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“Now you’re acting immaturely,” Gehlen said. “Think that through, Jim. For one thing, Colonel Mattingly doesn’t like you. He would be prone to think you shot her after a lovers’ quarrel. We have no proof—”
“Except what happened just now in Buenos Aires,” Cronley interrupted.
“Not only have we no proof of what happened there, but we couldn’t tell anybody about it if we did,” Gehlen said patiently, and then asked, “What good would it do anybody for you to go to the stockade or the hangman?”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“Insofar as whether von Plat and Boss are traitors—and I think they are—Konrad Bischoff can determine that. Actually, he’s proposed their names to me already. And I think we should be able to learn what we need to know about Mrs. Likharev and the children in Leningrad in no more than a week or so. I want to be very careful. Getting them out is going to be risky.”
“You’re still going to try that?” Tiny asked.
“I think it would be very useful to everybody if Sergei Likharev felt indebted to us because we reunited him with his family.”
“Yeah,” Tiny said.
“I’m a big boy . . .” Cronley began.
“I wouldn’t take a vote on that right now, Captain, sir,” Tiny said.
“. . . I know I fucked up big time. And I’m willing to take my lumps for that. But . . .”
“But what, Jim?” Gehlen asked.
“The way I’m hearing this, I’m not going to get any lumps. I’m not to tell Clete or Mattingly, not even, for Christ’s sake, Fat Freddy. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“I’m going to say this just once, so pay close attention,” Gehlen said. “I regard the greatest threat to what we’re trying to do here as coming not from the Soviets but from those intelligence types from the Pentagon who will shortly be moving into the Pullach compound.
“I know how to deal with the Reds. I do not know how to deal with your Pentagon. You, Tiny, are close to General White. Jim had those captain’s bars he rarely wears pinned on his shoulders by President Truman. You two, with friends in high places, and who believe in what we’re doing here, are going to be my defense against the Pentagon. I need the both of you.”
“Jesus,” Tiny breathed.
“And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find Konrad Bischoff and suggest he have a chat with Boss and von Plat.”
As a Pavlovian reflex, both Cronley and Dunwiddie popped to their feet and came to attention when Gehlen stood.
When he had left the room, Dunwiddie said: “You know he’s going to whack those two.”
“And Colonel and Mrs. Schumann.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Her, no. She’s responsible for Lewis and the others getting killed. Him, I don’t know.”
“They call what he is ‘an accessory before the fact.’”
“I wonder how he’s going to do it,” Cronley said.
“Wonder, but don’t ask.”
“I brought a bottle of Haig & Haig from Frankfurt. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a little taste?”
“I thought you would never ask,” Dunwiddie said.
[ FIFTEEN ]
On December 21, 1945, the front page of the Stars and Stripes, the Army of Occupation’s newspaper, reported with black borders the tragic death of General George S. Patton. He had been injured in an automobile accident on December 9.
A short article on page eleven of the same edition reported the tragic death in Hoechst, outside Frankfurt, of Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Anthony Schumann. A fiery explosion, apparently caused by a cooking gas leak, had totally destroyed their home. Fortunately, the story concluded, the Schumanns’ two children were not at home when the explosion occurred.
