The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

It took thirty seconds—which seemed much longer—for El Jefe to reply.

“When I think about it,” he said finally, “I still think it’s risky as hell, but I don’t think it would be illegal. You’re the chief, DCI-Europe. You can do just about anything you want.”

“Until somebody catches him doing something we all know he shouldn’t be doing, you mean,” Dunwiddie said.

“Discussion over, Captain Dunwiddie,” Cronley said. “How are you with a tape measure?”

“Excuse me?”

“While we’re getting the DCI credentials filled out and sealed in plastic, we need somebody who knows how to determine sizes to take the colonel’s and Ostrowski’s measurements. Are you our man to do that?”

“What for?”

“So that you can go to the QM officers’ clothing sales store and get Colonel Mannberg a couple of sets of ODs and a set of pinks and greens.”

“I didn’t think about that,” Hessinger said.

“And get Ostrowski a set of pinks and greens while you’re at it,” Cronley said. “We don’t want anyone to look out of place in this majors-and-up hotel in Vienna, do we?”

“I have one more thing to say, and then I’ll shut up,” Dunwiddie said.

“Say it.”

“I can see the look—‘I’ve got the sonofabitch now’—on Colonel Mattingly’s face when he hears about this.”

Cronley looked as if he was about to reply, but then changed his mind.

“I’d much prefer to put the colonel—and Max, too—in civilian clothing,” he said. “Suits and ties. But that’s out of the question, isn’t it?” Cronley asked.

“I have civilian clothing,” Mannberg said. “Or my sister does.”

“Your sister?”

“And I think Max could wear some of it,” Mannberg said.

“Your sister has your civilian clothing?” Cronley asked.

Mannberg nodded.

“I sent it to her when the general and I went to the East,” he said.

“And she still has it?” Cronley asked. “Where?”

“We have a farm near Hanover,” Mannberg said. “In the British Zone.”

“Pay attention,” Cronley said. “The chief, DCI-Europe, is about to lay out our plans. While General Gehlen’s documents people are doing their thing with the DCI credentials, and Captain Dunwiddie is measuring Mannberg and Ostrowski and then going shopping for them, First Sergeant Tedworth is going to get in one of our new Fords and drive to Hanover to reclaim Colonel Mannberg’s wardrobe. Any questions?”

[TWO]

Hachelweg 675

Strasbourg, Département Bas-Rhin, France

1255 10 January 1946

The olive-drab 1943 Ford Deluxe pulled to the curb and stopped. The driver, yet another enormous black sergeant, this one Sergeant Albert Finney, got out from behind the wheel and ran around the back of the car to open the rear passenger door.

Cronley got out. He was wearing an OD woolen uniform. His shoulder insignia, a modification of the wartime insignia of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (S