Top Secret Part 2

"At your orders, Admiral," Tomlinson said.

"Then may I suggest you get going?"

"Yes, sir."

"Show them how to get into the cargo bay, Ford."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Cronley made a move suggesting he was going with them.

Souers held up his hand. "Unless the commander can't find the cargo without your help, son, you stay here."

"Yes, sir," Cronley said.

Souers waited until enough time had pa.s.sed for Tomlinson, Broadhead, and Ford to have gone down the stairway, then walked to the door to make sure they had.

He turned to Cronley.

"The next problem we have, son, is what to do with you. My first thought, when we first heard of what you had done, was regret that you were coming with the uranium oxide."

"For Christ's sake, Admiral," Cletus Marcus Howell exploded. "You wouldn't have that G.o.dd.a.m.ned radioactive dirt if it wasn't for Jimmy! It seems to me a little grat.i.tude is in order. Starting with a leave so that he can go to Texas and see his father and mother."

Souers ignored him.

"In the best of all possible worlds," Souers went on, "you would already be back in Germany. But the worst-case scenario has happened. Hoover now knows your name and that you have had something to do with the uranium ore. He will now be determined to learn that precise relations.h.i.+p."

"And Truman can't tell him to mind his own business?" the old man asked. "I think he will if I ask him. And I G.o.dd.a.m.ned sure will. I figure ole Harry owes me a little favor-h.e.l.l, a large favor. You know what it costs by the hour to fly this airplane? And I don't mind at all calling it in."

"I hope I can talk you out of doing that, Mr. Howell. The problem there is that if the President tells Hoover to mind his own business, all that will do is whet Hoover's curiosity. And we have to keep in mind that the ore isn't the only thing Cronley knows about."

"You mean the Germans we sneaked into Argentina?"

Souers nodded. "That whole operation."

"And you don't trust Jimmy to keep his mouth shut, is that it? That's insulting!"

"The less he tells the FBI agents that Hoover certainly is going to send to 'interview' him, the greater their-Hoover's-curiosity is going to be. I don't want-can't permit-the ax of Hoover learning about the Gehlen operation to be hanging over the President."

"I understand this, Mr. Howell," Cronley said, then met Souers's eyes. "Sir, I'm perfectly willing to go back to Germany right away."

"And then where do we get married?" Marjorie Howell demanded. "In the ruins of Berlin? Maybe we could get married in that bunker where Hitler married his mistress the day before he shot her. That would be romantic as h.e.l.l, wouldn't it?"

"Chip off the old block, isn't she, Admiral?" the old man said, smiling with obvious pride. "She's got my genes. I advise you not to cross her."

"Squirt," Cronley said. "This is important stuff."

"So far as I'm concerned, getting married is pretty important stuff," she said.

"Not that I think the admiral is at all interested," Martha Howell said, "but I thought you and Beth wanted a double wedding. And I can't set up something like that in less than three months."

"You wanted the double wedding, Mother," Marjorie said. "Let's get that straight. Beth would like to get married today. And so, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, would I, now that I think about it."

"I'm afraid your marriage plans are going to have to be put on hold until we get this straightened out, Miss Howell," Souers said.

"On hold for how long?" Marjorie demanded. "Or is that another cla.s.sified secret?"

"Yes, it is cla.s.sified," Souers said. "Highly cla.s.sified. Lieutenant Cronley is right, Miss Howell. This is very important stuff."

"So you're going to send him right back to Germany?" Marjorie said. "'Thank you for all you've done, Lieutenant. Don't let the k.n.o.b on the airplane door hit you in the a.s.s as you get on board.'"

"That's quite enough, Marjorie!" her mother announced.

"Cool it, Squirt," Cronley said. "I'm a soldier. I obey my orders."

"I would like to send him back to Germany immediately, Miss Howell," Souers said. "But unfortunately, that's not possible. President Truman wants to see him before he goes back, and that's it."

"You're going to explain that, right?" Cletus Marcus Howell said.

"What Colonel Mattingly suggested, and what we're going to do, is put Lieutenant Cronley on ice, so to speak, until the President's schedule is such that he can see him."

"What does 'on ice, so to speak' mean, Admiral?" Marjorie said.

"Well, since we can't put him in a hotel, or at Fort Myer, because J. Edgar's minions would quickly find him, what we're going to do is put him in the Transient Officers' Quarters at Camp Holabird. That's in Baltimore. Mattingly tells me junior CIC officers pa.s.sing through the Was.h.i.+ngton area routinely stay there-it's a dollar and a half a night-so he won't attract any attention. Mattingly will arrange for them to misplace his registry card, so if the FBI calls for him they can say they have no record of him being there."

"And how long will he be there?" the old man asked.

"Just until he sees the President. And on that subject, Mr. Howell, the President would like to see you there at the same time. And he would be furious with me if he later learned that your granddaughter and Mrs. Howell were here and I hadn't brought you along to the White House for his meeting with Lieutenant Cronley."

"And after he meets with the President, he gets on the plane to Germany?" Marjorie said.

Souers nodded.

"If Jimmy goes to Germany, I'm going to Germany," Marjorie then announced.

"We'll talk about that, dear," Martha Howell said.

