.’”

  “I gather he is not one of your favorite people,” Gehlen said drily. “What did he want?”

  “He said he wanted to ask me about credible rumors he’d heard about (a) my having an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with the late Mrs. Schumann, and (b) that I had attempted to murder Colonel Schumann at Kloster Grünau.”

  “And what did you tell him, Jim?” Mannberg asked.

  “I asked Major Wallace to join us. He explained to Major Derwin what had happened at Kloster Grünau when Colonel Schumann had insisted on going in, and told Major Derwin that the idea I had had an inappropriate relationship with Mrs. Schumann was absurd.”

  “Jim,” Tiny said, “are you sure you want Sergeant Colbert to hear this?”

  “She already has. And since she’s wearing triangles, why don’t you stop calling her ‘Sergeant’?”

  “And then?” General Gehlen asked.

  “Major Wallace asked Major Derwin from whom he’d heard the rumors, and after some resistance, Derwin produced a typewritten letter he said had been put in his box at the Park Hotel, where he lives.”

  “Who was the letter from?” Gehlen asked.

  Cronley held up his hand in a Wait gesture.

  “It began by saying the water heater explosion was suspicious, and the investigation ‘superficial.’ That set Wallace off. He said that he personally investigated the explosion, that he got there before the CID did, and there was nothing suspicious about it.

  “He really lost his temper. He said the only reason he wasn’t getting on the telephone to General Greene, to tell him what an asshole Derwin
was—”

  “He used that word?”

  “Did he, Dette?”

  “Words to that effect, sir,” Claudette said.

  “How would she know?” Tiny challenged. “She was in there with you?”

  “Let me finish, please, Tiny, then I’ll get to that,” Cronley said. “Wallace said the only reason he wasn’t going to General Greene, who would almost certainly relieve Derwin, was because he was determined to find out who wrote the letter to Derwin, and if Derwin was relieved, whoever wrote it would crawl back in his hole, or words to that effect, and he’d never catch him. He also told Derwin to call off his ‘investigation’ of the allegations in the letter as of that moment.”

  “Did Major Wallace have any idea who wrote the letter?” Mannberg asked.

  “He thinks it’s someone, one of us, who doesn’t think I should have been named chief, DCI-Europe.”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me,” Gehlen said. “And you think Major Derwin will cease his investigation?”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t think he wants to cross Major Wallace. You knew Wallace was a Jedburgh?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did I leave anything out, Dette?”

  “Sir, you didn’t get into the tail end of your conversation with Major Wallace.”

  “I asked before, was Serg— Miss Colbert in there with you?” Tiny said.

  “Fat Freddy put bugs in what was Mattingly’s office, and Wallace’s. Or, actually, Miss Colbert did, when Freddy asked her to.”

  “You knew about that?” Tiny asked.

  Cronley shook his head.

  “I think, when Freddy thinks the moment is right, he’ll tell me.”

  “Then how did you find out?” Tiny asked.

  “With your permission, sir?” Claudette said, before Cronley could open his mouth. “When Mr. Hessinger ordered me to transcribe what would be said between Mr. Cronley and Major Derwin, I realized I could not do that without Mr. Cronley’s knowledge, so I told him.”

  “Afterward?” Mannberg asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “There is no question in my mind that I owe Mr. Cronley my primary loyalty, sir.”

  “What was ‘the tail end’ of your conversation with Wallace?” Tiny asked.

  “I told him what I learned from El Jefe in the Farben Building. Why I’m chief, DCI-Europe. And I told him that Lieutenant Schultz hasn’t been a lieutenant for some time, and that he retired a little while ago as a commander, and is now executive assistant to the director of the Directorate of Central Intelligence. A few little things like that.”

  “Why? He doesn’t have the need to know about little things like that,” Tiny said.

  “Because I’ve come to understand that unless I want to be tossed to the wolves—did I mention El Jefe told me that was a distinct possibility?—I’m going to need all the friends I can get that I can trust. And after carefully considering Ludwig’s theory that when you really want to trust your intuition, that’s when you shouldn’t, I decided, Fuck it . . . Sorry, Dette.”

  She gave a deprecating gesture with her left hand.

  “. . . I decided (a) Wallace can be trusted, and (b) I need him. And the more time I’ve had to think it over, the more I think I made the right decision.”

  “Even though Wallace was Mattingly’s Number Two in the OSS?” Tiny challenged.

  “Mattingly was a politician in the OSS. The only time he ever served behind the enemy lines, if you want to put it like that, is when he flew over Berlin in a Piper Cub to see what he could see for General White. Wallace jumped into France three times. And into Norway once with a lieutenant named Colby. My gut feeling is that he’s one of us.”

  “One of us? I was never behind enemy lines, or jumped anywhere. Where do I fit into ‘us’?”

  “I’m tempted to say you get a pass because you’re a retard,” Cronley said. “But you’re one of us because you got a Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, and promotion to first sergeant in the Battle of the Bulge. You’ve heard more shots fired in anger than I ever heard. Mattingly never heard one. Not one. Do you take my point, Captain Dunwiddie?”

  “I take your point, Captain Cronley,” General Gehlen said, and then added, “Tiny, he’s right, and you know it.”

  Dunwiddie threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Is this where someone tells me that we’ve heard from the lady with the dachshund?” Cronley asked innocently.

  “It is,” Mannberg said, chuckling. “Go ahead, Konrad.”

  “It is Seven-K’s opinion,” former Major Konrad Bischoff began, “that the exfiltration of Mrs. Likharev and her children from their present location—which I believe is in Poland, although I was not told that, and Seven-K’s man in Berlin said he doesn’t know—”

  “Seven-K’s man in Berlin?” Cronley interrupted.

  A look of colossal annoyance flashed across Bischoff’s face at the interruption.

  Fuck you, I don’t like you, either, you sadistic, arrogant sonofabitch!

  “Answer the question, Konrad,” Mannberg said softly, in German. The softness of his tone did not at all soften the tone of command.

  “NKGB Major Anatole Loskutnikov,” Bischoff said.

  “We’ve worked with him before,” Gehlen said. “We suspect he also has a Mossad connection.”

  “And you sent Bischoff to Berlin to meet with him?”

  “Correct.”

  “And what did Loskutnikov tell you?” Cronley asked.

  “That Seven-K believes it would be too dangerous to try to exfiltrate the Likharev woman and her children . . .”

  Not “Mrs. Likharev”? She’s a colonel’s wife. You wouldn’t refer to Mannberg’s wife as “the Mannberg woman,” would you? You really do think all Russians are the untermensch, don’t you?

  “. . . through either Berlin or Vienna.”

  “So what does she suggest?”

  Bischoff ignored the question.

  “According to Loskutnikov, Seven-K says the exfiltration problem is exacerbated by the mental condition of the woman and the children—”

  “Meaning what?” Cronley interrupted. “They’re afraid? Or crazy?”

  Bischoff ignored him again.

  “—which is such that travel by train or bus is dangerous.”

  “I asked you two questions, Bischoff, and you answered neither.”

  “Sorry,” he said, visibly insincere. “What were they?”

  “Since Bischoff is having such difficulty telling you, Jim, what he told me,” General Gehlen said, “let me tell you what he told me.”

  “Please,” Cronley said.

  “A lot of this, you will understand, is what I am inferring from what Bischoff told me and what I know of this, and other, situations.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Understandably, Mrs. Likharev is upset—perhaps terrified—by the situation in which she now finds herself. She has been taken from the security of her Nevsky Prospekt apartment in Leningrad and now is on the run. I agree with Bischoff that she and the children are probably in Poland. She knows what will happen if the NKGB finds them. Children sense when their mother is terrified, and it terrifies them.

  “Seven-K knows that if they travel by train or bus, the odds are that a terrified woman will attract the attention of railroad or bus station police, who will start asking questions. Even with good spurious documents, which I’m sure Seven-K has provided, travel by bus or train is dangerous.

  “So that means travel by car, or perhaps truck. By car, providing that they have credible identification documents, would be safer than travel by truck. What is an obviously upper-class Russian woman doing riding around in a truck in Poland with two children?”

  “I get it.”

  “To use your charming phr
ase, Jim, ‘cutting to the chase,’ what Seven-K proposes is that the Likharevs be transported to Thuringia . . .”

  “My massive ignorance has just raised its head.”

  “The German state, the East German state, which borders on Hesse in the Kassel-Hersfeld area. Do you know that area?”

  “I’ve been to both Hersfeld and Kassel. When I first came to Germany, I was assigned to the Twenty-second CIC Detachment in Marburg. But do I know the area? No.”

  Gehlen nodded.

  “And then be turned over to us and then taken across the border.”

  “Turned over to us?”

  “Preferably to Americans, but if that is not possible, to us. Seven-K says Mrs. Likharev cannot be trusted to have control of her emotions to the point that she could cross the border with her children alone.”

  “Turned over to whomever in East Germany?”

  Gehlen nodded.

  “I can see it now,” Cronley said, “Fat Freddy, Tiny, and me sneaking across the border.”

  “Not to mention what the lady and her kids would do when they saw the Big Black Guy,” Tiny said. “If Tedworth and I terrified Likharev, what would she do when she saw me?”

  “We could use the Storchs to get them,” Cronley said thoughtfully. “If we had someplace to land . . .”

  “Could you do that?” Gehlen asked.

  “I don’t know, but I know where to get an expert opinion.”

  “From whom?” Tiny asked, and then he understood. “If you ask Colonel Wilson about this, he’ll get right on the horn to Mattingly.”

  “We don’t know that,” Cronley said. “We’ll have to see how much I can dazzle him with my DCI credentials.”

  “It’s a lousy idea, Jim,” Tiny said.

  “It’s a better idea than you and me trying to sneak back and forth across the border with a woman on the edge of hysteria and two frightened kids. Saddle up, Dette, I need a ride to the airport. I’m off to see Hotshot Billy Wilson.”

  [FOUR]

  En Route to Schleissheim Army Airfield

  1255 16 January 1946