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Cronle
y nodded.
“Boltitz will have my power of attorney. You can tell him to give you the money, so that you can take it to Argentina to invest it for me. Nobody would question that. And he wouldn’t have to be told what we’re going to do with it.”
“I don’t understand,” Gehlen said.
Frade ignored him. He said, “I really don’t like taking your money, Jimmy . . .”
“Would you take it—I prefer ‘borrow’ to ‘take,’ let’s say ‘borrow’ from now on—would you borrow it from the Squirt if she was still around?”
Frade ignored that question, too.
“. . . but borrowing it would solve more than one problem,” Frade went on. “I have to go to Midland anyway to pick up my wife and kids. If Karl took the money out of your bank in cash, that would solve the problem of getting it to Argentina. And then here to General Gehlen. No cashier’s checks, no transfer wires, just all the cash we need, within a matter of days, and nobody asking questions.”
“Do I understand that Jim is going to provide the funds we’re talking about?” Gehlen asked.
Cronley nodded. “Yes, sir. And all I’m going to ask Colonel Frade to do is unscrew his left arm at the elbow and leave it with me in lieu of collateral.”
Gehlen laughed out loud.
“The only thing missing is Orlovsky actually agreeing to turn,” Frade said.
“If I may make a suggestion?” Gehlen asked.
“You don’t have to ask, General,” Frade said.
“I would suggest it might be a good idea not to seem too eager, to—now that you believe he’s willing—have him worry that we don’t trust him to carry out his end of the bargain. I know Jim doesn’t think that Major Bischoff’s disorientation theories are effective—”
“They weren’t working, General,” Cronley interrupted.
“Let me rephrase that: We know Bischoff’s disorientation tactics did not work. But keeping Orlovsky disoriented until the moment we load him on an airplane might be a good idea.”
“You want to bring Bischoff back into this?” Cronley asked suspiciously.
“I was thinking of doing this myself,” Gehlen said. “If you’re going to Munich, while you’re gone I could chat with Major Orlovsky. We could talk, for example, about mutual acquaintances we have on the faculty of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Federal Security Service Academy and among the members of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. That should get him wondering how many of them I’ve managed to turn.”
“I didn’t want to go to Munich in the first place,” Frade said. “Now I really don’t want to go. I’d love to watch a master of our trade at work.”
“I’m flattered,” Gehlen said.
“But I have to go, and I don’t think I’ll be coming back here. The sooner I can get to the States, the better.”
“I understand,” Gehlen said. “But speaking of my chat with Major Orlovsky: I have found it useful to have someone with me when I’m having chats of that nature.”
“Major Bischoff?” Frade asked.
“Actually, I was thinking of First Sergeant Dunwiddie,” Gehlen said. “Of course, he would have to be made privy to what we’re doing.”
“Jimmy, your call,” Frade said.
“I don’t have any problems with that at all.”
“You can have the sergeant,” Frade said. “But may I ask why?”
“Well, he’s obviously extraordinarily bright. Though another reason I’d like him in the room with me is that Major Orlovsky has had very little contact in Holy Mother Russia with men that size or with skin the color of coal. He finds them disconcerting.”
Frade and Cronley chuckled.
