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“I want to get him there as soon as possible. I want pictures of that bridge—both ends of it—before they bring Mattingly on it tomorrow morning. I think the CIC can do that better than anyone else.”
“Getting pictures of their end of it may not be easy,” Tiny said.
“I have people in Brandenburg,” Gehlen said. “I’ll have pictures before tomorrow morning.”
“And can your people find out where Serov’s holding him? And learn the back-and-forth route from wherever that is to the bridge?”
“That’ll probably take some more time, but eventually, yes,” Gehlen said.
“You’re not thinking of trying to kidnap him back from the Russians, are you?” Wallace asked.
“I’m trying to think of all our possible actions, Colonel,” Cronley said. “Tiny, pick a dozen of your largest, meanest-looking troopers and get them—with full Constabulary regalia—to Berlin as soon as possible. By air. Cut orders giving them the highest priority.”
“Got it,” Dunwiddie said.
“And cut the same kind of orders for Colonel Mannberg, Ostrowski, and me.”
“Got it.”
“Correction,” Cronley said. “Ostrowski and four of his people who speak German and Russian.”
“Ostrowski has DCI credentials,” Freddy Hessinger said. “His people don’t. You probably can’t get them on the Berlin airplane at all, much less with a priority that would see them bumping American officers or enlisted.”
“So you suggest?”
“Have them drive to Berlin in one of the Fords. Driven by somebody with DCI credentials to get them past the MPs at the Helmstedt checkpoint on the autobahn.”
“Like who? Who with DCI credentials?”
“Me,” Hessinger said.
“You’re needed here to cut the orders.”
“I can handle that,” Claudette Colbert said.
Cronley looked at her, visibly cut off what he was about to say, and instead said, “No.”
“No?” she challenged.
“Change that to three of Ostrowski’s people, Freddy, and Dette. No offense, Freddy, but Dette flashing DCI credentials at the Helmstedt MPs is going to dazzle them more than you would. And you can probably find something else for her to do in Berlin. Sergeant Miller can cut the orders, et cetera, as well as you can, Dette, right?”
“Nearly as well as I can,” she replied, and then added, “Thanks. I really want to be in on this.”
“Okay, you and Freddy get going.”
“I have something to offer of a tangential nature I think you should hear before I leave,” Hessinger said.
“Won’t it wait?”
“I think you should hear it before I leave.”
“Make it quick, Freddy.”
“It has to do with Lazarus, especially since you have identified him as Major of State Security Ulyanov.”
Cronley motioned impatiently for him to get on with it.
“By now I think he has figured out that we are not going to . . . dispose of him. Similarly, I think it unlikely that we will be able to turn him. We could send him to Argentina, but confining him there would be difficult. So, what do we do with him?”
