Curtain of Death

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Simple answer is that he wants to know which of the four is still alive, which he will know if you go through with the burial of the others,” Bischoff said.

  Cronley saw on the faces of Wallace, Gehlen, and Mannberg that they agreed with him.

  “General, do you think we should go through with the burial?” Cronley asked.

  Gehlen seemed to be framing his reply when Wallace said, “Anything that may help get Bob Mattingly back.”

  Cronley thought: This is not the time for me to say I have absolutely no intention of swapping the Likharevs for Mattingly.

  What I have to do is let Cletus Frade know what’s going on.

  He can arrange to get the Likharevs somewhere where they’ll be safe not only from the Russians in Argentina, but from the Pentagon and USFET G-2 types who will be more than willing to swap them for Mattingly.

  And how the hell am I going to do that?

  If I get on the SIGABA there are people both in Iron Lung McClung’s station in Fulda and at Vint Hill Farms who will fall all over themselves making sure USFET G-2 and the Pentagon hear my “hide the Likharevs” message.

  And that will get me relieved!

  “Surely no one is actually considering exchanging the Likharevs for Colonel Mattingly,” Bischoff said.

  “What did you just say?” Wallace asked incredulously.

  Cronley’s mouth went on automatic: “That decision hasn’t been made.”

  “Making the exchange would simply encourage Serov to kidnap somebody else,” Bischoff said.

  Cronley’s mouth was still on automatic: “And returning the Likharevs would just about kill any chance we have to turn any NKGB officer in the future. Serov obviously plans to march Likharev and his family back and forth in Moscow before middle- and senior-level NKGB brass, saying, ‘Take a good look at what happens to people who think they can desert to the Americans.’”

  “Precisely,” Bischoff said.

  Major Wallace glared at Bischoff and then at Cronley.

  “It had better be understood from this point that we’re going to do whatever it takes to get Colonel Bob Mattingly back,” he said. “Understood especially by you, Captain Cronley.”

  “I intend, Colonel, to do everything possible to get Colonel Mattingly back, short of exchanging the Likharevs for him.”

  Two fucking mistakes. I shouldn’t have said “short of exchanging the Likharevs for him.”

  And I shouldn’t have called him “Colonel.”

  What the hell, everyone in here knows he’s really a colonel.

  “That’s not your decision, fortunately, to make, Cronley,” Wallace said.

  Just in time, Cronley managed to shut off his automatic mouth.

  Instead, he said, “About the first thing we have to do is get somebody to Berlin. Where’s Hammersmith?”

  “What do you want with him?” Wallace demanded.

  “He’s holding down the office in the Vier Jahreszeiten,” Tiny said.

  “I’m presuming he has CIC friends in Berlin,” Cronley said.

  “He does,” Wallace said.

  “I want to get him there as soon as possible. I want pictures of that bridge—both ends of it—before they bring Mattingly on it tomorrow morning. I think the CIC can do that better than anyone else.”

  “Getting pictures of their end of it may not be easy,” Tiny said.

  “I have people in Brandenburg,” Gehlen said. “I’ll have pictures before tomorrow morning.”

  “And can your people find out where Serov’s holding him? And learn the back-and-forth route from wherever that is to the bridge?”

  “That’ll probably take some more time, but eventually, yes,” Gehlen said.

  “You’re not thinking of trying to kidnap him back from the Russians, are you?” Wallace asked.

  “I’m trying to think of all our possible actions, Colonel,” Cronley said. “Tiny, pick a dozen of your largest, meanest-looking troopers and get them—with full Constabulary regalia—to Berlin as soon as possible. By air. Cut orders giving them the highest priority.”

  “Got it,” Dunwiddie said.

  “And cut the same kind of orders for Colonel Mannberg, Ostrowski, and me.”

  “Got it.”

  “Correction,” Cronley said. “Ostrowski and four of his people who speak German and Russian.”

