Inside, as Cronley expected them to be, were both of what he thought of as “his Storchs.” They had been flown from Kloster Grünau, with a stop in Munich, to Sonthofen that morning by Kurt Schröder and Max Ostrowski.
They were being painted. Perhaps more accurately, “unpainted.” Wilson had told him what was planned for the aircraft: Since it might be decided—Wilson had emphasized “might”—to use the Storchs to pick up Likharev’s family in East Germany, the planes would have to go in “black,” which meant all markings that could connect the planes with the U.S. government would have to be removed.
That would have to be done now. There would not be time for the process if they waited for a decision about which airplanes would be used.
This meant the XXIIIrd CIC identification Cronley had painted on the vertical stabilizer after he’d gotten the planes from Wilson had to be removed—not painted over. Similarly, so did the Constabulary insignia Wilson had painted over when he gave the planes to Cronley. And the Star and Bar insignia of a U.S. military aircraft painted on the fuselage had to go, too. Removed, not over-painted. And when that was done, both would have to be painted non-glossy black.
When Cronley stepped into the hangar through the small door, Schröder and Ostrowski were sitting, Ostrowski backwards, on folding metal chairs watching soldier mechanics spray-painting the vertical stabilizer on one of the Storchs.
When Cronley started for them, Wilson touched his arm and pointed toward the hangar office.
“Our little chat first. You can chat with them later.”
Cronley was surprised when he entered Wilson’s office to see Major Harold Wallace and former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg. Wallace was standing next to a corkboard to which an aerial chart, a standard Corps of Engineers map, and a great many aerial photos were pinned. Mannberg was sitting at Wilson’s desk.
Wilson was apparently as surprised to see them as Cronley was.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” Wilson asked.
Wallace gestured at the corkboard.
“I decided the best place to do this was here.”
“How’d you get here?”
“You see that C-45 parked on the tarmac?”
“Yes, I saw it.”
“I wouldn’t want this to get around, but I have friends in the Air Corps,” Wallace said. “I borrowed that.”
“The Air Corps loaned you a C-45?”
“I thought we might need one.”
“Which means two Air Corps pilots get to know a lot more than I’m comfortable with?” Wilson said. “Or at the very least will ask questions we can’t have them asking.”
“Oddly enough, Colonel,” Wallace said, “those thoughts occurred to me, too. So as soon as we landed here . . .”
He sounds like a colonel dealing with a lieutenant colonel who has annoyed him.
“. . . I loaded the C-45 pilots into two of your puddle jumpers and had them flown back to Fürstenfeldbruck. You can fly C-45s, right?”
Wilson nodded.
“So can I,” Cronley blurted.
Wallace looked at him.
“I find that very interesting. If true, it may solve one of our problems. But first things first. How did he do in flight school?”
“He’s almost as good a pilot as he thinks he is.”
“In other words, in your professional judgment, he could safely land an L-5—or an L-4 or one of those newly painted airplanes out there in the hangar—on some remote field or back road in Thuringia, load someone who probably won’t want to go flying aboard, and take off again?”
“Yes, he could,” Wilson said.
“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Wallace said. “It would have been better if I could have told him, ‘Sorry, you flunked flight school. I can’t let you risk getting either Mrs. Likharev or the kiddies killed.’”
“If I didn’t think I could do it, I wouldn’t insist on flying one of the Storchs,” Cronley said.
“You wouldn’t insist, Captain Cronley?” Wallace asked sarcastically.
I am being put in my place.
In a normal situation, he would be right, and I would be wrong.
But whatever this situation is, it’s not normal.
In this Through-the-Looking-Glass world, allowing myself to be put in my place—just do what you’re told, Cronley—would be dereliction of duty.
“Yes, sir. Sir, while I really appreciate the assistance and expert advice you and Colonel Wilson are giving me, the last I heard, I was still chief, DCI-Europe, and the decisions to do, or not do, something are mine to make.”
“You’ve considered, I’m sure, that you could be relieved as chief, DCI-Europe?” Wallace asked icily.
“I think of that all the time, sir. As I’m sure you do. But, until that happens . . .”
“I realize you don’t have much time in the Army, Captain, but certainly somewhere along the way the term ‘insubordinate’ must have come to your attention.”
“Yes, sir. I know what it means. Willful disobedience of a superior officer. My immediate superior officer is the director of the Directorate of Central Intelligence, Admiral Souers. Isn’t that your understanding of my situation?”
Wallace glowered at him for a long fifteen seconds.
“We are now going to change the subject,” he said finally. “Which is not, as I am sure both you and Colonel Wilson understand, the same thing as dropping the subject. We will return to it in due course.”
Wallace looked at him expectantly.
He’s waiting for me to say, “Yes, sir.”
But since I have just challenged his authority to give me orders, I can’t do that.
So what do I do?
His mouth went on automatic.
“Sure. Why not?” he said.
Cronley saw Wallace’s face tighten, but he didn’t respond directly.
But he will eventually.
“Why are you so determined to use the Storchs?” Wallace asked.
“Why don’t you think it’s a good idea?”
“Okay. Worst-case scenario. Assuming you are flying an L-4 or an L-5. You land but can’t, for any one of a dozen reasons that pop into my mind, take off. There you are with a dozen Mongolians aiming their PPShs at you. Getting the picture?”
“What’s a—what you said?”
“A Russian submachine gun. The Pistolet Pulyemet Shpagin. It comes with a seventy-five-round drum magazine.”
“Okay. What was the question?”
“They are probably going to ask what you are doing on that back road. My theory is that it would be best to be naïve and innocent. I suggest you would look far more naïve and innocent if you were wearing ODs, with second lieutenant’s gold bars on your epaulets and flying a Piper or a Stinson than you would wearing anything and flying a Storch with no markings.
“You could say you were a liaison pilot with the Fourteenth Constabulary Regiment in Fritzlar, flying from there to, say, Wetzlar, and got lost and then had engine trouble and had to land.”
Cronley didn’t reply.
After a moment, Wallace said, “Please feel free to comment on my worst-case scenario.”
“You mean I can ask why it didn’t mention Mrs. Likharev and the boys? I thought they were the sole reason for this exercise. Where are they in your scenario when the Russians are aiming their PP-whatevers at me?”
“You insolent sonofabitch, you!” Wallace flared, and immediately added: “Sorry. You pushed me over the edge.”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“Okay, smart-ass. Let’s hear your scenario. Your best-case scenario,” Wallace said.
“Okay. We—Ostrowski, Schröder, me, both Storchs, and a couple of ASA radio guys—are in a hangar in Fritzlar. If they don’t have a hangar, we’ll build one like the one we built at Kloster Grünau, out
of tents. We’re hiding the Storchs is the idea.
“We hear from Seven-K, who tells us at which of the possible pickup points she and the Likharevs will be and when. We tell her, ‘Okay.’
“Ostrowski and I get in one Storch, Schröder in the other. We fly across the border, pick up Mrs. Likharev and the boys and bring them back to Fritzlar. I haven’t quite figured out how to get them from Fritzlar to Rhine-Main yet. Maybe in that C-45 you borrowed from the Air Force.”
“And where in your best-case scenario are the Russians with the PPShs in my worst-case scenario?” Wallace asked, softly but sarcastically.
“We are going to be in and out so fast that unless they’re following Seven-K down those remote roads, the Russians probably won’t even know we were there.”
“Isn’t that wishful thinking?” Wallace asked.
“What was it Patton said, ‘Do not take counsel of your fears’?”
“He also said,” Oberst Mannberg interjected, “‘In war, nothing is impossible provided you use audacity.’”
“Now that we understand the military philosophy behind this operation,” Wallace snapped, “let’s talk specifics. Starting with why the Storchs?”
