The weather had been deteriorating when he had taken off for Eschborn, and all the way to Eschborn he had been very much aware that the smart thing for him to have done would have been aborting the flight and trying later.
But he knew he was running out of time. He had to try.
Both ambulances had been waiting for him when he landed. He learned that it had taken them just about an hour to drive from the ASA Relay Station to the airfield. That meant he would have to allow three hours on “D-Day” for that part of the plan. Half an hour, after he had the ETA of the SAA Constellation at Rhine-Main, to contact the Pullach compound and tell them to radio the Relay Station and send the ambulances to Eschborn. Another hour for the ambulances to drive to Eschborn, and another hour for the ambulances to drive to Rhine-Main. And thirty minutes “just in case.”
That sounds very neat and doable.
But what if the weather on D-Day is even worse, absolutely unflyable, than it is today?
Cronley put the Storch down safely on the runway, then taxied to the chapel, where he found the converted ambulance waiting for him.
He was not surprised that no one came out to push the Storch under the tent hangar, or that no one got out of the ambulance. Pounding all around was what the weather people termed “heavy precipitation.”
He got out of the Storch, ran through the fat, cold raindrops to the ambulance, and got in the back.
General Gehlen turned from the front seat and handed him a towel.
“Your arrival cost Sergeant Dunwiddie a bottle of whisky,” Gehlen said. “It was his belief that if you ever got here, you would be walking. I had more faith.”
“I should have walked,” Cronley said as he dried his head and face.
“Colonel Frade has been heard from,” Gehlen said, and handed him a SIGABA printout. “Bad news.”
“Jesus . . .” Cronley said as he looked at the sheet:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM TEX
VIA VINT HILL TANGO NET
1115 GREENWICH 6 NOVEMBER 1945
TO VATICAN ATTENTION ALTARBOY
INFO COPY TO BEERMUG
1-ON ARRIVAL OF UNDERSIGNED BUENOS AIRES 1005 GMT 6 NOVEMBER GENERAL MARTIN AND FATHER WELNER INFORMED UNDERSIGNED MAJOR ASHTON HAD BEEN STRUCK BY HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER AS HE EXITED TAXI OUTSIDE AVENIDA LIBERTADOR HOUSE 1605 GMT 5 NOVEMBER.
2-ASHTON CURRENTLY IN SERIOUS BUT STABLE CONDITION GERMAN HOSPITAL SUFFERING BROKEN RIGHT LEG, LEFT ARM, SEVERAL RIBS, CONCUSSION AND INTERNAL INJURIES. WHEN CONDITION PERMITS HE WILL BE FLOWN TO UNITED STATES.
3-GENERAL MARTIN THEORIZES, UNDERSIGNED CONCURS, MOST CREDIBLE SCENARIO IS THAT HIT-AND-RUN WAS ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION BY PARTIES UNKNOWN WHO FOLLOWED ASHTON FROM JORGE FRADE ON HIS ARRIVAL FROM MENDOZA.
4-GENERAL MARTIN THEORIZES, UNDERSIGNED CONCURS, PARTIES UNKNOWN MOST LIKELY ARE NON-GEHLEN NAZIS, OR CONTRACT EMPLOYEES THEREOF, WHO WISHED TO USE ASHTON’S ASSASSINATION AS PROOF TO OTHER NON-GEHLEN GERMANS THAT SS IS STILL FUNCTIONING IN ARGENTINA.
5-THESE THEORIES DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT EXCLUDE THE POSSIBILITY THAT ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION IS IN SOME WAY CONNECTED WITH OUR FRIEND KONSTANTIN. MARTIN CONCURS.
6-CRITICALLY EXAMINE AND REINFORCE AS NECESSARY ALL SECURITY MEASURES IN PLACE REGARDING KONSTANTIN, PAYING PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO ABSOLUTELY DENYING HIM OPPORTUNITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIS SUPERIORS OR THOSE GERMANS WHO HAVE OR MAY HAVE REPEAT MAY HAVE BEEN TURNED.
