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The American Zone of Occupied Germany
0755 9 January 1946
“Sign this, please,” Hessinger said, laying a sheet of paper on the table.
“What is it?” Cronley asked, and then read. “I’ll be damned, ‘Special Orders No. 1, Headquarters, Military Detachment, Directorate of Central Intelligence-Europe. Subject: Promotion of Enlisted Personnel.’ What took you so long, Freddy? Or should I say ‘Staff Sergeant Hessinger’?”
“I didn’t know how to do it, so I called Sergeant Major Thorne.”
“Who?”
“General Greene’s sergeant major.”
“And he told you how?”
“Correct.”
“I was hoping that you had spent the night thinking about how we’re going to get Mannberg, Ostrowski, and the fifty thousand to Vienna.”
“I came up with several ideas, all of which are probably illegal,” Hessinger said.
“Save them until the general and Mannberg get here.”
General Gehlen, in another of his ill-fitting, ragged suits, and Colonel Mannberg, in his usual Wehrmacht uniform stripped of all insignia but a red stripe down the trouser legs, came in almost precisely at eight.
Cronley wasn’t sure if he was impressed with their Teutonic punctuality or annoyed by it. He rose as Gehlen approached the table, as a gesture of courtesy, and Gehlen waved him back into his seat, shaking his head to suggest he didn’t think the gesture was necessary.
By quarter after eight, the others—Dunwiddie, Schultz, Ostrowski, and Tedworth—had taken their places and begun their breakfast, and Cronley had finished his.
“What we left hanging last night,” Cronley said, “was the question of getting Mannberg, Ostrowski, and the fifty thousand dollars to Vienna. The problem is that neither of them can get on the Blue Danube because they’re not Americans. And the one solution I see for the problem is predictably illegal.”
“What’s your solution?”
“Give both of them DCI-Europe identity cards.”
“You’re right,” Dunwiddie said. “That would be illegal. And it wouldn’t be long before Colonel Mattingly heard about it. And he’s just waiting for you to screw up.”
“Your suggestion?”
“Put Colonel Mannberg in a Provisional Security Organization uniform and give him a PSO identity card. No one would question you having two Wachmann—Mannberg and Ostrowski—with you.”
“That would work,” Mannberg said.
No, mein lieber Oberst, it wouldn’t.
“No, it would not,” Cronley said. “I don’t think this officers’ hotel . . . what’s it called?”
“The Bristol,” Hessinger furnished. “And it’s not just an officers’ hotel. Majors and up.”
“. . . this majors-and-up officers’ hotel is going to accommodate two DP watchmen,” Cronley finished.
“So what’s your solution?” Dunwiddie asked.
“I’m going to give both Mannberg and Ostrowski DCI identity cards.”
“I don’t think that would be smart,” Schultz said.
“Well, then the choice is yours, Jefe,” Cronley said. “Relieve me and you figure this out. Or let me do what I think is best. And giving Mannberg and Ostrowski DCI identity cards is what I think is best.”
