Curtain of Death (Clandestine Operations 3)

“Sir, I swept this room at 0700. You want me to sweep it again?”

“No. But I want it, and my office, swept every six hours until I tell you different.”

“Yes, sir. Is there something I don’t know?”

“Just being cautious. I don’t know anything.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, and left.

Tiny came back in the room and took his seat.

Everybody looked expectantly at Cronley.

Well, here’s where the chief explains the problem, and tells his subordinates how he wants them to deal with it.

It would be a lot easier if I wasn’t just about convinced I’m wholly unqualified to be the chief and had any idea how to deal with the problem.

He walked to the head of the table, and saw all eyes were on him.

Primarily because he didn’t have any idea how to begin, he paused to take a cigar from his tunic, clip the end, and carefully light it.

“Yesterday,” he began, letting out a cloud of smoke, “I was summoned to a meeting presided over by General Seidel. Generals Greene and Schwarzkopf, Colonel Thomas B. Nesbitt, who works for Seidel, and the senior agent in charge of the FBI office attached to USFET, a Mr. Preston—I don’t know his first name—and Major Wallace were present . . .”

“Preston’s first name is Douglas,” former Major Konrad Bischoff furnished.

Rather than being helpful, Konrad, ol’ buddy, that was intended, I think, to show everybody how smart you are.

The only reason I don’t allow myself to think you are the mole/traitor around here is because I really can’t stand you, and I don’t want that to color my thinking.

“After some preliminaries, during which General Seidel suggested I’m not up to meeting the responsibilities of chief, DCI, he explained Mr. Preston’s presence. Mr. Preston has developed the theory that the death of Colonel and Mrs. Schumann was not accidental.”

Cronley met Gehlen’s eyes. Gehlen’s face showed nothing.

“Both General Greene and General Schwarzkopf challenged this theory, saying that they had both personally investigated that tragedy and found nothing suspicious about it. Neither General Seidel nor Mr. Preston seemed to accept what Greene and Schwarzkopf thought.

“Next, Mr. Preston said that he not only suspected that Major Derwin did not really fall under the freight train in the Munich bahnhof, but had been pushed, but also saw a pattern in the two deaths. Both Colonel Schumann and Major Derwin had shown great interest in both Kloster Grünau and the Compound, and Major Derwin had met his end shortly after visiting the Compound. The third suspicious coincidence was that Colonel Mattingly had gone missing shortly after he had made a visit to the Compound, which to his mind suggested that General Gehlen was responsible for all three incidents.”

“He actually made that accusation?” Colonel Bristol asked incredulously.

“Seidel said he thought it was ‘a possibility we could not ignore.’ And that he had a solution which would clear everything up. That was that ‘we’ seek the assistance of the FBI’s excellent investigators, which would include granting them access to both the Compound and Kloster Grünau.”

“What was Major Wallace doing during all this?” Tiny asked.

“Not much while it was going on, but afterward when we were alone in the parking lot, he said he hoped I realized I had as much as told the USFET G-2 to go fuck himself when I told him that I was not going to let the FBI anywhere near the Compound or Kloster Grünau.”

No one said a word.

“He also said that the war is by no means over. Seidel and the Pentagon G-2 are determined to either swallow DCI or flush it down the toilet.”

“And what do you propose we do to stop that?” Tiny said.

“The only thing I can think of is somehow to get Colonel Mattingly back alive and catch somebody important in Odessa. And I don’t have a clue how we can do that.”

“If I may, Jim,” Gehlen said, “I have some thoughts on the subject.”

“Please.”

“Colonel Parsons came to see me right after you flew the journalist . . .”