The Private Dining Room The Garden Lounge Schlosshotel Kronberg Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse, Germany 1930 19 May 1945
“You’re not drinking, Clete?” Mattingly asked as he looked around the huge circular table.
Even with “everybody”—General Gehlen, Frade, Stein, Boltitz, von Wachtstein, Rodríguez, Delgano, Peralta, Vega, Dooley, and Mattingly—sitting around the table, there were enough empty chairs for twice that many people.
Clete had the irreverent thought that it looked like only half of the Knights of the Round Table had shown up for King Arthur’s nightly briefing.
“When are we flying to Berlin?” Frade responded, and when Mattingly’s face showed the answer confused him, he smiled benignly at Dooley and went on: “You’ll learn, Dooley, if they ever let you fly big airplanes, like Hansel and me, that it’s best to do so clear-eyed and not hungover.”
Mattingly frowned at Frade.
“In the morning,” Mattingly said, “you’re all going to Berlin—or that’s the plan.”
“Pour your beer back in the bottle, like a good boy, Dooley,” Frade said.
“Kiss my ass,” Dooley said.
“I’m going to ask you, Colonel Frade, and you, Colonel Dooley, to try to control your somewhat less than scintillating wit,” Mattingly said. “If you can’t, I’ll stand both of you at attention.”
“Yes, sir,” Frade said. “Sorry.”
“Turning to what happens now,” Mattingly said. “The problem of the Russians being difficult in Berlin was already being discussed at SHAEF, and a possible solution thereof had been reached when South American Airlines—more accurately, the Republic of Argentina—was added to the problem.
“The Argentine ambassador in Washington approached the State Department and asked them about flight clearances for their mercy mission. Not being aware of the Russians’ mischief, the State Department in effect said, ‘Not a problem. We will go to General Marshall and have him tell Eisenhower to take care of it.’
“Marshall’s message arrived during a staff conference, at which David Bruce was present and the subject of the Russians was under discussion.
“Eisenhower’s first reaction was to quickly decide that the Argentines would just have to wait until the problem was solved. Beetle Smith—you know who he is? Ike’s chief of staff—had another view.
“General Smith didn’t think the Russians should be allowed to ban Argentine—or any civilian—aircraft from flying from the American zone of occupation over the Russian zone into the American zone of Berlin any more than they should be allowed to question our right to fly military aircraft in and out.
“David Bruce agreed with General Smith—they usually do agree on just about everything—and then threw something else into the equation, something previously not known to SHAEF.
“South American Airways, David told Ike and Beetle—words to this effect—was an OSS asset, or close to one. Not only that, but the pilot of the Constellation at that moment over the South Atlantic en route to Lisbon was actually the OSS man in charge of the asset, a Marine lieutenant colonel who was held in very high regard by Allen Dulles.
“And there was one more fact bearing on the problem, David Bruce said. The advance element of OSS Europe was already outside of Frankfurt. General Smith asked who was running it, and David Bruce told him, whereupon the Supreme Commander said words to this effect: ‘Mattingly used to work for General White, right? He’s the officer who flew over Berlin when the Russians were still taking it in one of White’s L-4s? The right man, for once, in the right place. Let him deal with this.
“‘He might even be able to keep White and Patton from starting World War Three. Tell the Argentine OSS man to report to Mattingly, and tell the Eighth Air Force to give Mattingly whatever he thinks he needs. Keep me advised. Next problem?’
“Shortly thereafter, David Bruce dumped the problem in my lap.
“Now, there are several reasons that it is important that I deal with this to General Eisenhower’s complete satisfaction. Not least among them is that he, so far, has not joined the chorus singing, ‘Shut down the OSS now; it’s not needed’ into President Truman’s ear.
“If I—forgive the egotism—if we can handle the problem of the Russians trying to keep us out of Berlin, Allen Dulles and/or David Bruce can go to Ike and ask his assistance to keep us alive. He may not give it. Ike unfortunately thinks General Marshall walks on water, but we have to try.”
“Sir,” Frade said, “how do you plan to deal with it?”
Mattingly’s face showed that he appreciated both being called “Sir” and Frade’s tone of voice.
“At this moment, Colonel Frade, a small convoy of Air Force vehicles, under the command of a captain, is attempting to drive to Berlin. The convoy consists of two trucks and a jeep. One of the trucks is a mobile aircraft control tower. The other contains supplies.
“There is an autobahn—a superhighway patterned after the New Jersey Turnpike—running between Hanover, which is in the British zone, and Berlin. More specifically, more importantly, to the American zone of Berlin.
“The Soviets have blocked the autobahn at Helmstedt—at the border between East and West Germany. It’s just over one hundred miles—one hundred seventy kilometers—from Helmstedt to the American zone of Berlin. If the Air Force people can get past the Helmstedt roadblock, they can be at Tempelhof in under three hours. Once there, they will immediately put the control tower into operation.”
“Sir, what air traffic are they going to control?” Frade asked.
“At first light, Piper Cubs—L-4s—flying between General White’s Division Rear, on the Elbe, and Berlin. At about oh-nine-hundred hours, an Air Forces C-54, having flown out of Frankfurt, will contact Tempelhof Air Forces Field and ask for approach and landing instructions. After it discharges its cargo, it will again contact the tower, to file a flight plan back to Rhein-Main. And once it crosses the East/ West Border, a South American Airways Constellation will be cleared by Rhein-Main to proceed to the U.S. air base at Tempelhof.
“The idea is that not only do we have a right to fly into Berlin, but we are in fact doing it.”
“Sir, with respect,” Frade said, “it seems that scenario depends almost entirely on this Air Forces captain being able to talk his way past the Russians blocking the highway.”
“In other words, ‘Is there a Plan B?’ Yes, there is. In the event the Mobile Control Tower can’t get past the Russians at Helmstedt—it may, as the Air Forces captain is actually one of us, a bright chap, and actually a lieutenant colonel, and we may be lucky—but if we’re not, an Air Forces C-54 will take off at oh-eight-hundred from Rhein-Main and head for Tempelhof. It will have aboard air traffic controllers and their equipment. And me. Once that’s up and running, we shift to clearing the SAA Constellation for flight to Tempelhof.”
“And what if the Russians shoot down the C-54?” Frade asked.
“We anticipate that—probability eighty percent—they will attempt to turn the C-54 with threatening aerial moves by their fighters. We anticipate that these fighters will be YAK-3s.”
Peter von Wachtstein offered: “If you get in a fight with one or more of them, Dooley, get him to chase you in a steep climb, and then, in a steep dive, turn inside him. Try to get his engine from the side; it’s well armored on the bottom.”
