He held out a manila envelope to him.
The man made no move to take it.
“Some of them are pretty grim,” Max went on. “Especially the ones showing us poisoning former Polkóvnik Likharev’s sons. Here, have a look.”
He took one of the photographs from the envelope and laid it on the man’s lap.
“What Pavel is eating is an empanada, a meat sandwich,” Max said. “And that’s the Colón, in Buenos Aires, in the background. The world’s largest opera house. Next week they’ll be doing Borodin’s Prince Igor.”
Cronley saw the man’s eyes drop to the photograph.
Ostrowski laid the other photographs, one at a time, on the man’s lap.
When he had finished, Ostrowski gathered them up and put them back in the envelope.
“The reason we’re showing these to you, Comrade, is to show that you have an alternative to what you might be thinking is your future. Mr. Smith and I are thinking you’re thinking you have two alternatives. The best of these is that you can somehow be returned to the NKGB. We don’t think that would be a happy reunion. I mean, how are you going to explain to Comrade Serov your failure not only to kidnap two U.S. Army enlisted women, but to lose three of your men in the process and get yourself captured?
“From what I know of Polkóvnik Serov, your failure has made him quite unhappy. If you’re lucky, he might send you to Siberia after your interrogation. Or he might not. And I’m sure, Comrade, that you’ve been thinking of what might happen to you here when our patience with you is exhausted.”
The man showed no expression.
“Well, Comrade, we’ll leave you to think things over,” Ostrowski said, and gestured for Cronley and Johansen to precede him from the cell.
—
“Since I don’t speak Russian, I don’t know what you said to him, but it looked to me that that worked well,” Cronley said when they were climbing the stairs up to the chapel.
“He took in the pictures,” Janice said. “I saw that.”
“I think we’re getting to him,” Max said. “Let him think about it a little.”
As they were walking through what had been the chapel itself, First Sergeant Abraham Lincoln Tedworth walked up to them.
“Major Wallace is holding on a secure line for you, Captain.”
“He say what he wants?”
“He sounded pissed.”
—
“Major Wallace, Fulda. I have Mr. Cronley on the line. The line is secure.”
“Put him through.”
“You’re connected with Major Wallace, Mr. Cronley. The line is secure.”
“Let me guess,” Cronley said, without any preliminaries. “You need a ride to Frankfurt to see if you can help find Mattingly.”
“I had Kurt Schröder fly me up here at first light,” Wallace said, “expecting to see you. What the hell are you doing at the monastery?”
“Max just showed Lazarus the Buenos Aires pictures. Janice thinks they got to him.”
“General Seidel was going to hold a conference at 0900.”
“Past tense?”
“He’s postponed it until you can get here.”
“Please express my regrets to General Seidel and tell him I am not available.”
“I tried that. He wants you there.”
“Did he say why?”
“No.”
“I don’t want to go. I really have other things to do.”
“Get back in your airplane and get your ass up here.”
“That sounds like an order, Major, sir.”
“Thirteen-thirty, Seidel’s office in the Farben Building. Be there. Break it down, Fulda.”
[ TWO ]
Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence
Headquarters, European Command
The I.G. Farben Building
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone of Occupation,
Germany
1335 27 January 1946
Cronley considered, and decided against, walking into Major General Bruce T. Seidel’s office, popping to attention, saluting, and announcing, “Reporting as ordered. Sir.”
Not that it would make Seidel forget that he was a captain, but rather in the hope that it would make the European Command G-2 remember that he was chief, DCI-Europe, and DCI-Europe was not a subordinate command of the European Command.
Cronley saw the others in the room: Generals Greene and Schwarzkopf; one of the colonels who had been at Schlosshotel Kronberg; the major—he remembered his name, Davis—who had been with Mattingly when they’d had their last confrontation; Major Wallace; and a man in a business suit he had never seen before.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Cronley said politely.
“Thank you for finding time in your busy schedule for us, Mr. Cronley,” Seidel said, his tone clearly sarcastic.
“There were headwinds all the way from Munich, General,” Cronley said. “I regret being late. I did my best to get here on time.”
“I’m sure you did,” Seidel said. “I don’t believe you know Mr. Preston.” He indicated the man in the business suit.
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Mr. Preston is the SAC—senior agent in charge—of the FBI office attached to USFET.”
The two wordlessly shook hands.
“And Colonel Nesbitt of my staff,” Seidel said, indicating the colonel who had been at Schlosshotel Kronberg.
The two shook hands wordlessly.
“The problem we are all facing, obviously, is learning what has happened to Colonel Mattingly. The reason I have called this meeting is that certain things have come to light that bear on that. I thought we should try to clear these things up as quickly as possible.
