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“No. At the Signal Battalion.”
“Freddy, we have to talk, and Major Wallace can’t know we did, or what we talked about. Either him or Colonel Mattingly.”
“Why do I think I’m not going to like this? Does this have something to do with the NKGB-er Sergeant Tedworth caught at Kloster Grünau?”
“How’d you hear about that?”
“Tedworth told me.”
“He has a big mouth. He should have known better.”
“We trust each other. What about the NKGB-er?”
“We think we turned him.”
“I doubt that. He’s NKGB. They are not known for turning. Being smarter than their captors, yes. Turning, no.”
“I think we have, Freddy.”
“We? Who is we? You and Dunwiddie?”
“And General Gehlen.”
“Gehlen thinks you have turned the NKGB-er?”
“He thinks we have him well on the road to turning, and that when we get him talking to the priest Frade is sending from Argentina, he will turn.”
“What priest? From Argentina?”
“He’s a Jesuit who’s been involved with getting people to Argentina for the Vatican. We’re going to take Orlovsky to Argentina.”
“What I think you should do is start from the beginning,” Hessinger said. “The beginning is when you were in trouble with Mattingly because you stuck your nose into Gehlen’s interrogation of the Russian.”
“A lot’s happened since then.”
“That’s why you should start from the beginning,” Hessinger said reasonably.
“Okay. I guess the most important thing is that Mattingly is no longer in charge of Operation Ost. Frade is . . .”
—
“. . . and so,” Cronley concluded, “as soon as Frade took off for the States, I came here. After, of course, trying to confuse the FBI about my destination. Further deponent sayeth not.”
Hessinger grunted thoughtfully.
“Freddy . . .” Cronley began.
“The one maybe big problem I see,” Hessinger interrupted him, “is getting the NKGB-er through the airport in Frankfurt. If we get caught loading him on an Argentine airliner . . .” He stopped, then asked, “Why are you looking at me funny?”
“I was about to ask, ‘Now that you know what’s going on, will you help?’ You sound as if you’re already enlisted.”
“I think of it more as being drafted one more time. I didn’t enlist in the Army, I was drafted. And I have no more choice here than when I got that Your friends and neighbors have selected you postcard from my draft board.”
Cronley chuckled.
“You want to explain that?”
“Is necessary?”
