The Assassination Option

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Can I ask why?” Moriarty asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think you have the need to know that. But I will tell you that it’s important. Not just a mercy mission.”

  “Got it,” Bonehead said.

  “I understand,” Ginger said.

  “The only reason I’ve told you this much is so you won’t go around asking questions. Any questions you would ask would attract attention to us. And we don’t want to attract any attention at all. Understand?”

  “Got it,” Bonehead said again.

  “I understand,” Ginger said. “The rumors are already starting.”

  “What rumors are those?” Cronley asked.

  “That you’re the advance party for a secret—or at least not yet announced—visit by General White.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “This afternoon—fifteen minutes ago. In the checkout line at the commissary.”

  Cronley made a Give me more gesture with his hands.

  “Well, one of the girls—one of the officers’ wives—said that she had heard from a friend of hers in Sonthofen . . . you know what I mean?”

  “I was there earlier today,” Cronley said.

  “Constabulary Headquarters,” Ginger went on. “Anyway, the girl in line said she had heard from a friend of hers, whose husband is also a Constab officer, that they were preparing General White’s train . . . You know he has a private train?”

  “Colonel Fishburn said he saw them on the general’s private train,” Bonehead furnished.

  “You do get around, don’t you, Jimmy? Marjie would be so proud of you!”

  “Ginger, do me a favor. Stop talking about the . . . Marjie. It’s painful.”

  “Sorry,” she said, and then considered what she had said, and went on, “Jimmy, I didn’t think. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Ginger. Now what was the rumor in the commissary checkout line?”

  “Well, she said her friend told her her husband had told her that they were getting General White’s train ready for a secret—no, she said, ‘unannounced’—for an unannounced visit to the Constab units up here. You know, Hersfeld, Wetzlar, Fulda, Kassel, and of course here. And then another lady said, ‘He’s coming here first. They already flew in the advance party. Just now. Special radios and everything.’”

  “Jesus Christ!” Cronley said, shaking his head.

  “Jimmy, you’re as bad as Bruce. Please don’t blaspheme. It’s a sin.”

  “The OLIN is incredible if not always infallible, Jim,” Tiny said. “I know. I grew up in it.”

  “The what?”

  “The Officers’ Ladies Intelligence Network.”

  “Well, is he, Jimmy? Is General White coming here?” Ginger asked.

  “I have no idea, but having people think we’re part of his advance party is even better than having them think we’re a soldier show, which is what I told that Air Force officer.”

  “And even better than having them think we’re from the 711th Mobile Kitchen Renovation Company,” Tiny said, chuckling. “Ginger, did I hear you say something about something to cut the dust of the trail?”

  “Why don’t we go in the living room?” Ginger suggested.

  There were a number of framed photographs on a side table in the living room, including one of the Adams-Moriarty wedding party.

  “Tiny,” Cronley said softly, and when Dunwiddie looked at him, pointed at it.

  When Dunwiddie took a closer look, Cronley said, “Second from the left. The late Mrs. James D. Cronley.”

  “Nice-looking,” Tiny said.

  “Yeah,” Cronley said.

  “You never showed me a picture of her.”

  “I never had one.”

  Ginger, as she handed them drinks, saw they were looking at the picture.

  “Are you married, Captain Tiny?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What is it they say, ‘Lieutenants should not marry, captains may, and majors must’?”

  “My mother told me that,” Tiny said. “As a matter of fact, keeps telling me that.”

  “You’re from an Army family?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, is he from an Army family,” Cronley said. “Not only did his grandfather, First Sergeant Dunwiddie of the legendary Tenth U.S. Cavalry Regiment, beat Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, but his father, Colonel Dunwiddie, is a 1920 classmate of General White’s at Norwich.”

  “Really?” Ginger asked.

  “That’s what he was doing on General White’s train. Making his manners to his godfather.”

  “General White is your godfather?” Ginger asked incredulously.

  “Yes, ma’am, he is,” Tiny said, and glowered at Cronley.

  “I would rather have that truth circulating among the ladies at the commissary checkout line than have them wonder what we were doing on the train,” Cronley said.

  Dunwiddie considered that for a moment, and then, grudgingly, said, “Okay, blabbermouth, point well taken.”

  “You mean I can tell the girls?”

  “Only if the subject comes up, Ginger,” Cronley said. “If, and only if, the subject comes up, then and only then, you can say, ‘What I heard, girls, is that Captain Dunwiddie is General White’s godson.’ Okay, Ginger?”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “And now, before we accept Captain Dunwiddie’s kind offer to dine with him, at his expense, at the O Club, what else should we talk about?”

  Bonehead took the question literally.

  “A couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting of Aggies in Kassel. One of them was a classmate of your pal Cletus Frade, before Frade dropped out, I mean. He said he heard he became an ace with the Marines on Guadalcanal early in the war. But that was the last he heard. Did he come through the war all right, Jimmy, do you know?”

  “I was about to say,” Cronley said, “that it’s a small world, isn’t it?”

  “And I was about to say the trouble with letting one worm out of the can is then the rest want out,” Dunwiddie said.

  “I don’t understand,” Ginger said.

  “This doesn’t get spread among the ladies in the checkout line or anywhere else, okay?”

  “Understood.”

  “Colonel Cletus Frade, Navy Cross, United States Marine Corps . . .”

  “He got to be a colonel?” Bonehead asked incredulously.

  “A full-bull fire-breathing colonel,” Cronley confirmed. “He spent most of the war running the OSS in Argentina. In his spare time, he got married—to a stunning Anglo-Argentine blond named Dorotea—and sired two sons. And one day, when he was visiting Germany . . .” He stopped in midsentence. “The look on Captain Dunwiddie’s face tells me he’s wondering why I’m telling you all this.”

  “You’re very perceptive,” Dunwiddie said.

  “I have my reasons,” Cronley said. “So let me go off on a tangent for a moment. Bonehead, what kind of a security clearance do you have?”

  “Top Secret. As of about a month, six weeks ago.”

  “I think I know where you’re going,” Dunwiddie said.

  “You’re very perceptive. Should I stop?”

  “Go on.”

  “Captain Dunwiddie and I have need, Bonehead, of a white company grade officer with a Top Secret security clearance to command Company C, 203rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, the enlisted men of which, some of whom you met today, are all of the African persuasion, and most of whom are as large as you are.”

  “Despite its name and distinguished heritage, Bonehead, Charley Company today has nothing to do with destroying tanks,” Dunwiddie said.

  “What it does these days is guard two classified installations we run in Bavaria,” Cronley said.

 
“And also supervises Company ‘A,’ 7002nd Provisional Security Organization, which is a quasi-military organization whose members are almost entirely Polish displaced persons, which also guards these two classified installations,” Dunwiddie furnished. “Would you be interested in assuming that responsibility?”

  “You said ‘company.’ Companies are commanded by captains.”

  “Not always. In olden times, when I was a second lieutenant, I had the honor of commanding Charley Company,” Cronley said.

  “If you’re not pulling my leg about this, Jimmy, Colonel Fishburn would never let me go. We’re short of officers as it is.”

  “Well, then,” Dunwiddie said, “let me rephrase: Presuming Colonel Fishburn would let you go, would you like to command two hundred thirty–odd Black American soldiers and a like number of Polish DPs?” Dunwiddie asked.

  “Sir, I just told you, Colonel Fishburn wouldn’t let me go.”

  “You call him ‘sir’ and refer to me by my nickname? Outrageous!”

  “Answer the question, Lieutenant,” Dunwiddie said.

  Bonehead considered the question a moment, then asked, “Is there a good hospital in Munich?”

  “That’s a question, not an answer, Bonehead,” Cronley said. “Why is a hospital important to— Oh.”

