—
General White had told Mattingly that Eisenhower had called him into his office. Ike told White that not only the Russians were seriously miffed that White had taken “Hell on Wheels” into Berlin and thrown the Red Army out of the American Sector. There also was a large cabal of Americans in the Farben building, the Pentagon, and, maybe especially, in the Department of State.
They believed—or at the very least were seriously worried—that White, like General George S. Patton, was trying to start World War III, this time fighting the Russians.
That was nonsense, of course, but it had to be dealt with. And what Eisenhower had come up with proved again his diplomatic skills. He had arranged to remove White—temporarily—from the European Command. White would be given command of the Cavalry School at Fort Riley, Kansas.
White had told Mattingly: “Since neither the handwringers nor the Russians can credibly argue that I’ll start World War Three while sitting on a horse in the middle of Kansas, that will silence both.”
White went on: “What I’ll really be doing at Fort Riley will be the final planning for the Constabulary. Which is what we’re going to call the Occupation Police Force. Essentially, what we’re going to do is take most of the tanks from three armored regiments, replace them with fleets of M-8 armored cars and jeeps, then train the troopers to become sort of policemen.
“I’ll be back in Germany in about two months, and the Constabulary will be activated the day I get back. I’d offer you one of the Constabulary regiments, Bob, if I didn’t think what you’re doing with General Gehlen’s intelligence operation was more important.”
—
“General,” Mattingly said to Greene, “I was privileged to serve under General White in ‘Hell on Wheels,’ if that’s what you mean.”
“Before you went to the OSS, you mean, right?”
“Before I went to the OSS. Yes, sir.”
“And then when the OSS was dis-established—and not a day too soon, in my judgment—you found yourself as sort of a stay-behind to finish a project the OSS did not trust G-2 to take over. Is that about right, Colonel Mattingly?”
What is this bastard up to?
“Excuse me, sir?”
“From what I’ve been able to put together, General White went to Eisenhower’s chief of staff, General Walter Bedell Smith, and explained the problem to him . . .”
Who the hell has Greene been talking to?
r /> “. . . and between the two of them, they decided that the best place to hide you and this secret OSS project you’re running was in my Counterintelligence Corps. So Beetle Smith went to the EUCOM G-2, Lieutenant General Seidel, and told him to arrange it. I don’t know how much General Seidel was told, but I do know him well enough to know he didn’t like it at all . . .”
He was probably told nothing. And certainly as little as possible.
For two reasons.
The fewer people who know a secret, the better.
And if Operation Ost blows up, and Seidel knows nothing about it, he probably won’t get burned.
“. . . But being the good soldier General Seidel is, he said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and came to me. And told me I was about to get a new deputy—you—and maybe a dozen people you’d bring from the former Office of Strategic Services.
“I told General Seidel I already had a very competent deputy. He told me that was fine, I should change his title and keep him, as you and your people would be fully occupied with your own project, which he was not at liberty to discuss with me. So being the good soldier I am, I said, ‘Yes, sir.’”
Greene paused, looked at Mattingly, and said, “And that was the way things were going—until yesterday.”
“Sir?”
“Yesterday, Colonel Mattingly, my inspector general, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schumann, and a team of his men were driving either to or from Munich—I’m not sure which because when I talked to him this morning he was still pretty upset—near a little dorf called Schollbrunn . . .”
Oh, shit!
“. . . when they came across a monastery surrounded by concertina barbed wire. What caught Colonel Schumann’s attention was a number of signs attached to the concertina. They said the area was under the control of the Twenty-seventh CIC Detachment and entrance was strictly forbidden.
“Colonel Schumann found this interesting, as he had no previous knowledge of a Twenty-seventh CIC Detachment. So he thought he’d better have a look. He had of course not only the authority to do so but also the duty, as anything involving the Counterintelligence Corps is of interest to its inspector general.
“They—there were three Opel Kapitän sedans in his little convoy—were intercepted by two jeeps. The jeeps had pedestal-mounted .50 caliber machine guns, and the personnel in them were all Negro non-commissioned officers whose uniforms bore the insignia of the Second Armored Division.