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“I’m flattered.”
“And are you now going to tell us what you’ve been really doing here?”
“I don’t expect you to believe this, General, but nothing. What I’m doing now is working for Jim. But we don’t want that to get around.”
“Understood.”
“That out of the way,” Cronley said, “let’s get started. First things first. Major Wallace was telling me earlier that the OSS learned . . . painfully, he said . . . that if all parties to an operation are not involved in all aspects of its planning, the operation goes wrong.”
Cronley saw Gehlen and Mannberg nod just perceptibly in agreement.
“So to make sure that doesn’t happen here, how do we handle that?”
Hessinger raised his hand.
Resisting with effort the temptation to say, “Yes, Freddy, you may. But don’t dawdle in the restroom, and remember to wash your hands,” Cronley asked, simply, “Hessinger?”
Hessinger stood up.
“Since Major Wallace brought that up, I have given the matter some thought,” he said. “What I suggest is the following: That we have a . . . how do I describe this? I will rephrase. I suggest that Miss Colbert take minutes of this meeting. Every member of this group . . . which brings us to that. What is the group? I suggest the group consists of those present, plus, of course, Captain Dunwiddie. And either or both Max Ostrowski and Kurt Schröder, presuming they volunteer for this operation.”
“Tiny is in the process of finding that out,” Cronley interrupted. “I think they both will.”
“Very well,” Hessinger said. “We define the group as those present, plus Captain Dunwiddie, and possibly, to be determined, Schröder and Ostrowski. When Miss Colbert types the minutes of this meeting—in one copy only—she will append at the end the names of the group . . . every member of the group, including those who were not present. Every member of the group will sign by his name, acknowledging that he is familiar with the contents.
“Then, tomorrow, when Captain Dunwiddie comes here, he will read the minutes—which will be, twenty-four hours a day, in the custody of Miss Colbert or myself—and sign them, acknowledging that he is familiar with everything.
“If he has something to add—hypothetically, that Ostrowski does not wish to participate—Miss Colbert or I will type this up as Annex 1 to the minutes, again appending the names of all members of the group, who, when then they read Annex 1, will sign again to acknowledge they are familiar with the added information. Und so weiter through what I suspect will be Annex 404.”
Hessinger looked as if he had something else to say, but decided against saying it. He sat down.
After twenty seconds, Wallace said, “That’d work.”
Gehlen said, chuckling, “Freddy—Feldmarschal von Moltke—where were you when I needed a really smart general staff officer to find a simple solution to answer a complex problem, and all I had was Ludwig?”
Mannberg smiled, then applauded, and a moment later, so did Bischoff, Wallace, and Cronley.
My God, Fat Freddy is actually blushing!
“Miss Colbert,” Cronley said, “item one, in your transcript of these proceedings, will be the adoption of Mr. Hessinger’s ‘How to Keep Everybody Who Needs to Know Up to Speed’ plan.”
“Yes, sir,” Claudette said.
“May I suggest, Jim,” Gehlen said, “that item two be a report of your trip to Frankfurt?”
“Yes, sir. But I think I’d better begin that with a report of my meeting with Colonel Wilson. As I think everybody knows . . .”
—
“And when do you think you’ll have these aerial photographs of places where the Storchs could touch down?” Major Wallace asked.
“I didn’t ask, which was stupid of me,” Cronley replied. “But I would guess that a Piper Cub with the film aboard—I told you at least two Constabulary Cubs from the Fourteenth would be used?—was at Sonthofen before the train got there. And I wouldn’t be surprised if when Wilson picks me up at Schleissheim in the morning, he has prints with him.”
“I’d like a look at them,” Bischoff said. “Actually, what I’d like to do is get copies of them to Seven-K.”
“And if they were intercepted some way, don’t you think the Russians would thereafter wonder why the Americans were so interested in obscure Thuringian fields and back roads that they shot aerials of them?” Wallace asked sarcastically.
“Good point,” Gehlen said.
