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“I don’t think Major Konstantin Orlovsky is quite who we think he is.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“I think he may be further up in the NKGB hierarchy than we think. I suspect he may be at least a colonel, and may even hold higher rank.”
“Would the NKGB send a senior officer over a barbed-wire fence?” Dunwiddie asked.
“They wouldn’t do so routinely, which is one of the reasons I never mentioned this to anyone.”
“What does Mannberg think of your theory?” Cronley asked.
“I never mentioned this to anyone, Jim,” Gehlen repeated. There was just the hint of reproof in his tone of voice.
Cronley picked up on it and said, “Sorry, sir.”
Gehlen accepted the apology with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Going down this street,” Dunwiddie said, “why would the NKGB send a senior officer over a barbed-wire fence?”
r /> “We don’t know who gave him those rosters,” Gehlen said. “I have been working on the assumption that it was one of my captains or majors. Now I have to consider the likelihood that it was one of my lieutenant colonels, there are fifteen, or colonels, of whom there are six.”
“Including Mannberg?” Tiny asked.
“Including Ludwig Mannberg,” Gehlen said. “There aren’t many justifications for the NKGB to send a major—much less a lieutenant colonel or a colonel—‘over a barbed-wire fence,’ as you put it, Tiny.”
“What would they be?”
“Short answers: to establish contact with someone of equal rank, or to convince someone fairly senior that the agent who was controlling them was telling them the truth. In other words, that they were indeed dealing with a senior NKGB officer, not just an agent.”
“I’m not sure I understand you, General,” Dunwiddie said. “Do you think it is likely Orlovsky is more important—a far more senior officer—than we have been thinking? Or that it is possible but unlikely?”
“I wouldn’t have brought this up if I believed the latter.”
“Supper, now that I know this, should be very interesting,” Dunwiddie said.
“We are not going to have the sonofabitch to supper,” Cronley said.
“We’re not?” Gehlen asked.
“I don’t want the bastard to know we’re onto him,” Cronley said. “You, General, might—you probably could—be able to hide what you think about him. Dunwiddie and I are amateurs at this and he’d probably sense something.”
“Additionally,” Gehlen said, “since the basic idea is to keep him off balance, if he’s not invited he’ll wonder why.”
“You think I’m right, sir?” Dunwiddie said.
“I know you are.” Gehlen looked at Cronley. “And I say that because I believe it, not because it means I can ask Tiny to pour a bit more of the Haig & Haig into my glass.”
[ FOUR ]
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1605 6 November 1945
In the Storch, Cronley literally heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the floodlights on the perimeter of Kloster Grünau. “Dicey” had been too inadequate a term to describe his chances of getting home.