“What makes you think Dooley might get in a fight with them?” Mattingly asked.
“You’ve fought YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“I was shot down twice by YAK-3s,” von Wachtstein said, “before I learned how to fight them. Put your stream of fire into his side.”
“I hadn’t planned to get into the rules of engagement yet, but since the subject has come up,” Mattingly said, “Colonel Dooley, you will select four of your best—and by best, I mean most experienced, levelheaded—pilots and by oh-seven-hundred tomorrow brief them on what is expected of them.
“You will escort the C-54 from the border across East Germany to Berlin. I’ve got an information packet for you with more details, but briefly here, on takeoff from Rhein-Main, the C-54 will circle the field until attaining an altitude of ten thousand feet and a cruising speed of two hundred twenty-five miles per hour—as fast as a C-54 can fly. General Halebury told me that inasmuch as fuel consumption is not a factor—it’s right at two hundred seventy miles from Rhein-Main to Tempelhof—that extra speed would be justified both by reducing flight time and making it easier for the faster P-38s to stay with it.
“The C-54 will then fly northeast on a straight line to Berlin. The compass heading will be forty-eight-point-four degrees.
“This is your call, Dooley, but General Halebury suggested that you place your aircraft two thousand feet above and that far behind the C-54. This will, the general suggests, place you in the best position to interdict any Russian aircraft intending to divert the C-54 from its course or altitude.”
“Sir, with respect, General Halebury is not a fighter pilot,” Dooley said. “I’d like to go a little higher.”
“Well, then fuck him,” Frade offered. “What does Halebury know? Do it your way, Dooley.”
Mattingly’s head snapped angrily to Frade. But when he saw the smile on everyone’s face, including that of General Gehlen, he didn’t say what he had originally intended to say.
Instead, he said, “I suppose I should have known it was too much to hope that you could contain your wit.”
“Did this general have any sage advice as to how Dooley and his guys are supposed to interdict the YAKs?” Frade asked. “You’re talking about bluffing them, right?”
“I think I’d rephrase that,” Mattingly said. “What Dooley and his aircraft are going to have to do, presuming the YAKs appear, is make them think it would be ill-advised for them to threaten the C-54 by flying dangerously close to it.”
“And the way I’m supposed to do that is fly dangerously close to the YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“I don’t see any other way to make them behave, do you?” Frade asked seriously.
“The Russians will be under specific orders,” von Wachtstein said. “If those orders are to shoot down the C-54, they’ll do just that. Without warning. If their orders are to harass the C-54 with the thought that might make the C-54 pilot turn around, that’s all they’ll do. Unless, of course, there’s someone very senior in one of the YAKs, in which case they would follow his lead.”
General Gehlen suddenly spoke up: “I agree with Graf von Wachtstein’s assessment of the Russian military mind. And I would suggest further that when they are faced with a force that is capable of causing great damage, they will back down.”
“Unless, of course, General,” Mattingly said, “they come out to meet the C-54 with the intention of shooting it down to show us how unwelcome we are in Berlin.”
“That is true,” Gehlen admitted.
“Under what circumstances can I fire at the YAKs?” Dooley asked.
“If they fire at you,” Mattingly said. “Or the C-54.”
“Or if they even look like they’re going to fire at the Connie,” Frade said. “Which brings us to that: I might have missed it, but I didn’t hear you ask, Colonel Mattingly, if SAA is willing to go along with your plan to give the Russians the finger.”
“Are you?” Mattingly asked simply.
“Not my call, Colonel.”
“Then whose?”
“Delgano’s, both as SAA chief pilot and also—more importantly—as the senior Argentine officer here. Probably the senior Argentine officer in Europe. What about it, mi coronel?”
“Oddly enough,” Delgano said, getting to his feet, “just before we left Buenos Aires, my general . . .” He paused, looked at General Gehlen, and then went on: “General de Brigada Alejandro Martín, chief of the Ethical Standards Office of the Argentine Ministry of Defense, which is the official euphemism for the Argentine intelligence and counterintelligence service, took me aside and made that point to me.
“He told me that I would be the senior officer of the Ejército Argentino in Europe, and further that inasmuch as the German Reich no longer exists and that Germany is now governed by SHAEF, with which Argentina has no diplomatic relations, the Argentine diplomats in Berlin and those we would bring here have no status beyond that of people with diplomatic passports.
“What I am trying to say is that as I outrank the lieutenant colonel we have as liaison officer to SHAEF, I find myself the senior Argentine officer in Europe period.
“As such, General Martín told me that—no offense intended, Cletus—should Colonel Frade be about to do anything which in my judgment would be detrimental to the interests of my country, I was not only authorized but duty bound to take whatever measures required to keep him from doing it, including placing him under arrest and taking control of the Constellation.”
Mattingly made eye contact with Delgano, then nodded and said, “So you don’t think you’re going to be able to participate in this. I understand your position, Colonel—”
“Please let me continue,” Delgano said.
“Sorry,” Mattingly said.
“I was having many thoughts as I listened to all this . . .” He paused and smiled, then said: “Including the thought that if I had shot Colonel Frade when I first met him, as I really wanted to, I wouldn’t be in this awkward position tonight.
“Among other factors bearing on this situation is that I know General Martín shares your opinion, General Gehlen, of the danger the Soviet Union poses to the world, including Argentina. When I told him that Colonel Frade intended to offer your men sanctuary in Argentina, in accordance with the deal struck by you and Mr. Dulles, his response was, ‘Thank God for people like Dulles and Gehlen.’
“And since your people have been in Argentina, my officers and I have had many conversations with them. Primarily with el Teniente Coronel Niedermeyer, but with many others, including some of the Nazis. These conversations convinced us all that the threat posed by the Communists is far worse than we understood.
“For these and other reasons, I have concluded that what you propose, vis-à-vis challenging the Bolsheviks, is in no way inimical to the interests of the Argentine Republic. I will be aboard the SAA Constellation when it flies to Berlin.”
“Thank you,” Mattingly said.
“However,” Delgano added, “I don’t think I have the right to order my officers to participate.”
Peralta and Vega shot to their feet and stood to attention, obviously waiting for permission to speak.
“Junior officer first,” Delgano said, pointing to Vega.
“Mi coronel, where you go, I will go. I am surprised there was a question in your mind.”
“Thank you,” Delgano said. “Mario?”
“Mi coronel,” Peralta said, “I will consider it an honor to be aboard Ciudad de Rosario when we fly her to Berlin.”
“Thank you,” Delgano said. “Frankly, I expected no less of you. Be seated.”
Mattingly then said, “Everybody is aware, right, that there is a real chance you will be shot down?”
“Mi coronel,” Delgano said. “If that were to happen, and I shall pray that it does not, it would certainly open the eyes of the Argentine people to the threat the godless Communists pose, wouldn’t it?”
Frade had a very unkind thought.
The naïve goddamn fool thinks he’s Sir Galahad bravely facing a hero’s death in the defense of his country.
And the other two are eager to jump on their horses, unsheath their swords, and ride out with him to die nobly while trying to slay the dragon.
The problem is that Delgano and Peralta and Vega have no idea what the dragon really looks like. None of them has ever been shot at, or seen an aircraft enveloped in flames—much less been in one that’s on fire—or seen an out-of-control, blazing aircraft turn into a huge ball of flame either before or after it crashed into the ground.
“There is one other factor bearing on our little problem,” Frade said sarcastically.
“Which is, Colonel Frade?” Mattingly asked, his tone suggesting he hadn’t heard the sarcastic tone or was ignoring it.
“What about the Nazis in Berlin whom some people—including me and the Secret Service—think Argentina’s secretary of Labor and Retirement Plans intends to fly out of Berlin to sanctuary in Argentina?”
“Who’s the secretary of whatever you just said?” Mattingly asked.
“Tell me about that, please,” Gehlen said.
“El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón,” Frade explained. “He’s behind this rescue-the-diplomats operation, which I don’t think has anything to do with rescuing diplomats.”
“What do you think the purpose is, Colonel?” Gehlen asked.
“Sir, I believe—and so does, apparently, Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau—that the purpose of the rescue-the-diplomats mission is to bring some Nazis, probably high-ranking ones, from Germany to Argentina.”
“I can’t agree that it’s the primary purpose,” Gehlen said. “But I agree that it has something to do with getting former high-ranking officials of the Third Reich out of Germany. I wasn’t aware of Morgenthau’s interest. Are you sure about that, Colonel Frade?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely. When we were at the Val de Cans air base in Brazil, a planeload of Secret Service agents was there waiting for clearance to come here. The commanding general told me that agents had been roaming the base asking junior officers and enlisted men if they’d seen anything that looked like it could be a Nazi smuggling operation. For what it’s worth, they were traveling in an Air Forces C-69—a Constellation—the same massive aircraft that I flew over here. The usual means of flying government officials to Europe is by the much slower method of C-54s across the North Atlantic.”
“Do you think Mr. Morgenthau has any suspicions vis-à-vis my people, Colonel Frade?”
“I have no reason to think so, sir. But that does not mean we’re not operating on the possibility he might.”
Mattingly put in: “In other words, he’s fishing? The Secret Service agents were fishing?”
“Yes, sir. At this point, that’s what I would guess.”
General Gehlen said, “When I heard about your flight, Colonel Frade . . . Are you interested in my uninformed scenario?”
“Yes, sir,” Mattingly and Frade said speaking on top of each other.
Gehlen nodded once, then went on: “I wasn’t aware of the OSS connection. I wondered what the real purpose of the flight might be. I didn’t think it had anything to do with rescuing diplomats. And what I decided was most likely was that since actually taking former Nazi officials aboard the aircraft on its return flight would be dangerous, the Argentine diplomats probably were carrying with them in their luggage a large number of passports.”
“Passports?” Clete blurted.
“Yes. Blank passports. Argentine certainly, but probably also Uruguayan and Paraguayan as well. Someone equipped with such a passport wouldn’t be afforded the luxury of a twenty-four-hour flight to Buenos Aires, but he could make his way to a port in a neutral country—Sweden, for example, or Spain—and there board a ship bound for South America. It would take a little longer, but it would reduce his chances of being questioned.”
“Passports never entered my mind,” Clete said.
“That’s only a possibility,” Gehlen said.
“If someone—these Secret Service agents,” Mattingly said thoughtfully, and then interrupted himself. “So far as I know—and I would be on the list of people to be notified—Secretary Morgenthau has not told SHAEF he’s sending the Secret Service.
“What I was about to say is that if somehow it came out that these Argentine diplomats have, say, two hundred passports with them, they would say, ‘Of course, that’s what embassies and consulates do, issue passports to their nationals, if the original has expired or been lost.’”
“Well, the passports went right over my head,” Clete said. “But the other thought that I had was that no one—certainly not Argentine customs—is going to go through the luggage of heroic, just-rescued diplomats to see if they might contain a couple of kilos of diamonds.”
General Gehlen said: “If we rate my passport scenario on a one-to-ten scale and it’s a five, then I would say the transport of valuables—or even currency—is an eight or nine. Allen Dulles told me that, as it became increasingly apparent that Germany was losing the way, the Swiss became increasingly concerned that one could accuse them of helping the Nazis conceal funds.”
“Where are Morgenthau’s Secret Service agents now, Clete?” Mattingly asked. “Do you know?”
Frade shrugged.
“General Bendick told me they were supposed to be on the ground at Val de Cans only long enough to take on fuel, but then there was a message saying to wait for further orders. They were still there when we took off. I have no idea where they might be.”
“There’s something about these Secret Service agents that’s not right,” Mattingly said. “Something that bothers me. It goes without saying that Eisenhower—SHAEF—would do everything possible to keep Nazis from escaping to South America. And SHAEF has the assets to do so.”
“And Eisenhower would be unlikely to ask for Secretary Morgenthau’s assistance?” Gehlen asked.
“Exactly,” Mattingly said.
“And if Morgenthau offered Eisenhower his Secret Service agents?” Gehlen asked.
“Ike would say, ‘Thank you just the same, Mr. Secretary, but I can handle this myself.’”
“Which leads us . . . where?”
“I’m not trying to suggest that Ike is in any way lackadaisical about arresting and bringing to trial the Nazis,” Mattingly said. “But I don’t think it would be unfair to suggest that Morgenthau doesn’t think Ike has a passion—the necessary, in Morgenthau’s judgment, passion—to deal with the Nazis. Morgenthau’s passion is that of a Jew, and God knows they have the right to be passionate.”
“So Morgenthau is sending assistance, whether or not General Eisenhower wants it?” Gehlen asked softly.
Mattingly nodded. “I think there would have to be a subterfuge. Morgenthau knows he can’t challenge the authority of the Supreme Commander. But some second assistant deputy secretary of the Treasury could take it upon himself to send a planeload of financial experts—who just happened to be Secret Service agents—to look into the financial records of the Third Reich. This would not come to Eisenhower’s personal attention, but rather to a one-or two-star in military government, who would presume it was authorized—”
“And some Air Forces brigadier,” Frade interjected, “sympathetic to Morgenthau’s problem could arrange for the Air Forces Constellation . . .”