  “The 98th General Hospital in Munich, Lieutenant,” Tiny said, “is one of the best in the U.S. Army. Apropos of nothing whatever, its obstetrical services are about the best to be found in Europe.”

  “No shit?” Bonehead asked.

  “Bruce, you’re not really thinking of going along with Jimmy, are you?”

  “No shit, Bonehead,” Cronley said. “It’s a great hospital.”

  “Sweetheart . . .”

  “The colonel would be furious if he even thought you’re thinking of asking for a transfer.”

  “Then the both of you better be prepared to act really surprised when his orders come down,” Cronley said.

  “You’re not going to ask Colonel Fishburn?” Ginger asked, but before Cronley could reply, she looked at Dunwiddie and asked, “Can he do that, Captain Tiny?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dunwiddie said. “He can.”

  “How soon?”

  “Well, what we’re here for shouldn’t take more than three days. A couple of days to finish what we’ve started here. Say a week.”

  Presuming, of course, that I’m not strapped to a chair in an NKGB jail cell by then watching them pull my toenails out with pliers.

  Or pushing up daisies in an unmarked Thuringian grave.

  Or a blackened corpse sitting in the burned-out fuselage of a crashed or shot-down Storch.

  “You seem very confident about this, Jimmy,” Ginger said.

  “Ginger, that’s why my men call me ‘Captain Confidence.’ Isn’t that so, Captain Dunwiddie?”

  Dunwiddie shook his head.

  “Why don’t we go to the O Club?” he suggested. “I saw a sign in the headquarters saying tonight is steak night.”

  “They import the steak from Norway,” Ginger said, then with great effort and some grunts, she pushed herself out of her chair.

  [FIVE]

  The Officers’ Open Mess

  11th Constabulary Regiment

  Fritzlar, Hesse

  American Zone of Occupation, Germany

  1830 18 January 1946

  Since all German restaurants and bars were off-limits, the officers of the 11th Constabulary Regiment had three choices for their evening meal: They could eat at home, or have a hamburger or a hot dog at the PX snack bar, or they could go to the officers’ open mess. If they wanted a drink, or a beer, they had only their home or the O Club to choose between, as the PX did not serve intoxicants of any kind.

  On special occasions, such as “Steak Night,” the O Club was usually very crowded. When Cronley, Dunwiddie, and the Moriartys walked in, there was a crowd of people waiting to be seated.

  Among them was a young woman who was just about as conspicuously in the family way as Mrs. Moriarty. When she saw Mrs. Moriarty, she went to her, called her by her first name, kissed the air near her cheek, and announced, “Tommy has a theory.” She nodded in the direction of her husband. Cronley followed the nod and saw a rather slight lieutenant.

  “Tommy says,” the woman continued, “the way to get in here quickly is to tell the headwaiter you have a party of eight. Interested?”

  Her meaning was clear to Ginger Moriarty. They should merge parties. But then Ginger did the arithmetic. “But there’s only six of us.”

  “Tell them we’re expecting two more. We can’t be responsible if they don’t show up, can we?”

  Cronley went from Oh, shit, the last thing I need is to sit next to another mother-to-be to quite the opposite reaction in a split second when he saw on Lieutenant Tommy’s chest the silver wings of a liaison aviator.

  “Go get the lieutenant, Bonehead,” he ordered. “His wife is right. He has a great theory.”

  He went to the headwaiter and said, “We’re a party of eight. Colonel and Mrs. Frade will join us later. When the colonel comes, will you send him and his lady to our table, please?”

  “Yes, sir, of course. And which is your table, Captain?”

  “I thought you’d tell me,” Cronley replied. “Whichever table you’ve reserved for Colonel Frade. Maybe that empty one over there?”

  “If you and your party will follow me, sir?”

  “Tom, this is Captain Jim Cronley,” Bonehead said, when they were all at the table. “We were at Texas A&M together. And this is Captain . . . I didn’t get your first name, sir?”