7-WELNER DEPARTING BUENOS AIRES ABOARD SAA FLIGHT 707 2000 GMT 6 NOVEMBER. ETA RHINE-MAIN WILL BE SENT FROM LISBON.
8-UNDERSIGNED HAS FULL CONFIDENCE IN YOUR ABILITY TO HANDLE CHANGED SITUATION.
TEX
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
—
“I wish I did,” Cronley said.
“What?” Tiny asked.
“Have full confidence in my ability to handle the changed situation.”
Tiny said, “I doubled the guard on das Gasthaus and barred all Germans but the general from getting anywhere near it or Orlovsky. It was all I could think of to do.”
“That’s good, but the downside is that we just told a bunch of Good Germans we don’t trust them.”
“The Good Germans, as you call them,” Gehlen said, “they will understand. Those who have sold their comrades out will be frustrated.”
“Let me throw some more ice water on our unhappy situation,” Tiny said. “If the general is right, and of course he usually is, and Orlovsky is more important than we thought, and the NKGB is as good as we know they are, aren’t they likely to try to get to Orlovsky through my guys? Money talks.”
“You think that is likely?” Gehlen asked.
“Unlikely, but possible. So what I’m going to do is make snap judgments about who might be tempted, which will probably be wrong, and make sure the guys who can’t be tempted—Martin, Abraham, Clark, Tedworth, and Loudmouth Lewis—keep an eye on them.”
“You going to tell the guys why?” Cronley asked.
“I don’t see how I can’t tell them.”
“Then do it,” Cronley said.
“If Father Welner leaves Buenos Aires at . . .” Gehlen began.
“Twenty-hundred,” Tiny furnished. “That’s midnight here.”
“. . . midnight tonight, when will he get to Frankfurt?”
“At midnight tomorrow,” Cronley said. “They’ll fly Buenos Aires–Dakar–Lisbon–Frankfurt. With fuel stops, that adds up to almost exactly twenty-four hours. And fucks up my idea of flying Welner here in a Storch. I can’t get in here in the dark. Which means I couldn’t leave Eschborn until three hours before daybreak, or four in the morning. What would I do with a Jesuit priest for the time between when I pick him up at Rhine-Main and can take off from Eschborn?”
“Let him sleep in one of the ambulances,” Tiny said.
“Or,” General Gehlen said, “can we contact the plane en route?”
“Why?”
“To tell them not to arrive in Frankfurt before daylight the day after tomorrow.”
“That would do it,” Cronley said.
“Better yet, since the plane hasn’t left Buenos Aires yet,” Tiny said, “we can get on the SIGABA now and tell them not to arrive in Frankfurt until ten hundred the day after tomorrow.”
“Driver,” Cronley commanded regally, “take me to the SIGABA device.”
“Your wish is my command, sir,” Tiny replied.
[ FIVE ]
Room 506
Park Hotel
Wiesenhüttenplatz 28-38
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone, Occupied Germany
0955 8 November 1945
Captain James D. Cronley Jr.—who was not wearing the insignia of his rank, having decided the persona of a dashing agent of the Counterintelligence Corps was more appropriate for the situation—examined himself in the mirror on the wall.
What the hell. I’ll try it again.
“It” was establishing contact with Mrs. Rachel Schumann by telephone. The ostensible purpose of the call would be to tell her he knew nothing of the Leica camera she had told Freddy Hessinger she had left in the Opel Kapitän.
The actual purpose of the call was twofold. First, to keep their affair from blowing up in his face right now. And second, to gracefully ease his way completely out of the affair as soon as possible.
That he didn’t have a clue how to accomplish either of these objectives was beside the point. He knew he had to try.
—
He had flown into Eschborn late the previous afternoon, with a more than reluctant—actually terrified, as it was his first flight ever—Staff Sergeant Harold Lewis Jr. Cronley brought Lewis in the belief that it would be useful for Father Welner, when he got off South American Airways Flight 707
from Buenos Aires, to have a little time with Lewis to discuss Major—or Colonel or whatever the hell he really was—Konstantin Orlovsky before he met him.
