Curtain of Death

by W. E. B Griffin

  “. . . you couldn’t have what you needed to really check this out?”

  “Checking it out would be more difficult than it looks like,” Hammersmith said.

  “Why?” Ziegler asked.

  “Think about it, Augie,” Cronley said before Hammersmith could reply. “You’d have only one shot at it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ziegler confessed.

  “Either do I,” Hessinger said.

  “Because you’d have to stop and search every truck—and Hammersmith just said there are at least sixteen trucks—at the same time. These Odessa people are not putting one or more bastards in every truck every time they go onto the autobahn. I’d guess only one truck at a time is carrying one of these sonsofbitches, and that maybe a day or two goes by when they’re not carrying anybody . . .”

  “And the chances of one of these Odessa people being on the one truck the CIC stopped are very slight,” Hessinger said, picking up Cronley’s chain of thought.

  “. . . and once the CIC stopped and searched one newspaper truck, the game is up,” Cronley went on. “They’d stop using the Stripes trucks. The only way to do this would be to have credible intel—or at least a damn good suspicion—that Odessa was on that day going to move somebody. And then stop and search every truck at the same time. And be lucky.”

  “Doing that would require,” Hessinger said, “sixteen trucks times four CIC people—and six or eight would be better—per truck. That’s at least sixty-four CIC people. Probably more. And we all know the CIC is short of competent people.”

  “Especially since you, Finney, and I have left the CIC,” Cronley said, laughing, and then asked rhetorically: “And if you bagged one of the bastards, what would you have? Probably some SS sonofabitch whose sense of honor would prohibit him from implicating anybody.”

  “Or who didn’t know anything beyond, ‘Get on the truck, Karl,’” Hessinger picked up. “I would think that a substantial percentage of people Odessa is trying to get out don’t know anything about how Odessa is organized. They’re being gotten out for what they know about SS operations before the surrender.”

  “I’ll bet Greene told you something like this when you asked him about those assets he didn’t have, right?” Cronley asked. “That you’d be pissing in the wind, even if he came up with—what did you say, Freddy?—‘at least sixty-four CIC agents’?”

  Hammersmith thought: What these two have just done—obviously off the top of their heads—is come up with the story I was going to give them why we haven’t stopped Odessa from using the Stars and Stripes trucks.

  They’re the reasons General Greene gave me for not coming up with fifty or sixty agents to search the trucks.

  And he actually used the same words—told me I’d be pissing in the wind.

  And then he told me the real reason I was to stop working on the Stripes trucks.

  Are these two a lot smarter than I’m giving them credit for?

  “Actually, that’s pretty much what he did say,” Hammersmith said.

  “Which brings us back to my wild idea,” Cronley said.

  “Which is?”

  “The Russians are looking for the people behind Odessa, too. So let’s turn to them for a little assistance.”

  Hammersmith thought: Now where the hell is he going?

  “Jean-Paul Fortin told me thirty-odd people set up the Spider—not counting the Vatican contingent.” Cronley pointed at the briefcase. “And Greene told me the same thing and said it was in the stuff he was giving me.” He paused, then added: “Going off at a tangent, Augie, get started on Leica-ing everything in there just as soon as we finish here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cronley looked back at Hammersmith and said, “Fortin gave me his list to compare with Greene’s. As soon as we stop talking here, Dette will make up a combined list of names. We give this list to the general, who will mark off anybody we know has already escaped from Germany, and then we send the list via SIGABA to Polo—Colonel Ashton—in Argentina and ask him if any of them are there. And get him to start looking for any of them. Also, we get General Gehlen to come up with a list of these guys who may have gone the other way, into what Major Wallace calls ‘the Soviet sphere of influence.’ And we give Seven-K the list and see if she’s got any of them.”

  “Good idea,” Hessinger said.

  “Who is Seven-K?” Hammersmith asked.

  Cronley looked at him for a long moment, and then turned to Hessinger.