  “My friends call me, for reasons I can’t imagine, ‘Tiny,’” Dunwiddie said.

  “. . . Dunwiddie.”

  “How do you do, sir?” Lieutenant Thomas G. Winters said to Dunwiddie and then to Cronley.

  “Why don’t you sit across from me, Lieutenant?” Cronley said. “And we’ll seat Mrs. Moriarty next to your wife?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Winters said.

  “That way she won’t get in Captain Dunwiddie’s way when he reaches for the scotch bottle, which he will do again and again and probably again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where is the waiter?” Cronley asked. “Be advised, Lieutenant, that Captain Dunwiddie is picking up the tab tonight, so feel free to order anything.”

  “You seem to be in a very good mood,” Dunwiddie said. “Ginger, how much did you give him to drink at your quarters?”

  “Just that one,” Ginger said.

  The waiter appeared.

  “You speak English, I hope?”

  From the waiter’s reply in English, it was clear he did not speak the language well.

  “We’ll start off with a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch,” he said in German. “And then bring us the menu.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän,” the waiter said, and marched off.

  “That’s very kind of you, sir,” Lieutenant Winters said. “But I’m not drinking.”

  “You don’t drink?”

  “Not tonight, sir. I’m flying in the morning.”

  “I thought the rule there was that you had to stop drinking eight hours before you flew.”

  “Sir, the Army rule is twelve hours before you fly.”

  Cronley looked at his watch.

  “It’s 1815,” he said. “That means, if you took a drink now, you could take off tomorrow morning at, say, 0630 and still follow the rule. So what do you say?”

  “Sir. Thank you, sir, but no thank you.”

  “You must take your flying very seriously.”

  “Yes, sir. I do.”

  “And exactly what kind of flying do you do?”

  “Whatever I’m ordered to do, sir.”

  “Jimmy, what the hell are you up to?” Lieut
enant Moriarty asked.

  “Put a cork in it, Bonehead,” Cronley said.

  “Same question,” Dunwiddie said. “Lieutenant, Captain Cronley is known for his unusual—some say sick—sense of humor. Don’t take him seriously.”

  “Yes, sir,” Winters said, visibly relieved.

  “I’m dead serious right now,” Cronley said. “Answer the question, Lieutenant. Exactly what kind of flying do you do?”

  “Sir, I do whatever is expected of me as an Army aviator.”

  “Like flying the Hesse/Thuringia border?”

  Winter’s face tightened, but he did not reply.

  “With a photographer in the backseat taking pictures of the picturesque Thuringian countryside?”

  Winters stood up.

  “The captain will understand that I am not at liberty to discuss the subject he mentions. The lieutenant begs the captain’s permission to withdraw.”

  “Sit down, Lieutenant,” Cronley ordered. When Winters remained standing, Cronley said, “That was not a suggestion.”

  Winters sat down.

  “Clever fellow that I am, I suspected it was you the moment I saw the West Point ring. And, of course, the wings.”

  “Sir?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Jim?” Dunwiddie said, not at all pleasantly.

  “You’re an intelligence officer . . . and on that subject, show Lieutenant Winters your credentials. And that’s not a suggestion, either.”

  “Jesus!” Tiny said, but handed Winters his credentials folder.

  “You may show that to Mrs. Winters, Lieutenant, but you are cautioned not to tell anyone what you saw.”

  Mrs. Winters’s eyes widened when she examined the credentials.

  “Now, where were we?” Cronley asked rhetorically. “Oh, yeah. Tell me, Captain Dunwiddie, if you were a West Pointer, and a lieutenant colonel of artillery, and an aviator, and required the services of another aviator to fly a mission . . .”

  “Along the border,” Dunwiddie picked up. “That you didn’t want anybody talking about . . .”

  “. . . wouldn’t you turn first to another graduate of Hudson High who was also an artilleryman?”