“I don’t understand,” General Greene said.
“When they got to Argentina and took off their monk’s robes,” Frade explained, “they identified themselves as Obersturmbannführer Alois Strübel and his faithful Hauptscharführer—”
“His faithful what?” Mrs. Greene asked.
Frade looked first at General Greene and then at Mrs. Greene before replying, “Sergeant major, Mrs. Greene.”
“Go on, please, Colonel,” General Greene said.
“Brilliant detective work by myself quickly discovered that Hauptscharführer Otto Niedermeyer was actually Colonel Niedermeyer. Gehlen apparently decided a sergeant major could nose around easier than a colonel.”
“So he lied to us,” Mattingly said.
“And I was shocked as you are that anyone in our business could possibly practice deception,” Frade said. “But, as I was saying, Gehlen sent Niedermeyer to Argentina very early on in this process to make sure we were going to live up to our end of the bargain. He tells me he was Gehlen’s Number Two, and I believe him. And I’m also convinced Niedermeyer was not a Nazi—”
“Why?” Mattingly interrupted.
“Could you just take my word for that, Colonel, and let me finish?”
“Go on,” Mattingly said.
“So I believe the list of the Nazi and SS scum Niedermeyer gave me, again prioritized according to what kind of bastards they are, is the real thing. I’d be willing to go with it as-is. But as some—including Otto Niedermeyer—have pointed out, Gehlen can be very difficult, so I am going to politely ask him to go over Niedermeyer’s roster.”
“I got the impression this afternoon,” Mattingly said, “that Admiral Souers wants to return to Washington as soon as possible.”
“He does,” Frade said.
“Then wouldn’t it make sense for you to give me this list of yours and have me deal with General Gehlen? There’s no reason for you to have to go all the way down there. It’s a four-, five-hour drive.”
When Frade didn’t immediately reply, Mattingly went on: “And, really, the monastery and the people there are my responsibility, aren’t they?”
Frade exhaled audibly.
“Admiral Souers planned to get into all of this with you tomorrow, but it looks like I’m going to have to get into it now.”
“Please do,” Mattingly said, rather unpleasantly.
Frade felt everyone’s eyes around the table on him.
“The reason I have to go to the monastery,” Frade began, “and to have a look at the Pullach installation is because Admiral Souers has ordered me to do so. And the reason he’s done that is because, for reasons of plausible deniability, he has transferred command of Operation Ost—just Ost, not the South German Industrial Development Organization—to the Special Projects Section of the Office of the Naval Attaché at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires.”
“To what, where?” Colonel Schumann asked.
“When the OSS shut down, its assets—including me—in the Southern Cone of South America were absorbed by the Special Projects Section of the Office of the Naval Attaché at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires. In other words, for the next sixty days, Operation Ost will be hidden there.
“That will allow General Greene and you, Colonel Mattingly, if—I actually should say ‘when, inevitably’—the Soviets breach the security of the monastery or Pullach, to credibly deny you know anything about Operation Ost. All you’re doing there is running a counterintelligence operation in which some former German officers and non-coms are employed.”
“That makes sense,” General Greene said thoughtfully. Then he chuckled. “Have a nice ride down the autobahn tomorrow, Colonel Frade. Maybe, now that you and Mattingly have kissed and m
ade up, he’ll loan you his Horch for the trip.”
Frade smiled. “That would be very kind of him, but Cronley’s going to fly me in his Storch.”
That Mattingly was not amused was evident in his voice: “And how does Captain Cronley fit into this credible-deniability scenario?”
“In an operational sense, he will be the liaison between the monastery/Pullach, the Farben Building, and Buenos Aires.”
“Who’ll operate the link to Vint Hill Farms?” Major McClung asked.