“Two things. You can take me to my airplane and arrange for Cronley to top off the tanks in the Storch.”
“Why don’t I send for a fuel truck and then take you to your airplane in my car?”
“How about having the Follow me lead Cronley and his Storch to the Connie?” Frade asked. “That way I will have to take my suitcase out of the airplane just once instead of unloading it into your car, et cetera?”
“Done,” the major said. “I’ll have the fuel truck meet us at your Constellation.”
“I will go in the Storch,” Frade said. “Even with a Follow me to lead him, Cronley — he learned to fly last week — would probably get lost between here and there in your great big airport.”
The major laughed out loud.
“Colonel, thanks for not being sore about this. The FBI came into my office, waving their credentials. And, frankly, I’ve heard the rumors about Nazis escaping to South America. I just…”
“I probably would have reacted the same way.”
“That’s very good of you, sir.”
“I will mention what happened to General Smith,” Frade said. He turned to Cronley. “All right, Special Agent Cronley. Into the airplane, and please remember to engage your brain before starting the engine.”
The major laughed out loud again.
“I’ll follow you over there,” he said.
“What was that comedy routine all about?” Cronley asked, as he taxied the Storch across the airfield. “You sounded like a combination of Jack Benny and Will Rogers.”
“Pay attention, Jimmy,” Frade snapped, his tone making clear that he was deadly serious. “The damned FBI showing up here poses a greater threat to what we’re doing — on several fronts — than the people the NKGB has turned. High on this list is the distinct possibility that when Mattingly hears about it — and we have to assume he will — he will immediately shift into Cover His Ass mode and decide to throw you to the wolves. And I won’t be here to protect you.”
“You think he may already have done that? How come the FBI was here in the first place?”
“I don’t know. They may have just put the SAA Connie under surveillance to see if I was going to sneak Nazis onto it. That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, because I’d be a fool to do that with Admiral Souers aboard. But on the other hand, the FBI does a lot of things that don’t make sense.”
“They asked, specifically, if I was James D. Cronley Junior.”
“Well, they’ve been looking for you since you were in Washington. Maybe they spotted you at the Schlosshotel Kronberg or the Vier Jahreszeiten. Anyway, they know you’re here. They regard you as the weakest link in the fence we’ve built around Operation Ost. And they really want to know about that. J. Edgar Hoover would really like to have that on Truman. And it would be almost as good — maybe better — for them to find out this renegade operation of the President is holding an NKGB officer they haven’t told Army G-2 they have. And are taking him, or have taken him, to Argentina.”
“Understood.”
“Yeah, I think you do.”
“Practically, what can happen? Say I can’t manage to dodge them? Say they show up at Kloster Grünau? I kept Colonel Schumann out of there, and he had, arguably, a right to know what’s going on in there. They don’t. What are they going to do? Complain to whom? Mattingly would have to tell them that what’s going on there is none of their business. Otherwise, he would be the guy who blew Operation Ost and that would be the same thing as betraying the President.”
“Okay. But they don’t know that, Jimmy. What they know is that there is a twenty-two-year-old junior Army officer who they think knows all about Operation Ost. With reason, they feel all they have to do is wave their FBI credentials in his face, he’ll piss his pants, then tell them anything they want to know.”
“You don’t think what happened just now might make them wonder about that?”
“You mean your wiseass crack? ‘What did this Cronley guy do, rob a bank?’”
“Yeah.”
“That was clever, but all it really did was make that FBI guy decide, ‘Okay, I can’t deal with this wiseass now. I’ll have to wait until Frade is gone. No problem. All things come to he who waits.’”
“I’m not going to blow Operation Ost, Clete.”
“Don’t underestimate the FBI. They’re not stupid, and right now they’re under a lot of pressure — if not from Hoover himself, then from Clyde Whatsisname, his deputy — to find out whatever they can about Operation Ost. You’re going to have to be very careful.”
“Clyde Whatsisname?”
“Hoover’s deputy director. Admiral Souers told me he’s the guy in charge of the private files — usually detailed reports of sexual escapades — Hoover uses to hold over people, especially politicians.” He paused and chuckled. “Jimmy, please tell me you’re not fucking somebody you shouldn’t be fucking. That would be all we need right now. The Federal Blackmail Institution would love to have something like that on you.”
Jimmy laughed, because he knew that was the reaction Clete expected.
But I am fucking somebody I shouldn’t be fucking.
And I can’t afford to have — what did Clete call it? — the Federal Blackmail Institution catch me doing it.
Okay. Auf Wiedersehen, Rachel! Affair over!
You go back to the colonel and the kiddies.
And I try to start thinking with my head instead of my dick.
It never should have started. What the hell was I thinking?
Then he repeated: “I’m not going to blow Operation Ost.”
“I wish I was as confident about that as you are.”
“What do you want me to do, say it again? Okay. I’m not going to blow Operation Ost.”
“When was the last time you saw a grown man pout?”
“What?”
“Pout. You know, stick your lip out and look sad so everybody feels sorry for you.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
“Enrico,” Clete said. He pointed.
They were approaching the Constellation. Sergeant Major Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired, was sitting on the stairway leading up the open rear door of the aircraft. His Remington Model 11 riot shotgun was in his lap.
And he was indeed pouting.
“I didn’t want to take him to the meeting at the Schlosshotel Kronberg. It would have been awkward all around. So I made him stay with Gonzo Delgano. ‘For just overnight.’ And then you and I went to Munich the next morning…”
“And he’s really pissed.”
“Yup. And he’s really pissed.”
“He loves you, Clete.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Cronley and Frade got out of the Storch.
Enrico pretended not to see them.
“Enrico, you want to help me with my bag?” Frade called.
Rodríguez walked to the Storch, said, “Teniente,” to Cronley, and took Frade’s bag.
He ignored Frade.
“Actually, Enrico, that’s Capitán,” Frade said.
“Capitán,” Enrico said, and marched with Frade’s bag to the ladder and carried it up and into the airplane.
“How long are you going to be invisible?” Jimmy asked.
“God only knows. Enrico can stay pissed — pout — longer than my wife.”
“Here comes my gas truck.”
“As soon as you’re topped off, get out of here and down to Munich. Try to confuse the FBI about where you’re going. You probably won’t be able to, but try.”
“At the risk of repeating myself, Colonel, sir, I’m not going to blow Operation Ost.”