Lewis had not only spent more time with the Russian than anybody else, but had interesting insights about what made him tick. And Cronley suspected Lewis had been kind to Orlovsky behind Bischoff’s back when the German had been tormenting him. That might be useful.
When the ambulances had met them at Eschborn, it had been Cronley’s intention to spend the night at the ASA Relay Station. The ASA sergeant who had come with the ambulances said that his presence there as either a captain or a CIC agent would draw unwanted attention to the ambulances. He suggested Cronley get a room at the Park Hotel.
Cronley knew the Army-run hotel, which was very near to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. It provided Army of Occupation officers and their families a waypoint to spend a night when they arrived from—or were going to depart from—the Rhine-Main Airfield.
Second Lieutenant Cronley had spent his first night in Germany there, en route from Camp Holabird to the XXIInd CIC Detachment in Marburg an der Lahn. It was in the lobby of the hotel the next morning that the commanding officer of the XXIInd—on hearing of Cronley’s sole qualification to be a CIC officer, his fluent German—had told him he would find an assignment for him where he could cause the least amount of damage.
So Cronley went in one of the ambulances to the Park Hotel, and Sergeant Lewis went in the other to the ASA Relay Station with orders to pick him up at the hotel at ten o’clock in the morning.
Once Cronley had checked in, he went to the bar and had two drinks of Haig & Haig to give him the courage to call Rachel. That worked as far as his going to his room and dialing the number. But when, on the third ring, the phone was answered—“Colonel Schumann”—the liquid courage evaporated and he hastily hung up.
—
Cronley went to the telephone and dialed the number of the quarters of Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Schumann. This time, there was no answer at all, even after he let it ring ten times.
He hung up, picked up his overnight bag, and went down to stand in front of the hotel to wait for Sergeant Lewis.
[ SIX ]
Incoming Passenger Terminal
Rhine-Main USAF Base
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone, Occupied Germany
1010 8 November 1945
Cronley saluted the Reverend Kurt Welner as the Jesuit priest came out of the building.
“Welcome to Germany, Father Welner,” he said. “Sergeant Lewis will take your bag, sir, and the ambulance is right over there in the parking lot.”
“Thank you, Jim. How are you?”
“Fine, sir. You want to give your bag to Sergeant Lewis?”
“There are certain valuables in the bag.”
“Yes, sir. We know, Father. That’s why Sergeant Lewis has that Thompson hanging from his shoulder.”
Welner somewhat reluctantly handed over the bag and allowed himself to be led to the parking lot and installed in the front seat of the ambulance. Lewis got behind the wheel and Cronley got in the back.
“We’re going to drive from here to Kloster Grünau in a vehicle like this?” Welner asked. “It’s in Bavaria, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. It’s in Bavaria. But, no, sir. We’re going to fly to Kloster Grünau. Where we’re headed now is to a little airport not far from here, where my Storch is parked.”
“I’ll take what comfort I can from knowing I am in the hands of God,” Welner said. “I do not share—and you know I don’t—the affection that you and Cletus and Hansel have for that ugly and dangerous little airplane.”
“You and me both, Reverend,” Sergeant Lewis said.
“If you don’t mind, Sergeant, you may refer to me as ‘Father,’” Welner said.
“I’m a Born Again by Total Immersion Abyssinian Baptist,” Lewis said. “Can I do that?”
“I think it will be all right with God, Sergeant,” Welner said.
“Father, to clear the air a little, you can say anything you want to, personal or business, to Sergeant Lewis. Actually, that’s the reason I brought him along with me. He’s as close to Konstantin as anybody. Closer.”
“Konstantin is the NKGB officer?”
“Konstantin Orlovsky. Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be delighted to hear what the sergeant has to say about him. But let me get this out of the way, first.”
“Sir?”
“First, I was very sorry to hear about your loss of your wife.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It was impossible for me to go to the United States with Cletus and the others. If I could have gone, I would have. I hope you understand.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“What I did do, Jim, was celebrate a mass for Marjorie in the Church of Our Lady of Pilar.”
“That’s the church by that cemetery downtown, in Recoleta?”