“This morning as I was waiting for Colonel Mattingly, I had a telephone call from Mr. Oscar Schultz, who, as you all know, is the executive assistant to Admiral Souers, the director of the Central Intelligence Directorate. He told me that it had come to his attention that Colonel Mattingly was coming to see me to report that at your direction, Mr. Cronley, the ASA has been intercepting communications between the G-2 liaison office and the Pentagon—and others—and turning such communications over to you. He also asked me to remind Colonel Mattingly that his looking into the activities of the DCI was outside his area of responsibility and suggested I tell him this.”
Cronley did not reply.
“Did you go to the ASA and direct them to intercept G-2 liaison office communications, Mr. Cronley?”
“Yes, I did,” Cronley said.
“And did you know that Colonel Mattingly, having discovered this, intended to report it to me?”
“What I know was that while Colonel Mattingly was in the Compound—”
“The what?” SAC Preston interrupted.
“. . . he grabbed an ASA sergeant, stood him tall, and browbeat him into admitting we were—I was—reading Colonel Parsons’s mail. I didn’t know he was going to report this to you, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“You apparently feel that—your words—‘reading Colonel Parsons’s mail’ is perfectly all right?”
“General, the Presidential Finding which established the DCI gives DCI access to—and this is just about verbatim—‘any and all classified files, without exception, generated by any agency of the United States government.’ I was led to believe you were given a copy of the Finding.”
“I’m not going to debate this with you now, Mr. Cronley. But this issue remains alive.”
“General, with respect, why did you ask me to come here today?”
“I thought that would be obvious to you: to learn what has happened to Colonel Mattingly. Which brings us to Special Agent Preston. Mr. Preston came to me and told me he had received a communication from unknown parties alleging that the death of
Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Anthony Schumann was not an accident but, in fact, an assassination, and that former Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen and what is now known as the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation were almost certainly involved.”
Shit! I thought that was water under the bridge.
“General, that’s nonsense,” General Schwarzkopf said. “I personally investigated the explosion at Schumann’s quarters and so did the Frankfurt Military Post engineer. Then it was investigated again by the CIC with General Greene looking over their shoulders. He had a personal interest in Schumann’s death. They were friends. Their goddamn water heater blew up. Period.”
The NKGB, Cronley thought, the “unknown party” that sent the FBI that letter, knows better. And so do I.
Schumann was an NKGB operative. And so was his wife.
Rachel played me like a violin.
I ran at the mouth to her, which damned near got Likharev killed.
And when I confessed my stupidity—my unbelievable fucking stupidity—to General Gehlen, and told him I was going to fly to Frankfurt and confess my stupidity to Mattingly, and then shoot both Schumann and his loving wife, he told me that wouldn’t be wise, and reminded me that Cletus Frade had told me—had ordered me—to get out of Gehlen’s way.
So I got out of the way.
And shortly thereafter, the Schumanns’ water heater developed a gas leak and blew them both up.
Problem solved.
I don’t know that Gehlen did it—or had it done—which is on the order of me not knowing the sun will rise tomorrow, either.
Cronley heard Major General Seidel respond: “If that’s your professional opinion, General.”
“And the professional opinion of the best CIC special agent I have ever known, Jack Hammersmith, who I told to investigate the explosion,” General Greene said.
Which proves that Gehlen’s people are very clever in making an explosion look innocent.
And smarter than the MPs, the CID, and the CIC combined.
Not to mention me.
“As I say, if that is your professional opinion, we’ll leave it at that for the moment. Which brings us to Major Derwin, who replaced Lieutenant Colonel Schumann as the CIC inspector general.”
“What about him?” General Greene asked.
“Major Derwin had a fatal, quote, accident, unquote, in the Munich railway station.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Schwarzkopf said. “Derwin fell under a freight train passing through the station. The Munich provost marshal personally investigated the incident and declared it an accident.”
“Really?”
“And,” Schwarzkopf said, “this is out of school, okay?”
“Very well,” General Seidel said. “Out of school.”
“His report said that Derwin had stumbled and fallen under the train. Left out of that was the fact that there was a perceptible smell of alcohol on the corpse, and that there was a paper cup of coffee from the PX coffee shop in the station found with the body which contained whisky, most probably from the fifth of Jack Daniel’s in Derwin’s suitcase.”
“You’re saying the Munich provost marshal filed a dishonest report?” SAC Preston challenged.
“I don’t know how much you know about what happens in the Army when there is a death, Mr. Preston,” Schwarzkopf said. “But one of the things that has to be determined is if the death occurred in the line of the deceased’s duty. In this case, it was determined that Major Derwin was in the Munich station because he was either on his way to, or coming from, General Gehlen’s compound.”
“It is not General Gehlen’s compound, General,” Cronley said. “It is the DCI’s compound.”
“I stand corrected, Mr. Cronley,” Schwarzkopf said.
“Where Derwin had no right to be,” Cronley added. “The Compound is not subject to investigation by the CIC’s IG.”
“Please let me continue, Mr. Cronley,” Schwarzkopf said.
“Sorry.”