  “Ostrowski has DCI credentials,” Freddy Hessinger said. “His people don’t. You probably can’t get them on the Berlin airplane at all, much less with a priority that would see them bumping American officers or enlisted.”

  “So you suggest?”

  “Have them drive to Berlin in one of the Fords. Driven by somebody with DCI credentials to get them past the MPs at the Helmstedt checkpoint on the autobahn.”

  “Like who? Who with DCI credentials?”

  “Me,” Hessinger said.

  “You’re needed here to cut the orders.”

  “I can handle that,” Claudette Colbert said.

  Cronley looked at her, visibly cut off what he was about to say, and instead said, “No.”

  “No?” she challenged.

  “Change that to three of Ostrowski’s people, Freddy, and Dette. No offense, Freddy, but Dette flashing DCI credentials at the Helmstedt MPs is going to dazzle them more than you would. And you can probably find something else for her to do in Berlin. Sergeant Miller can cut the orders, et cetera, as well as you can, Dette, right?”

  “Nearly as well as I can,” she replied, and then added, “Thanks. I really want to be in on this.”

  “Okay, you and Freddy get going.”

  “I have something to offer of a tangential nature I think you should hear before I leave,” Hessinger said.

  “Won’t it wait?”

  “I think you should hear it before I leave.”

  “Make it quick, Freddy.”

  “It has to do with Lazarus, especially since you have identified him as Major of State Security Ulyanov.”

  Cronley motioned impatiently for him to get on with it.

  “By now I think he has figured out that we are not going to . . . dispose of him. Similarly, I think it unlikely that we will be able to turn him. We could send him to Argentina, but confining him there would be difficult. So, what do we do with him?”

  “Why do I think you’re about to offer a suggestion?”

  “Treat him as a common criminal,” Hessinger said.

  “What?”

  “I have researched the applicable German laws,” Hessinger said. “Everyone participating in a crime of violence is equally guilty of an offense as anyone participating in said crime.”

  “Which means exactly what?”

  “The men who attempted to kidnap Dette and Florence Miller committed not only that crime but murder.”

  “They didn’t murder anybody. Dette murd—took out the three.”

  “Right. And so all four Russians are equally guilty under German law of the crime of murder, because the deaths occurred during their involvement in the kidnapping, which qualifies as a violent crime.”

  “Hessinger’s onto something,” General Gehlen said. “Major Ulyanov thinks we’re probably not going to dispose of him, and I don’t think he thinks we have anything on him that will cause him to turn. I submit we do: Thirty years to life in a German prison for the crime of murder is a nightmare that a major of State Security simply does not want to face. Turning may seem to be a far more attractive alternative.”

  “How do we get the Germans to try an NKGB major in their courts?” Ziegler asked.

  “I think that Hessinger is suggesting that Ulyanov is a displaced person, not a Russian,” Mannberg said. “The story Miss Johansen wrote said the would-be rapists were Polish DPs who escaped from the Oberhaching displaced persons camp.”

  Gehlen sa
id, “And I can’t see Lazarus standing up in court and proclaiming, ‘Now just a minute, I’m actually Major of State Security Venedikt Ulyanov!’ That would be tantamount to admitting the NKGB has people running around the American Zone without identification bent on despoiling innocent American enlisted women. Or with other nefarious intent, such as kidnapping American officers.”

  “And Lazarus would know,” Cronley said, picking up the thought, “that even if admitting who he is kept him out of a German jail, he’d really be in the deep shit with Comrade Serov and all he would be doing if we gave him back to the Russians would be exchanging a cell in a German prison for one in the basement of the . . .”

  “. . . NKGB building on Lubyanka Square in Moscow,” Gehlen picked up. “Or worse. Leaving him only one alternative, the least unpleasant of the three, turning. Freddy—what is it Cronley is always saying? ‘You get both ears and the tail!’”

  Cronley jumped up, walked quickly to Hessinger, wrapped his arms around him, and kissed him wetly and noisily on the forehead.

