The Assassination Option Part 8

RAdm Souers/Capt Cronley 24 Dec 1945 Copy 1 of 2 Page 6 of 8 Duplication Forbidden He said that if I were DDCI, he would order me to "investigate and deter any efforts by any foreign power to penetrate the Manhattan Project, or any such activity, and to report any findings and any actions taken, directly and only to him."

The President said that he did not feel that Mr. Hoover would have any need to know of these orders. The President also said that in none of his conversations with Director Hoover had the subject of "Operation OST" come up, either by name, or as a general subject such as the rumor that we have been sending Germans to Argentina. The President said he found this odd, as I had told him FBI agents were in Europe attempting to question you, and others, on the subject. The President said he did not understand Mr. Hoover's particular interest in Operation OST, as it is none of the FBI's business.

TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL NUCLEAR.

TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL NUCLEAR.

RAdm Souers/Capt Cronley 24 Dec 1945 Copy 1 of 2 Page 7 of 8 Duplication Forbidden At this point in our conversation the President again offered me the directors.h.i.+p of the DCI. I informed the President that if I could name Lieutenant Colonel Ashton as deputy director, DCIWestern Hemisphere, with overall responsibility for Operation OST, and you as DDDCI-Europe, with responsibility for Operation OST in Europe, I would accept the honor he offered.

The President told me to tell you and Colonel Ashton that he feels confident you both can establish an amicable, cooperative relations.h.i.+p between the DCI and the FBI while at the same time keeping secret those matters which do not fall within the FBI's areas of responsibility or interest.

TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL NUCLEAR.

TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL NUCLEAR.

RAdm Souers/Capt Cronley 24 Dec 1945 Copy 1 of 2 Page 8 of 8 Duplication Forbidden He also said to send you his best wishes.

With best personal regards, Sidney W. Souers Sidney W. Souers Rear Admiral, USN Director, DCI TOP SECRET PRESIDENTIAL NUCLEAR.

Cronley handed the letter to Gehlen.

"Please give it to Captain Dunwiddie when you've read it, General," he said.

When Tiny had read the letter, Cronley said, "My take on that letter is that Truman is afraid of Hoover. Otherwise, he would just tell Hoover to b.u.t.t out."

When no one replied, he asked, "Can I interpret the silence to mean you agree with me?"

"You can interpret my silence to mean I am obviously not in a position where I can presume to comment on anything the President of the United States does or does not do," Gehlen said. "I would, however, suggest that both President Truman and Admiral Souers seem to feel confident that both you and Colonel Ashton can deal with a very difficult situation."

"s.h.i.+t," Cronley said, and looked at Dunwiddie. "And you?"

After a moment, Dunwiddie avoided the question, instead asking, "Lieutenant Colonel Ashton? I thought he was a major, and in Walter Reed with a broken leg?"

"In other words, no comment, right?" Cronley asked.

Dunwiddie said nothing.

"As to your question," Cronley said. "Applying my Sherlock Holmesian logic to it, I deduce Ashton (a) has been promoted, and (b) that he will shortly appear here, broken leg or not. Obviously, if he was in Walter Reed, we could not share this letter with him."

"Wisea.s.s," Dunwiddie said.

Gehlen chuckled.

"I further deduce," Cronley went on, "that Lieutenant Colonel Ashton is coming over here to familiarize himself with his new underlings."

"Other than that Otto Niedermeyer speaks highly of him, I don't know much about Colonel Ashton," Gehlen said.

"All I really know about him is that he's a Cuban-an American whose family grows sugarcane and makes rum in Cuba-and that Clete likes him. The little I saw of him when I was in Argentina, I liked," Cronley said. "He's really . . . what's the word? 'Polished.' Or maybe 'suave.' He can charm the b.a.l.l.s off a bra.s.s monkey."

"Now that's an interesting phrase," Gehlen said, chuckling.

"I have no idea what it means," Cronley confessed.

"Would you be surprised to hear it has nothing to do with the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of our simian cousins?" Dunwiddie asked.

Tiny has found a way to change the subject.

Well, what did I expect him to say? "I agree it looks like Truman is throwing us off the bus"?

"Pay attention, General," Cronley said. "Professor Dunwiddie's lecture is about to start."

"Until breech-loading rifled-barrel naval cannon came along," Dunwiddie began, "men-of-war, as wars.h.i.+ps were then called, fired round iron b.a.l.l.s from their smooth-barreled cannon. These b.a.l.l.s often contained a black powder charge, with a fuse that was lit just before the ball was rammed down the cannon muzzle. Is this too technical for you, Captain Cronley, sir, or should I continue?"

Gehlen chuckled.

"Carry on, Captain Dunwiddie," Cronley ordered.

"As you are aware, b.a.l.l.s tend to roll around on flat surfaces," Dunwiddie continued. "They tend to roll around even more on flat surfaces which are themselves moving, as the deck of s.h.i.+ps on the high seas tend to do. Since the b.a.l.l.s the Navy was using weighed up to one hundred pounds, you can see where this was a problem. The problem was compounded by the explosive sh.e.l.ls to which I previously referred.

"Phrased simply, if some of the black powder in the explosive sh.e.l.ls came out of the touch hole-that's where they put the fuse-while it was rolling around on the deck, it made for a highly combustible environment. Even worse was the possibility that glowing embers-debris from previous firing of the cannon-would find the touch hole of the explosive ball as it rolled around the deck crus.h.i.+ng feet and breaking ankles. Bang. Big bang.

"A solution had to be found, and one was. A clever sailor, one I like to think claimed my beloved Norwich as his alma mater, although I can't prove this-"

"General," Cronley asked, "has Captain Dunwiddie mentioned in pa.s.sing that he went to Norwich University?"

"Not as often as Sergeant Hessinger has mentioned he went to Harvard, but yes, he has. No more than thirty or forty times," Gehlen replied.

"As I was saying," Dunwiddie went on, "a clever nautical person came up with a solution for the problem of cannonb.a.l.l.s rolling and sometimes exploding on the deck. The b.a.l.l.s, he concluded, had to be in some manner restrained from rolling around, and that the method of restraint had to permit getting the iron cannonb.a.l.l.s from where they would be restrained into the mouth of the cannon quickly when that was required. And without causing the sparks which occur when steel and/or iron collide. Said sparks would tend to set off both the barrels of black powder and the explosive cannonb.a.l.l.s.

"What he came up with were plates, into which he hammered depressions so that the cannonb.a.l.l.s wouldn't roll around. He made the plates from bra.s.s so they wouldn't spark and set off the black powder. For reasons lost in the fog of history, he called these indented bra.s.s plates 'monkeys.' When they were getting ready to fight, they put the sh.e.l.ls, the b.a.l.l.s, on these monkeys until they were needed. Moving the b.a.l.l.s, which weighed up to one hundred pounds, off the bra.s.s monkey was recognized to be very difficult. Any further questions?"

"Interesting," Gehlen said. "Now that you've brought it up, I remember seeing cannonb.a.l.l.s stacked that way, forming sort of a pyramid, on your Old Ironsides in Boston Harbor." He paused, and corrected himself: "The USS Const.i.tution."

"You've been on the Const.i.tution?" Cronley blurted, in surprise.

"As a young officer," Gehlen said. "When it seemed that I was destined to serve as an intelligence officer, I was treated to a tour of the United States."

Sergeant Phillips announced, "We're here."

Cronley looked out the window and saw they were approaching the gate to the Eschborn Airfield.

"Great," Cronley said. "And now that Professor Dunwiddie's history lesson is over, we can return to our n.o.ble duties stemming the Red Tide. Maintaining as we do so an amicable relations.h.i.+p with the FBI."

He expected a chuckle from General Gehlen, but when he looked at him, he saw a look of concern.

Jesus, what did my automatic mouth blurt out now?

"Sir, if I said something . . ."

Gehlen shook his head. "No, Jim, you didn't say anything out of place. What popped back into my mind-I have a tendency to find a black lining in every silver cloud-when you said 'stemming the Red Tide' was something I thought when I was with General Smith earlier. You said it mockingly, but in fact-don't misunderstand me, please, I know you take it as seriously as I do-that's what we're trying to do. But there are so very few of us who really understand the problem. And so many clever Russians."

Cronley's mouth went on automatic again. He regretted what he was saying as the words came out of his mouth: "Not to worry, General. One of us went to Norwich."

There was no expression on Gehlen's face for a long moment, but just as Cronley was trying to frame an appropriate apology, Gehlen smiled and said, "That somehow slipped my mind, but now that you've brought it up, it certainly does wonders dispelling my clouds of impending disaster."

III.

[ONE].

Kloster Grnau Schollbrunn, Bavaria American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1705 29 December 1945 When he took the Storch off from Eschborn, Cronley had been worried about the flight, although he said nothing to either General Gehlen or Tiny.

For one thing, the weather was iffy, and it gets dark early in Germany in December. If the weather got worse, he'd have to land somewhere short of Munich, which meant at an infantry regiment or artillery battalion airstrip somewhere. As far as the officers there would be concerned, in addition to wondering what he was doing flying a Kraut around in a former Luftwaffe airplane, they would be reluctant to house overnight or, for that matter, feed said seedy-looking Kraut.

