“We’ll have more time to talk, I’m sure,” the Jesuit said. “But right now, Sergeant Lewis, why don’t we talk about the Russian?”
[ SEVEN ]
Commanding Officer’s Quarters
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1425 8 November 1945
Father Welner and Staff Sergeant Lewis came into the room. Cronley, Gehlen, and Dunwiddie were sitting at the table.
“Orlovsky has accepted your kind invitation to lunch,” the priest said. “But that’s all I got out of him.”
“Shall I get him, Captain?” Lewis asked.
“Fuck him,” Cronley said.
“That’s not very charitable, Jim,” the priest said.
“I’m fresh out of charity so far as he’s concerned,” Cronley replied.
“What was your impression of him, Father?” Gehlen asked.
“I think that you’re right, General. He is more than he appears to be, more than he wants us to think he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is a more senior officer than a major.”
“Can you tell us why?”
“He didn’t say anything specific, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s more his attitude.”
“You mean his casual dismissal of the possibility that we’re going to shoot him in the back of the head?” Cronley asked.
“I don’t think he thinks that’s going to happen,” the priest said, then added, “Is it?”
“If we didn’t really need the names of the people the NKGB has turned, I think I’d do it myself,” Cronley said.
“I don’t think you mean that, Jim. I hope you don’t.”
“I don’t know if I do or not. But no. It’s not on my agenda. Why do you think he doesn’t care about that as a threat?”
“I had the feeling that he thinks his situation is about to change.”
“Change how?”
“That he’ll somehow be freed. Is there any possibility of that?”
“Absolutely none. If the general is right, and I think he is, he’s a colonel or whatever.
And you agree with that. And Sergeant Lewis agrees with that. Let’s take it as a given.”
Cronley looked between them, then went on: “What would you do if you were Major/Colonel/General Orlovsky’s superior in the ranks of the NKGB and your hotshot screwed up and found himself in the hands of the Americans who didn’t know he was a hotshot, but inevitably were going to find out?
“You’d try to bust him out, and failing that, to whack him. That’s what you would do. That’s what they are going to try to do. Now that I think of it, I’m surprised they haven’t already tried. And that settles it.”
“Settles what?” Dunwiddie asked.