“Which would fly via Brazil . . .” Mattingly picked up.
“Once someone in Europe thought it was time—in other words, safe—for the Connie to arrive in Berlin . . .”
“Or Frankfurt . . .”
“Which would explain the ‘hold in place’ message . . .” Frade said.
“Until SHAEF completes its move to the I.G. Farben building,” Mattingly concluded. “When the arrival of one more airplane would not cause comment.”
Mattingly looked at Gehlen, who was smiling.
“You’re amused, General?”
Gehlen nodded.
“By the way you finish one another’s thoughts,” Gehlen said. “Otto Niedermeyer and I were—how do I put it?—smiled at when we did that at Abwehr Ost.”
“You weren’t smiling at our scenario?” Mattingly asked.
Gehlen shook his head.
“Actually,” he said, “your scenario normally would have wiped away any smile. Despite what Colonel Frade said before, I think we have to consider that somehow Morgenthau has heard of the arrangement I made with Mr. Dulles. Let me go down that path. If Morgenthau has heard of it, I think he would presume that General Eisenhower knows all about it.”
“Ike knows nothing about it,” Mattingly said.
“Morgenthau would presume he does,” Gehlen insisted. “So how can Morgenthau—who I presume you all have heard wants to shoot the senior one hundred Nazis when and where found, and who wants to turn Germany into an agrarian society, and who is not known to be especially critical of the Soviets—stop something he truly believes is evil?
“He would have to go to President Truman, and he would have to go to him with proof. Since Eisenhower is involved, he would need proof that Eisenhower is certainly not going to be willing to provide. So he would have to get that proof himself. Thus, the quiet dispatch of the financial experts to look into the finances of the Third Reich.”
“How long can we reasonably expect to keep the deal secret?” Frade asked.
“Presuming OSS isn’t shut down tomorrow, not for long,” Mattingly said. “And if we are shut down, for an even shorter period.”
“So what’s going to happen?” Frade asked.
“Presuming that OSS is not shut down between now and then, on May twenty-second—which is three days from now—General Gehlen and half a dozen of his officers are going to be found and arrested in Oberusel—not far from here—by agents of the Counterintelligence Corps.
“When he—they—are interrogated—none of them, by the way, are on the Most Wanted Nazis lists—they will report that when defeat became inevitable, they burned all the records of Abwehr Ost and then made their way to refuge in what they knew was going to be West Germany.
“The CIC investigation will be thorough and lengthy, as they will not believe him. Their arrest will be reported to SHAEF, and I suspect that SHAEF will send its own interrogators to Oberusel, and I know the OSS will. The CIC and the OSS and everyone else will ultimately and reluctantly conclude—and so inform SHAEF—that the general and his officers have nothing of value to relate, and further, that since there is no suggestion that they were anything but German officers doing their duty, they are entitled to be treated as such. They will enter the POW system. From which, after having been cleared by the appropriate De-Nazification Board, they will eventually be returned to civilian life.
“While this is going on, the films of all their records, which have been buried in the Austrian Alps, will be recovered by us—the OSS—and moved to Bavaria, to a former monastery called Grünau. The general’s men have been told to make their way there. It will be headquarters—if that word fits—of the Gehlen organization.
“The Vatican has very kindly made the monastery available to us without asking any questions—frankly, in return for past services rendered, and in expectation of services to be rendered in the future—but they regrettably can’t afford to make the monastery livable and they are not in a position to provide logistical services, such as dining facilities.
“Until earlier this evening, we thought the funds to take care of these expenses would arrive here in your capable hands, Colonel Frade,” Mattingly concluded.
“If I had been told . . .” Frade responded, and then stopped. “I should’ve asked myself what that half million was for, should’ve thought it through.”
“That would have been helpful,” Mattingly agreed. “But no lasting harm done, presuming you can get it over here quickly.”
“Stein, get word to Buenos Aires to have a Connie ready to fly back here three hours after we get back,” Frade ordered.
“I can’t do that until we’re airborne tomorrow, Colonel,” Stein replied.
“Questions would be asked if you did that, Cletus,” Delgano said.
After a moment’s thought, Frade said, “You’re right. I don’t seem to be playing with a full deck, do I?” He paused. “And you and Mario and Vega will be expected to participate in the festivities surrounding the return of the heroic diplomats.” He paused again. “So how about this? At the last minute before the next scheduled SAA flight takes off for Lisbon—and I mean the last minute, when the passengers are aboard—Peter and I get aboard. We’ll be halfway to Brazil before somebody starts asking questions.”
“And then what?” Mattingly asked.
“In Lisbon, we disembark the passengers, take on fuel, and then Hansel and I fly the Connie to Frankfurt, the way we did just now.” He paused, then asked, “Why wouldn’t that work?”
“Clete, when we get to Berlin, I’m going to Pomerania,” von Wachtstein said. “And I don’t think, as badly as that money is needed, that you can wait for me to return.”
“Excuse me, von Wachtstein,” Gehlen said. “What did you just say?”
“I’m going to Pomerania,” von Wachtstein said.
“That would be tantamount to committing suicide,” Gehlen said.
“I feel duty bound to see my people,” von Wachtstein said. “To see what I can do for them.”
“I can only infer that you have absolutely no idea what the situation is in Soviet-occupied Germany,” Gehlen said.
“Sir, that’s what I have to find out,” von Wachtstein said.
“Tell him, please, General Gehlen,” Mattingly said.
Gehlen looked at Mattingly, obviously collecting his thoughts.
“Why don’t you start with what happened to von Stauffenberg?” Mattingly suggested. “To the von Stauffenbergs? And his father? I think everyone would profit from knowing.”
General Gehlen thought it over for a long moment.
Finally, after nodding softly, then clearing his throat, General Gehlen somberly began: “When Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg was released from hospital in Munich after recovering from the grievous wounds he suffered when his car was strafed in Tunisia—he lost an eye, his right hand, and two fingers of his left hand—he was assigned to the staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the OKW.”
Frade and Dooley locked eyes for a moment.
“More precisely,” Gehlen continued,” he became part of that relatively small number of officers, some senior—Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, for example—and some relatively junior, who had frequent access to Hitler, especially when Hitler was at his East Prussian command post, Wolfsschanze.
“On July twentieth of last year, von Stauffenberg left a bomb in a briefcase under the map table in a small outside building, the Lagebarracke—in other words, not in the Führer Bunker—set the timer, and found an excuse to leave the building.
“He waited until he heard the bomb detonate, then flew to Berlin in a small Heinkel aircraft. He and his adjutant then went to the OKW building on Bendler Strasse, where they learned that while some aspects of the coup had been successful—in Paris, General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, one of the conspirators, had already arrested most SS officers in the city—the most important facet, the death of Hitler, had not been realized.
“General Friedrich Fromm, one of the conspirators, telephoned Wolfsschanze and spoke with Field Marshal Keitel, who told him Hitler was alive. Fromm, thinking to save his own neck, ordered the arrest of fellow conspirators General Friedrich Olbricht and von Stauffenberg. Instead, they arrested him and locked him in his office.
“Himmler, meanwhile, had contacted Major Otto Ernst Remer, who commanded the Wachbataillon Grossdeutschland in Berlin, told him of the failed assassination attempt, told him that he was now a colonel by order of the Führer, and ordered him to, quote, deal with the traitors at Bendler Strasse, end quote.
“Colonel Remer responded to his orders with enthusiasm. He and his men arrived at Bendler Strasse around twenty-two hundred hours and started shooting. Colonel von Stauffenberg was wounded in the left arm. The conspirators had no choice but to surrender and did so.
“General Fromm, still trying to save his own skin, promptly convened a summary court-martial, which promptly found von Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Mertz, Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, and Lieutenant Werner von Haeften guilty of high treason and ordered their execution.
“Shortly after midnight, they were led, one by one, before a stack of sandbags in the parking lot and executed by SS submachine-gun fire. Just before his executioners fired, von Stauffenberg shouted, ‘Long live our holy Germany.’”
“My God!” von Wachtstein said.
“In a sense, Graf von Wachtstein, they were fortunate,” Gehlen said.
Clete noticed that Gehlen had just called von Wachtstein “Graf” and then remembered he had done so before.
“Fortunate?” Delgano asked incredulously.
“The SS immediately began to arrest anyone suspected of being involved,” Gehlen went on. “The total was approximately seven thousand people. They missed some of the guilty—”
“Including General Reinhard Gehlen,” Mattingly interjected dryly.
“—and arrested many people who were completely innocent,” Gehlen went on as if he hadn’t heard Mattingly’s comment. “Accused officers were denied courts-martial and tried before the Volksgerichthof, whose chief judge was a man named Roland Freisler. Freisler permitted the accused no defense, and usually had the accused standing before the court in uniforms stripped of all insignia, buttons, belts, and braces. They had to try to hold their trousers up with their hands. When Freisler screamed at them to stand to attention, the trousers of course fell down and the accused faced the court in their underdrawers. Not a single person brought before the Volksgerichthof—there were two thousand—was acquitted.
“On August 10, 1944, three weeks or so after the bomb failed to eliminate Hitler, Graf von Stauffenberg’s brother, Berthold, Count von Schulenberg, and three others—including Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein—were tried and convicted of high treason and hung with despicable cruelty that afternoon in the execution hut in Berlin-Ploetzensee.”
“What does that mean, General?” Delgano asked. “‘Despicable cruelty’?”
Clete thought: For God’s sake, Gehlen, don’t answer that!
He glanced at Mattingly, whose face showed he was thinking the same thing.
“They were taken to the execution hut in an inner courtyard of the building,” Gehlen went on matter-of-factly, “where they were stripped of the clothing they had been wearing since their arrest. Their hands and feet were bound. Wire—something like piano wire—was looped around their necks, then around hooks—something like the hooks one sees in a butcher’s shop—on the wall.
“They then were strangled by their own weight. They took two or three minutes to lose consciousness, whereupon they were revived and the strangulation process begun again. This was repeated four or five times until death finally occurred.”
Clete looked at Peter’s face. It was white and contorted.
You didn’t have to get into the fucking details, you sonofabitch!
“The hangings—strangulations?—were filmed by SS motion picture photographers at the request of Hitler, who wished to see them. I understand he has watched the films over and over.
“All properties of the conspirators and their relatives were confiscated. Just about everybody in the von Stauffenberg family was immediately arrested,” Gehlen went on. “Von Stauffenberg’s mother, Caroline, was in solitary confinement from July 23, 1944, until the end of the war. Claus von Stauffenberg’s widow, Nina, was held in the Alexanderplatz prison in Berlin. She gave birth there, a daughter named Konstanze, in January 1945—”
“Where is Nina—the countess—now?” von Wachtstein interrupted.
“May I suggest, Graf von Wachtstein, that you hold your questions until I finish?”
“Excuse me,” von Wachtstein said.
“The third brother, Alexander von Stauffenberg, was brought back from Athens to Berlin. Even when it became apparent that he was not involved in the conspiracy, he was nevertheless arrested and held in various concentration camps.
“Von Stauffenberg’s cousin Caesar von Hofacker was condemned to death on August thirtieth but kept alive for interrogation—which was unsuccessful—about Rommel’s and Speidel’s involvement in the conspiracy, after which, on December 20, 1944, he was executed in the manner I described.
“There are other details, but I think I have covered pretty much everything. You had questions, Herr Graf?”
“Where is the Countess von Stauffenberg now? Claus’s widow, Nina?” von Wachtstein asked.
“We know only that she escaped both the SS mass execution of the prisoners in Alexanderplatz prison as the Russians drew close and the arrest of the prisoners still living by the Russians when they took the prison. We can only presume—”
“The von Stauffenbergs have a house in Zehlendorf,” von Wachtstein said. “Perhaps she is trying to get there.”
“Had a house, Herr Graf,” Gehlen said. “As I said before, all von Stauffenberg property—all the property of all the conspirators, including that of your late father, Herr Graf, was seized by the Third Reich.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“The property of the late Admiral Canaris was also seized,” Gehlen went on. “His house in Zehlendorf has been requisitioned by General White for the use of the OSS.”
“General White, von Wachtstein,” Mattingly offered, “is doing what he can to locate Countess von Stauffenberg and the baby. If they can be found, White will find them. When that happens, she will be taken to the Canaris house and placed under the protection of the OSS.”
“How is the OSS going to protect her?” Frade asked. “We have people in Berlin?”
“Did you see Master Sergeant Dunwiddie when we arrived here?” Mattingly said. “That huge black man they call ‘Tiny’? He was posting the guard.”
Frade nodded.
“He and eight of his men, most of them at least as large as Tiny, will be on the C-54 with me tomorrow,” Mattingly said. “Tiny is a very interesting man. His great-grandfather charged up San Juan Hill in Cuba with the Tenth Cavalry. Given the slightest chance, Tiny will tell you the Tenth made it up the hill before Colonel Teddy Roosevelt’s First Volunteer Cavalry did.”
Gehlen’s face showed that he could have done without the history lesson.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know, Herr Graf?” Gehlen asked.
Von Wachtstein seemed to be struggling to find his voice.
Finally, he did, and asked calmly, “General, do you know what
happened to the remains? I’d like to take my father’s body to Schloss Wachtstein.”
“Weren’t you listening, Herr Graf, when I told you that the Schloss—all of your land, all your holdings—have been seized?” Gehlen said. “Let me carry that a little further: When the Soviets took the castle—I presume you know it was being used as a recovery hospital for amputees—”
“I knew that, General. I was there.”
“—they executed the patients who had not been in condition to leave their beds and flee. The nurses and the doctors who had remained behind to treat them were sent to Russia. After, of course, the nurses had been repeatedly raped.”
“With respect, Herr General, my question was regarding the location of my father’s remains.”
“If you had been in the castle when the Russians took it, Herr Graf, and they learned who you were, you would have been hung by your ankles and your epidermis would have been cut from your body. Your skinned remains would have been left hanging so that the people in the village would get the message that the regime of the aristocracy was over and that the Red Army was in charge.”
“They actually skinned people alive?” Clete asked incredulously.
“SS officers and members of the nobility,” Mattingly said. “I’ve seen—what?—maybe twenty confirmed reports.”
“And my father’s remains, Herr General? What can you tell me?” von Wachtstein asked evenly.
“The best information I have, Herr Graf, is that they were taken to the Invalidenfriedhof cemetery and placed in an unmarked pit. They were then burned, some caustic added to speed decomposition, and then, when there were perhaps a hundred corpses in the pit, it was closed. The reasoning of the SS was that the more corpses in the grave, the harder it would be to identify any individual body if there was later an attempt at exhumation.”
After a long moment, von Wachtstein softly said, “Thank you, Herr General.”
There was silence in the room. People stared straight ahead, at their hands, at the ceiling, anywhere but at von Wachtstein.
Suddenly, Peter got to his feet and marched to the bar. He stood over it, supporting himself on both arms, his head lowered.
Frade got up and went toward him. Before he reached the bar, Dooley got up and followed him.
The three stood side by side at the bar, Dooley and Frade erect, von Wachtstein still leaning on it.
After a very long moment, von Wachtstein said, without looking at either Frade or Dooley, or even raising his head, “I would really like to have a drink. But if we are flying to Berlin in the morning, I suppose that’s not a very good idea.”
“Colonel Dooley,” Frade said, “if you would be good enough to set brandy snifters on the bar, I will pour that Rémy Martin I see.”
Frade poured three-quarters of an inch of cognac into each glass.
“Hansel,” Frade said, and after a moment when von Wachtstein raised his head to look at him, Frade held up his glass and proclaimed, “To a fellow warrior I never had the privilege to know: Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein.”
Von Wachtstein pushed himself erect and looked first at Clete and then at Dooley. Then he picked up his brandy snifter and lifted it.
“And since we get only one of these,” Frade said, “I suppose we better include your pal von Stauffenberg in those warriors we never got to know.”
“Yeah,” Dooley said.
“My father would have liked both of you,” von Wachtstein said. “But I’m not so sure about Claus. He was a Swabian, and they’re even stuffier than Prussians. I always had the feeling Claus thought fighter pilots should be kept with the other animals in the stables.”
He touched the rim of his glass to theirs, and then—simultaneously, as if someone had barked the command Drink!—all three raised their glasses to their mouths and drained them.
When they started to return to the table, they saw that everyone at it was standing at attention.
Transient Officers’ Quarters Rhein-Main Air Base Frankfurt am Main, Germany 2305 19 May 1945
Colonel Mattingly, saying that he wanted to check on what had happened at the Russian roadblock at Helmstedt on the autobahn, dropped Frade, von Wachtstein, Stein, Boltitz, and Enrico at the door to the transient officers’ quarters, then got behind the wheel of the Horch.
Accustomed to the low-range gears, he pressed heavily on the accelerator as he let out the clutch. The huge Horch, its tires squealing, jumped into motion.
There was a small foyer in the building. There was a window in one wall—now closed by a roll-down metal curtain—behind which a desk clerk had once presided. The room was now sparsely furnished with a small table—on which sat a telephone—and two small wooden armchairs.
Both chairs were occupied by men who rose to their feet when Frade and the others walked in.
They were wearing U.S. Army officer Class A uniforms, a green tunic and pink trousers. Clete first noticed there was no insignia of rank on the epaulets, and that the lapels held only the gold letters U.S. but no branch insignia below that.
Something about those gold letters triggered curiosity in Clete’s brain. Mattingly, saying they would need them in Berlin, had furnished everybody—from an astonishingly full supply room—with “Officer equivalent civilian employee uniforms” just before they had left Schlosshotel Kronberg. The green tunics had small embroidered insignia—the letters U.S. within a triangle within a square sewn to the lapels, and a larger version of that insignia sewn to the right shoulder. They were all stuffed into a U.S. Army duffel bag, which Enrico now carried hanging from his shoulder.
Why do I think the Secret Service has appeared?
“Which one of you is Cletus H. Frade?” one of the men demanded.
Whatever response he expected, he didn’t get it. Instead, he found himself looking at the muzzle of Enrico’s Remington Model 11 twelve-gauge riot gun and then listening to the metallic chunk the weapon made as a double-ought buckshot shotgun shell was chambered.
“Secret Service! Secret Service!” the man said excitedly.
“What?”
“We are special agents of the United States Secret Service!”
“Can you prove it?”
“I have credentials in my pocket.”
“Get them. Slowly,” Frade ordered, and then pointed at the second man. “And while he’s doing that, you drop to your knees and then lock your hands behind your head.”
The man, mingled concern and disbelief on his face, hesitated.
Frade snapped, “Are you deaf?”
The man dropped to his knees. The first man carefully took a small leather folder from his breast pocket and slowly offered it to Frade.
Frade examined it carefully, then tossed it to Stein.
“Secret Service, huh? What the hell are you doing in Germany? I thought what you people did was chase counterfeiters.”
“We are on a special mission for Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau,” the first special agent said.
“Looking for German counterfeiters?” Frade asked incredulously.
“Looking for German Nazis,” the man said.
“Well, they shouldn’t be hard to find,” Frade said. “There’s a bunch of them in Germany.”
“These credentials appear bona fide, Commander,” Stein said.
“Show them to von Wachtstein,” Clete ordered.
“Commander?” the man on his knees asked.
“I don’t recall giving you permission to ask questions,” Frade said, and then asked, “Are you armed?”
“Yes, of course we’re armed,” the first special agent said.
