“Sorry, sir. I’ll go get it.”
“Please do. I really like a couple of shots of Tabasco on my pork chops.”
Orlovsky looked at the plate of food before him and crossed his arms over his chest.
When Clark returned with the Tabasco, Cronley said, “Thank you. I’ll call for you when I need you.”
“Yes, sir,” Clark said.
Cronley shook the red pepper sauce onto his pork chops.
“I don’t know if you know Tabasco, Konstantin. I really do. But some people find it a little too spicy.”
Orlovsky didn’t reply.
Neither Cronley nor Dunwiddie said another word during the next fifteen minutes, during which they just about cleaned their plates. Orlovsky did not uncross his arms.
“Clark!” Cronley called.
Clark came into the room.
“Major Orlovsky will be returning to das Gasthaus now. Will you assist him in getting dressed?”
“Yes, sir.”
Five minutes later, Clark led Orlovsky back into the room. He was again shackled and handcuffed and had the duffel bag over his head.
“Good night, Konstantin,” Cronley said. “Sleep well.”
There was no reply.
Cronley gestured for Clark to lead him away, and Clark did so.
Two minutes later, as Dunwiddie poured coffee into Cronley’s cup, he asked, “Well?”
“I was tempted just now to call him back and ask him if he didn’t think not eating was cutting off his nose to spite his face, but I decided I’d already pushed him as far as I should.”
“Maybe too far?”
“I don’t know. I spent most of the time as we dined in stony silence wondering whether I was a very clever intelligence officer who knew how to break an NKGB officer or a very young, very stupid officer absolutely unqualified to mentally duel with a good NKGB officer. And, in either case, a candidate for the Despicable Prick of All Time Award.” He paused, and then added: “I really wish I didn’t like the sonofabitch.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Only time will tell. It’s now in the hands of the Lord. You may wish to write that down.”
“Actually, I think we did pretty good,” Dunwiddie said.
“Really?”
“You may wish to write this down. ‘Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. And this be our motto: In God is our trust.’ It gets us off the hook, Despicable Prick — wise.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s from the last verse of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’” Dunwiddie said. “They didn’t sing that at Texas Cow College?”
PART XII
[ONE]
Captain Cronley was shaving when First Sergeant Dunwiddie came into his quarters.
“Gehlen and Mannberg walked into the mess as I walked out,” Dunwiddie announced.
“Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“I thought you should have it in mind when you read this,” Dunwiddie said, holding up a SIGABA printout.
Cronley turned from the mirror and put his hand out for the sheet of paper. His eyes fell to it:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM VINT HILL TANGO NET
0850 GREENWICH 5 NOVEMBER 1945
TO VATICAN ATTENTION ALTARBOY
FOLLOWING BY TELEPHONE FROM TEX 0825 GMT 5 NOV 1945
BEGIN MESSAGE
NOW SOLVED BANKING PROBLEMS WILL DELAY ESTIMATED DEPARTURE TIME UNTIL 1000 MIDLAND TIME 6 NOVEMBER STOP TEX END
END MESSAGE
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
When he had finished reading it, he returned to shaving.
“‘Now solved banking problems’?” Dunwiddie asked.
“I guess Clete had a little trouble getting the money out of the bank.”
“What money out of what bank?”
“I just remembered that the opportunity never presented itself for me to share this with you,” Cronley said, as he examined his chin in the mirror, then took another swipe at it with his razor.
“That would seem to be the case. What’s it all about?”
Cronley picked up a towel and wiped what was left of the shaving cream from his face.
“Gehlen told Clete and me he needs fifty thousand dollars, and now, to send to Russia to grease palms to get Orlovsky’s family out. And Clete needs money to hide Orlovsky in Argentina. The OSS account is empty. Clete can’t use any of his money without the wrong people asking questions. So I’m loaning it to him. To us. To Operation Ost. I’m supposed to get it back when this new Central Intelligence Directorate, or whatever the hell they’re going to call it, is up and running.”
“I was about to say… I will say: I suppose that’s a good example of putting your money where your mouth is. Next question: Where the hell did you get fifty grand? Are you that rich?”
“Actually, I’m loaning Operation Ost two hundred thousand.”
“Jesus Christ! You had that much money in the bank?”
“The former Marjorie Ann Howell, who had been Mrs. James D. Cronley Junior for just over a day at the time of her untimely demise, had that much — and more — in her account. And under the laws of the Sovereign State of Texas, upon her demise all of her property passed to her lawful husband.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Gehlen doesn’t know where the money is coming from, and I don’t want him to know.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I just don’t, okay?”
Dunwiddie held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“What I’ve been trying to talk myself into,” Cronley said, “is that the Squirt wouldn’t mind — might even sort of like — that her money is being used to get somebody’s wife and kids out of Russia and started on a new life in Argentina. Especially if she knew what the alternative scenario is.”
“Jesus Christ, Jim!”
“I’ve also been thinking I’m glad the Squirt didn’t see me in my despicable prick role. That I don’t think she would understand.”
“From what you’ve told me about her, I don’t know if she would or not,” Tiny said, paused, and then went on: “Yeah, I do. She would know you were doing that because it had to be done.”
“‘Then conquer we must,’ right?”
“That stuck in your mind, did it?”
“Do you think it’s time to show Fat Fre— Sergeant Hessinger’s OPPLAN to Gehlen?”
“Are you going to show him that message?”
“Don’t we have to show both messages, the first one, too?”
“If you decide you do, then you might as well show him Hessinger’s plan. You’re going to have to eventually.”
“I like it better when you say ‘we’ instead of ‘you.’”
“Unfair, Jim. I’m marching right beside you down Suicide Row, and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do.” Cronley punched Dunwiddie affectionately on the shoulder. “And I appreciate it.”
[TWO]
Former General Reinhard Gehlen was sitting with former Colonel Ludwig Mannberg when Captain James D. Cronley Jr. and First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie walked into the small — one table — room that served as the senior officers’ mess.
Both Germans rose to their feet, and Cronley as quickly gestured for them to remain seated.
I did that with all the practiced élan of my fellow Cavalry officer Colonel Robert Mattingly, but we all know it’s just a little theater.