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“Because when I asked Sergeant Tedworth to show me your SIGABA installation, I saw how amateurishly the ASA—being Army—had set up your secure line and showed them the smart—Navy—way to do it,” El Jefe said. “Sergeant Tedworth, would you please go in there and get the secure line phone for Mr. Cronley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any questions, Mr. Cronley?”
Cronley shook his head.
“Not even about me calling you ‘Mr. Cronley’?” El Jefe pursued.
“Okay. Why did you refer to me as ‘Mr. Cronley’?”
“Because if when you call Major McClung you identify yourself as ‘Captain Cronley,’ he will be reminded that he outranks you. If you say you’re ‘Mr. Cronley,’ that won’t happen. ‘Misters’ don’t have ranks, they have titles. For example, ‘chief, DCI-Europe.’”
“But ol’ Iron Lung knows I’m a captain. Also, I suspect he doesn’t like me,” Cronley argued. “Given those facts’ bearing on the problem, my suggestion is that you call him.”
“When I’m gone, Mr. Cronley, say tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you’re going to have to deal with ol’ Iron Lung—and others in the Farben Building—”
“You’ll be gone tomorrow? Or the day—”
“I hadn’t planned to get into this yet,” El Jefe said. “But why not? This is as good a time as any.
“Freddy was not the only one having profound thoughts on the way back from Vienna,” Schultz went on. “Okay, where to start? With my orders from the admiral. The admiral thinks that we don’t—you don’t—fully understand how potentially valuable an intelligence asset Colonel Likharev is—”
“But we’ve already turned him,” Cronley argued.
“He’s turned for the moment, for two reasons: You did a very good job, Jim, of selling him on his duty as a Christian, as a man, to do whatever he can to save his family from the attentions of the NKGB. You told him you would try to get his family out of Russia. And then the NKGB tried to kill him.”
“I don’t understand where you’re trying to go with this,” Cronley said.
“You know Colonel Sergei Likharev as well as anybody, Jim. What do you think he’s doing practically every waking moment?”
Cronley thought a moment.
“Wondering if we can get his family out?” he asked finally.
“How about him wondering if you just said you were going to get his family out? Wondering if you never had any intention to do that? Wondering if you could be expected to try to hand him a line like that? In reversed circumstances, it’s something he would have tried himself.”
“But I wasn’t lying!”
“I don’t think he’s convinced about that. I think every day he grows a little more convinced that he’s been lied to. That one day, he’ll be told, ‘Sorry, we tried to get them out and it just didn’t work.’ And, frankly, one day we might have to do just that.”
“Jesus!”
“And getting his family out is all he has to live for. If he loses that, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to take himself out.”
“Jesus!”
“And even if we kept him from doing that, and we’re damned sure going to try to, he’ll shut off the flow of intel. Either refuse to answer any more questions, or hand us some credible bullshit and send us on one wild-goose chase after another. And he’d be good at that.
“So what I thought on the way from Vienna is that Polo and I have to go to Argentina and look him in the eye and tell him everything that’s happened and is happening. Everything. Including you loaning the DCI the hundred thousand of your own money, and meeting Rahil/Seven-K in the Café Weitz. Even you feeding her dog peanuts and not having a clue who she was.”
“Why would he believe you? Or Polo?”
“Likharev, like many good intel officers, can look into somebody’s eyes and intuit if they’re lying. Or not. Freddy says he can do that. I believe him. I think Colonel Mannberg can do it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you could. Hell, I know you can. You wouldn’t have been able to turn Likharev in the first place if you hadn’t known in your gut when he was lying and when he was telling the truth.”
“Okay,” Cronley said. “I can do it. Let’s say you’re right and Likharev can do it. So he looked in my eyes and decided I wasn’t lying about trying to get his family out. Doesn’t that count?”
“That was then. Now he’s had time to think his gut reaction was flawed.”
