The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

Wait a minute!

Do I detect the subtle hand of Colonel Robert Mattingly?

Oh, do I!

Mattingly thinks—and with good reason—that he should be chief, DCI-Europe. Instead, I am. But there’s nothing he can do about it. Unless, of course, as a result of my youth and inexperience I get into a scrap with Parsons. Then he can step in—Greene would suggest Mattingly step in—to save something from the wreckage. For the good of the service.

I can see that sonofabitch suggesting to General Greene that Parsons take me to dinner “to get to know me.” I can also see Parsons reasoning that Greene is on his side—otherwise why the “get to know him” suggestion—and interpreting “get to know him” to mean making it clear to the junior captain that this is still the Army, and in the Army, lieutenant colonels tell junior captains what to do, and junior captains say, “Yes, sir.”

But I can’t take orders from a lieutenant colonel whose mission it is to take over Operation Ost.

So what do I do?

“Would you be shocked to hear that I am not thrilled with the prospect of Colonel Parsons buying me dinner?”

“You not being thrilled doesn’t matter. Colonel Mattingly called and said Colonel Parsons would probably call and invite you to dinner, and you had better go. Alone.”

Well, there’s the proof. I can hear Mattingly saying, “Parsons went out of his way, Admiral, to get along with Cronley. He even invited him to a private dinner. Cronley refused to go.”

Making nice to Parsons tonight would be just delaying the inevitable confrontation. Mattingly—or maybe Parsons himself, he’s clever—would make sure there was a confrontation.

Back to what do I do?

What I do is get this over with.

But as the soon-to-be chief, DCI-Europe, not as Junior Captain Cronley.

Which means I take off this Ike jacket with its brand-new captain’s bars and put on the one with the civilian U.S. triangles.

“You know how to get Parsons on the phone, Freddy?”

“He’s here in the hotel.”

“Please call him back and tell him you’ve heard from Mister, repeat, Mister Cronley and he, General Gehlen, and Captain Dunwiddie, who had already pla

nned to dine at the Vier Jahreszeiten at eight, would be delighted if he and Major Whatsisname could join us.”

“You heard what I said about Colonel Mattingly saying you should go to dinner alone?”

“Anything else for me, Freddy?”

“Oberst Mannberg asked me when General Gehlen will be back. He says he has something to report.”

“Whatever that might be, I don’t think we want to share it with the FBI, do we?”

“So what do I tell Mannberg?”

“Tell him the general will be in your office just before we go to dinner with Colonel Parsons and Major Whatsisname.”

[TWO]

Suite 507

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten

Maximilianstrasse 178

Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany