The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

El Jefe is a lot more—and probably was for a long time—more than just Clete’s communications expert.

And the admiral sent him here. And not to take care of Polo.

So how do I find out what he’s really up to?

Ask him?

Why not?

The worst that could happen would be for him to pretend he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

So I’ll ask him.

But not now. In private, when the moment is right.

Cronley reached for the telephone, dialed “O,” and told the Pullach compound operator to get him South American Airways at the Rhine-Main Air Force Base.

Five minutes later, he put the phone in its cradle and turned to Schultz.

“You’re on SAA Flight 233, departing Rhine-Main at 1700 tomorrow.”

“Which means we’ll have to be there at 1600,” Schultz replied.

“Which means we can have a late breakfast and leave here at ten, ten-thirty. Or even eleven,” Cronley said. “That’ll give us plenty of time for Ostrowski and me to fly you up there.”

“No,” Schultz said. “What that means is that so I can make my manners to Generals Smith and Greene, and the admiral would be very disappointed if I didn’t, we have to get up in the dark so that we can leave at first light. And that means, of course, that you don’t get anything more to drink tonight. Nor does Ostrowski.”

It makes sense that he has to see Greene, but General W

alter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s deputy? I’m supposed to believe he’s only a Navy lieutenant, the same as an Army captain, and he’s going in for a social chat with General Smith? Even if the admiral sent him, there’s something going on nobody’s telling me.

Like there’s something nobody’s telling me about the appointment of Captain James D. Cronley Jr. as chief, Directorate of Central Intelligence, Europe. There’s something very fishy about that, too. There’s at least a platoon of ex-OSS colonels and light birds, now unemployed, better qualified than I am who should be sitting here.

My gut tells me—and screw Ludwig’s theory that when you really want to trust your intuition, don’t—that El Jefe has the answers to all of this.

So how do I get him to tell me?

I don’t have a fucking clue.

“Or I could stay here and drink my supper and have Kurt Schröder fly you to Frankfurt.”

“No.”

“He’s a much better Storch pilot than I am, El Jefe,” Cronley said. “He flew General Gehlen and Ludwig Mannberg all over Russia.”

“You’re going to fly me to Frankfurt. Period.”

“Yes, sir.”

[THREE]

Office of the Chief, Counterintelligence Corps

Headquarters, European Command

The I.G. Farben Building

Frankfurt am Main