Flas.h.i.+ng the CIC credentials would overcome those problems, of course, but it would provide those officers with a great barroom story to share with the world.

You won't believe what flew into the strip yesterday. An ex-Luftwaffe Storch, with Army markings, and carrying two CIC captains and a Kraut. Wouldn't say what they were doing, of course. Makes you wonder.

And even if he could make it through the weather to Bavaria, by the time they got there, it might be too dark to land on the strip at the Pullach compound. That would mean he would have to go into Schleissheim-the Munich military post airfield-which had runway lights.

But there would be problems at Schleissheim, too. The Storch would attract unwanted attention, and so would General Gehlen. And they would have to ask the Schleissheim duty officer for a car to take them to the Vier Jahreszeiten as the Kapitn was at Kloster Grnau, and Major Wallace was sure to be off somewhere in their only other car, the Opel Admiral.

An hour out of Munich, the answer came: Don't go to Munich. Go to Kloster Grnau. Have a couple of drinks and a steak. Go to bed. And in the morning, get in the Kapitn and drive to Pullach.

He picked up the intercom microphone.

"General, would you have any problems if we spent the night at the monastery?"

"As far as I know, there's absolutely nothing waiting for me in Munich."

"Next stop, Kloster Grnau."

Technical Sergeant Tedworth, his cavalry-yellow scarf not quite concealing the bandages on his neck, was waiting for them in the ambulance. Cronley was not surprised to see Ostrowski was behind the wheel.

Cronley had something to tell him, and this was as good a time as any.

"Tedworth, Sergeant Hessinger-"

"Sir, he wants you to call him as soon as possible," Tedworth cut him off. "He says it's important."

"Sergeant, it's not polite to cut your commanding officer off in the middle of a sentence."

"Sorry, sir."

"Not only impolite, but the wrong thing to do, since what I was going to say had I not been rudely interrupted, was that Sergeant Hessinger has informed me that while I do not have promotion authority in normal circ.u.mstances, I do in extraordinary circ.u.mstances. I have decided that First Sergeant Dunwiddie, having created a vacant first sergeant position by becoming a commissioned officer, is such an extraordinary circ.u.mstance. I was about to tell you I am sure that Captain Dunwiddie will be happy to sell you the first sergeant chevrons he no longer needs at a reasonable price."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," Tedworth said. "Thank you."

"You will of course be expected to pay for the intoxicants at your promotion party, which will commence just as soon as we get to the bar."

"First Sergeant Tedworth," Tedworth said wonderingly. "I will be d.a.m.ned!"

"You will be aware, I'm sure, First Sergeant Tedworth, that henceforth you will be marching in the footsteps of the superb non-commissioned officer who preceded you and will be expected to conduct yourself accordingly," Dunwiddie said solemnly.

"Captain Dunwiddie and First Sergeant Tedworth," Tedworth went on. "Who would have ever thought, Tiny, when we joined Company 'A'?"

And then he regained control.

"Captain, I think you better call Fat Freddy," he said. "He said it was really important."

"Immediately after I take a leak-my back teeth are floating-and I have a stiff drink of Scotland's finest," Cronley said.

- "Twenty-third CIC, Special Agent Hessinger."

"And how are you, Freddy, on this miserable December evening?"

"When are you coming here?"

"That's one of the reasons I called, Freddy, to tell you Captain Dunwiddie and myself-plus two others whose names I would prefer not to say on this line while some FBI n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s are listening-will be celebrating First Sergeant Tedworth's promotion in the country and will not be returning to Munich until tomorrow."

"I don't think Colonel Parsons is going to like that."

"What? What business is it of his?"

"He called here and said General Greene had suggested he and Major Ashley take you to dinner to get to know you. He said he made reservations here in the Vier Jahreszeiten for eight o'clock and he expects to see you there."

That's disappointing. I thought Greene was going to maintain complete neutrality. But what he's obviously doing-or trying to do-is help this b.a.s.t.a.r.d Parsons take over Operation Ost for the Pentagon.

Why should that surprise me? Greene, ultimately, is under the Pentagon G2. They don't like the Directorate of Central Intelligence and they really don't want Operation Ost being run by a very junior captain. Greene knows on which side of the piece of toast the b.u.t.ter goes.

Wait a minute!

Do I detect the subtle hand of Colonel Robert Mattingly?

Oh, do I!

Mattingly thinks-and with good reason-that he should be chief, DCI-Europe. Instead, I am. But there's nothing he can do about it. Unless, of course, as a result of my youth and inexperience I get into a sc.r.a.p with Parsons. Then he can step in-Greene would suggest Mattingly step in-to save something from the wreckage. For the good of the service.