Top Secret Part 33

"I'll have a Dewar's please."

"Colonel Frade," General Greene began the dinner conversation, "I'd recommend the New York strip steak. Very good. They bring it in from Denmark."

"Why do they do that?" Frade asked.

"The club-clubs, plural-don't want to be accused of diverting the best beef from the Quartermaster refrigerators to the bra.s.s, taking it out of the mouths of the enlisted men, so to speak, so they go outside the system and buy it in Denmark."

"You look as if you don't approve, Colonel Frade," Mrs. Greene said. "Don't they do things like that in the Naval Service?"

"In the Marine Corps, I was taught that officers can have anything in the warehouse after the enlisted men get first shot at it."

Before his wife could reply to that, General Greene quickly said, "That strikes me as a very good rule."

"General," Frade asked, "did you ever notice that there's loops on the top of Marine officers' covers-the brimmed uniform caps?"

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"When I was a second lieutenant, I was told that was to identify officers who might have had their hands in the enlisted men's rations and make it easier for Marine marksmen in the s.h.i.+p's rigging to shoot them."

Greene, Colonel Schumann, and Major McClung laughed. Rachel Schumann and Mrs. McClung chuckled. Mrs. Greene's eyebrows rose. Mattingly managed a wan smile.

"I'd be interested to hear, Colonel," Greene said, "how you think the meeting went this afternoon?"

"Paul," Mrs. Greene said, "I didn't get all gussied up to come out to listen to you talk shop."

Her husband ignored her. "Your thoughts, Colonel?"

"General, in the Marine Corps, we have another odd custom. We ask questions like that of the junior officer present. That way, since they don't know what their seniors are hoping to hear, they have to say what they actually think."

"We do the same thing, Colonel," General Greene said, and his eyes went to Cronley. "Well, Captain, what impression did you take away from that long, long session this afternoon?"

Thanks a lot, Clete!

No matter what I say, it's going to be wrong.

What the h.e.l.l! In the absence of all other options, tell the truth.

"Sir, from the bottom of the totem pole, it looked to me like those people from the Pentagon are very unhappy that there's going to be a new OSS. And/or that the Pentagon is not going to be running it."

Greene nodded and then made a Keep going gesture with his hand. Cronley saw that Mattingly was looking at him, obviously worried about what he was going to say next.

"Sir, I had the feeling that they were really upset to hear that I have the monastery and will be in charge of Pullach."

"I don't understand," Mrs. Greene said. "What monastery? What's Pullach?"

"If the general answers those questions, Mrs. Greene, I'll have to shoot both of you," Frade said.

Iron Lung McClung laughed loudly.

"Jim!" his wife said warningly.

"Grace," General Greene offered, "Captain Cronley is going to run a little operation in Pullach, which is a little dorf near Munich."

These people tell their wives about what we're doing?

How much do they tell them?

Probably everything.

Rachel seems to know everything that's going on.

And Clete mockingly gave Boy Scout's Honor that he had never told his wife anything.

So much for the sacred Need to Know.

"Why are the people from the Pentagon not pleased? Because he's only a captain?" Mrs. Greene asked. "And if they're not pleased, why is he going to be allowed to run it?"

"The simple answer, Mrs. Greene," Frade said, "is because Admiral Souers says he will. And quickly changing the subject, where is our leader tonight?"

"Having dinner with Ike, Beetle, and Magruder," Greene said.

"And here's our dinner," McClung said as a line of waiters approached the table.

Cronley felt Rachel's bare foot on his ankle.

"And this admiral," Mrs. Greene relentlessly pursued. "He can just give orders to the Army like that? An admiral?"

"Yes, ma'am, he can," Frade said. Using his hands to demonstrate as he spoke, he went on, "This is the totem pole to which Captain Cronley referred, Mrs. Greene. We're all on it. Cronley is at the bottom"-he pointed to the bottom of his figurative totem pole-"and Admiral Souers is here"-he pointed again-"at the tip-top. The rest of us are somewhere here in the middle."

"Perfect description," General Greene said. His wife glared at both him and Frade.

"I'll tell you about it later, dear," Greene said. "Now let's have our dinner."

- "I think you're right, Cronley," Major Iron Lung McClung said several minutes later. "Magruder, Mullaney, Parsons, and Ashley-the Pentagon delegation-are all probably outraged that they won't be taking over Pullach. But I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"Sir?"

"Magruder's not going to get anywhere at dinner tonight complaining to Ike or Beetle. Not with Souers there. And when Magruder and Mullaney get back to Was.h.i.+ngton, who can they complain to? Not Souers. And so far as Parsons and Ashley, when they're at Pullach, the only one they can complain to about getting ordered around by you is Colonel Mattingly, and he's not going to be sympathetic."

