The Assassination Option Part 30

"And getting his family out is all he has to live for. If he loses that, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to take himself out."

"Jesus!"

"And even if we kept him from doing that, and we're d.a.m.ned sure going to try to, he'll shut off the flow of intel. Either refuse to answer any more questions, or hand us some credible bulls.h.i.+t and send us on one wild-goose chase after another. And he'd be good at that.

"So what I thought on the way from Vienna is that Polo and I have to go to Argentina and look him in the eye and tell him everything that's happened and is happening. Everything. Including you loaning the DCI the hundred thousand of your own money, and meeting Rahil/Seven-K in the Cafe Weitz. Even you feeding her dog peanuts and not having a clue who she was."

"Why would he believe you? Or Polo?"

"Likharev, like many good intel officers, can look into somebody's eyes and intuit if they're lying. Or not. Freddy says he can do that. I believe him. I think Colonel Mannberg can do it. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could. h.e.l.l, I know you can. You wouldn't have been able to turn Likharev in the first place if you hadn't known in your gut when he was lying and when he was telling the truth."

"Okay," Cronley said. "I can do it. Let's say you're right and Likharev can do it. So he looked in my eyes and decided I wasn't lying about trying to get his family out. Doesn't that count?"

"That was then. Now he's had time to think his gut reaction was flawed."

"Okay. So now what?"

"I told you. Polo and I are on the next SAA flight to Buenos Aires. Leaving you here to deal with Major McClung and the others by your lonesome."

"Christ!"

"Hand Mr. Cronley the telephone, Sergeant Tedworth."

"My father could do that," Captain Dunwiddie said thoughtfully. "Look in my eyes and tell if I was lying."

"Thank you for sharing that with us, Captain Dunwiddie," Major Ashton said. "And now that I think about it, several young women I have known have had that ability."

The telephone was an ordinary handset and cradle mounted on an obviously "locally manufactured" wooden box about eight inches tall. There were three toggle switches on the top of the box, and a speaker was mounted on the side. A heavy, lead-s.h.i.+elded cable ran from it to the room in which the SIGABA system was installed.

"The left toggle switch turns the handset on," El Jefe said. "The one in the middle turns on the loudspeaker, and the one on the right turns on the microphone. I suggest you leave that one off."

"The line has been checked, and you're into the ASA control room in Frankfurt, Mr. Cronley," First Sergeant Tedworth said. "Just flick the left toggle."

"Is that the truth? Let me look into your eyes, First Sergeant," Cronley said, as he flipped the left toggle switch, and then the center one.

Almost immediately, there came a male voice.

"Control room, Sergeant Nesbit."

"J. D. Cronley for Major McClung."

"Hold one."

Thirty seconds later, the voice of Major "Iron Lung" boomed from the speaker.

"What can I do for you, Cronley?"

"I want to steal one of your people from you."

"I was afraid of that. General Greene showed me that EUCOM will provide letter."

"Actually, I want more than one of your people," Cronley said, and as the words came out he realized he was in "automatic mouth mode."

"I was afraid of that, too. Okay, who?"

"I've only got one name right now, somebody I know wants to come work for us."

"Okay, who?"

"One of your intercept operators, Tech Sergeant Colbert."

There was a just perceptible pause before McClung asked, "What do you want her for, besides intercepting messages between Colonel Parsons and the Pentagon?"

Christ, he knows!

Why am I surprised?

Because you forgot "to know your enemy," stupid.

So what do I do now?

I don't know, but lying to Major McClung isn't one of my options.

"That, too, but right now I want her because she can take shorthand and type sixty words a minute. Colonel Ashton has told me our record-keeping, especially after-action reports, is unacceptably in arrears."

"Meaning nonexistent?"

"That's what the colonel alleges."

"Welcome to the world of command," McClung said, chuckling. "Okay, you can have her. Who do I transfer her to?"

I don't have a f.u.c.king clue!

"Hold on," Cronley said.

Hessinger scribbled furiously on his clipboard and then handed it to Cronley.

Cronley read aloud what Hessinger had written: "Military Detachment, Directorate of Central Intelligence, Europe, APO 907."

After a moment, McClung said, "Okay, who else?"

"Let me get back to you after I talk to them and ask if they want to come with us."

"Okay. Makes sense. I don't know what I would do if I were an ASA non-com and was asked to join the DCI."

"Why would you not want to?"

"Your DCI is a dangerous place to be. People, powerful people, don't like you. You ever hear of guilt by a.s.sociation?"

"How do you know that powerful people don't like me? Us?"

"I'm chief of ASA Europe. I listen to everybody's telephone calls and read all their messages."

"Well, I'll ask them anyway."

"Do that. When you find out, let me know."

"Will do."

"That all, Cronley?"

"I guess so."

"McClung out," he said, and Cronley sensed that the line was no longer operating. He hung up the handset and then flipped the toggle switches off.

"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it, Jim?" El Jefe asked.

"When I called McClung, I had him in the Enemies Column," Cronley said. "Now I don't think so."

"Why not? Something he said?"

"More the tone. Of the entire conversation, but especially in his voice."

"So, what we should do now is, while staring into the eyes of people we're talking to to see if they're lying, listen to the tone of their voices to see if they like us, or not?"

"May I say something?" Ludwig Mannberg asked.

"You don't have to ask permission to speak around here, Colonel," Cronley said.

"I had the same feeling about this officer, listening to his tone," Mannberg said. "I think Jim is right. But I also feel obliged to say that, in my experience, it is very dangerous to rely on intuition. And very easy to do so. Intuition can be often, perhaps most often, relied upon. But when you want to rely on intuition, don't. That's when it will fail you."

"I think I'm going to write that down," El Jefe said. "And I'm not being a wisea.s.s." He paused and then went on. "No, I won't write it down. I don't have to. I won't forget 'when you want to rely on intuition, don't.' Thanks, Ludwig."

"Yeah, me too," Cronley said. "Thank you for that." He paused. "Now what do we do?"

"If you really can't think of anything else to do, why don't you get Sergeant Colbert in here?" Hessinger asked.

[TWO].

Office of the U.S. Military Government Liaison Officer The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound Pullach, Bavaria The American Zone of Occupied Germany 1735 15 January 1946 Technical Sergeant Claudette Colbert knocked at the door, heard the command "Come," opened the door, marched into the office up to the desk of the liaison officer, came to attention, raised her hand in salute, and barked, "Technical Sergeant Colbert reporting to the commanding officer as ordered, sir."

In doing so, she shattered a belief Captain James D. Cronley Jr. had firmly held since his first days at Texas A&M, which was, Unless you're some kind of a pervert, into kinky things like fetishes, a female in uniform is less s.e.xually attractive than a spittoon.

He would have thought this would be even more true if the uniform the female was wearing, as Sergeant Colbert was, was what the Army called "fatigues." Generously tailored to afford the wearer room to move while performing the hard labor causing the fatigue, "fatigues" conceal the delicate curvature of the female form at least as well as, say, a tarpaulin does when draped over a tank.

It was not true of Technical Sergeant Colbert now.

Cronley returned the salute in a Pavlovian reflex, and similarly ordered, "Stand at ease," and then, a moment later, added, "Have a seat, Sergeant," and pointed to the chair Hessinger had placed six feet from his desk.

Technical Sergeant Colbert sat down.

She found herself facing Captain Cronley, and on the left side of his desk, Lieutenant Colonel Ashton, Captain Dunwiddie, and Staff Sergeant Hessinger. Lieutenant Oscar Schultz, USN, Maksymilian Ostrowski, and former Colonel Ludwig Mannberg were seated to the right of Cronley's desk.

Only Colonel Ashton and Captain Dunwiddie were wearing the insignia of their ranks. Everyone else was wearing the blue triangles of civilian employees of the Army, including Ostrowski, whom Claudette knew to be a Pole and a DP guard. Ex-colonel Mannberg was wearing a very well-tailored suit.

Cronley, who was having thoughts he knew he should not be having about how Sergeant Colbert might look in the shower, forced them from his mind and asked himself, How the h.e.l.l do I handle this, now that she's here?

s.h.i.+ft into automatic mode and see what happens when I open my mouth?

In the absence of any better, or any other, idea . . .

"Sergeant, Sergeant Hessinger tells me that you would like to move to the DCI from the ASA. True?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"I've been on the fringes of the intelligence business, sir, since I came into the ASA. And the more I've learned about it, the more I realized I'd like to be in it. As more than an ASA intercept sergeant. As an intelligence officer."

"What would you like to do in what you call the intelligence business?"

"I don't know, sir. Once I get into the DCI, something will come up."

"What if I told you that what you would do if you came to DCI is typing and taking shorthand?"

"Sir, I would have my foot in the door. So long as you understood that I don't want to be a secretary, starting out taking shorthand and typing would be okay with me."

"DCI inherited from the OSS the notion that the best qualified person for the job gets the job and the authority that goes with it. You understand that? It means you would be working for Hessinger, although you outrank him. Would you be all right with that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has anyone else got any questions for Sergeant Colbert?" Cronley asked.

There came shaken heads, a chorus of no's and uh-uhs.

"Okay, Sergeant Colbert, let's give it a try," Cronley said. "You can consider yourself a member of DCI from right now. What is that officially, Freddy?"

"Military Detachment, Directorate of Central Intelligence, Europe, APO 907," Hessinger furnished.

"Sir?" Sergeant Colbert said.