“Courtesy of Odessa,” Colonel Wilson said.
“When I brought these people into the loop, Cronley,” White said, “I didn’t get into why DCI is interested in Heimstadter and Müller. The political reason. I thought that should be your call. I think I should tell you that General Seidel is Colonel McMullen’s brother-in-law.”
His brother-in-law!
Shit!
“Sir,” McMullen said to White, “what’s that got to do with anything?”
“I thought you might be aware that Captain Cronley is not high on the list of junior officers whom General Seidel thinks are making substantial contributions to the Army.” White paused, then added, “Actually, I can’t tell you what he thinks about Captain Cronley in the presence of a lady.”
“Aren’t you sweet, darling?” Janice said.
“My wife told me that if I get into another brouhaha with her brother about the DCI, she’ll . . . She said I’ll spend the rest of our marriage sleeping on the couch.”
“And what do you think of the DCI, Colonel?” Cronley asked.
“I had a lot of respect for the OSS during the war. That’s where I met Bob Mattingly, when he was running OSS-Forward. I thought President Truman made a mistake when he shut it down. And I was delighted when I heard he’d established DCI.”
“Why?” Cronley asked.
“I’m tempted to say because my brother-in-law thought it was absolutely the wrong thing to do. But the truth is because I don’t think the Army can—or for that matter, should—do the things of questionable legality that sometimes have to be done in order to accomplish things like getting Bob Mattingly back. It takes an agency like the OSS—like the DCI.”
“You’re aware, Colonel, that General Seidel is trying to either take over DCI or shut it down?” Cronley asked.
“That’s hardly a secret, Mr. Cronley.”
“My priority is to see that doesn’t happen.”
McMullen looked between Cronley and General White.
“How can I be of assistance?” he asked.
“My boss believes the one way we can get the intelligence community off our backs is with Operation Paperclip. You know about Paperclip?”
“General Seidel has told me a great deal about his role in getting the German rocket establishment to Alabama. He believes it was a triumph of Army intell
igence, and frankly I’m prone to agree with him.”
“Including his role in running the Nazis who ran Peenemünde through, quote, sympathetic, unquote, denazification courts? Thus going directly against Truman’s order than no Nazis be taken into the States?”
McMullen, after a moment’s reflection, said: “He never mentioned anything along those lines. But frankly, so what? We have von Braun and his scientists and the rockets. And the Russians don’t.”
“Which would you say gave the United States the best deal? Paperclip, which gave us von Braun and his people, or Operation Ost, which gave us everything General Gehlen had, including agents inside the Kremlin?”
“Tough call,” McMullen said, nodding thoughtfully. “Isn’t it the same kind of a deal? Paperclip let some Nazis dodge getting tried and got them to the States. Operation Ost let them escape to Argentina. If that was the price that had to be paid, so be it.”
“The difference is that Operation Ost had Truman’s approval,” Cronley said.
McMullen nodded again. “Point taken.”
“And to keep Seidel and Company from taking over or shutting down DCI, I have been authorized to take whatever action is necessary.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“The reason I want to find Heimstadter and Müller—who are probably feeling very sorry for themselves because every other Peenemünde Nazi but them is safe in the States and they’re in hiding from both the Russians and us—is to get them to make statements—before movie cameras—about everything they know about Peenemünde and Operation Paperclip.”
“To what end?”