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“Presuming that OSS is not shut down between now and then, on May twenty-second—which is three days from now—General Gehlen and half a dozen of his officers are going to be found and arrested in Oberusel—not far from here—by agents of the Counterintelligence Corps.
“When he—they—are interrogated—none of them, by the way, are on the Most Wanted Nazis lists—they will report that when defeat became inevitable, they burned all the records of Abwehr Ost and then made their way to refuge in what they knew was going to be West Germany.
“The CIC investigation will be thorough and lengthy, as they will not believe him. Their arrest will be reported to SHAEF, and I suspect that SHAEF will send its own interrogators to Oberusel, and I know the OSS will. The CIC and the OSS and everyone else will ultimately and reluctantly conclude—and so inform SHAEF—that the general and his officers have nothing of value to relate, and further, that since there is no suggestion that they were anything but German officers doing their duty, they are entitled to be treated as such. They will enter the POW system. From which, after having been cleared by the appropriate De-Nazification Board, they will eventually be returned to civilian life.
“While this is going on, the films of all their records, which have been buried in the Austrian Alps, will be recovered by us—the OSS—and moved to Bavaria, to a former monastery called Grünau. The general’s men have been told to make their way there. It will be headquarters—if that word fits—of the Gehlen organization.
“The Vatican has very kin
dly made the monastery available to us without asking any questions—frankly, in return for past services rendered, and in expectation of services to be rendered in the future—but they regrettably can’t afford to make the monastery livable and they are not in a position to provide logistical services, such as dining facilities.
“Until earlier this evening, we thought the funds to take care of these expenses would arrive here in your capable hands, Colonel Frade,” Mattingly concluded.
“If I had been told . . .” Frade responded, and then stopped. “I should’ve asked myself what that half million was for, should’ve thought it through.”
“That would have been helpful,” Mattingly agreed. “But no lasting harm done, presuming you can get it over here quickly.”
“Stein, get word to Buenos Aires to have a Connie ready to fly back here three hours after we get back,” Frade ordered.
“I can’t do that until we’re airborne tomorrow, Colonel,” Stein replied.
“Questions would be asked if you did that, Cletus,” Delgano said.
After a moment’s thought, Frade said, “You’re right. I don’t seem to be playing with a full deck, do I?” He paused. “And you and Mario and Vega will be expected to participate in the festivities surrounding the return of the heroic diplomats.” He paused again. “So how about this? At the last minute before the next scheduled SAA flight takes off for Lisbon—and I mean the last minute, when the passengers are aboard—Peter and I get aboard. We’ll be halfway to Brazil before somebody starts asking questions.”
“And then what?” Mattingly asked.
“In Lisbon, we disembark the passengers, take on fuel, and then Hansel and I fly the Connie to Frankfurt, the way we did just now.” He paused, then asked, “Why wouldn’t that work?”
“Clete, when we get to Berlin, I’m going to Pomerania,” von Wachtstein said. “And I don’t think, as badly as that money is needed, that you can wait for me to return.”
“Excuse me, von Wachtstein,” Gehlen said. “What did you just say?”
“I’m going to Pomerania,” von Wachtstein said.
“That would be tantamount to committing suicide,” Gehlen said.
“I feel duty bound to see my people,” von Wachtstein said. “To see what I can do for them.”
“I can only infer that you have absolutely no idea what the situation is in Soviet-occupied Germany,” Gehlen said.
“Sir, that’s what I have to find out,” von Wachtstein said.
“Tell him, please, General Gehlen,” Mattingly said.
Gehlen looked at Mattingly, obviously collecting his thoughts.
“Why don’t you start with what happened to von Stauffenberg?” Mattingly suggested. “To the von Stauffenbergs? And his father? I think everyone would profit from knowing.”
General Gehlen thought it over for a long moment.
[TWO]
Finally, after nodding softly, then clearing his throat, General Gehlen somberly began: “When Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg was released from hospital in Munich after recovering from the grievous wounds he suffered when his car was strafed in Tunisia—he lost an eye, his right hand, and two fingers of his left hand—he was assigned to the staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the OKW.”
Frade and Dooley locked eyes for a moment.
“More precisely,” Gehlen continued,” he became part of that relatively small number of officers, some senior—Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, for example—and some relatively junior, who had frequent access to Hitler, especially when Hitler was at his East Prussian command post, Wolfsschanze.