  “Do I tell him?”

  “The possibility has to be considered that Mr. Hammersmith will feel he has to tell General Greene what we’re doing,” Hessinger said.

  “Dette?” Cronley asked.

  “Freddy’s right,” Claudette said. “You’ll have to weigh (a) how much damage that might cause, (b) how Major Wallace will react when he hears you have told him, and (c) if Mr. Hammersmith is a member of the team, or just a visitor.”

  Cronley snorted, then asked, “What about our Pennsylvania Dutchman? Should Augie be in this loop?”

  “Dette raised the significant question,” Hessinger said. “Are Augie and Mr. Hammersmith to be members of the team . . .”

  “Augie has my vote,” Claudette said.

  “. . . or just visitors?” Hessinger finished.

  Hammersmith thought: Ziegler gets her vote and I don’t?

  Does that mean she doesn’t know enough about me to give me a recommendation, or that she thinks she knows me well enough to think I’m not trustworthy?

  And Hessinger calls Ziegler by his first name. But I’m “Mr. Hammersmith”?

  How much weight does Cronley give to the opinion of either of them?

  Cronley looked between Ziegler and Hammersmith.

  “You two want in DCI all the way?” he asked. “Before you answer, this caveat. If you say you want in—and I admit we need you—if you say ‘yes,’ do so with that line from the oath of office we all took: Without any mental reservations whatsoever. If I find out later you wanted in because you wanted to learn something you can pass on to someone else, and I learn that you have passed something on, I’ll kill you.”

  Ziegler thought: I think he means that.

  Dette voted for me.

  Do I want in?

  Oh boy, do I!

  Hammersmith thought: He doesn’t really think anyone is going to believe that melodramatic “I’ll kill you” threat, does he?

  Or is he serious?

  There are rumors of unmarked graves at that monastery.

  Could they possibly be true?

  “I’m in, Captain,” Ziegler said, and turned to Claudette. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Hammersmith, if you’re having trouble making up your mind with my conditions,” Cronley said, “you get a pass with regard to General Greene. He’s one of the good guys . . .”

  Hammersmith thought: You approve of General Greene, do you?

  How nice of you, Captain Cronley!

  “. . . and he’s in the loop. The only reason I don’t keep him up to speed on everything is so he can look G-2 and the FBI in the eye and truthfully say, ‘I don’t know anything about that.’”

  Hammersmith thought: Christ, he’s right.

  He is smarter than I’ve been giving him credit for.

  “Well, are you in or out?” Cronley asked.

  Hammersmith thought: I owe it to Homer Greene to stay here.

  “In, Captain Cronley,” Hammersmith said.

  “Okay, I’ll take you at your word. When Major Wallace told me about you, he said you and Greene are pals. That’s good enough for me. If Greene trusts you, I will.”

  “Captain, can you give me a minute in private?”

  “To tell me something you don’t think Freddy and Dette—and now Augie—should know? No. It would be a waste of time,
because as soon as you told me I’d have to tell them. What were you going to tell me?”

  Hammersmith thought: If I tell him, am I betraying Homer Greene?

  What’s that line? “In for a penny, in for a pound . . .”

  “What do you know about Operation Paperclip?” Hammersmith asked.

  “Never heard of it. Dette? Freddy?”

  “It has something to do with German scientists,” Claudette said.

  “German rocket people,” Hessinger clarified.

  “What about it, Jack?” Cronley asked.

  Hammersmith thought: Now I’m Jack?

  Is he trying to be nice?

  Should I be pissed off or pleased?

  “When I started looking into Odessa, I suspected the Stars and Stripes trucks were being used. I figured out—much as you did just now—how difficult it would be to catch them in the act. And that even if I got lucky and did, that I wouldn’t have much, if anything.

  “So I went to General Greene and explained where I was. He said not to worry about it, and specifically told me to leave it alone.”

