[ONE]
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1415 8 April 1946
A Secret Service agent in suit and tie opened the door to the Oval Office and announced, “Mr. President, Admiral Souers.”
“Show him in, then close the door,” President Harry S Truman ordered. “No interruptions.”
Admiral Sidney W. Souers entered the room and stopped short of the coffee table in front of a couch. The stocky fifty-four-year-old was in his Navy Service Dress Blue woolen uniform, its sleeves near the cuffs bristling with gold braid. He had an intelligent face, with warm, inquisitive eyes, a headful of closely cropped graying hair, and a neatly trimmed mustache.
“Mr. President.”
“You took your sweet time getting here, Sid.”
“Harry, I hung up the phone and walked out of my office. What’s so urgent?”
Truman picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and waved it angrily.
Souers recognized it as the SIGABA message he had sent over hours earlier. He saw that the paper had his handwritten note at the top, which read “There’s more to this. Let me know when you want to discuss— SWS.”
“These Nazi bastards escaping in Nuremberg,” Truman blurted. “That’s urgent and goddamn unacceptable.”
Truman’s eyes went to the paper, scanning it:
TOP SECRET
URGENT
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM: DIRECTOR DCI GERMANY
0010 GREENWICH 8 APR 1946
TO: DIRECTOR WASH DC
1—COL M COHEN, CHIEF NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL CIC, INFORMS THAT BURGDORF AND VON DIETELBURG ESCAPED TRIBUNAL PRISON INFIRMARY 5 APR. COHEN SUSPECTS ODESSA INVOLVEMENT. ESCAPE HAS NOT, REPEAT, NOT BEEN MADE PUBLIC.
2—COL WASSERMAN, CHIEF CIC VIENNA, REPORTS WALTER WANGERMANN, VIENNA POLICE CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE, HAS INFORMED HIM BRUNO HOLZKNECHT, CHIEF OF POLICE SURVEILLANCE, IS MISSING AS OF 5 APR. WANGERMANN SUSPECTS DCI INVOLVEMENT. WASSERMAN SUSPECTS NKGB, MOSSAD, OR AVO INVOLVEMENT.
3—CONSIDERING RECENT ACTIVITIES OF CRONLEY ET AL, UNDERSIGNED CONSIDERS DCI INVOLVEMENT IN NUREMBERG AND VIENNA INCIDENTS. AN INVESTIGATION WOULD BE ILL-ADVISED AND NO ACTION IN THAT REGARD HAS BEEN UNDERTAKEN.
4—FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS WILL BE REPORTED AS THEY OCCUR.
WALLACE, COL, DIRECTOR DCI GERMANY
END
TOP SECRET
“And you say there’s more?” Truman said, tossing the sheet back to the desktop. “Jesus! It’s bad enough that this Odessa organization has been smuggling SS bastards out of Europe—and out of our grasp so we can’t prosecute them—but now, when we finally grab two of Odessa’s top leaders, they somehow snatch the sons of bitches from our prison? It’s outrageous!”
The President came out from behind his desk and walked to the couch.
“Pour yourself a drink, Sid. While you’re at it, pour one for me.”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Pour the drinks. You’re going to need it,” the President said, then sat down, and while Souers was retrieving a bottle of Haig & Haig scotch from the credenza, where it was concealed from public view, he picked up the telephone. “Get Justice Jackson for me,” he ordered, then pushed the SPEAKER button and put the telephone handset back in its cradle.
When Truman had been a United States senator from Missouri, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson would join him and Captain Souers, USNR, for dinner and drinks in Truman’s apartment—away from the prying eyes, and ears, of the Washington establishment.
Now, Truman had recently named the fifty-four-year-old Jackson—who had been FDR’s attorney general before nominating him to serve on the Supreme Court—as chief U.S. prosecutor for the Nuremberg trials.
Voices from the telephone speaker immediately began to be heard.
“Vint Hill, Presidential priority. Justice Jackson in Nuremberg on a secure line. Conversation will not, repeat, not be transcribed.”
“White House, hold one,” another voice said, then, “Fulda, Presidential priority. Justice Jackson in Nuremberg. Secure line, no transcription.”
“White House, hold one.”
“Justice Jackson’s chambers.”
“This is the White House calling. The President for Justice Jackson. The line is secure.”
“One moment, please.”
“Robert Jackson.”
“Hello, Bob.”
“Mr. President.”
“Hey, Bob,” Souers called out.
“Anchors aweigh, Sid.”
“Bob,” the President said, “Sid and I were sitting around having a little nip, and we figured, what the hell, let’s call Bob and have a little chat.”
“That’s flattering, Mr. President. What would you two like to chat about?”
“How about those Nazi bastards who escaped the Tribunal Prison? We’ve got to get them back and make damn sure it never happens again.”
“Harry, everybody’s working on it. Just a few minutes ago, I had Colonel Cohen in my office.”
“He’s the counterintelligence guy in Nuremberg?” Truman said, glancing at the SIGABA message.
“Right. Smart as they come. The only thing he had new for me was that he added the AVO to the list of suspects.”
“And what the hell is that?”
“It stands for ‘Államvedélmi Osztálya.’ It’s the Russian-controlled Secret Police in Hungary. It’s headed by a chap named Gábor Péter, who Cohen says is a real sonofabitch.”
“That’s all this Colonel Cohen had to say?” the President asked, almost incredulously, staring at the telephone.
“He said Super Spook might have some ideas. And should be involved, and I heartily agree.”
“Who the hell is Super Spook? More important, why isn’t he involved?”
