The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

Truth to tell, which I obviously can’t, there are three I know about, those of the three men, almost certainly NKGB agents, that Max Ostrowski killed when they damn near killed Sergeant Abraham Lincoln Tedworth.

And then I suspect, but don’t know—and I don’t want to know—that former Oberstleutnant Gunther von Plat and former Major Kurt Boss are looking up at the grass in the cloister cemetery. They disappeared shortly after Clete turned Colonel Sergei Likharev in Argentina, and he told Clete, and Clete told me to tell General Gehlen, that they had been the bad apples in Gehlen’s basket who had given him the rosters of Gehlen’s people Tedworth found on Likharev.

“Every Friday afternoon,” Cronley said. “We call it ‘the Kloster Grünau Memorial Gardens Friday Afternoon Burial Services and Chicken Fry.’”

Wallace laughed, then turned to Major Derwin.

“What have you done with this thing, Derwin? Have you shown it to anybody else? The DCI, maybe? Anybody else?”

“I was not at that point in my investigation—”

“Your investigation?” Wallace asked, heavily sarcastic. “Derwin, were you ever a CIC agent in the field?”

“Of course I was.”

“Where?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“I can check your records.”

“I was the special agent in charge of the Des Moines office.”

“That’s all?”

“And then I was transferred to CIC Headquarters.”

“You mean the CIC School?”

“The school is part of CIC Headquarters.”

“And since I don’t think there were many members of the Japanese Kempei Tai, or of Abwehr Intelligence, running around Des Moines, Iowa, what you were doing was ringing doorbells, doing background investigations? ‘Mrs. Jones, your neighbor Joe Glutz, now in the Army, is being considered for a position in which he will have access to classified information. We are checking to see if he can be trusted with it. Which of his sexual deviations would you like to tell me about?’”

“I don’t have to put up with this . . . this being mocked and insulted.”

“The first thing that comes to my mind is for me to go to General Greene and give him my take on you, which is that you saw when you were being sent to replace my good friend Tony Schumann, you decided it was going to give you a chance to be a real CIC agent. And then when whatever miserable sonofabitch in our ranks decided to stick it to Cronley sent you that letter, you saw it as your chance to be a hotshot.

“But if I did that, and he shipped your ass to the Aleutian Islands to count snowballs, which he would do, and which you would deserve for your Dick Tracy bullshit, the prick in our midst who tried to stab Cronley in the back would hear about it and crawl back into his hole.

“And I am determined to find that bastard and nail him to the wall.

“So what you are going to do, Major Derwin, is put that goddamn letter back in your briefcase and then drop your quote investigation unquote. And forget investigations, period. You will keep that letter so that you take it out from time to time to remind you how close you came to getting shipped to the Aleutians. If you get another letter, or if there is any other contact with Cronley’s buddy the letter writer, I want to hear about it.

“Now, if this is satisfactory to you, get out of here and get in your car, and go to Frankfurt or anywhere else and do what an IG is supposed to do. If this is not satisfactory to you, I am going to get on the horn and call General Greene and tell him what a bad boy you have been. Which is it to be?”

“I really don’t understand your attitude—”

“Which is it to be?” Wallace snapped.

“I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter, do I?” Derwin said, mustering what little dignity he could. Then he turned to Cronley: “Captain Cronley, I assure you it wasn’t my intention to accuse you of any wrongdoing. I was just . . .”

“If that’s intended as an apology, Major Derwin. Accepted.”

Christ, I actually feel sorry for him.

Derwin nodded at Wallace and walked out of the office.

“Jesus Christ, Jim,” Wallace said. “Do you believe that?”