The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

Among the documents turned over were some that Gehlen’s agents had stolen from the Kremlin itself. They included photographic copies of NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria’s proposal, dated March 5, 1940, to execute all captured Polish officers. Gehlen also provided photographic copies of Stalin’s personal approval of the proposal, signed by him on behalf of the Soviet Politburo, and reports from functionaries of the NKVD reporting in detail their execution of their orders. At least 21,768, and as many as 22,002, Poles had been murdered. Approximately 8,000 were military officers, approximately 6,000 were police officers, and the rest were members of the intelligentsia, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests.

The Americans could not raise this in the face of the Soviet Union, however, as they would have had to say where they got their information, and when the Nuremberg trials began, the Americans were denying any knowledge of the whereabouts of former Major General Reinhard Gehlen.

I

[ONE]

Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Washington, D.C.

0905 22 December 1945

The MP at the gate did not attempt to stop the Packard Clipper when it approached the gate. He had seen enough cars from the White House pool to know one when he saw one, and this one was also displaying a blue plate with two silver stars, indicating that it was carrying a rear admiral (upper half).

The MP waved the car through, saluted crisply, and then went quickly into the guard shack—which was actually a neat little tile-roofed brick structure, not a shack—and got on the phone.

“White House car with an admiral,” he announced.

This caused activity at the main entrance. A Medical Corps lieutenant colonel, who was the Medical Officer of the Day—MOD—and a Rubenesque major of the Army Nurse Corps, who was the NOD—Nurse Officer of the Day—rushed to the lobby to greet the VIP admiral from the White House.

No Packard Clipper appeared.

“Where the hell did he go?” the MOD inquired finally.

“If it’s who I think it is,” the NOD said, “he’s done this before. He went in the side door to 233. The auto accident major they flew in from South America.”

The MOD and the NOD hurried to the stairwell and quickly climbed it in hopes of greeting the VIP admiral from the White House to offer him any assistance he might require.

They succeeded in doing so. They caught up with Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers and his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant James L. Allred, USN, as the latter reached to push open the door to room 233.

“Good morning, Admiral,” the MOD said. “I’m Colonel Thrush, the Medical Officer of the day. May I be of service?”

“Just calling on a friend, Colonel,” the admiral replied. “But thank you, nonetheless.”

He nodded to his aide to open the door.

The NOD beat him to it, and went into the room.

There was no one in the hospital bed, whose back had been cranked nearly vertical. A bed tray to one side held a coffee thermos, a cup, and an ashtray, in which rested a partially smoked thick, dark brown cigar. The room was redolent of cigar smoke.

“He must be in the toilet,” the nurse announced, adding righteously, “He’s not supposed to do that unassisted.”

Lieutenant Allred went to the toilet door, knocked, and asked, “You okay, Major?”

“I was until you knocked at the door,” a muffled voice replied.

“Thank you for your interest, Colonel, Miss,” Admiral Souers said.

They understood they were being dismissed, said, “Yes, sir,” in chorus, and left the room.

“Who is he?” the MOD asked.

“You mean the admiral, or the major?”

“Both.”

“All I know about the admiral is that the word is that he’s a pal of President Truman. And all I know about the major is that he was medically evac’d from someplace in South America, maybe Argentina, someplace like that, and brought here. Broken leg, broken arm, broken ribs. And no papers. No Army papers. He told one of the nurses he was in a car accident.”