  “Why?” Cronley asked.

  “He . . . I have to tell you this is classified Top Secret–Paperclip,” Hammersmith said. “I’m reluctant to—”

  “Tell us anything classified Top Secret–Paperclip?” Cronley asked softly.

  “Yes, sir,” Hammersmith said simply.

  “Well, Jack, none of us have a Top Secret–Paperclip clearance. But not to worry, we’ve got something just as good. Actually, a lot better. Miss Colbert, will you go in the safe and get the Twenty Commandments?”

  Hammersmith thought: Twenty Commandments?

  Now what the hell?

  Claudette went to the safe, worked the combination, and then took from the safe a business-sized envelope.

  When she started to hand it to Cronley, he shook his head and pointed to Hammersmith.

  “Jack,” he said, “the first couple of pages deal with not making graven images, honoring your parents, not committing adultery, and such, so why don’t you just read the last page? When you’re finished, hand it to the Dutchman.”

  Hammersmith opened the envelope, turned to the last page, and read the document:

  TOP SECRET–PRESIDENTIAL Page 3 of 3

  17. The director is, and subordinate directors are, authorized to investigate anything he believes, or subordinate directors believe, would be of interest to the President. In this connection, the director and subordinate directors, and any DCI personnel they designate, are authorized access to any and all classified files, without exception, generated by any agency of the United States government.

  18. If the director initiates any investigation on his own authority he will notify the President by the most expedient means, classified Top Secret–Presidential, that he has initiated such an investigation, and his reason for so doing.

  19. If a subordinate director initiates any investigation on his own authority he will notify the director by the most expedient means, classified Top Secret–Presidential, that he has initiated such an investigation, and his reason for so doing.

  20. The President reserves to himself the authority to disseminate any intelligence acquired by the director, or subordinate directors, of the Central Intelligence Directorate.

  Harry S Truman

  TOP SECRET—PRESIDENTIAL

  Hammersmith thought: My God! It’s signed by Truman himself!

  I wonder if Homer has seen this.

  Of course he has. For one thing, that explains his turning over his—my—intel on Odessa to Cronley.

  When both Hammersmith and Ziegler had read it, Cronley said, “Anyway, that’s what we live by. So tell us about Operation Tie Clip.”

  “That’s Paperclip, sir,” Hammersmith said.

  Hammersmith heard himself, and thought: I just called him “sir.” Not to be polite, but because I subconsciously just accepted that he’s not only in charge, but entitled to be. He’s operating with the authority of the President.

  “Okay, Operation Paperclip,” Cronley said.

  “G-2’s hands aren’t clean about getting Nazis out of Germany,” Hammersmith said.

  “That’s interesting. Bearing in mind the Twenty Commandments I just showed you, tell us all about that.”

  “Were you aware the Germans had their own atomic weapons program?”

  “Oh, yeah. I even know they tried to ship some of their experts and half a ton of uranium oxide to Japan just as the war ended.”

  Hammersmith thought: There’s more proof. He’s not kidding. He knows about that, and he shouldn’t know anything about it!

  But let’s make sure.

  “You mean there was a rumor they tried to do that?” he asked.

  “No. I mean that General Gehlen and a very young intelligence officer whom modesty prohibits me from naming put their heads together and decided where U-234, which had the scientists and the uranium oxide aboard, was probably hiding in Patagonia, at the southern tip of South America.

  “Said very young intelligence officer then climbed into a Storch and found U-234. He then took down SS-Oberführer Horst Lang, who was in the process of trying to sell said scientists and uranium oxide to the Soviets, with a blast from his trusty Thompson, thereby securing both the scientists and the uranium oxide for our side.”

  Hammersmith thought: He’s talking about himself? Am I supposed to believe that?