"If Jimmy goes to Germany, I'm going to Germany. Period. Subject closed."

[ TWO ].

The Officers' Club U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center & School Camp Holabird 1019 Dundalk Avenue, Baltimore 19, Maryland 1730 25 October 1945 The artwork behind the bar at which Second Lieutenant Cronley was sipping at his second scotch was more or less an oil painting. It portrayed three soldiers wearing World War Iera steel helmets trying very hard not to be thrown out of a Jeep bouncing three feet off the ground.

Rather than an original work, it was an enlargement of a photograph taken at Camp Holabird in 1939. The U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, which had then reigned over Camp Holabird, was testing the new w.i.l.l.ys-designed vehicle. Some GI artist had colored the photograph with oil paints.

Cronley had heard the rumor that it was at Camp Holabird that the vehicle-officially known as "Truck, 1/4 Ton, 44, General Purpose"-first had been dubbed "Jeep," from the G and P in General Purpose.

He wasn't sure if this was true or just lore. Or bulls.h.i.+t, like the rumors circulating among the student officers and enlisted men about My Brother's Place, the bar directly across Dundalk Avenue from the main gate. That lore, or bulls.h.i.+t, held that an unnamed "foreign power" had a camera with a long-range lens installed in an upstairs window with which they were taking photographs of everyone coming out the gate.

That, the lore said, would of course pose enormous problems for the students when they graduated and were sent "into the field."

His thoughts were interrupted when a voice beside him said, "Cronley, isn't it?"

He turned and saw the speaker was a major.

"Yes, sir."

The major offered his hand. "Remember me, Cronley? Major Derwin? 'Techniques of Surveillance'?"

"Yes, sir, of course. Good to see you again, sir."

"So they sent you back, did they, to finish the course?"

"Just pa.s.sing through, sir."

"From where to where, if I can ask?"

"Munich to Munich, sir. With a brief stop here. I was the escort officer for some cla.s.sified doc.u.ments."

That bulls.h.i.+t came to me naturally. I didn't even have to wonder what cover story I should tell this guy.

"Munich? I thought you'd been sent to the Twenty-second in Marburg."

"Yes, sir. I was. Then I was transferred to the Twenty-seventh."

Counterintelligence Corps units were numbered. When written, for reasons Cronley could not explain-except as a manifestation of the Eleventh Commandment that there were three ways to do anything, the Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the Army Way-Roman numerals were used. For example, the XXVIIth CIC Detachment.

"I'm not familiar with the Twenty-seventh. Who's the senior agent?"

Is that cla.s.sified? No. It's not.

The XXIIIrd CIC Detachment and what it does is cla.s.sified-oh, boy, is it cla.s.sified!-but not the XXVIIth. The XXVIIth is the cover for the XXIIIrd.

"Major Harold Wallace, sir."

"Wallace? Harold Wallace?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't think I know him."

"I'm not sure if this is so, sir, but I've heard that Major Wallace was in j.a.pan, and sent to Germany because we're so under strength."

Actually, before President Truman put the OSS out of business, Wallace had been deputy commander of OSS Forward. I can't tell this guy that; he doesn't have the Need to Know. And if I did, he probably wouldn't believe me.

And, clever fellow that I am, I learned early this morning from Admiral Souers-who really knows how to eat someone a new a.n.a.l orifice-that sharing cla.s.sified information one has with someone who also has a security clearance is something that clever fellows such as myself just should not do.

"That would explain it," Major Derwin said. "The personnel problem is enormous. They sc.r.a.ped the bottom of the Far East Command CIC barrel as they sc.r.a.ped ours here."

"Yes, sir."

As a matter of fact, Major, the morning report of the XXIIIrd CIC Detachment shows a total strength of two officers-Major Wallace and me-and two EM-First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie and Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger. And we really see very little of Major Wallace of the XXVIIth.

"No offense, Cronley," Major Derwin said.

"Sir?"

"It certainly wasn't your fault that sc.r.a.ping the barrel here saw you sent into the field before you were properly trained. Did you find yourself in over your head?"

"Sir, that's something of an understatement. No offense taken."

On the other hand, this morning Colonel Mattingly patted my shoulder and said, "You done good, Jimmy."

Their conversation was interrupted by the bartender, a sergeant who was earning a little extra money by tending bar. He inquired, "Is there a Lieutenant Crumley in here?"

Speaking of the devil, that's Colonel Mattingly, calling to tell me the President can't find time for me and that he's sending a car to take me to the airport for my flight back to Germany.

And I probably won't even get to say goodbye to the Squirt.

s.h.i.+t!

"There's a Lieutenant Cronley," Jimmy called.

The bartender came to him and handed him a telephone on a long cord.

Jimmy said into it: "Lieutenant Cronley, sir."

"Sergeant Killian at the gate, Lieutenant," the caller replied. "There's a civilian lady here wanting to see you. A Miss Howell. Should I pa.s.s her through?"

Cronley's heart jumped.

"After first giving her directions to the officers' club, absolutely!"

"Yes, sir."

Cronley handed the phone back to the bartender.

"My date has arrived, sir," Cronley said to Major Derwin.

We never had a date, come to think of it.