“Captain Jim Cronley. The man you chose to be my bodyguard. He ran the operation in Vienna that bagged Burgdorf and von Dietelburg. I started calling him Super Spook when he figured out how Odessa managed to smuggle cyanide capsules into the Tribunal Prison.”
“I know who Cronley is, Bob. I promoted him to captain. And gave him the Distinguished Service Medal for what he did in Argentina with that half ton of uranium oxide some other Nazi bastard was about to sell to the goddamn Russians. And now you call him Super Spook? A twenty-two-year-old?”
“He’s that good, Harry. Young, yes, but remarkably good. You just said so yourself, in so many words.”
“Then why the hell isn’t he involved? Jesus H. Christ!”
“He’s in Argentina,” Souers put in.
Truman’s eyes went to Souers.
“Okay, and what the hell is he doing in Argentina? Actually, strike that. I don’t give a damn what he’s doing in Argentina. Get him back to Germany. As soon as possible. By that I mean yesterday.”
“Oh, shit,” Souers said. There was a tone of resignation when he said it.
“Oh, shit what, Sid?”
“Harry, the truth is, I didn’t tell you . . .”
“I advised Sid not to tell you,” Justice Jackson interjected.
“Tell me what, damn it?”
Souers pointed at the SIGABA message.
“It is alluded to in that,” he said. “Cronley’s op in Vienna that bagged Burgdorf and von Dietelburg. It didn’t go smoothly. One Austrian was killed and another wounded as they were arresting Burgdorf and von Dietelburg.”
“So what?” the President said, then asked, “Cronley shot them?”
“No,” Souers said, “the shooter was a lieutenant named Spurgeon. Of the Vienna CIC.” He sighed audibly. “Harry, can you hold your questions until I’m finished telling what went down?”
“Probably not, but let’s see.”
“Cronley was working pretty closely with the Austrians when he realized what they were up to, that when they captured von Dietelburg he would be an Austrian prisoner, not ours. They intended to put him on trial themselves. Cronley decided this was a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“There you go, Harry. Let me finish.”
“Make it quick.”
The sound of Justice Jackson chuckling came over the phone speaker.
Truman glared at the telephone.
“Okay,” Souers began, “I don’t know how much Cronley considered your belief that these people should be tried, and hanged, with as much publicity as possible as common criminals so that the Germans would not regard them as martyrs to Nazism, murdered by the vindictive victors. But every time I decide he’s too young and inexperienced to understand such and such, he’s proved me dead wrong.”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, he concluded that the solution to the problem was to keep the Austrians out of the actual arrest—”
“He decided this on his own?” the President interrupted, his tone again incredulous. “Without checking with his superiors?”
“And there you go again, Harry,” Justice Jackson said, followed by an audible grunt. “Let Sid finish.”
Truman impatiently gestured for Souers to go on.
Souers continued. “That’s why I wrote on the message that there was more. Including that Cronley’s relations with his immediate superior, Colonel Wallace, who sent that SIGABA message to me, are not cordial. Cronley also believes that if you think your superior is going to say no when you ask permission to do something and you know you’re right, don’t ask, just do it.”
“And beg forgiveness afterward,” the President added. “I’m familiar with it.”
“The justification that Cronley offered,” Souers went on, “for arresting Burgdorf and von Dietelburg on his own was that they wouldn’t live long in an Austrian prison—”
Justice Jackson interjected: “And he could then fly them directly to Nuremberg, on illegal airplanes, without the hassle of going through border control authorities.”
“Illegal airplanes?” Truman parroted.
“Two Fieseler Storches,” Jackson answered. “Sort of German Piper Cubs, but much better. Three-place, not just two-place. The Air Force ordered their destruction. Cronley appeared not to know about this order.”
Jackson laughed, then went on. “In his ‘innocence,’ he kept his two in a well-guarded hangar in Nuremberg. The aircraft were thus available to fly to the Compound in Munich, first with one of General Gehlen’s assets in Russia, one Rachel Bischoff—”
“Whom the Austrians wanted very much to interrogate,” Souers interjected.
“—and later Burgdorf and von Dietelburg to the same place,” Jackson finished.
“At this point, the Austrians went ballistic,” Souers said. “They issued arrest warrants. For murder, in the case of Lieutenant Spurgeon, and for various crimes and misdemeanors for Cronley, Winters, and everybody else concerned. OMGUS has issued a ‘detainer’ on everybody for illegally leaving and then entering Germany without passing through an entry point. And the Air Force is demanding that the Army bring charges: one, against Cronley for not destroying the Storches, and, two, against Cronley and Winter for flying them after the Air Force declared them unsafe. And also charges against Cronley for flying at all, because he is neither an Army aviator nor an AAF pilot.”
“Lawyer that I am,” Jackson said, “I’m finding it hard to understand the legal ramifications of a nonpilot illegally flying an ostensibly nonexistent airplane, but that’s where we are, Harry.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” the President said.
“Oscar Schultz,” Souers then said, “on learning what had happened, decided the solution to the problem was to get everybody the hell out of Dodge while he, quote, poured money on the Austrian volcano, unquote. So, everybody went to Argentina just about a month ago. Cletus Frade is hiding them in Mendoza, on one of his estancias.”
After a moment, President Truman, his tone unpleasant, said, “Is that all?”
“More or less,” Souers said. “For now.”
“I was annoyed with this situation when I first got wind of it today,” Truman went on, his voice rising. “Now that I’ve learned all this—and, more important, that both of you bastards kept it from me—I am what is known as royally pissed off.”
“Harry,” Jackson said, “both Sid and I felt that it would die down.”