  “And that, Jack, is how I became a twenty-two-year-old captain,” Cronley said. “I think you’ve been wondering, so I reluctantly pushed modesty aside and told you because I think you should know. I hope it makes taking orders from me a little easier. But don’t pass that story around. My promotion orders and the citation for my Distinguished Service Medal—which I can’t wear because people would ask questions—are classified Top Secret–Presidential.”

  Jesus Christ, it’s true!

  Ziegler looked at Claudette, who smiled and nodded.

  Hammersmith thought: I’ll be a sonofabitch. It’s true. All of it is true!

  “I honestly don’t know what to say, Captain Cronley.”

  “Try telling us about G-2’s unclean hands.”

  After a moment to gather his thoughts, Hammersmith began to do so: “The technical services—the Signal Corps primarily, but also the Ordnance Corps, which is where the rocket scientists come in, and even the Medical Corps, and others—wanted early on to get their hands on German technology.

  “They set up special teams to accompany the lead elements of the Army as it entered Germany, to capture German equipment. The Signal Corps, for example, wanted to get their hands on German radar, and, for one other example, a machine the Germans had developed that records speech and data on wire, wire recorders. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I’m a little slow, but Freddy, Dette, and Augie are pretty swift, so keep going,” Cronley said.

  “Two things soon became apparent to the Signal Corps, and then, importantly, to the Ordnance Corps. First, that just having the equipment to study wasn’t enough. They needed the people who had invented, for example, the wire recorder and the V-1 and V-2 rockets, to explain these devices. And second, that the Germans could do a much better job doing this at Fort Monmouth and Fort Bliss than they could in Germany. Still with me?”

  Cronley nodded.

  “So they got special permission from President Truman to bring German scientists to the United States. Truman wanted to make sure that no Nazis got to go to the States, so when the War Department’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was formed it specifically prohibited bringing to the States any German who had been a member of the Nazi Party who had been more than a ‘nominal participant’ in Nazi activities.”

  “And the scientists they wanted had all been Nazis?” Cronley asked.

  “Not all of them, but m
any. And the problem was compounded when we found out that the Russians were grabbing all German scientists they could lay their hands on and shipping them to Mother Russia, together with their laboratories. And further compounded when we learned how far ahead of us the Germans were in certain areas, particularly rockets and rocket-propelled missiles like the V-1 and V-2.

  “The 82nd Airborne Division was ordered to send a task force to the main German rocket establishment, Peenemünde, which is on a small island, Usedom, in Mecklenburg. They were ordered to grab the rockets and the rocket scientists before the Red Army grabbed them and sent them to Russia.

  “They did so. The 82nd grabbed all the rockets at Peenemünde, plus several hundred scientists, including the head man, a fellow named Wernher von Braun. The rockets were flown to Fort Bliss and the scientists locked up in what was to become the American Zone of Occupied Germany.”

  “Where they found out that all the scientists were Nazis,” Hessinger asked, “and could not be sent to the States?”

  “Not all of them were Nazis,” Hammersmith said. “But many were. Including von Braun.”

  “Which made all the rockets at Fort Bliss so much scrap metal,” Hessinger finished. “From which, without the scientists, we could learn nothing.”

  “So this Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency shipped the Nazi scientists anyway, and let’s hope Truman—or J. Edgar Hoover—doesn’t find out?” Cronley asked.

  “Major Wallace had the same problem with Abwehr Ost,” Hessinger said.

  “I was afraid, Freddy, that you were going to introduce that into the equation,” Cronley said.

  “It’s pertinent,” Hessinger said.

  “You did the same thing?” Hammersmith asked.

  “Jack asking that question is why I was afraid you’d mention this, Freddy,” Cronley said.

  “It’s pertinent,” Hessinger said again.

  “The scenarios are not the same,” Cronley said. “Allen Dulles made a deal with Gehlen. Almost certainly with Eisenhower’s approval, and probably the President’s. In exchange for everything Gehlen had, we would protect him and his people from the Russians.”

  “So you faked the denazification trials?” Hammersmith asked.