“Well, then, very slowly, take whatever you’re carrying from its holster, lay it on the floor, and then step away.”
“For God’s sake, Colonel Frade, I just showed you proof that we’re special agents of the United States Secret Service!” the first man said.
He had regained some—but by no means all—of his composure.
“Weapons on the ground, please,” Frade ordered. “When you’ve done that, we’ll see if we can make some sense of this.”
Each special agent produced a Smith & Wesson revolver and laid it on the floor, then backed away from it. The special agent on his knees did so with more than a little difficulty—it is difficult to back up when one is on one’s knees—but finally managed to put six feet between him and his pistol.
Frade then made an imperial gesture, allowing him to stand.
“Pick up their weapons, Stein,” Frade ordered, and then, in Spanish, ordered Enrico to take the Secret Service men to his room.
Enrico gestured with the shotgun.
When Frade saw on their faces that neither Special Service agent understood Spanish, he made the translation.
“I just told him to take you to my room,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to come across this happy scene. Through the door and up the steps.”
Frade sat on his bed and motioned for the Secret Service agents to stand against the wall.
“All right, Colonel Frade,” the Secret Service agent who had spoken first and had now recovered his composure said. “Don’t you think this charade has now gone far enough?”
Frade smiled at him.
“We know all about you, Colonel . . .”
Somehow, I don’t think so.
“. . . including, for example, the half million dollars you brought to Germany with you.”
Well, I don’t think you got that information from anybody else in the OSS except good ol’ Colonel Richmond C. Flowers, USA.
That sonofabitch!
“What did you say your name was?” Frade asked.
“Stevenson. Supervisory Special Agent Jerome T. Stevenson.”
“Well, Jerome, Boy Scout’s Honor, I didn’t bring a half million dollars from anywhere. Where’d you get that? What was I supposed to be going to do with all that money? And what makes you think I’m a colonel?”
“You’re going to have to turn us loose sooner or later, Colonel Frade,” Stevenson said.
“That, or shoot you for interfering with an OSS operation,” Frade said.
“Smuggling Nazis into Argentina is an OSS operation? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?”
“So, that’s what this is all about. What else did that asshole Flowers tell you?”
He saw the look on Stevenson’s face.
Bingo! Flowers is the one who ran off at the mouth.
Stevenson said: “You’re denying that you are assisting in the escape of Nazis to Argentina?”
Frade replied: “Supervisory Secret Service Agent Stevenson, say hello to OSS Special Agent Stein. Show Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson your credentials, Siggie.”
Stein produced his spurious OSS credentials and showed them to Stevenson.
“Now, Jerome, if I told you that Stein is a devout, practicing Hebrew who lost many members of his family to the concentration camp ovens after he barely got out of the Third Reich alive, what would you say the odds are that Siggie would be helping Nazis escape to anywhere?”
Stevenson, who looked more than a little confused, didn’t reply.
“Rephrasing the question, Jerome. What would you say the odds are that Special Agent Stein adds a certain enthusiasm to his present tasks that a non-Jew simply couldn’t muster?”
“You’re suggesting that what you’re doing is stopping Nazis from escaping?”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’m telling you that. And what it looks like to me is that you and your pal here are about to screw things up for us. The Secret Service was not on the list of cooperating agencies that SHAEF gave me. Which makes me suspect that you’re not telling me the truth, Jerome, which naturally makes me wonder what the hell the truth is.”
“The truth, Colonel Frade,” Stevenson said, “is that we have been sent here by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to prevent Nazis from escaping to South America.”
“Then why didn’t SHAEF tell me that?”
Stevenson didn’t answer.
“SHAEF doesn’t know Morgenthau sent you? Is that what you’re telling me—or not telling me, as the case may be?”
Again, Stevenson didn’t answer directly. He instead said, “Colonel Frade, when OSS has been disbanded, as I’m sure you know it is about to be, it would be in your interest to have friends in the Secret Service.”
“The OSS is about to be disbanded? I never heard that.”
“Take my word on it,” Stevenson said. “You’re about to be homeless, and it is not wise for homeless people to interfere with Secretary Morgenthau.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want to interfere with Secretary Morgenthau. So I’ll tell you what I am going to do: I’m going to move this problem up the chain of command. Do you know what that means?”
Again, Stevenson didn’t reply.
“What that means, Jerome, is that we’re going to wait here for my boss. He’s pretty far up the chain of command at SHAEF, and he’s in charge of keeping Nazis from escaping to South America. Maybe he knows something I don’t.”
Stevenson said nothing.
“He should be here in just a few minutes,” Frade said. “And while we’re waiting, Jerome, I think you and your pal should take off your shoes and socks and your trousers and underpants.”
“What?” Stevenson demanded incredulously.
“That should keep you from trying to run away,” Frade said.
“Fuck you!” Stevenson said.
“Well, if you’re shy, Jerome, I can have Siggie and Hansel pour water all over you. That would keep you from running, and you and your pal could keep your undersized equipment secret.”
“Frade, you’re going to pay for this!”
“Siggie, there’s a water pitcher under the sink,” Frade said, pointing.
Stein had just about filled the water pitcher when Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson started taking off his shoes.
Colonel Robert Mattingly walked into the room fifteen minutes later. On his heels was Master Sergeant Dunwiddie, now wearing an officer equivalent civilian employee uniform, and with a Thompson submachine gun slung from his shoulder.
Stevenson’s eyes widened at the sight of him.
“Good, you’re still up,” Mattingly said. “The convoy couldn’t get past the Russians.” He paused and then asked, “What the hell?”
“Sir, the fat one with his hands covering his crotch tells me that he’s a Secret Service agent sent here by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to keep Nazis from escaping to South America. You ever hear anything about that?”
“No,” Mattingly said. “I haven’t.”
“Tell the colonel what you told me, Jerome,” Frade said.
“Who are you, Colonel?” Stevenson demanded.
“I’m the man asking the questions,” Mattingly said. “Question one: Why are you sitting there half naked?”
“That was my idea, sir. In case they decided to run,” Frade said.
“Good thinking!” Mattingly said. “Question two: What’s this about the secretary of the Treasury sending you over here?”
“We have been sent here by Secretary . . .” Stevenson began.
* * *
“If I am to believe you, Mr. Stevenson—and I’m finding it hard to do so, frankly—but what I am to understand,” Mattingly said, “is that without seeking the permission of SHAEF, the secretary of the Treasury has sent you here on a private Nazi-hunting operation. Does that about sum it up?”
“May we put our clothing on, Colonel?” Stevenson asked.
Mattingly made a gesture with his hand signaling that that was permissible.