“But it hasn’t, has it?” Truman snapped. “Even worse, Burgdorf and von Dietelburg, those despicable Nazi bastards, are now on the loose, goddamn it!”
“Harry, Bob and I decided that you had more important things on your plate—”
“Well, Sid,” Truman interrupted, “you were wrong. The most important thing on my plate at this time is getting those two SS sons of bitches back behind bars so we can try them and then hang them. If this Colonel Cohen thinks Captain Cronley can help him, you get Cronley out of goddamn Argentina and to goddamn Germany as soon as humanly possible. Got it?”
Admiral Souers said, “Yes, Mr. President.”
“And you, Bob, you start right now on getting OMGUS and the Air Force and anybody else off Cronley’s back—and Cronley’s people’s backs—and keep them off. They deserve medals and they damn sure shouldn’t have to be running from the law like John Dillinger’s gang of bank robbers. Got it?”
Justice Jackson said, “Yes, Mr. President.”
[TWO]
The Polo Field
Estancia Don Guillermo
Kilometer 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1345 9 April 1946
Polo was the oldest equestrian sport in the world. It featured opposing four-man teams attempting to strike with long-handled mallets a ball between twelve and a half and fifteen inches in circumference into the other team’s goal.
The players on the Mendoza estancia’s polo field were expert horsemen mounted on superbly trained Arabian ponies. But they were not dressed in the usual manner—boots, white trousers, and colored cotton short-sleeved shirts—with seven of the eight wearing the outfits of working gauchos, the Argentine version of American cowboys. It included a wide-brimmed black leather hat, a white shirt with billowing sleeves, tucked into equally billowing black trousers tucked into knee-length soft black leather boots. Around their waists, they wore wide leather belts decorated with silver studs, inserted into the back of which were silver-handled knives with blades at least twelve inches long.
The hatless eighth player wore a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo of the Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas—commonly called Texas A&M—blue jeans, and what were properly termed Western or cowboy boots.
He was a tall, muscular, blond twenty-two-year-old. On the list—classified Secret—of “Detached Officers” maintained in the Pentagon, he was listed as: Cronley, James D. Jr., Captain, Cavalry, AUS O-396754. Permanently detached to Directorate of Central Intelligence.
After wresting control of the ball from an opposing gaucho about to score a goal, Cronley then drove it at a full gallop toward the other end of the field. As he did, he saw a man waving a sheet of paper near the goal.
The man’s name was Maximillian Ostrowski. He had spent World War II as an intelligence officer with the Free Polish Army and was now a DCI special agent.
Cronley smacked the ball a final time, scoring.
But instead of returning to the field, he reined in the jet-black Arabian and dismounted.
“This just came,” Ostrowski said, handing him the sheet of paper.
Cronley’s eyes went to it:
TOP SECRET–LINDBERGH
URGENT
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM: DIRECTOR SOUTHERN CONE
1945 GREENWICH 9 APR 1946
TO: ALTAR BOY MENDOZA
PASS TO GEN MARTIN
1—LODESTAR WILL PICK UP YOU, WINTERS, SPURGEON, PULASKI, AND OSTROWSKI ASAP TODAY. TRY TO STAY OUT OF SIGHT IN BUENOS AIRES.
2—I WILL SEND MY PRECISE ETA PISTARINI TOMORROW ASAP. HAVE EVERYBODY THERE.
TEX
END
TOP SECRET–LINDBERGH
“I wonder if we’re about to be let out of jail,” Cronley said.
“Either that or be flown in chains to Vienna to face the wrath of the Angry Austrians,” Ostrowski replied.
“Wallace would love that.”
“Yes, he would. What happens now?”
“We finish the last chucker, Max, and then it’s off to Uncle Willy’s guesthouse.”
Cronley nimbly mounted the Arabian and returned to the field.
[THREE]
Ministro Pistarini Airport
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1115 10 April 1946
The Lockheed Constellation came in low over the passenger terminal, and the hangars beside it, touching down smoothly on Pistarini’s north-south runway. When the Connie finished rolling to the end of the runway, it turned and started taxiing toward the terminal, where two other Constellations were parked on the tarmac.
The Model L-049, featuring a sleek fuselage and distinctive triple-tail vertical stabilizers, was the finest transport aircraft in the world. It was capable of flying forty passengers in its pressurized cabin higher (at an altitude of 35,000 feet) and faster (cruising at better than 300 knots) and for a longer distance (up to 4,300 miles) than any other transport aircraft in the world.
The Constellations at the terminal bore the insignia of South American Airways, Argentina’s national airline. The one that had just landed read HOWELL PETROLEUM INTERNATIONAL along its fuselage. On both sides of its nose, there was lettered DOROTEA.
That referred to Doña Dorotea Mallin de Frade, who was the granddaughter-in-law of Cletus Marcus Howell, president and chairman of the board of Howell Petroleum International and by far its largest stockholder.
Howell had ordered DOROTEA lettered on the aircraft the day after Doña Dorotea had given birth to Cletus Howell Frade Jr., his first great-grandson.
Doña Dorotea came out of the terminal as the aircraft approached and then stopped. She was a tall, long-legged, blond twenty-five-year-old, with blue eyes and a marvelous milky complexion. She was what came to mind when one heard the phrase “classic English beauty.”
She saw frenzied activity around a pair of half-ton trucks mounted with stairways. While the stairs would permit the Dorotea’s passengers to deplane, she saw, however, that no one seemed to have the keys to the vehicles.
Oh, bloody hell! she thought. Without keys, the stairs cannot be driven to the aircraft’s door.
