Curtain of Death (Clandestine Operations 3)

“Turn Colonel Mattingly loose, Ivan,” von Dietelburg said. “The operation didn’t go quite as we planned it.”

Serov didn’t move, and his face remained expressionl

ess.

“Get Colonel Mattingly out of the truck now,” von Dietelburg ordered coldly.

“You know how it goes, Ivan,” Cronley said. “You win some and you lose some.”

Serov flashed him a furious glance.

Then he turned and started barking orders.

Mattingly was unchained from his chair and then helped to his feet and off the truck.

As he approached the white line, Dunwiddie took his arm off von Dietelburg.

“It was good to see you, Ludwig,” von Dietelburg said.

“Good luck, Franz,” Mannberg replied.

“And I would be remiss not to thank you, Captain Cronley, for not only my treatment but your courtesies.”

“You’re welcome,” Cronley said.

As Mattingly and von Dietelburg passed each other at the white line, they nodded at one another.

Dunwiddie took Mattingly’s arm and guided him to, and then into, the staff car, and then got in beside him. Cronley and Mannberg walked to the car. Just before he got in, Cronley turned to Janice Johansen and made an obscene gesture that would guarantee the photographic image she was making of him would never appear in a newspaper.

“Wiseass!” she said.

Hammersmith started the car, made a tight U-turn, and drove off the bridge.

[ TEN ]

Page 1, above the fold, STARS AND STRIPES 14 February 1946.

CONSTABULARY ENLISTED MEN NAB WANTED SS BIG SHOTS

Constabulary Commander Lauds Three Constabulary Troopers for “Great Work”

By Janice Johansen

Associated Press Foreign Correspondent

Sonthofen February 13—

Major General Ernest Harmon, Commanding General of the U.S. Constabulary (left in photo) congratulates (left to right) Constabulary troopers 1st Sgt A. L. Tedworth, Sgt Homer B. Kelly, and Pfc Peter J. Foster for their capture of SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Heimstadter and SS-Standartenführer Oskar Müller as Major General I. D. White (far right) looks on.

The long-sought SS officers were arrested by the Constabulary troopers at a remote Constabulary checkpoint on the Franco-German border very early in the morning of February 12.

The two Nazis, who headed the CIC’s Most Wanted list, were carrying false identification papers and attempting to cross into France when Tedworth became suspicious.

“I wondered why a butcher from Dresden and a tailor from Kassel were going to France on a remote road at that hour, so I checked the CIC’s list, and bingo, there were pictures of them in their SS uniforms,” Tedworth said. “But the real credit for catching these guys goes to Pfc. Foster. He came to me and said, ‘First Sergeant, there’s something about these two that smells. Why don’t you take a look?’ If he hadn’t done that, they’d probably have gotten through.”

General Harmon said that the two SS officers would be turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg, which has already indicted them in absentia on a number of charges.

Page 7, STARS AND STRIPES 14 February 1946.