Curtain of Death (Clandestine Operations 3)

“Why do I think you’re about to offer a suggestion?”

“Treat him as a common criminal,” Hessinger said.

“What?”

“I have researched the applicable German laws,” Hessinger said. “Everyone participating in a crime of violence is equally guilty of an offense as anyone participating in said crime.”

“Which means exactly what?”

“The men who attempted to kidnap Dette and Florence Miller committed not only that crime but murder.”

“They didn’t murder anybody. Dette murd—took out the three.”

“Right. And so all four Russians are equally guilty under German law of the crime of murder, because the deaths occurred during their involvement in the kidnapping, which qualifies as a violent crime.”

“Hessinger’s onto something,” General Gehlen said. “Major Ulyanov thinks we’re probably not going to dispose of him, and I don’t think he thinks we have anything on him that will cause him to turn. I submit we do: Thirty years to life in a German prison for the crime of murder is a nightmare that a major of State Security simply does not want to face. Turning may seem to be a far more attractive alternative.”

“How do we get the Germans to try an NKGB major in their courts?” Ziegler asked.

“I think that Hessinger is suggesting that Ulyanov is a displaced person, not a Russian,” Mannberg said. “The story Miss Johansen wrote said the would-be rapists were Polish DPs who escaped from the Oberhaching displaced persons camp.”

Gehlen sa

id, “And I can’t see Lazarus standing up in court and proclaiming, ‘Now just a minute, I’m actually Major of State Security Venedikt Ulyanov!’ That would be tantamount to admitting the NKGB has people running around the American Zone without identification bent on despoiling innocent American enlisted women. Or with other nefarious intent, such as kidnapping American officers.”

“And Lazarus would know,” Cronley said, picking up the thought, “that even if admitting who he is kept him out of a German jail, he’d really be in the deep shit with Comrade Serov and all he would be doing if we gave him back to the Russians would be exchanging a cell in a German prison for one in the basement of the . . .”

“. . . NKGB building on Lubyanka Square in Moscow,” Gehlen picked up. “Or worse. Leaving him only one alternative, the least unpleasant of the three, turning. Freddy—what is it Cronley is always saying? ‘You get both ears and the tail!’”

Cronley jumped up, walked quickly to Hessinger, wrapped his arms around him, and kissed him wetly and noisily on the forehead.

“Just as soon as we get back from Berlin,” Cronley said, “we will move Ulyanov into a large room at Kloster Grünau—”

“A large room?” Mannberg asked.

“So that everybody can be there to see the look on the sonofabitch’s face when he learns we’ve got him,” Cronley explained. “But, first things first, specifically the funerals. Ziegler, do you happen to know a Russian Orthodox priest?”

“As a matter of fact, I know a bunch of them.”

“One who will go along with this burial business?”

Ziegler nodded.

“Okay, you are appointed the Bury the Russians Officer. You better get a Russian speaker from Ostrowski to go with you. And get pictures of everything.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now that the other Dutchman is back from Pfungstadt,” Cronley went on, “take him along with you. How did it go at Stars and Stripes, Wagner?”

“Well, sir, I found out how they’re moving people on the trucks,” PFC Karl-Christoph Wagner said.

“You mean you think you have an idea how they’re doing that?”

“No, sir. I mean I know how they’re doing it.”

“Well, I can hardly wait to hear that . . .”

“I think he does, Captain,” Ziegler said.