The Assassination Option Part 23

"We had a similar saying, oddly enough, in the Wehrmacht," General Gehlen said.

"So what do you want me to do now?" Hessinger asked.

"Get me an ambulance driver, and a road map to Strasbourg," Cronley said. "I want to go there either tomorrow or the day after and get that out of the way before I go to Vienna."

"I will drive, and I don't need a road map," Hessinger replied.

"You're going with me to Strasbourg?"

"Me and four of Tiny's Troopers. Them in an ambulance, you and me-Second Lieutenant Cronley and Sergeant Hessinger of the 711th Quartermaster Mobile Kitchen Renovation Company-in the Ford with the three hundredodd miles on the odometer."

"Do I have any say in this?"

"I wouldn't think so, Second Lieutenant Cronley," El Jefe said. "It looks to me that Professor Hessinger has things well in hand."

"There is one little problem we haven't discussed," Cronley said.

"Which is?"

"How do we get Mannberg, Ostrowski, and that fifty thousand dollars to Vienna?"

"Yeah," Hessinger said thoughtfully.

"I'd like to send them on the Blue Danube, but we can't get them on the Blue Danube because they're not American."

"Yeah," Hessinger repeated thoughtfully.

"I have a brilliant idea," Cronley said. "Inasmuch as I am exhausted after dealing with Lieutenant Colonel Parsons, Major Ashley, and Staff Sergeant Hessinger, why don't we put off solving that until tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah," Hessinger said thoughtfully, for the third time.

VI.

[ONE].

Quarters of the U.S. Military Government Liaison Officer The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound Pullach, Bavaria The American Zone of Occupied Germany 0755 9 January 1946 "Sign this, please," Hessinger said, laying a sheet of paper on the table.

"What is it?" Cronley asked, and then read. "I'll be d.a.m.ned, 'Special Orders No. 1, Headquarters, Military Detachment, Directorate of Central Intelligence-Europe. Subject: Promotion of Enlisted Personnel.' What took you so long, Freddy? Or should I say 'Staff Sergeant Hessinger'?"

"I didn't know how to do it, so I called Sergeant Major Thorne."

"Who?"

"General Greene's sergeant major."

"And he told you how?"

"Correct."

"I was hoping that you had spent the night thinking about how we're going to get Mannberg, Ostrowski, and the fifty thousand to Vienna."

"I came up with several ideas, all of which are probably illegal," Hessinger said.

"Save them until the general and Mannberg get here."

General Gehlen, in another of his ill-fitting, ragged suits, and Colonel Mannberg, in his usual Wehrmacht uniform stripped of all insignia but a red stripe down the trouser legs, came in almost precisely at eight.

Cronley wasn't sure if he was impressed with their Teutonic punctuality or annoyed by it. He rose as Gehlen approached the table, as a gesture of courtesy, and Gehlen waved him back into his seat, shaking his head to suggest he didn't think the gesture was necessary.

By quarter after eight, the others-Dunwiddie, Schultz, Ostrowski, and Tedworth-had taken their places and begun their breakfast, and Cronley had finished his.

"What we left hanging last night," Cronley said, "was the question of getting Mannberg, Ostrowski, and the fifty thousand dollars to Vienna. The problem is that neither of them can get on the Blue Danube because they're not Americans. And the one solution I see for the problem is predictably illegal."

"What's your solution?"

"Give both of them DCI-Europe ident.i.ty cards."

"You're right," Dunwiddie said. "That would be illegal. And it wouldn't be long before Colonel Mattingly heard about it. And he's just waiting for you to screw up."

"Your suggestion?"

"Put Colonel Mannberg in a Provisional Security Organization uniform and give him a PSO ident.i.ty card. No one would question you having two Wachmann-Mannberg and Ostrowski-with you."

"That would work," Mannberg said.

No, mein lieber Oberst, it wouldn't.

"No, it would not," Cronley said. "I don't think this officers' hotel . . . what's it called?"

"The Bristol," Hessinger furnished. "And it's not just an officers' hotel. Majors and up."

". . . this majors-and-up officers' hotel is going to accommodate two DP watchmen," Cronley finished.

"So what's your solution?" Dunwiddie asked.

"I'm going to give both Mannberg and Ostrowski DCI ident.i.ty cards."

"I don't think that would be smart," Schultz said.

"Well, then the choice is yours, Jefe," Cronley said. "Relieve me and you figure this out. Or let me do what I think is best. And giving Mannberg and Ostrowski DCI ident.i.ty cards is what I think is best."

It took thirty seconds-which seemed much longer-for El Jefe to reply.

"When I think about it," he said finally, "I still think it's risky as h.e.l.l, but I don't think it would be illegal. You're the chief, DCI-Europe. You can do just about anything you want."

"Until somebody catches him doing something we all know he shouldn't be doing, you mean," Dunwiddie said.

"Discussion over, Captain Dunwiddie," Cronley said. "How are you with a tape measure?"

"Excuse me?"

"While we're getting the DCI credentials filled out and sealed in plastic, we need somebody who knows how to determine sizes to take the colonel's and Ostrowski's measurements. Are you our man to do that?"

"What for?"

"So that you can go to the QM officers' clothing sales store and get Colonel Mannberg a couple of sets of ODs and a set of pinks and greens."

"I didn't think about that," Hessinger said.

"And get Ostrowski a set of pinks and greens while you're at it," Cronley said. "We don't want anyone to look out of place in this majors-and-up hotel in Vienna, do we?"

"I have one more thing to say, and then I'll shut up," Dunwiddie said.

"Say it."

"I can see the look-'I've got the sonofab.i.t.c.h now'-on Colonel Mattingly's face when he hears about this."

Cronley looked as if he was about to reply, but then changed his mind.

"I'd much prefer to put the colonel-and Max, too-in civilian clothing," he said. "Suits and ties. But that's out of the question, isn't it?" Cronley asked.

"I have civilian clothing," Mannberg said. "Or my sister does."

"Your sister?"

"And I think Max could wear some of it," Mannberg said.

"Your sister has your civilian clothing?" Cronley asked.

Mannberg nodded.

"I sent it to her when the general and I went to the East," he said.

"And she still has it?" Cronley asked. "Where?"

"We have a farm near Hanover," Mannberg said. "In the British Zone."

"Pay attention," Cronley said. "The chief, DCI-Europe, is about to lay out our plans. While General Gehlen's doc.u.ments people are doing their thing with the DCI credentials, and Captain Dunwiddie is measuring Mannberg and Ostrowski and then going shopping for them, First Sergeant Tedworth is going to get in one of our new Fords and drive to Hanover to reclaim Colonel Mannberg's wardrobe. Any questions?"

[TWO].

Hachelweg 675 Strasbourg, Departement Bas-Rhin, France 1255 10 January 1946 The olive-drab 1943 Ford Deluxe pulled to the curb and stopped. The driver, yet another enormous black sergeant, this one Sergeant Albert Finney, got out from behind the wheel and ran around the back of the car to open the rear pa.s.senger door.

Cronley got out. He was wearing an OD woolen uniform. His shoulder insignia, a modification of the wartime insignia of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), identified him as being a.s.signed to the European Command (EUCOM). The gold bars of a second lieutenant were pinned to his epaulets, and the insignia of the Quartermaster Corps to his lapels.

Hessinger got out of the front seat. He was also wearing an OD Ike jacket and trousers. The first time Cronley had ever seen him not wearing his pinks and greens was that morning. His uniform now was adorned with staff sergeant's chevrons, QMC lapel insignia, and the EUCOM shoulder patch.

Two other of Tiny's Troopers and the ambulance were parked down the street just within sight of Hachelweg 675. The fourth had made his way to the back of Hachelweg 675, with orders from Sergeant Hessinger to "follow anyone who comes out the back door when we knock at the front."

Staff Sergeant Hessinger had orders for Second Lieutenant Cronley and Sergeant Finney, as well. "Remember," he said in German, "the only German either of you knows is 'Noch ein Bier, bitte' and 'Wo ist die Toilette?'"

"Jawohl, Herr Feldmarschall," Cronley had replied.

"You already told us that, Freddy," Sergeant Finney said in German.

He opened the trunk of the Ford and took out an open cardboard box. Four cartons of Chesterfield cigarettes, on their ends, were visible. So was an enormous canned ham.

Hessinger opened a gate in a stone wall and walked up to the house, with Cronley and Finney following him. The tile-roofed two-story building looked very much like Cronley's house in the Pullach compound, except that it desperately needed a paint job, several new windows, and roof repairs.

Cronley and Finney had been given a lecture by Professor Hessinger on the history of Strasbourg on the way from Pullach. He told them that over the years it had gone back and forth between being French and German so often that Strasbourgers never really knew to whom they owed their allegiance.

Cronley was surprised, even a little ashamed, that he had never given the subject much thought before. His mother spoke German; she had taught him to speak German from the time he was an infant. He had naturally presumed that she was a German. Or had been before his father had brought her to Midland, after which she was an American.

But when they had crossed the border today, it had been into France. Strasbourg was in France.

Hessinger told them it had been French until after the Franco-Prussian War, when, in 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt had given it to the newly formed German Empire. The Germans had promptly "Germanified" the area, and surrounded it with a line of ma.s.sive forts, named after distinguished Germans, such as von Moltke, Bismarck, and Crown Prince von Sachsen.

After World War I, Hessinger had lectured, the area was given back to the French by the Treaty of Versailles. The French, after renaming the forts-Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen, for example, became Fort Joffre, after the famous French general, and Fort Bismarck became Fort Kleber-held Strasbourg until June of 1940, when the Germans invaded France and promptly reclaimed Strasbourg for the Thousand-Year Reich.

Four years later, Hessinger said, the French 2nd Armored Division rolled into Strasbourg and hoisted the French tricolor on every flagpole they could find.

"Strasbourgers," Hessinger said, and Cronley couldn't tell if his leg was being pulled or not, "keep German and French flags in their closets, so they can hang the right one out of their windows depending on who they're being invaded by this week."

There was a large door knocker, a bra.s.s lion's head, on the door. Freddy banged it twice.

Jesus, this is my mother's house, Cronley thought. She went through this door as a little girl.

And where we got out of the car is where Dad punched her father's-my grandfather's-lights out.