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“Why are you trying to make me look the fool in front of my friends?”
“I’m not doing that. Jesus, Clete!”
“Then what’s going on?”
“Mattingly said, ‘If Frade wants to tell his German and Argentine friends what I’m sending him, that’s his business. But I’m not going to hand over this material to them, and neither are you. You’re not even to tell them what’s in the bags.’ Or words to that effect.”
“Okay, understood. So, what’s in the bags?”
“Those dossiers you asked for of the Nazis who came ashore from U-405—”
“Von Wachtstein and the others know all about that. What else is there that requires thermite grenades?”
“And the names of all the Gehlen people who are here. And all records of anything that connects the South German Industrial Development Organization to anything here. Mattingly thinks Grünau and Pullach are about to be raided.”
“Raided? By who?”
Cronley told him everything that had happened at Kloster Grünau. And of Mattingly’s session with General Greene. And of Mattingly’s belief that Greene was about to raid Kloster Grünau, Pullach, and Mattingly’s office in the I.G. Farben Building to see what he could find.
“So he got you the hell out of Dodge, huh?” Frade said when Cronley had finished.
“Me and the incriminating evidence.”
“Major Habanzo—he is probably really a colonel, anyway, he’s General Martín’s Number Two in the Bureau of Internal Security—is in the passenger terminal. He’ll know where to find Martín. While we’re waiting to get in touch with him, we’ll go to a house of mine downtown. Martín will probably come there, even if they have to carry him. He’s a good man, Jimmy. Keep that in mind.”
“Got it.”
“Okay, let’s do it. Where do you want to disarm the thermite grenades?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because no one is going to try to get at those bags here, and it would be a shame to see all that stuff go up in smoke because there was some kind of accident.”
Frade heard the sarcasm in his voice and hoped that it didn’t go too far.
It went, instead, right over Cronley’s head.
He’s going to disarm those grenades when he decides it’s safe to do so. Not when—or because—Colonel Frade tells him to.
And what Colonel Frade had better do is understand that his Little Brother Jimmy is really an Army officer now. And not your typical wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant.
Mattingly put him in charge of Kloster Grünau. He certainly would have preferred to hand that job to a thirty-year-old major. But he gave it to Jimmy and then entrusted to Jimmy’s care documents that would, if they got out, embarrass the commander in chief, European Command, and the President of the United States.
Second lieutenants are not usually handed responsibilities like that.
Second Lieutenant Cronley made his decision: “I could do it right here. But if I screw up, there goes your airplane. What I’m going to do is get off the airplane and go fifty—better, a hundred—yards away and disarm the thermite there.”
“I’ll send Enrico with you.”
“Who’s he?”
“You saw him in Marburg. He’s a retired Argentine sergeant major. Now he’s my bodyguard.”
“You need a bodyguard, Clete?”
Frade nodded. “I’m afraid so,” he said, then added, “Bring the bags and follow me.”
Clete led Jimmy through the passenger cabin—rather than back to the cockpit—and then down the passenger stairway. Enrico, who had been waiting at the foot of the crew steps, came over to them.