“General Greene told me there was some question about what Major Derwin was doing at the DCI compound—whether he had gone there on duty or not, or whether he had been there, or was intending to go there—in addition to the questions raised by the alcohol. So we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, so to speak. The report of his death did not raise the question of whether or not he was on duty, or sober, when he fell under the freight train. His death was adjudged to be accidental, while he was on duty. This gave his family all the benefits which accrue to someone who dies while on duty.”
“That was very generous of you and General Greene,” General Seidel said sarcastically.
“May I have the floor a minute?” SAC Preston asked.
“Certainly,” General Seidel said.
“Mr. Cronley, there is a story going around that you shot at Colonel Schumann on one occasion, specifically when he was seeking entrance to your Kloster Grünau compound. Is there any truth to it?”
“No. I didn’t shoot at him. However, one of my men acting on my orders put a .50 caliber round—one round—in his engine block. This was after he announced his intention to gain entrance to Kloster Grünau after I told him he couldn’t come in.”
“Why wouldn’t you let him in?”
“Because he had no right to go in.”
“You denied the USFET CIC inspector general, who, one would presume, has all the necessary security clearances, entrance to your compound?”
“He was not authorized to enter Kloster Grünau. On the other hand, I had the authority to keep unauthorized people out of the Compound by whatever means necessary, including the use of lethal force. What does this have to do with Colonel Mattingly going missing?”
Preston ignored the question, instead asking, “Were you aware of this incident, General Greene?”
“Colonel Schumann reported it to me,” Greene said. “And I told him that he was not authorized to inspect—or even visit—any DCI installation.”
“What has this got to do with Colonel Mattingly?” Cronley asked again.
“All right,” Preston said, “I’ll tell you. When I heard that Colonel Mattingly had gone missing, I saw what I thought was a pattern.”
“What kind of a pattern?”
“First, you—how do I say this?—vigorously deny Colonel Schumann access to the Kloster Grünau compound. Shortly thereafter, Colonel Schumann and his wife die in an ‘accident.’ Next, Major Derwin goes to the other, the ‘Gehlen,’ compound, and shortly thereafter, Major Derwin falls ‘accidentally’ under a freight train. And now this.”
“This being what?” Cronley said.
“Colonel Mattingly visits the Gehlen compound, apparently without your permission, taking with him Major Davis, which apparently was against some sort of agreement he had made with you. And we know he told you what he had done, because Major Davis was with you in the bar of the Vier Jahreszeiten hotel when he told you.”
“And now Mattingly’s gone missing?” Wallace asked.
“Colonel Mattingly is missing,” Preston said.
“That’s a crock of shit,” Wallace exploded. “No apologies for the language. You’re as much as accusing Cronley of being responsible for Mattingly having gone missing.”
“I’ve made no such accusation, even though I have learned there was bad blood between the two of them. What I am suggesting is possible is that Mr. Cronley has not been keeping as close an eye as he should on a former Nazi major general who is quite capable of murder.”
“So then you’re suggesting Gehlen is responsible for the Schumann water heater and the freight train that Derwin fell under?” Wallace asked.
“I think it behooves us, Major, under the circumstances, to consider all possibilities,” Preston said.
“There are those, Major Wallace,” General Seidel said, “as I am sure you know, w
ho wonder if Mr. Cronley has the experience to cope adequately with the responsibilities he has been given.”
“And I’m aware that Colonel Mattingly felt that way,” Wallace agreed. “On the other hand, I don’t think any of us are willing to question the judgment of the man—I’m referring to our commander in chief, President Truman—who gave him his present responsibilities, are we?”
Seidel didn’t reply for a moment, and then he said, “I have a suggestion that would probably answer all these questions to everyone’s satisfaction.”
“Which is?” Schwarzkopf asked.
“That we ask Mr. Preston and his people to help us with the disappearance of Colonel Mattingly.”
“I got the impression, General, that you’d already done that,” Schwarzkopf said.
“With the permission of Mr. Cronley,” Seidel went on, “for Mr. Preston’s expert FBI investigators to have a look at both the Gehlen compound and the monastery.”
“No,” Cronley said. “I’m not going to agree to that. For that to happen, I would have to have the okay of Admiral Souers.”
“May I ask why, Captain . . . excuse me . . . Mr. Cronley?” Seidel said.
“What have you got against the FBI, Cronley?” Preston said. “More to the point, what is there in these places that you don’t want the FBI to see?”
“Is there something else you’d like to ask me, General Seidel?” Cronley asked.
“Excuse me?”
“If not, I have things to do.”
“I have nothing further for you, Mr. Cronley. But may I suggest that you keep yourself available in case General Bull might wish a word with you?”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Cronley said, and got up and walked out of the room.
[ THREE ]
Visiting Senior Officers’ Parking Area
The I.G. Farben Building
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1435 27 January 1946
When Cronley saw Major Wallace walk into the parking area, Cronley tapped the horn of the Ford staff car he had driven to the Farben Building from the Eschborn airfield.
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