“Right. In which Cletus’s father and others of his family have their last resting place.”
“That was very kind of you.”
“Not at all. How are you doing?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“I had a thought on the airplane,” the priest said. “Cletus told me how busy you have been here. I wondered if perhaps that’s been a gift from God, a blessing in disguise, so to speak, taking your mind off your loss.”
What took my mind off my loss, Father, was fucking a married woman.
And speaking of God, how the hell am I going to explain that despicable, inexcusable behavior to Saint Peter when I get to those pearly gates?
“That’s an interesting thought, Father.”
“We’ll have more time to talk, I’m sure,” the Jesuit said. “But right now, Sergeant Lewis, why don’t we talk about the Russian?”
[ SEVEN ]
Commanding Officer’s Quarters
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1425 8 November 1945
Father Welner and Staff Sergeant Lewis came into the room. Cronley, Gehlen, and Dunwiddie were sitting at the table.
“Orlovsky has accepted your kind invitation to lunch,” the priest said. “But that’s all I got out of him.”
“Shall I get him, Captain?” Lewis asked.
“Fuck him,” Cronley said.
“That’s not very charitable, Jim,” the priest said.
“I’m fresh out of charity so far as he’s concerned,” Cronley replied.
“What was your impression of him, Father?” Gehlen asked.
“I think that you’re right, General. He is more than he appears to be, more than he wants us to think he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is a more senior officer than a major.”
“Can you tell us why?”
“He didn’t say anything specific, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s more his attitude.”
“You mean his casual dismissal of the possibility that we’re going to shoot him in the back of the head?” Cronley asked.
“I don’t think he thinks that’s going to happen,” the priest said, then added, “Is it?”
“If we didn’t really need the names of the people the NKGB has turned, I think I’d do it myself,” Cronley said.
“I don’t think you mean that, Jim. I hope you don’t.”
“I don’t know if I do or not. But no. It’s not on my agenda. Why do you think he doesn’t care about that as a threat?”
“I had the feeling that he thinks his situation is about to change.”
“Change how?”
“That he’ll somehow be freed. Is there any possibility of that?”
“Absolutely none. If the general is right, and I think he is, he’s a colonel or whatever.
And you agree with that. And Sergeant Lewis agrees with that. Let’s take it as a given.”
Cronley looked between them, then went on: “What would you do if you were Major/Colonel/General Orlovsky’s superior in the ranks of the NKGB and your hotshot screwed up and found himself in the hands of the Americans who didn’t know he was a hotshot, but inevitably were going to find out?
“You’d try to bust him out, and failing that, to whack him. That’s what you would do. That’s what they are going to try to do. Now that I think of it, I’m surprised they haven’t already tried. And that settles it.”
“Settles what?” Dunwiddie asked.
Gehlen said: “Although they are not supposed to, I’m sure that some of my people have weapons. Especially those who, having turned, have to consider the possibility they may need them. And some of my people are highly skilled in that sort of thing. I’m afraid Jim is right. And I further suggest that if such an attempt will be made, it will take place before the move to the Pullach compound is complete.”
“And that really settles it,” Cronley said. “Konstantin is about to go to the Paris of South America.”
“Involuntarily, you mean?” Gehlen asked thoughtfully.
“I don’t think he’s about to volunteer, do you?” Cronley replied. “Father, who flew the Connie from Buenos Aires?”
“Hansel,” the priest said.
“Who the hell is Hansel?” Tiny asked.
“Former Major Hans-Peter Graf von Wachtstein, recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from the hands of Hitler himself,” Cronley said. “Who by now is probably at 44-46 Beerenstrasse in Berlin.”
“I’m lost,” Tiny admitted.
“Father, I presume you brought identity documents and a passport for Señor Orlovsky?”
“Yes.”
“Does anything have to be done to them?”
“Just the addition of a photograph and a name.”
“There was a photograph of him on his forged German Kennkarte,” Gehlen said. “And then Bischoff took some photos of him.”
“We’ll have to get Felix Dzerzhinsky’s documents in order as soon as possible,” Cronley said.
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