  “Just as soon as we get back from Berlin,” Cronley said, “we will move Ulyanov into a large room at Kloster Grünau—”

  “A large room?” Mannberg asked.

  “So that everybody can be there to see the look on the sonofabitch’s face when he learns we’ve got him,” Cronley explained. “But, first things first, specifically the funerals. Ziegler, do you happen to know a Russian Orthodox priest?”

  “As a matter of fact, I know a bunch of them.”

  “One who will go along with this burial business?”

  Ziegler nodded.

  “Okay, you are appointed the Bury the Russians Officer. You better get a Russian speaker from Ostrowski to go with you. And get pictures of everything.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And now that the other Dutchman is back from Pfungstadt,” Cronley went on, “take him along with you. How did it go at Stars and Stripes, Wagner?”

  “Well, sir, I found out how they’re moving people on the trucks,” PFC Karl-Christoph Wagner said.

  “You mean you think you have an idea how they’re doing that?”

  “No, sir. I mean I know how they’re doing it.”

  “Well, I can hardly wait to hear that . . .”

  “I think he does, Captain,” Ziegler said.

  “. . . but I’m going to have to wait until I get back from Berlin. Right now, I need to know why you’re here, Finney, instead of in Salzburg worming your way into my cousin Luther’s black market operation.”

  “He’s onto us,” Finney said. “Onto you.”

  “Shit!” Cronley said, and gestured for Finney to explain.

  “‘Herr Stauffer,’ I said in my best GI German, ‘I have ten cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes and a case of Maxwell House coffee I’d be willing to sell if the price was right.’”

  “And?”

  “Cousin Luther said that he was really sorry but he couldn’t help, and then suggested I might have better luck in Salzburg. I’m sorry, Captain, but Cousin Luther is onto us.”

  “Shit,” Cronley said again.

  “When I thought about it,” Finney said, “I realized I shouldn’t have been surprised. We tried to pass ourselves off to Commandant Fortin as the Mobile Kitchen Renovation Company, but he had already checked with European Command and learned that there ain’t no 711th MKRC. I think Cousin Luther probably did the same thing. He’s not stupid.”

  “Did you have a chance to talk to Fortin?”

  Finney nodded.

  “When I got to Salzburg, I got on a secure line and called him.”

  “And?”

  “Then I came back here. I didn’t see any point in going to Vienna. Either did Major Wallace. He sent Kurt Schröder down in an L-4 to bring me back.”

  “That’s not what I was asking. What did Fortin have to say?”

  “He said (a) he wasn’t surprised, and (b) Cousin Luther is up to something else he doesn’t know what, and (c) when I saw you, I was to ask you to reconsider your thoughts about his not having Cousin Luther in for a little chat.”

  “What were those thoughts, Jim?” General Gehlen asked.

  “Let’s say I don’t approve of his interrogation techniques,” Cronley said. “Okay. Don’t get far away, Al. There’ll be something I’ll need you to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if the rest of you will kindly excuse me, I will now start to write my report of what’s happened to Colonel Mattingly, which I want to get on its way before we go to Berlin.”

  “Your report to whom?” Major Wallace asked.

  “Admiral Souers.”

  “With a copy to General Seidel?”

  “No.”

  “I think you should.”

  “Duly noted. But I don’t work for the USFET G-2.”

  “So you’re not going to bring anyone in USFET intelligence into this?”

  “Right. Not yet.”

  “Not even General Greene?” Wallace challenged sarcastically. “Bob Mattingly is his deputy, and Greene does command USFET CIC.”

  “I strongly suspect that Lieutenant Charley Spurgeon has already brought General Greene up to speed on what I’ve been doing, and even if he hasn’t, I suspect that my report to Admiral Souers—which has to pass through Iron Lung McClung’s ASA—will be in General Greene’s hands before it’s decrypted in Washington. Any other questions?”

  “Just one,” Wallace said. “Do you have any idea how close you are to being relieved?”