Then, in Spanish, she exploded: “If you can’t find the goddamn keys, get the old goddamn stairs out of the goddamn hangar!”
Those who knew Doña Dorotea knew that she got her Buckingham Palace accent and profane vocabulary from her mother, an English aristocrat who had met and married an Italo-Argentine oligarch while both were studying at the London School of Economics. And Doña Dorotea had acquired her ferocious temper and profane Spanish vocabulary from her father. That vocabulary—in both tongues—had been augmented by her marriage to Cletus Frade, who not only cursed like the U.S. Marine that he was but could and often did curse fluently in the Spanish-based patois known as Texican.
The workers a minute or so later came out of one of the hangars pushing an old set of metal stairs. It was a fragile-looking contraption, one mounted on small wheels that rattled and squeaked with such volume that it appeared one or more would fall off at any moment. The stairs themselves were steep, quite narrow, and, instead of a substantial handrail, had a flimsy rope.
While this was happening, other members of the welcoming party came out of the terminal. The crowd, led by Jim Cronley, included those who had flown up from Mendoza, plus a very beautiful, stylishly dressed brunette with dark eyes in her twenties who, like Doña Dorotea, also had marvelously long legs. This was Alicia Carzino-Cormano de von Wachtstein.
She was followed out of the terminal by two nannies, one of whom held the hands of Alicia’s two children, and the other the hands of Doña Dorotea’s two children.
The passenger door of the Dorotea opened, and Cletus Frade started quickly down the dangerous-looking stairs.
Cronley looked over and saw the disappointment in Alicia’s eyes.
Sorry, Alicia. Hansel is shutting the airplane down. He’ll get off in a minute.
Cletus Frade embraced his wife, lifting her off the ground in the process, and then started to offer his hand to Cronley. He then changed his mind, wrapped his arms around him, and also lifted him off his feet.
“What the hell is going on, Clete?” Cronley asked, after breaking free of the embrace.
Frade simply pointed up to the aircraft’s door.
Jim Cronley’s mother, elegant and trim, had come out of the aircraft and was very carefully making her way down the steep, narrow stairway. Cronley’s throat tightened and his eyes watered. He could not immediately recall that last time he had seen his mother. He walked quickly over to meet her.
His mother finally made it to the foot of the stairs, then raised her eyes from the steps and saw him.
“Mein Liebchen, mein Liebchen!” she cried, and threw herself into his arms.
He picked her up and carried her to one side of the stairs.
Maybe thirty seconds later, he freed himself from her barrage of kisses.
He looked up the stairway, expecting to see his father. Instead, he found himself looking up the skirt of an adult female who was holding an infant while slowly descending the steps. He saw far enough up her skirt, before he averted his eyes, to note that she was wearing blue-lace panties.
Who the hell is that?
And why were you looking at some strange female’s crotch while hugging your mother?
His mother continued kissing and crying.
The next thing he was aware of was a hand on his shoulder, then his father’s voice.
“How are you, son?”
Cronley freed himself enough from his mother’s embrace to get his arm around his father. The three of them hugged one another, Cronley hoping no one saw the tears running down his cheeks.
When he opened his eyes again, there was a familiar face looking at him curiously.
Jesus Christ. Unless I’m losing my mind, that’s Ginger!
That was her blue-lace crotch I was just looking at!
What the hell is she doing here?
With her months-old baby?
Dumb question. Babies are usually with their mothers, stupid!
“Hello, Jimmy,” Ginger said.
“Hey, Ginger.”
Cronley’s history with twenty-two-year-old Virginia Moriarty went back to their growing up together in the Texas Panhandle.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Cletus Frade announced as he held up a SIGABA printout, “but this is important. It came in when we were an hour out.”
“What?” Cronley said, stepping closer to him.
He took the sheet and read it.
Top Secret–Lindbergh? he thought. So Oscar Shultz forwarded Wallace’s message about Burgdorf and von Dietelburg escaping the Tribunal Prison, with Wallace saying Cohen blames Odessa. And that Wasserman says the Vienna police intel chief suspects DCI’s hand in his surveillance chief’s disappearance?
He looked at Frade. “Jesus H. Christ!”
“Yeah,” Frade said. “Initial reaction?”
“Wallace, especially with this ‘no action undertaken’ bullshit, is covering his ass again.”
“Okay, aside from that obvious part . . . ?”
“Well, for starters, the Tribunal Prison escape? With Cohen and the Twenty-sixth Infantry sitting on it? I would have said impossible.”
Frade nodded. “All right, give it some more thought on your way to the guesthouse. When you get there, get everybody lunch and start saying your good-byes.”
“While you . . . ?”
“While I’m in the Bunker talking to El Jefe on the SIGABA. When I’m finished, then I’ll come.”
“You got it.”
Cronley saw Ginger Moriarty being escorted with her infant to one of the vehicles that had just pulled up. He motioned his parents toward the second from the front of the line.
Cronley was glad to be able to get away from Ginger. The last time he had seen her, she had called him—with more, he believed, than a little justification—a bastard and a miserable son of a bitch, and told him to get the hell out of her house.
[FOUR]
4730 Avenida del Libertador General San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1355 10 April 1946
The master bedroom, what Cletus Frade called Uncle Willy’s bedroom, had been built by his grand-uncle Guillermo at the turn of the century. It had a mirrored ceiling and life-size marble statuary showing two couples, and one trio, engaged in the reproductive act.
Jim Cronley had just started shaving when he heard a familiar female voice outside the bathroom door.
“What is this place, a brothel?” Ginger Moriarty asked.
“Noticed the statues, have you?”
“Well, I’m glad I asked Father McGrath to give me a minute alone with you before he came in. I wouldn’t want it getting around that I led a priest into your private whorehouse.”
Cronley, using a thick cotton towel, wiped the soap from his face and went into the bedroom, where he grandly swept his hand around the room.
“This is all Clete’s grand-uncle’s doings. Personally, I am as pure as the driven snow.”
She grunted.
“So, what’s on your mind, Ginger?”
“Actually, I came up here to apologize. I’m just not sure if I came to Argentina only to do that. I think there may be another reason, besides me getting away from my parents.”
“Then what the hell are you doing in Argentina?”
“It’s sort of complicated.”
“Give it a shot.”
“I don’t know . . . Well, okay, what the hell. I was having supper with your folks and Clete’s at your spread in Midland when Admiral Souers called and told Clete to pick you and the others up down here and take you all to Germany. Immediately. Which meant the next morning.”
“And . . . ?”
“And Clete told everybody. Then your mother said she hadn’t seen you since you left for Germany and asked Clete if there was any reason why she and your dad couldn’t ride down here with him to see you. He couldn’t think of any reason, and then Clete’s folks said they thought they’d ride along, too, so they could see their grandchildren. And then they could all go back to Texas together. So I got in on the act and asked him if there was any reason I couldn’t go, not only down here but to Germany as well—”
“Why the hell do you want to go back to Germany for?” Cronley interrupted.
“Because after what happened to . . . my husband . . . all of our stuff, including our car, was put in storage by the Army when they sent me back to the States. There’s a lot of stuff of Bruce’s I want Little Bruce to have when he’s grown, and a lot of stuff I never want to see again, so I’m going to Munich to sort through everything. Understood?”
“I suppose.”
“And then I wanted to apologize to you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Listen. Pay attention. I apologize for what I said—screamed—at you in my house at the Compound. I was out of my mind—”
“You don’t owe me any kind of an apology,” Cronley put in. “You were justified.”
“—and I’m really sorry for screaming at your parents at Bruce’s funeral,” she finished. “You heard about that?”
He nodded.
“So when I came to my senses and realized they had nothing to do with what happened, I went to them—actually, to your mother—and apologized. She was, no surprise, very gracious. She asked me how I was doing. I told her that before Bruce’s casket touched the bottom of his grave, my parents had started to search for a new husband for their widowed daughter and her fatherless child and that it was driving me bonkers.
“Your mother told me very kindly—again, no surprise—that they meant well. When I started to leave, I asked her if she ever saw you again to please tell you I was sorry. Shortly after that, when Clete announced he was headed here and then on to Germany, she caught my eye and nodded. So here I am. And I have just apologized.”
“Ginger, at least once a day I think that if I hadn’t had Bone . . . Bruce . . . transferred to DCI, he’d still be alive. You really don’t owe me an apology.”
“Well, you’ve got one. Mission accomplished.”
She turned and walked out of the bedroom.
Cronley, watching the door close behind her, thought, She never got to whatever reason it was besides the apology.
If there ever was anything other than the apology . . .
Finished with his shave, Cronley began drying his face with a thick towel. He heard a tap on the outer door, then saw in the mirror that a tall, muscular, gray-haired man in his fifties, wearing a clerical collar, had entered Uncle Willy’s bedroom.
Has to be that Catholic priest, Cronley thought.
What’s this all about?
Cronley, watching the priest take more than an idle interest in the life-size marble statuary, said in a raised voice, “What can I do for you, Father?”
The priest moved to the bathroom door, stopped, and announced, “I’m very happy to meet you, Super Spook, for reasons I’ll explain in a bit. I thought you might be a little uncomfortable downstairs with a priest in the room you don’t know, so I came up to put your mind at rest.”
“I don’t like being called Super Spook—let’s start with that.”
“Really? When I heard that, it was applied to you in a manner suggesting admiration. Let me start this interesting, and somewhat amusing, tale from the beginning. Admiral Souers was fascinated with something you’d been working on—Himmler’s new religion—and wanted an outside opinion of heretical religions.
“His people came up with the name of a professor at the University of the South who had written several books on the subject and who was regarded by some people as an expert on the subject.
“Admiral Souers told Oscar Schultz . . .” He paused and raised his eyebrows in question.
“I’m familiar with El Jefe,” Cronley said.
“. . . to go talk to this man and see if he would come to Washington to talk to the admiral. Your friend Cletus was in town in connection with your difficulties in Vienna and was free pending decisions being made in connection with that. So, El Jefe prevailed upon the Air Force to loan the DCI a P-51, which had been fitted with a second seat, telling them the DCI had a fully qualified pilot to fly it.
“This was not entirely true. But as with many, perhaps most, Marine Corps fighter pilots, Cletus shares the belief that he can fly anything. With El Jefe in the backseat, Cletus made his first flight in a P-51, to Tennessee, to talk to the professor. En route, El Jefe told Cletus they had lucked out, that he had checked further and learned the professor held a commission as a commander in the Naval Reserve.
“At the university, they were directed to the professor’s office door. Above which was a little sign reading FATHER McGRATH.
“This caused an outburst of profanity on Cletus’s part, one loud enough for the professor to hear it all on the far side of the closed door. If memory serves, he said, ‘I’ll be damned! If this priest is my Father McGrath, we’ve hit the fucking payload!’
“At that point, I opened the door, whereupon Cletus wrapped his arms around me and, after kissing me on the forehead, inquired, ‘How the hell are you?’”
Cronley grinned. “I take it, Father, that you two were previously acquainted.”
“You could say that, and that would be somewhat of an understatement. Cletus’s announcements caused some consternation on the part of my secretary, even after I told her the last time the colonel and I had seen each other was on Guadalcanal, where I had been chaplain to VMF 226 and he had been a lieutenant flying F4F Wildcats.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cronley said, quickly adding, “Sorry, Father.”
“Watch your mouth or I’ll think you’re a heathen.”
“I’m not a heathen, I’m Episcopalian. And now that I think about it, so is the University of the South. And isn’t McGrath . . . ?”
“‘Grath’ is a translation of ‘craith,’” the priest said, nodding, “which means ‘grace,’ while ‘mac’ means ‘son of’—”
“I’ll be damned,” Cronley interrupted. “The literal translation becomes ‘son of divine grace.’”
“Keep keeping company with the likes of Cletus, my son, and you may well be damned,” the priest said, smiling broadly and offering his hand. “J-for-Jack McGrath. Pleasure to finally meet you, Super Spook.”
Cronley took the hand. “And you, Father. Any friend of Cletus, et cetera, et cetera . . .”
“It’s Jack, please.”
“How about Father Jack?”
“Deal. You must be wondering what is an Irish priest named McGrath doing there on Guadalcanal.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“It is Episcopalian, as am I. The Pope doesn’t have a copyright on ‘Father.’”
“And you’re a commander in the Chaplain Corps of the Naval Reserve?”
“Deduced that, did you? No wonder they call you Super Spook.”
“Very funny.”
“So eventually, over dinner, we got to the purpose of El Jefe’s visit. And to anticipate your next question, ‘Why couldn’t El Jefe deduce from my books on religious heresy that I was a priest?’ In other words, why did they say ‘By J. R. McGrath, Ph.D.’ rather than ‘By Reverend J. R. McGrath, D.D.’?”
“I have the feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“I am. Because I learned with my early books that maybe five or six thousand devout people will buy a book by a priest so that they can advertise their own piety by displaying them, usually without having read them, on their coffee tables. When I published my first book on religious heresy, I dropped the ‘Reverend’ and the ‘D.D.’ and substituted ‘Ph.D.’ for the latter. That book sold thirty-five thousand copies, and subsequent books have done even better.
“At that point, I introduced into the conversation that my present interest was looking into rumors I had heard that the late, unlamented Heinrich Himmler had been trying to launch a Nazi-based religion and asked if, perchance, either of them, as intelligence officers, had heard anything about it.
“Cletus chuckled, and said, ‘Oh, boy, have we ever!’ and El Jefe added, ‘And one of our guys, Super Spook, is an expert on that subject.’
“So naturally I asked, ‘Super Spook?’ And Cletus told me all about your lifelong relationship. He said you had been dubbed Super Spook because you were very good at finding and arresting some really evil Nazis. And that your ‘ass was in a deep crack at the moment’ because your latest exploit resulted in the Austrian government calling for your scalp. As were the Air Force and most of the European intelligence establishment.
“I said, ‘Nevertheless, I’d really like to meet him.’
“He gave me a strange look and asked if I was open to a wild offer, presuming I could get away from the university for a couple of months, maybe longer.
“I told him not only was I a tenured professor, meaning I couldn’t be fired, but that I was anxious to escape the world of academia for a while. So what was the wild offer? I asked. He told me and here I am.”
“That’s a helluva story.”
“Which I thought I should tell you. Now that I have, may I suggest we go downstairs for our lunch?”
“You may. But please tell them I said to start without me, Father Jack. I’ll join you after I gather some things for the trip.”
“Will do.”
[FIVE]
4730 Avenida del Libertador General San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
2030 10 April 1946
Cronley drained the last of the bottle of ’41 Estancia Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon into the crystal stem that sat on the massive marble sink of Uncle Willy’s bathroom. He both felt and heard his stomach growl. Not only had they started lunch without him, it had ended in his absence, too. All he managed to scrounge after the table had been cleared was the makings for a small lomo sandwich—sliced rare filet mignon with horseradish on a hard-crusted baguette.
The blame for his having missed the meal rested with Cletus Frade.
Frade had called while Cronley was packing his suitcase, announcing that the Dorotea would be wheels-up for Germany at first light and that Cronley was being summoned to the Bunker to answer, over the SIGABA, El Jefe’s questions—which Frade said meant DCI Souers’s questions—concerning Wallace’s last communiqué.
That had consumed, it turned out, the remainder of the afternoon and into the early evening.
When Cronley had finally returned to Uncle Willy’s bedroom to finish packing and get dressed for dinner, it had been with a bottle of the fine Cab they had flown in by the caseload in the Lodestar from Frade’s estancia in Mendoza.
Cronley came out of the bathroom, showered and smelling of the eau de cologne he had found in a cardboard box in one of the closets. He had helped himself to one of the remaining half dozen liter bottles. He suspected the cologne had been in the closet since Uncle Willy had lived there himself a generation or two before.
Cronley had a bath towel tucked around his waist. On his way out of the bathroom, the towel slipped off and he stumbled over it, nearly falling to the marble floor.
“Shit!”
He looked down at the towel on the floor, then kicked it. It flew into the bedroom, coming to rest on the lamp shade of a wall fixture. The wet cotton touched the hot lightbulb, causing it to explode.
If I go over there, I’ll cut my feet on the glass.
So, fuck it, I’ll get it later.
Stark naked, he walked over to the bed, where he had left his clothes.
He felt the damp towel being draped over his shoulder.
A female voice said, “You dropped something. Don’t turn around until you put it on.”
Ginger!
What the hell is she doing up here again?