"My only problem with that," Mattingly said, "is that being in charge may well go to Cronley's head. I'm going to have to counsel him to make sure that doesn't happen. He's more than a little weak in that area. He tends to a.s.sume authority he doesn't have and to act first and ask permission, or even counsel, later."

"You're kidding, right?" Frade said.

"No, Colonel Frade, I am not kidding," Mattingly said coldly. "He has a dangerous loose-cannon tendency."

"Jimmy," Frade said, "don't let your being given command of the monastery or Pullach go to your head. Or turn you into a loose cannon. Say, 'Yes, sir.'"

"Yes, sir."

"Consider yourself so counseled," Frade said, and then turned to look at Mattingly. "Jesus Christ, Mattingly!"

Rachel's bare foot, which had been caressing Cronley's ankle, suddenly stopped moving as Mattingly stood.

"I would remind you, Colonel Frade, that you are speaking to a superior officer," Mattingly said furiously.

"Senior, certainly," Frade said. "Superior, I don't think so."

"Ouch!" Iron Lung McClung said softly but audibly.

"What the h.e.l.l set this off?" General Greene asked.

When there was no reply to what might have been a rhetorical question, Greene went on, "Junior officer first, Colonel Frade."

"I found Colonel Mattingly's gratuitous insult of Cronley offensive, General," Frade said.

"Frankly, so did I. But it didn't give you carte blanche to talk to Colonel Mattingly so disrespectfully."

"No, sir, it didn't. I spoke in the heat of the moment and therefore offer my apology."

"Colonel Mattingly?" Greene asked.

"Sir?"

"I think you should accept Colonel Frade's apology and then offer yours to Captain Cronley."

With a visible effort, Mattingly said, "Apology accepted." After a pause, he went on: "Captain Cronley, it was not my intention to gratuitously insult you. If you drew that inference, I apologize."

Great.

But the minute Clete leaves Germany, I'm really f.u.c.ked.

Rachel's foot on his ankle began to move.

General Greene looked at Cronley impatiently, and finally Cronley understood.

He stood up, came to attention, and said, "Sir, no apology is necessary."

He sat down.

"Sit down, please, Colonel Mattingly," Greene said. "Whereupon, we will all promptly forget the last three minutes or however long that little theatrical lasted."

There were chuckles.

"Can we get them to do it again?" Major McClung asked innocently. "Sort of a curtain call? I liked it."

"Jim, for G.o.d's sake!" Mrs. McClung said.

General Greene gave McClung a look that would have frozen Mount Vesuvius.

McClung seemed unrepentant.

Rachel's foot found Jimmy's ankle and instep again.

- "Colonel Frade," General Greene said as he cut into his Danish New York strip steak, "I'd like to ask you-you and Colonel Mattingly, but you first-what you consider the greatest threat to your operation between now and the time it comes under the new organization Admiral Souers mentioned."

Is he tactfully reminding Clete that Mattingly outranks him?

What is that saying? "There are nice generals, and there are generals who are not nice, but there is no such thing as a stupid general."

Clete didn't hesitate before replying.

"So far as I'm concerned, and I'm not saying this to agree with Admiral Souers . . ."

Clete picked up on that "who's junior?" implication.

He's good at this.

". . . the greatest threat to our nameless operation is that our Soviet friends are going to expose it. I say expose it because we would be fools to think they don't know about it. It is just a matter of time before they penetrate Kloster . . ." He paused, looking for the name by looking at Cronley.

"Kloster Grnau," Jimmy furnished.

". . . Kloster Grnau. And the Pullach installation, which, because it's not only not on a Bavarian mountaintop but close to Munich, will be an even easier target for penetration. I'm frankly surprised there hasn't been a penetration of the monastery already."

Cronley felt Mattingly's eyes on him.

What's he want?

Am I supposed to say, "Actually, now that you mention Russian penetration of my little monastery, I do have NKGB Major Konstantin Orlovsky locked up in a cell in what used to be the monastery chapel"?

Or keep my mouth shut?

"What about that, Captain Cronley?" Colonel Schumann asked. "Am I the only nefarious character you've caught trying to force his way into your monastery?"

Christ, now what do I say?

"Sir, you're the only one I've had to discourage with a machine gun."

My G.o.d, where did that come from?

General Greene laughed. Frade looked curious.

"Colonel Frade," Schumann said, "I wouldn't worry about anybody penetrating Cronley's monastery. I know from painful personal experience that Cronley's got it guarded by some of the toughest, meanest-looking Negro soldiers I have ever seen-they're all at least six feet tall, and weigh at least two hundred pounds-who are perfectly willing-willing, h.e.l.l, anxious-to turn their machine guns on anyone trying to get in."

"Painful personal experience?" Frade replied. "I'd like to hear about that. And I guess I'll see Cronley's mean-looking troops when I go down there-"

"Excuse me?" Mattingly interrupted. "Colonel, did I understand you to say you're going to Kloster Grnau?"

"Yes, you did."