  There was a long moment’s silence, then General Gehlen said softly, “In my judgment, relieving Captain Cronley at this point in this scenario would be ill-advised for a number of reasons.”

  “It would be my call, General,” Wallace snapped.

  “I suggest you make your decision very carefully,” Gehlen said.

  Wallace glared at him and then marched angrily out of the room.

  [ TWO ]

  44–46 Beerenstrasse, Zehlendorf

  U.S. Zone of Berlin

  1810 30 January 1946

  As the Military Transport Command Douglas C-54 “Skymaster” had made its approach to the Tempelhof airfield in the growing darkness, Cronley saw that what had been the capital of the Thousand-Year Reich was mostly in darkness. There were exceptions. Here and there he saw islands of light, small parts of Berlin that had somehow escaped the damage brought by one thousand-bomber raid after another. The buildings in those parts were lighted, and some of the streets, and he had even seen the red and green of traffic lights.

  And one of those islands of light, he knew, was their destination: the city suburb of Zehlendorf.

  The Skymaster touched down and taxied under the curved arch of the terminal. An Air Force bus pulled up to the aircraft as its door opened. Two full colonels rose from their seats and walked to the door. Both of them glared at Cronley, Mannberg, and Ostrowski as they did.

  The original manifest had had another full colonel and a lieutenant colonel listed as passengers. They had been bumped by a higher travel priority given—for reasons the two colonels who had not been bumped could not imagine—by two young, and therefore obviously not senior, men whose uniforms bore the blue triangles of civilian employees of the Army.

  Cronley signaled to Ostrowski and Mannberg to wait until just about all the other passengers had debarked. Then they got on the bus, which carried them farther into the terminal.

  —

  “My God,” Ostrowski said, as they walked into the terminal, “this place is enormous!”

  “First time in Berlin, Max?” Mannberg asked.

  “First time on the ground. The last two times I was here I was an exchange pilot with the 8th Air Force flying B-17 escort in a P-51.”

  Cronley saw the two were smiling at one another. And then he saw something else, and sa
id, “Well, Comrade Serov will see that we are following his orders.”

  He nodded his head toward two Russian officers who were standing against a counter looking at the arriving passengers.

  Cronley waved cheerfully at the Russian officers as Mannberg and Ostrowski, shaking their heads, smiled.

  —

  Staff cars were available for senior officers, and Mannberg’s DCI credentials got them one, an Opel Kapitän driven by a German wearing ODs dyed black.

  When they got to the house on Beerenstrasse, Cronley saw a 1942 Ford with 711 MKRC bumper markings. That told him Hessinger, Claudette, and Ostrowski’s men had made it to Berlin.

  And then the headlights of the staff car lit up a sign, a four-by-eight-foot sheet of plywood held up by two-by-four studs. It carried the legend SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS, the letters arranged in a circle around a representation of the world.

  At first Cronley was amused.

  Well, why not? That sign was probably Clete’s idea. This house was taken over by the OSS right after the war. When the OSS went out of business, Operation Ost didn’t, and needed a place in Berlin. You could hardly put a sign reading OPERATION OST on the lawn.

  So, why not South American Airways, whose managing director and chief pilot was Señor Cletus Frade—and who’s also, or was then, the senior OSS officer in the Southern Cone of South America?

  And then he had more sobering thoughts.

  My God! I completely forgot that Berlin, not Frankfurt, is the European terminal for SAA!

  This is where the crews rest for twenty-four hours before heading back to Buenos Aires.

  Was there an SAA Constellation at Tempelhof? It was too damn dark to see!

  If there is an SAA crew here and, please, God, one of them is somebody I know, I can get word to Clete without anybody finding out that I have.

  —

  When he was allowed to enter the house—after having to show his DCI credentials to a security guard armed with a Thompson submachine gun—he found the foyer crowded with what looked like a party, one that was spreading into the adjacent dining and living rooms.