When, towel in place, he turned around, she was standing there, arms crossed over her ample bosom. She was dressed for dinner in a fancy black dress that, he could not help but notice, not only did little to conceal her curves, it very nicely accentuated them.
What the hell do they call those?
Cocktail dresses.
Jesus, she is one attractive broad, especially in that tiny outfit.
It was cut so low in front that he could see where the bottom of the double string of pearls around her neck disappeared between her breasts.
“You were missed at lunch,” she said.
“It was not my decision, Ginger . . . What the hell are you doing up here again?”
“I had to come up to check on the baby. On the way, I realized that I have some more things to say to you. And I decided they couldn’t wait.”
“Your timing is lousy. And what if somebody comes through that door looking for me?”
“This won’t take long, Jimmy. I’ll take my chances.”
Jesus Christ, her eyes are blue—a beautiful blue.
“Okay, then, spit it out.”
“I heard what was said in the library.”
“Heard what?”
“That we’re off to Germany first thing in the morning, and that as soon as we land, you’re back in your Super Spook role, and that means that once again you are about to disappear from my life.”
“You know what I do for a living. It’s what got Bonehead—”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “Let me finish what I didn’t finish before!”
So there actually was something else, he thought.
He shrugged. “So, finish.”
“I was pissed at you because you were stupid—”
“I’m often accused of that.”
“Goddamn you, please shut up!”
There’s tears glistening . . . She’s about to start crying.
What the hell is going on?
“And it was your stupidity, and mine, that had suddenly turned me into the widow of Bruce Moriarty, with a child to raise all by myself.”
“Ginger, I’ve been kicking myself, just about daily, for taking Bone—Bruce—out of the Constabulary and into the DCI.”
“You did that to be a nice guy. More than that, you did it because you loved him and were taking care of him, as you always did. And because he loved you, you made him as happy as a pig in mud to be in the DCI with you.”
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”
“That’s what I mean about you being stupid.”
He threw both hands up in frustration. “Tell me!”
“You ever wonder why I married Bruce in the first place?”
I know why Bonehead married you. He told me.
Do I tell her he did?
What the hell . . .
“He . . . uh . . . told me you were in the family way.”
“I was. The way that happened was that Bruce asked me if it was all right if he brought you along with him to the Kappa Delta Sigma New Year’s Eve party. I was surprised, mostly because Jimmy Cronley made no secret of the fact that he thought sororities and their social events were bullshit.
“I also was excited. I told him sure. And I gussied myself up real nice. New dress, new shoes, hours in the beauty parlor, and plenty of Chanel No. 5 behind my ears and between my boobs. Tonight was the night I would snare Jimmy Cronley in my web.”
Jesus Christ!
“So, the two of you show up. Bruce heads right for me. You head right for Candice Howard.”
“Why not? You were Bruce’s girl.”
“That’s what I mean about you being stupid. Anyway, an hour later, during which you finally said something to me . . . You remember what you said?”
“No.”
“‘Be gentle with Bonehead, Ginger’ is what you said. ‘He’s not experienced with sorority girls like you.’”
“Ginger, the reason I never made a pass at you was because Bruce was nuts about you.”
“And that’s precisely what I mean about you being stupid. That wasn’t a two-way street, and you should have seen that. Anyway, about an hour later all the girls were whispering to each other that the prize for first score of the evening went to Candice Howard. She had Jimmy Cronley upstairs, where he was screwing her brains out.
“I figured, what the hell, and took Bruce upstairs. He got my pearl of great price. And in the process, lucky me, I got knocked up. He did the gentlemanly thing, of course. And in June we graduated, and then Bruce—after following you into the cavalry instead of the engineers, which he really wanted—and his pregnant wife wound up at Fort Knox with you. Where you used to visit us in that ugly apartment and talk about you being godfather to the baby. And then Bruce came home one night and said that you were gone, that you were now in the Counterintelligence Corps, whatever the hell that was.”
Cronley shrugged. “They needed German-speaking officers in the CIC in Germany,” he said.
“Anyway, at that time I decided my life had been decided. It was my destiny to be an Army wife. Our baby would be an Army brat. Bruce was a genuine good guy, smart, and he’d probably get to be a colonel, maybe even a general. It would be a pretty good life, and I was just going to have to forget my schoolgirl crush on Jimmy Cronley. He was out of our life forever.”
“And then I showed up in Fritzlar?” Cronley asked, softly.
“And then Captain Cronley showed up in Fritzlar. Flying a mysterious secret airplane across the East German border to rescue a Russian woman and her children. And with enough clout to get Bruce out of the Constabulary and into the DCI.
“I didn’t want to leave Fritzlar. I didn’t want to be around you. Women about to have a baby shouldn’t be thinking about a man who is not the father of that baby.”
“Ginger—”
“Shut up, Jimmy, let me finish. So off we go to Munich, and the Compound, because I can’t think of any way not to go. And I have the baby. And we’re back to you being the godfather. And right after you gave us thirty minutes of your valuable time to show up for the christening, you were off again, this time to Nuremberg.
“That really decided it for me. I was going to be a good mother and a good wife. And you were out of my life. Period. End of story.
“And then the chaplain comes to call. ‘There has been an accident. Your husband was cleaning a pistol and it went off.’
“And you showed up to offer your condolences. And I was thinking that if you weren’t so stupid, you’d have seen how I felt about you, that if you hadn’t taken Candice Howard upstairs at the Kappa Delta Sigma house and screwed her brains out, maybe I would have become Mrs. Cronley instead of the Widow Moriarty.
“So I told you get the hell out of my house.
“And when they handed me the flag after we lowered Bruce’s casket into the ground, and I saw your mother and father, I lost it and gave her hell, too, just because she was your mother.”
