The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

“Cronley talked about him. He said he comes from an Army family that goes way back. That they were Indian fighters, that two of his grandfathers beat Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish American War.”

“Did he mention that he almost graduated from Norwich? That his father was a Norwich classmate of Major General I.D. White, who commanded the Second Armored Division?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, when Cronley returned to Germany, to Kloster Grünau, he learned that those black soldiers—the ones he calls ‘Tiny’s Troopers’—had grabbed a man as he attempted to pass through—going outward—the barbed wire around Kloster Grünau. He had documents on him identifying him as Major Konstantin Orlovsky of the Soviet Liaison Mission. They have authority to be in the American Zone.

“On his person were three rosters. One of them was a complete roster of all of General Gehlen’s men then inside Kloster Grünau. The second was a complete roster of all of Gehlen’s men whom we have transported to Argentina, and the third was a listing of where in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, et cetera, that Gehlen believed his men who had not managed to get out were.

“It was clear that Orlovsky was an NKGB agent. It was equally clear there was at least one of Gehlen’s men—and very likely more than one—whom the NKGB had turned and who had provided Orlovsky with the rosters.

“When he was told of this man, Colonel Mattingly did what I would have done. He ordered Dunwiddie to turn the man over to Gehlen. Gehlen—or one or more of his officers—would interrogate Orlovsky to see if he’d give them the names of Gehlen’s traitors.

“Do I have to tell you what would happen to them if the interrogation was successful?”

“They would ‘go missing.’”

“As would Major Orlovsky. As cold-blooded as that sounds, it was the only solution that Mattingly could see, and he ordered it carried out. And, to repeat, I would have given the same order had I been in his shoes.

“Enter James D. Cronley Junior, who had by then been a captain for seventy-two hours. When Dunwiddie told him what had happened, he went to see the Russian. He disapproved of the psychological techniques Gehlen’s interrogator was using. Admittedly, they were nasty. They had confined him naked in a windowless cell under the Kloster Grünau chapel, no lights, suffering time disorientation and forced to smell the contents of a never-emptied canvas bucket which he was forced to use as a toilet.

“Cronley announced he was taking over the interrogation, and ordered Tiny’s Troopers to clean the cell, empty the canvas bucket, and to keep any of Gehlen’s men from having any contact whatsoever with Orlovsky.”

“What did Gehlen do about that? Mattingly?”

Souers did not answer the question.

“Cronley and Dunwiddie then began their own interrogation of Major Orlovsky. As Colonel Mattingly pointed out to me later, Orlovsky was the first Russian that either Dunwiddie or Cronley had ever seen.”

“Sir, when did Colonel Mattingly learn about this? Did General Gehlen go to him?”

After a just perceptible hesitation, Souers answered the question.

“Colonel Mattingly didn’t learn what Captain Cronley was up to until after Orlovsky was in Argentina.”

“What?” Ashton asked, shocked.

“Cronley got on the SIGABA and convinced Colonel Frade that if he got Orlovsky to Argentina, he was convinced he would be a very valuable intelligence asset in the future.”

“And Cletus agreed with this wild hair?”

“Colonel Frade sent Father Welner, at Cronley’s request, to Germany to try to convince Orlovsky that Cronley was telling the truth when he said they would not only set him up in a new life in Argentina, but that General Gehlen would make every effort to get Orlovsky’s family out of the Soviet Union and to Argentina.”

“Gehlen went along with this?”

“The officer whom many of his peers believe is a better intelligence officer than his former boss, Admiral Canaris, ever was, was in agreement with our Captain Cronley from the moment Cronley told him what he was thinking.”

“So this Russian is now in Argentina?”

“Where he will become your responsibility once you get there. At the moment, he’s in the Argerich military hospital in Buenos Aires, under the protection of the Argentine Bureau of Internal Security, recovering from injuries he received shortly after he arrived in Argentina.”

“Injuries?”

“The car in which he was riding was attacked shortly after it left the airport by parties unknown. They used machine guns and Panzerfausts—”

“What?”

“German rocket-propelled grenades.”