“It’s a much better airplane than either the L-4 or the L-5.”
“And you feel qualified to fly one of them onto what’s almost sure to be a snow-covered and/or icy back road? Or onto a snow-covered field?”
“Well, Schröder has a lot of experience doing just that. I think Colonel Mannberg will vouch for that. And I have a little experience doing that myself.”
“The snow-covered pastures around Midland, Texas?” Wallace challenged.
“I never flew a Storch in the States,” Cronley said. “But I did fly one off of and onto the ice around the mouth of the Magellan Strait in Patagonia. Trust me, there is more snow and ice there than there is anywhere in Texas or Germany.”
“You flew a Storch down to the mouth of the Strait of Magellan?” Wallace asked dubiously.
“No. Actually I flew a Lockheed Lodestar down there. I flew Cletus’s Storch while I was down there. I also flew a Piper Cub when I was down there.” He paused and looked at Wallace. “Look, Colonel Wilson told you I’m competent to fly this mission. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’ll decide what’s—”
“Jim,” Mannberg interrupted, “you said, I think, that you and Ostrowski would fly in one Storch?”
It was a bona fide question, but everyone understood it served to prevent another angry exchange between Cronley and Wallace.
Cronley looked at Wallace.
“Answer the man,” Wallace said.
“We land. Me first,” Cronley said. “Ostrowski gets out and goes to Seven-K, or whoever is with Mrs. Likharev and the boys. He says, ‘Mrs. Likharev, we’ll have you over the border—’”
“Ostrowski speaks Russian?” Wallace challenged.
“He does, and better than Schröder,” Cronley said. “Let me finish. Ostrowski says, ‘Mrs. Likharev, we’ll have you and the boys over the border in just a few minutes. And the way we’re going to do that is put you and him’—he points to the smaller boy—‘in that airplane’—pointing to the Storch Schröder has by now landed—‘and I will take this one in that airplane’—he points to the Storch I’m flying.
“He leads Mrs. Likharev to Schröder’s Storch . . .”
“What if she doesn’t want to go? What if she’s hysterical? What if Seven-K has already tranquilized her?” Wallace challenged.
“. . . where Schröder says, in Russian, with a big smile, ‘Hi! Let’s go flying.’ They get in Schröder’s plane and he takes off. Ostrowski and the older boy get in my airplane, and I take off,” Cronley finished.
“What if she doesn’t want to go? What if she’s hysterical? What if Seven-K has already tranquilized her?” Wallace repeated.
“I thought you wanted my best-case scenario?” Cronley replied, and then went on before Wallace could reply. “But, okay. Let’s say she’s been tranquilized—let’s say they’ve all been tranquilized—then no problem getting them into the planes. If she’s hysterical, then Ostrowski tranquilizes her, and the boys, too, if necessary.”
“And how are you going to get all of them into the planes?”
“The boys are small.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because when Tiny and I were working on Likharev, he told us his son was too young to get in the Young Pioneers. That makes him less than twelve.”
“There are two boys . . .”
“If one of them was old enough to be a Young Pioneer, he would have said so. That makes both of the boys less than twelve.” He paused, then added: “Feel free to shoot holes in my scenario.”
Wallace looked as if he was about to reply, but before he could, Mannberg said, “Not a hole, but an observation: When we were doing this sort of thing in the East, whenever possible, we tried to arrange some sort of diversion.”
Wallace looked at him for a moment, considered that, but did not respond. Instead he said, “Tell me about you being able to fly a C-45.”
“My father has one,” Cronley said. “I’ve never been in a C-45, but I’m told it’s a Beech D-18. What they call a ‘Twin Beech.’”
“And Daddy let you fly his airplane?”
“Daddy did.”
“How often?”
“The last I looked, often enough to give me about three hundred hours in one.”
“You are licensed to fly this type aircraft?” Wallace asked dubiously.
