Cronley saw the others in the room: Generals Greene and Schwarzkopf; one of the colonels who had been at Schlosshotel Kronberg; the major—he remembered his name, Davis—who had been with Mattingly when they’d had their last confrontation; Major Wallace; and a man in a business suit he had never seen before.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Cronley said politely.
“Thank you for finding time in your busy schedule for us, Mr. Cronley,” Seidel said, his tone clearly sarcastic.
“There were headwinds all the way from Munich, General,” Cronley said. “I regret being late. I did my best to get here on time.”
“I’m sure you did,” Seidel said. “I don’t believe you know Mr. Preston.” He indicated the man in the business suit.
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Mr. Preston is the SAC—senior agent in charge—of the FBI office attached to USFET.”
The two wordlessly shook hands.
“And Colonel Nesbitt of my staff,” Seidel said, indicating the colonel who had been at Schlosshotel Kronberg.
The two shook hands wordlessly.
“The problem we are all facing, obviously, is learning what has happened to Colonel Mattingly. The reason I have called this meeting is that certain things have come to light that bear on that. I thought we should try to clear these things up as quickly as possible.
“This morning as I was waiting for Colonel Mattingly, I had a telephone call from Mr. Oscar Schultz, who, as you all know, is the executive assistant to Admiral Souers, the director of the Central Intelligence Directorate. He told me that it had come to his attention that Colonel Mattingly was coming to see me to report that at your direction, Mr. Cronley, the ASA has been intercepting communications between the G-2 liaison office and the Pentagon—and others—and turning such communications over to you. He also asked me to remind Colonel Mattingly that his looking into the activities of the DCI was outside his area of responsibility and suggested I tell him this.”
Cronley did not reply.
“Did you go to the ASA and direct them to intercept G-2 liaison office communications, Mr. Cronley?”
“Yes, I did,” Cronley said.
“And did you know that Colonel Mattingly, having discovered this, intended to report it to me?”
“What I know was that while Colonel Mattingly was in the Compound—”
“The what?” SAC Preston interrupted.
“. . . he grabbed an ASA sergeant, stood him tall, and browbeat him into admitting we were—I was—reading Colonel Parsons’s mail. I didn’t know he was going to report this to you, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“You apparently feel that—your words—‘reading Colonel Parsons’s mail’ is perfectly all right?”
“General, the Presidential Finding which established the DCI gives DCI access to—and this is just about verbatim—‘any and all classified files, without exception, generated by any agency of the United States government.’ I was led to believe you were given a copy of the Finding.”
“I’m not going to debate this with you now, Mr. Cronley. But this issue remains alive.”
“General, with respect, why did you ask me to come here today?”
“I thought that would be obvious to you: to learn what has happened to Colonel Mattingly. Which brings us to Special Agent Preston. Mr. Preston came to me and told me he had received a communication from unknown parties alleging that the death of
Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Anthony Schumann was not an accident but, in fact, an assassination, and that former Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen and what is now known as the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation were almost certainly involved.”
Shit! I thought that was water under the bridge.
“General, that’s nonsense,” General Schwarzkopf said. “I personally investigated the explosion at Schumann’s quarters and so did the Frankfurt Military Post engineer. Then it was investigated again by the CIC with General Greene looking over their shoulders. He had a personal interest in Schumann’s death. They were friends. Their goddamn water heater blew up. Period.”
The NKGB, Cronley thought, the “unknown party” that sent the FBI that letter, knows better. And so do I.
Schumann was an NKGB operative. And so was his wife.
Rachel played me like a violin.