“Thank you,” Stevenson said, and reached for his underpants.
“If what you have told me is true,” Mattingly said, “this will have to be brought to the attention of General Eisenhower—”
“Who will, I feel sure, be happy to accept, indeed be grateful for, the secretary’s desire to help—”
Mattingly silenced him by holding up his hand.
“A word of friendly advice, Mr. Stevenson,” Mattingly said. “Those of us who work closely with the Supreme Commander have learned that it is really ill-advised to predict what General Eisenhower will do in any circumstance.
“Now, there are several problems with bringing this situation to the Supreme Commander’s attention. One of these is the hour. It’s almost midnight. I’m sure the Supreme Commander, wherever he is, is sound asleep.”
“Wherever he is?”
Mattingly went on: “SHAEF is in the process of moving here from France, which is another problem. No telling where ol’ Ike has laid his head tonight. But the real problem is that you have arrived at a most unfortunate time. We are in the midst of solving a rather difficult problem . . .”
“What kind of a problem?”
“I’m afraid I can’t get into that with you. Suffice it to say, we are acting at the direct order of the Supreme Commander and the action he has ordered cannot be delayed by something like this.
“So, what I’m going to do, Mr. Stevenson, is get the provost marshal over here. What I’m going to tell him is that you—all the Secret Service people—are to be held incommunicado on the base here until seventeen hundred tomorrow. Your aircraft will not be available to you until that hour.”
“You can’t do that! You don’t have the authority.”
“Believe me, Mr. Stevenson, I do.”
He immediately proved that by picking up the telephone and dialing Operator.
“Colonel,” Mattingly said to the Rhein-Main Air Base provost marshal, “if I told you that these two gentlemen and everybody else who arrived with them on that Constellation have to be held incommunicado on the base until either someone from SHAEF comes to deal with them or until seventeen hundred hours tomorrow—whichever happens first—how would you do that?”
“Well, the simplest solution would be to put them in the stockade. Get the others out of the transient officers’ quarters and put them with these two in the stockade.”
“What, exactly, is the stockade?”
“The Krauts had sort of a police station, a police precinct. It wasn’t damaged much, and I took it over. There’s enough cells for all these people.”
Stevenson spoke up: “Colonel, what if I told you that I’m a supervisory special agent of the United States Secret Service?”
The provost marshal looked at Mattingly. “Is he?”
Mattingly nodded.
“And this man,” Stevenson went on, “has no authority whatever to detain us in any way.”
The arrogance of Stevenson’s tone was not lost on the provost marshal.
“To answer your first question,” the provost marshal told Stevenson, “I’d tell you that I don’t give a damn. If Colonel Mattingly wants you held incommunicado, you get held incommunicado.”
“But we are federal agents!” Stevenson protested.
“I really would rather not put them in cells,” Mattingly said. “What about just holding them in the transient officers’ quarters?”
“I could put MPs on the BOQ, I suppose.”
“And if you took everybody’s shoes and socks, trousers and underpants . . .” Frade suggested helpfully.
“I think just the shoes and trousers, Colonel Frade,” Mattingly said. “We don’t want to embarrass them any more than they already are for having been caught with Secretary Morgenthau’s hand in the cookie jar.”
“Then just shoes and trousers,” the provost marshal said.
“Mr. Dunwiddie,” Mattingly said. “Would you go with the provost marshal while he escorts these gentlemen to their quarters, please?”
“Yes, sir.”
With a casual skill that could have come only with a good deal of practice, Dunwiddie shrugged his shoulder, which caused the strap of the Thompson to slide off. Without looking at the submachine gun, he caught it with one hand in midair, then cradled it across his chest as a hunter would a shotgun.
“After you, gentlemen,” Dunwiddie said.
“You haven’t heard the end of this, Colonel,” Stevenson said.
“One more sign of lack of cooperation on your part and you lose your drawers,” Mattingly said.
It was only when they were sure the departing party was out of earshot that anyone even chuckled. But then the chuckles turned to giggles, and then—when Frade mocked Stevenson modestly covering his private parts with his hands—became outright laughter.
Mattingly sobered first.
“I can’t think of a better solution for the moment to these Secret Service people than the one we just reached,” he said. “But did you ever hear ‘He who laughs last laughs best’? I think this is probably going to come around and bite us on the gluteus maximus.”
Frade then remembered where he had heard the phrase most recently: when Colonel Richmond C. Flowers had given him the halfmillion dollars in Buenos Aires.
Mattingly then said: “With the Russians having stopped our convoy at Helmstedt, we now turn to Plan B. I think the best thing to do is get our show on the road as early as possible tomorrow morning. Dooley, I want you and your P-38s ready to escort the C-54 at first light. Any problem with you being in the air then?”
“No, sir.”
“Know that we do have a communications problem. We have no landlines to Tempelhof. I told the people at Helmstedt to set up the mobile control tower. What I’m hoping is that it will be able to communicate with Dooley’s aircraft, and that Dooley and his people can relay to both Rhein-Main and Tempelhof and with the C-54, and—if we get that far with Plan B—with the SAA Connie. We won’t know if this will work until we try it, which means there is now a Plan C.
“If things go well, I will depart Rhein-Main—from over Rhein-Main, not takeoff—in the C-54 at oh-seven-forty-five. That should put us on the ground at Tempelhof by oh-nine-hundred. While Dooley’s aircraft circle overhead, we will get the mobile control tower that the C-54 will have aboard up and running. I’m told they can do so in thirty minutes; all they need to do is erect some antennae. I’m going to give them an hour. The moment it’s up, the C-54 will be cleared to Rhein-Main.
“That should get us back through the Russian zone forty minutes later. The minute that word gets to Rhein-Main, the SAA Connie—which will have been, since ten-thirty hours, circling Rhein-Main at altitude—will then be cleared for departure to Tempelhof, and should arrive at Tempelhof in time for lunch. Got that, Clete?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think we’re going to be able to pull this off,” Mattingly said. “If not, I’ll see you in Siberia, the other side of the Pearly Gates, or, if Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson has any input, at Prisoner Reception at the Fort Leaven worth Prison.”
There was laughter, some of it a little strained.
“I will now see Colonel Stevens—the SHAEF military government guy—and tell him to have the diplomats out here to board the SAA Connie . . . when, Clete?”
“Well, if we’re going to have to be at ten thousand feet over Rhein-Main by ten-thirty, that means we’ll have to take off at, say, ten-fifteen. Tell him to have the diplomats out here ready to go no later than oh-five-thirty.”
Von Wachtstein laughed.
“Delgano is right, Cletus. You’re evil.”