Cronley felt anger well up within him, but controlled it.
“I’ve got a commercial ticket which allows me to fly Beech D-18 aircraft under instrument flight rules,” Cronley said calmly.
“So why is it you’re not an Army aviator?”
Cronley’s anger flared, and his mouth went on automatic.
“I wanted to be an Army aviator, but my parents are married and that disqualified me.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them.
But the response he got from Army aviator Wilson was not what he expected.
Wilson smiled and shook his head, and said, “Harry, if his flying that C-45 is important, I can give him a quick check ride. To satisfy you. I’m willing to take his word. Actually, he has more time in the Twin Beech than I do.”
“You’re telling me, Cronley,” Wallace said, “that if I told you to get in that C-45 and fly it to Fritzlar, you could do that?”
“I could, but I’d rather have the check ride Colonel Wilson offered first.”
“Bill, how long would that take?”
“Thirty, forty minutes. No more than an hour.”
“Do it,” Wallace ordered. “I’ve got some phone calls to make.”
“Now?”
“Now,” Wallace said. “To coin a phrase, time is of the essence.”
[TWO]
U.S. Air Force Base
Fritzlar, Hesse
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1615 18 January 1946
“Fritzlar Army Airfield, Air Force Three Niner Niner, a C-45, at five thousand above Homberg, estimate ten miles south. Approach and landing, please,” Cronley said into his microphone.
After a moment, there was a response.
“Air Force Three Niner Niner, this is Fritzlar U.S. Air Force Base. By any chance, are you calling me?”
“Shit,” Cronley said, and then pressed the TALK button. “Fritzlar, Niner Niner, affirmative. Approach and landing, please.”
When he had received and acknowledged approach and landing instructions, Cronley replaced the microphone in the clip holder on the yoke.
Captain C. L. Dunwiddie, who was sitting in the copilot’s seat, asked, “Why do I suspect your best-laid plans have gone agley?”
�
��I thought this was going to be a Constabulary landing strip. It’s an Air Force base, and I think the Air Force is going to wonder what two cavalry officers are doing with one of their airplanes.”
“Fritzlar, Three Niner Niner on the ground at fifteen past the hour. Close me out, please.”
“Niner Niner, you are closed out. Take Taxiway Three Left and hold in position. You will be met.”
“Niner Niner, Roger,” Cronley said, and then turned to Tiny and pointed out the window. “Not only an Air Force base, but a big one.”
There were three very large hangars, a control tower atop a base operations building, and other buildings. Too many to count, but at least twenty P-47 “Thunderbolt” fighters were on the tarmac or in one of the hangars.
“And one that seems to have avoided the war,” Dunwiddie said. “I don’t see any signs of damage—bomb or any other kind—at all.”
“Here comes the welcoming committee,” Cronley said, pointing at a jeep headed toward them down the taxiway.
The jeep drove right up to the nose of the C-45.
An Air Force major, who was wearing pilot’s wings and had an AOD brassard on his arm, stood up in the jeep, pointed to the left engine, and then made a slashing motion across his throat, telling Cronley to shut down that engine. He then made gestures mimicking the opening of a door.
Cronley gave him a thumbs-up and started to shut down the left engine.
The jeep turned and drove around the left wing, obviously headed for the C-45’s fuselage door.
“I don’t suppose you know how to open the door?” Cronley asked Dunwiddie.
Dunwiddie got out of his seat and headed toward the door.
“Welcome to Fritzlar, Captain,” the Air Force major said, as he stepped into the cockpit.
Well, if he’s seen the railroad tracks, he’s seen the cavalry sabers. And the blank spot on my tunic where pilot’s wings are supposed to go.
Now what?
“Thank you,” Cronley said.
“The word we got is to get you out of sight. And the way we’re going to do that is have you taxi to the center one of those hangars”—he pointed to the row of three large hangars—“where we will push you inside, and where your people are waiting for you.”
The Assassination Option Page 34