“Why not?”
“Because I had an interesting chat with him shortly before that happened. He told me that he was looking into Operation Ost and that when he tried to see what was going on at the former monastery, Kloster Grünau, ostensibly a CIC installation, he was denied entrance by a young captain named Cronley.”
“I remember the incident.”
“And that you shot the engine out of his car when he tried to drive in.”
“One of my men put one round from a .50 caliber machine gun into his engine.”
“And that when he reported this incident to General Greene, he was told not to investigate what was going on at Kloster Grünau or with Operation Ost.”
“I understand that’s what happened. Except that General Greene had told Colonel Schumann that Operation Ost and Kloster Grünau were off-limits to him before he showed up at the monastery.”
“Are you going to share with me, in the spirit of cooperation General Greene wants us to have, what was going on at the monastery?”
“You don’t have the Need to Know, Colonel. And neither did Colonel Schumann.”
“Tony said he suspected that Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen and many, perhaps most, of Gehlen’s Abwehr Ost staff were being hidden there to keep them from being brought here to stand trial with the other senior Nazis.”
“I can’t speak to that, Colonel, but I can tell you that General Gehlen and all of his former staff have appeared before a denazification court and been cleared. At the time of his surrender, the Sicherheitsdienst was looking for him—for them—because of their role in the failed assassination of Hitler at Wolfsschanze.”
“And shortly after you put a round in his engine, and General Greene told him Operation Ost and your monastery were off-limits, Colonel Schumann’s water heater blew up.”
“What are you suggesting, Colonel?”
“I’m suggesting nothing more than it’s an interesting coincidence. But like you, Captain Cronley, I’m an intelligence officer and we’re supposed to be suspicious of everything. I confess I’ve wondered if General Gehlen might have had anything to do with the explosion of Tony Schumann’s water heater.”
“Generals Greene and Schwarzkopf personally investigated that tragedy and found nothing suspicious about it.”
“So I’ve heard. I wonder about a lot of things where there are interesting coincidences. For example, I thought it was interesting that Major Tom Derwin, Tony Schumann’s replacement as CIC IG, fell under a train in the Munich Ostbahnhof shortly after visiting the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation’s compound in Pullach. Doesn’t former Generalmajor Gehlen run that? Or have I been misinformed?”
&nb
sp; Okay.
Battle lines drawn.
Cohen is among those who feel the Schumanns and Derwin were whacked by Gehlen.
Which I strongly suspect to be the case.
The Schumanns deserved it. Both of them were NKGB moles.
I don’t know about Derwin, but it’s entirely possible Gehlen took him out just to cover all the bases.
So how far is Cohen going to go running down his suspicions?
I dunno. But it’s pretty clear he’s not going to stop.
Which predicts lots of trouble for me.
“It’s no secret that Gehlen runs the South German Industrial Development Organization, Colonel.”
“In a compound surrounded by three barbed wire fences and a reinforced company of American soldiers. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell what’s really going on in that compound, are you, Captain Cronley?”
“As far as I know, they’re developing industry in South Germany.”
“Bullshit!”