She paused, cleared her throat, then went on. “I told you I came to my senses and went to your mother and apologized. And that she said maybe I should come down here. So I came. As much to get away from my mother, and her parade of nice, young, unmarried men, as anything else. But also to apologize.”
“No apology is necessary. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Ginger ignored him and went on.
“And on the Dorotea, on the way down, I half decided to take a chance and tell you the reasons behind me being Ginger the Bitch to you.”
“Half decided? You just did.”
“The final decision was made when I was coming down the stairs from the airplane. When I saw you with your mother, my girlish heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Then I saw that you were looking up my dress. I thought, he hasn’t changed. But then I finally decided to take a chance.”
There was a long silence, then Cronley said, “And you did. Why?”
“I just told you. It was my attempt to make a Hail Mary pass.”
“About what?”
“You’re so damn smart, Super Spook, figure it out yourself. Let me know when you have and what you want to do because—”
She stopped when she heard the baby wailing.
“Don’t go anywhere, Jimmy.”
A minute or so later, she returned with the softly sobbing infant, rocking him in the crook of her arm.
“Here,” she said, now holding Baby Bruce out toward him, “hold him while I get his bottle ready.”
“What the hell?” Cronley said. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“It’s simple. Just make sure you support his head. Hold your arm this way.”
She moved Cronley’s right arm as hers had been, cradling the infant in it with his head resting against Cronley’s chest.
“Good. See, Jimmy? Not so mysterious.”
Cronley, with a look that was equal parts terror and awe, glanced from her to the infant.
Baby Bruce, blinking, stared back at him.
He has his mother’s amazing blue eyes.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, then touched his cheek and hurried out of the bedroom and down the hall.
“Hurry, damn it!”
A few minutes later—what seemed an eternity to Cronley—she returned with a baby bottle. She held it out to Cronley.
“Oh, not no,” he said. “Hell no.”
“Oh, hell yes.”
As Cronley met her eyes, she slipped the bottle’s nipple between the infant’s lips. She moved Cronley’s free hand to hold the bottle.
There then came the sound of a contented gurgle from Baby Bruce, and when Cronley looked down, he grinned around the bottle’s nipple and blinked his blue eyes.
“He’s beautiful, Ginger. Peaceful.”
“Uh-huh.”
Cronley felt something warm growing inside his gut.
Jesus, is this little creature making me melt or is that wretched fear?
Next, he felt the infant’s torso begin twisting in his arm. And then Baby Bruce loudly expelled a burst of flatulence.
[SIX]
4730 Avenida del Libertador General San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
0230 11 April 1946
Cronley turned in the bed to switch off the bedside lamp.
Ginger was standing halfway between the bed and the door. She was wearing a dressing gown and, under it, pajamas. She had Baby Bruce in her arms.
When she saw that he had seen her, she walked over to the bed.
She thrust the sleeping infant toward Cronley.
“Take him,” she said. “You know he doesn’t bite. Breaks wind with wild abandon, yes, but no bite.”
He had no choice but to take the child.
“What the hell are you up to?” Cronley asked.
“When I went to check on him, I had an epiphany. He’s another of your goddamn problems. Being a father scares you to death.”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“So,” she went on, “tell me what you want me to do with him. I’m open to anything but putting him up for adoption or drowning him.”
“You’re crazy . . . drunk . . .”
“Probably. You make me crazy and drive me to drink.”
The infant made a sound.
Cronley saw that the baby’s blanket was covering his mouth and that he was trying to push it away.
Very carefully, using his index finger, Cronley moved the blanket away. Baby Bruce smiled and then reached for and grabbed Cronley’s finger.
“Christ, he’s beautiful! And I think he really likes me!”
“So do I—we do. What the hell else do you need?”
He looked up from the baby’s blue eyes and saw that Ginger had slipped out of the dressing gown and was unbuttoning her pajama top.
“What the hell else do you need?” she repeated.
When he didn’t reply, she put her fingers in the hem of her pajama bottoms and slid them off her hips.
“For Christ’s sake,” she said, her voice breaking, “what the hell else do you need?”
“Right now, I can’t think of a thing. But what we do with what’s his name?”
“We put a pacifier in his mouth and put him on the couch.”
She slipped out of her pajama top and came to the bed and reached for the child.
“And his name is Bruce. Try to remember that.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cronley wheezed, out of breath, when he rolled off Ginger five minutes later.
“Yeah, Jesus Christ. Can I assume that I passed the test?”
“You get both ears and the tail.”
He spread his arms, and she crawled into them.
“I always knew I loved you, Jimmy. But until just now, when I felt you in me, I really didn’t know how much.”
After perhaps sixty seconds of the only sound being Jimmy’s labored breathing, she said, “It’s now your turn to say something. Preferably, something nice.”
“I was wondering what to say.”
“‘I love you, too,’ would be nice.”
“I mean to our parents, to Clete—to everybody. Last night, you had barely forgiven me for getting Bonehead whacked, and, at breakfast, we’re a couple of lovebirds. They’re going to know something happened. I don’t give a damn what they think, but you?”
“I don’t give a damn either. But you’re right. So, during the day you will slowly discover that I am an attractive, unattached woman, and I will slowly stop resisting your unwanted attentions. And at night I will sneak into your bedroom, and we will screw the brains out of each other.”
“That’ll probably work.”
“Are you going to say it now?”
“You mean say that I love you? Why? I think you’ve known that all along.”
“Say it, damn you, Jimmy!”
He did.
And then she rolled onto her back and pulled him to her.