“She makes me really sorry there’s that sacred rule forbidding officers to fool around with enlisted women,” Wallace said, and then quickly added, “Just kidding, just kidding.”
“Anyway, Dette told me just before we had our chat with Derwin that General Gehlen wants to see me as soon as possible. I think that’s because he’s heard from Seven-K . . .”
“His Soviet asset?”
Cronley nodded. “A/K/A Rahil. And I’ve started to think of her as our asset. So far we’ve given her a hundred thousand dollars.”
“One hundred thousand?” Wallace parroted incredulously.
Cronley nodded again. “And she’ll be worth every dime if she can get Likharev’s family out and he stays turned.”
“You think he will stay turned?”
“Yeah,” Cronley said thoughtfully after a moment.
“Gratitude?”
“A little of that, but primarily because . . . he’s smart . . . he will realize that once we get his family to Argentina, that’s not the end of it. The NKGB will know that he’s alive and turned and has his family with him. And the NKGB can’t just quit. Likharev knows they’ll really be looking for him to make an example, pour encourager les autres, of what happens to senior NKGB officers who turn, and we’re the only protection he has.”
“Yeah,” Wallace said.
“So, instead of going out to Schleissheim and removing the Storch from curious eyes, I’m going to have to go to Pullach.”
“Can I ask about that?”
“Ask about what?”
“You and the Storchs. Now that EUCOM has been told to give DCI-Europe anything it wants, why don’t you get a couple, or three or four, L-4s and get rid of the Storchs? And all the problems having them brings with it?”
“The Storch is a better airplane than the Piper Cub. And only Army aviators are allowed to fly Army airplanes, and I’m not an Army aviator . . .”
“I’d forgotten that.”
“. . . and I don’t want two, three, or four Army aviators out here, or at the Pullach compound, seeing a lot of interesting things that are none of their business.”
“Understood,” Wallace said, then added, “You’re good, Jim. You really try to think of everything, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. And one time in say, fifty times, I do think of everything. The other forty-nine times something I didn’t think of bites me in the ass.”
Wallace chuckled.
“Or something comes out of the woodwork, like Dick Tracy?”
“Like Dick Tracy,” Cronley agreed. “Do you think you turned him off for good?”
“Yeah. I think the more he thinks about it, the more he will decide the best way to cover his ass is to stop playing Dick Tracy.”
“Jesus, I hope so,” Cronley said, and then stood up and walked out of his office.
[TWO]
“Where’s the car?” Cronley asked Hessinger.
“Wait one, please,” Hessinger said, and then, raising his voice, called, “Colbert, are you about finished in there?”
“Be right there,” she called, and came out of the supply room.
“Claudette has finished four of the after-action reports,” Hessinger said. “I need you to look at them as soon as possible.”