[ONE]
U.S. Army Railroad Spur
Zehlendorf, Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0900 20 April 1946
Two officers, wearing the aiguillettes and lapel insignia of aides-de-camp to a lieutenant general, were standing on the platform of the siding when Colonel Cohen, followed by Cronley, who had Baby Bruce in his arms, and Ginger, disembarked the Berliner.
The senior of them, a major, crisply saluted Cohen, and inquired, “Colonel Cohen?”
Cohen nodded.
“General Makamson’s compliments, sir. He asks that you attend him at your earliest convenience.”
“What’s going on?” Cohen asked.
The major looked at Cronley. “Presumably, you’re Captain Cronley?”
Cronley nodded.
“I asked, what’s going on?” Cohen said.
“If you will please follow me, sir,” the major replied. “And Captain Cronley, please follow the colonel.”
Cohen looked at Cronley, shrugged, and followed the major toward a line of staff cars. Cronley saw that the first in line was a Buick, and Cohen got in its backseat.
The other aide-de-camp, a captain, then said, “And this is Mrs. Moriarty?”
“What the hell is going on?” Cronley said.
“If you’ll give the child to its mother, Captain, and come with me, please.”
“What happens to Mrs. Moriarty?” Cronley demanded.
“For now, she’ll be taken to the Company Grade Visiting Officer Quarters.”
Max Ostrowski walked up and stopped beside Cronley.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I dunno. But take Ginger and the baby to the safe house.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” the aide-de-camp said.
“Fuck you,” Cronley said, then looked at Ostrowski. “Max, if this clown gives you any trouble, shoot him.” He met the aide-de-camp’s eyes, then said, “Lead on, candy-ass.”
The aide-de-camp stared back in disbelief. Then he walked—marched—toward the Chevrolet. Cronley followed. At the car, the captain opened the front passenger door and motioned for Cronley to get in.
The aide-de-camp got in the driver’s seat, and followed the Buick as it sped off.
[TWO]
U.S. Military Government Compound
Saargemünder Strasse
Zehlendorf, Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0925 20 April 1946
The OMGUS Compound had been the last headquarters of the Luftwaffe. There was a story going around that it had been spared—as had the I.G. Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main—from the thousand-plane raids that had leveled both cities because the Americans wanted undamaged office space for their use after they won the war.
It was a pleasant collection of one- and two-story buildings that were painted white. The Russians had liberated the Compound and had just about removed the camouflage netting that covered it when tanks of General I. D. White’s 2nd Armored Division—Hell on Wheels—ushered the Reds out of the American Zone and into the Russian Zone.
The Buick, after being crisply saluted by a half dozen MPs at the entrance, drove down the central road to the headquarters building, followed by the Chevrolet carrying Cronley.
There was a row of flags—American, and then several silver-star-studded red flags, designating the Army general officer headquarters—flying in front of the building.
Cronley decided the four-star flag had to be that of General Lucius D. Clay. He had been the U.S. military governor of the American Sector of Berlin, and of the American Zone in the rest of Germany, since January.
He also decided the three-star flag had to belong to Makamson, who had replaced General Seidel as G-2 of USFET—U.S. Forces European Theater, now renamed EUCOM, the acronym for the European Command. There were half a dozen red flags with one or two stars. Senior headquarters like OMGUS and EUCOM had many general officers.
The Buick and Chevrolet stopped. The aide-de-camp major got out of the front passenger seat of the Buick as the aide-de-camp captain jumped out of the Chevrolet. They opened both rear doors of their respective vehicles.
“Please follow me, Colonel,” the major said to Cohen.
Cohen did, and waited for Cronley to approach.
“Into the Valley of Death . . .” Cohen said, quietly, when he was within earshot. “I have the feeling, Super Spook, that we’re in the deep shit.”
The major led them to a side entrance of the main building, with the captain following them all.
They entered and went down a long corridor until they reached a steel door guarded by two military policemen. While one of the MPs snapped to rigid attention, the other opened the steel door. The aide-de-camp major without a word motioned for Cohen and Cronley to enter.
They did, and found themselves in a large room, the walls of which were lined with map boards and electronic equipment. There was a large conference table in the center of the room at which men were seated.
Cronley immediately recognized Brigadier General Homer P. Greene, chief of ASA Europe CIC-USFET, and Colonel Harold Wallace, chief of DCI-Europe. There was a lieutenant general—That has to be Makamson, he thought—and another brigadier general, several colonels, and a master sergeant sitting at a court reporter’s stenotype keyboard.
“Take a seat,” the three-star ordered, indicating two folding chairs behind a small table facing the conference table. “I am General Makamson.”
Cohen and Cronley did so.
“Why don’t you start by telling us, Colonel Cohen,” Makamson said, “what, exactly, you and Captain Cronley are doing in Berlin when you are supposed to be in Nuremberg protecting Mr. Justice Jackson?”
“Sir, we are chasing Odessa,” Cohen said.
“Under what authority?”
“Captain Cronley’s. He has been directed by Admiral Souers, the director of the Central Intelligence Directorate, to run Odessa down and eliminate it wherever found. He asked for my help. I’m giving it to him.”
“General Makamson,” Colonel Wallace announced, “speaking as chief of Central Intelligence–Europe, I have no knowledge of any of this.”
“Harry,” Colonel Cohen said, conversationally, “the admiral didn’t tell you because he thought you’d stick your nose in to show who’s boss and then proceed to fuck things up. And they’d be not just fucked up but FUBAR.”
“Colonel,” General Makamson snapped, “you will address officers by their rank! And respectfully! Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Cohen said, evenly. “We just could not afford to have what we were doing Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.”
“I think we all know what FUBAR means, Colonel. And when I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Makamson glared at him for ten seconds, then said, “To avoid losing my temper, I think we have to get on with this. So, you think Odessa is in Berlin?”
“We think that it’s very likely that its senior officers are, sir,” Cohen replied. “Sir, may I start at the beginning?”
“Why not.”
“Sir, we know that Odessa has vast sums of money, which they are using both to get Nazis who are on the run out of Germany and to fund the so-called religion that Heinrich Himmler started.”
“You believe that Hitler/Himmler religion nonsense, do you?”
“Before we took the Berliner last night, we were at Wewelsburg Castle, which is sort of the Vatican of this new religion. We had with us an expert in heretical religions, Father Jack McGrath, whom Admiral Souers found for us. Would you take his word? He’s in Berlin, at the DCI safe house in Zehlendorf.”
“You’re telling me that Admiral Souers also believes in this Nazi religion nonsense?”
“More important, sir, the admiral tells me so does the President. The President regards it as a threat to his intentions to try to hang the people we have in Nuremberg as common criminals rather than martyrs. He ordered the admiral to look into it. The admiral assigned that task to Captain Cronley.”
“Cronley is supposed to be protecting Mr. Justice Jackson,” Wallace said, coldly. “You expect us to believe Cronley was ordered to chase Odessa at the expense of that? And without telling me, or, more important, Mr. Justice Jackson?”
“Mr. Justice Jackson is in the loop,” Cohen said, evenly.
“I find that very hard to believe,” Makamson said. “And there’s one way to find out.”
He picked up the receiver of a red telephone on the desk.
“This is General Makamson. Get me Mr. Justice Jackson at the International Tribunal in Nuremberg on a secure line.”
A moment later, the master sergeant at the court reporter’s keyboard leapt to his feet, came to attention, and bellowed, “Ten-hut!”
Everyone in the room popped to attention.
General Lucius D. Clay had entered the room. He was trim and fit, with a slim, angular face, penetrating dark eyes, and black hair. He wore simple ODs, and had his characteristic Chesterfield cigarette hanging from his lips.
“At ease,” Clay said, a trace of his native Georgia accent evident, as he slipped into a chair at the conference table. Then he said, “Hang that up, General. I just got off the horn with Jackson.”
“Yes, sir,” Makamson said, and then spoke into the red telephone receiver. “Cancel the call.”
Clay looked at Cohen and Cronley.
“General Makamson suggested that you two would be dazzled into silence by my august presence. And that it would be best if I listened to his interrogation over the intercom. That obviously hasn’t worked, so I’ll take over.
“First, let’s clear the air vis-à-vis Justice Jackson. He is fully aware that Captain Cronley was ordered to pursue Odessa by Admiral Souers. He also told me that it was he who dubbed you Super Spook, Captain Cronley, because you’re so good at what you do. So, Captain Super Spook, why don’t you tell us what the hell is going on here?”
“Yes, sir—”
“And start at the beginning, please, keeping in mind that I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, General Ivan Serov came to me at the Farber Palast—the press club—in Nuremberg—”
“You’re talking about the same Ivan Serov,” one of the brigadier generals interrupted, “who is first deputy to Commissar of State Security Nikolaevich Merkulov?”
“I’m conducting this, General,” Clay snapped. “But answer the question, Cronley. Is this who you’re talking about?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will now ask the question General Wiley would like to ask. The first deputy to Commissar Merkulov sought you out?”
“That’s correct, sir. Serov is assigned to Nuremberg as security for the Russian delegation to the Tribunal.”
“Had you any previous contact with General Serov?”
“Yes, sir. I had dealt with him when the NKGB kidnapped Colonel Mattingly.”
“Go on. What did Serov have on his mind when he sought you out?”
“Several things, sir, the most important of which was that he had found out where Odessa was keeping its money.”
“Before we get into the money, why would Serov tell you something like that? So you would pass it on to Admiral Souers?”
“Sir, this is where it gets a little weird. Serov has always been interested in Odessa and what I call Himmler’s new religion. During our conversation, he said that he had just lost his wife to cancer, about a month or five weeks ago.”
“Frankly, Cronley, I’m finding it . . . a little weird . . . that a high-ranking officer of the NKGB would discuss his private life with a junior American officer.”
“He was very emotional, sir. It may be because he knew I’d lost my fiancée—my bride—tragically. I’m not sure. Regardless, he told me that during his wife’s final hours, her family had been praying, nonstop, on their knees at her bedside. He told me that after she died, he began to wonder that maybe he should have been on his knees beside them.
“He went on to say he suddenly realized that he was alone in the world. His wife’s family wanted nothing to do with him because he was an NKGB officer, and he had no children and had no other living relatives.”
“My deep condolences for your loss, Captain,” General Clay said.
“Thank you, sir.”
Clay nodded, then said, “So Serov had quite a yarn. And?”
“The first thing I thought was that it was pure bullsh . . . Sorry, sir.”
“I’ve heard that word before. But?”
“Then I thought maybe it was true, maybe Serov was out of his mind with grief. So, I asked him, ‘What are you going to do now?’”
“He said that he finally realized that God had a purpose in leaving him all alone, and that purpose was for him to destroy Himmler’s new religion, which he described as ‘an obscene heresy.’”
“And what was your reaction to that?”
“That I was again in over my head in dealing with Serov, sir. The reason he got to be number two to Merkulov is because he’s smarter than just about anyone else in the NKGB. And from my previous dealings with him, I knew what a devious sonofabitch he can be—is. And he wanted something from me. I didn’t know what. Or what to do. Period.”
“So, what did you decide?”
“Sir, I decided to hear him out. That’s when he told me the Vatican—the Vatican Bank—was holding Odessa’s money. The Reichskonkordat—”
“The what?”
“Sir, that’s the deal, the concord, the Pope made with the Nazis. He would stop anyone in the Catholic Church from criticizing the Nazis and the Nazis would leave the Catholic Church alone. It was also connected to a secret deal. Hitler—or maybe Himmler—leaned on Mussolini to have him declare the Vatican free of Italy, which made it a sovereign state.”
“I remember that,” Clay said, thoughtfully. “A sovereign state—specifically held by the Holy See—with less than half a square kilometer of territory.”
“Yes, sir. And he went from that to asking himself, what do all sovereign states have in common? And the answer to that is, a national bank. And neither the FBI nor the NKGB has been going over the books of the Holy Mother Church’s bank with a fine-tooth comb.
“Serov’s scenario is, just before we took Rome, the SS deposited what we’re calling Odessa’s money in the Vatican Bank.”
“Does General Serov have a scenario as to why the Pope would permit this?”
“Yes, sir.”
General Clay took a puff on what was left of his cigarette, then snuffed out the butt in a makeshift ashtray as he exhaled and made an impatient Let’s have it gesture.
“Sir, the Roman Catholic Church—the Pope—regards communism as its greatest threat, its greatest enemy. So does—did—Nazi Germany.”
“And there it is,” Clay said, and quoted, “‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
“Exactly, sir. Serov pointed out that the Pope was papal nuncio—the voice of the Pope—in Berlin for years, that he speaks German fluently, and that he made many friends, even among Himmler’s circle.
“So, Serov got one—maybe more—of his people into the Vatican Bank, where they found a numbered account that had to be the Nazi money. It is in excess of one hundred million dollars. And they also found out (a) that Odessa was about to make a withdrawal of approximately a million dollars, (b) that the Vatican Bank was going to deliver the withdrawal by courier, and (c) that the courier is Cardinal von Hassburger.”
“Really? That is quite an accusation. His Eminence is here to discuss the fate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church with John McCloy, Arthur Werner, and me.”
“Yes, sir. But it is the truth.”
“So you say.” Clay took his time lighting another Chesterfield, exhaled, and added, “Giving you—or General Serov—the benefit of the doubt that the cardinal is carrying money for Odessa leads me to this: Did he tell you what he plans to do about it?”
“Yes, sir. Serov has people in the Hotel Am Zoo—”
“I’ll bet he does!”
“—who will let us know when anyone in the cardinal’s entourage leaves the hotel with a briefcase. We will then follow him—or, if there’s more than one possible courier, all of them.”
“And you—and Serov—believe the courier with the briefcase will lead you to Odessa, or at least an Odessa operative?”
“Yes, sir. Not immediately. After he is interrogated by Serov’s people, we think we’ll have an address, and probably more.”
General Clay puffed his cigarette, then looked thoughtfully at Cronley as he exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Captain Cronley, you’re seriously suggesting that Serov’s plan is to kidnap a representative of the Holy See—probably a priest, possibly a monsignor, maybe even a bishop—and turn him over to the NKGB for interrogation? And the NKGB will then do what, kill him?”
“No, sir. Our plan is to send him back to the Am Zoo so that he can report that he was in the hands of the NKGB and that the NKGB has his briefcase.”
“And where is this briefcase? And what if the briefcase doesn’t have a million dollars in it?”
“Sir, we will still have the briefcase.”
“You and General Serov?”
“Yes, sir. In the event there’s no money in it, a man will deliver the briefcase that he will say he found at the Hotel Am Zoo. But he won’t turn it over to the cardinal’s people until he is suitably rewarded for returning it. There will be an argument. Eventually, somebody senior shows, maybe a monsignor or even a bishop. He pays, he gets the briefcase—and we start following him.”
“And then what?”
“Sir, if we in fact have the briefcase with the money, and the courier goes back to the Am Zoo and reports that it’s gone, what are they going to do? They can’t go to the police and report the robbery. How would they explain a simple priest—or monsignor or bishop—running around Berlin with a million dollars in a briefcase? Now, we’re presuming that they will want to tell Odessa about the loss. That means they’ll tell somebody to deal with Odessa. Not a simple priest, somebody senior. Anybody senior leaving the Am Zoo is tailed.”
Clay looked at Cronley, glanced around the table, then came back to Cronley.
“Is that about it, Captain?”
“Sir, we just got here.”
Clay ignored the answer and instead announced, “We will now get everyone’s opinion, hopefully brief, about Captain Cronley’s tale. We will start with the junior among us. With the exception of Colonel Cohen, whom we will hear last, who’s junior?”
The opinions offered were not flattering.
One major general said, “Bullshit, absolute pure bullshit. I kept wondering why you didn’t shut the arrogant little bastard up.”
He was followed by General Makamson, who said, “I think that Colonel Cohen and Captain Cronley should be escorted from here to the psychiatric ward of the One Hundred Thirty-fourth Station Hospital for a thorough mental evaluation.”
When all had finished, General Clay looked at Cohen.
“And now we’ll hear, probably for the defense, so to speak, from the Counterintelligence Corps. The floor is yours, Colonel.”
Cohen stood up.
“General Clay, sir, what you have seen in Captain Cronley’s presentation was why Mr. Justice Jackson calls him Super Spook. And, for the record, I’m happy to take orders from him, sir.”
He sat down.
Clay glanced from face to face as he said, “From the beginning of this, the thought that there must be a reason why Captain Cronley has been given the authority to deal with Odessa kept running through my mind. Then that eventually drove me to the conclusion that I’m not going to pit my evaluation of Captain Cronley against that of Admiral Souers. Not that my evaluation would in any way be negative. Quite the contrary.
“So, gentlemen, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pretend (a) that we didn’t know Cohen and Cronley are in Berlin and (b) that this meeting never took place. If we don’t know of Cronley and Cohen’s plans, how can we interfere with them? That said, there is one exception to this. Colonel Switzer?”
“Yes, sir?” Switzer said.
“As the chief, CIC Berlin,” Clay went on, “if the chief, CIC, Nuremberg Tribunal, came to ask for your support in connection with something he said he couldn’t talk about, what would be your reaction? Would you help him or not?”
“I’d be inclined to help him, sir.”
“Good. Now, I don’t know this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Colonel Cohen came to you and asked for support. If you can’t give him what he asks for, tell me. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I now declare this conference, which never took place, to be closed. General Makamson’s driver will take you, Colonel Cohen and Captain Cronley, wherever you want to go.”
“Thank you, sir,” Cohen and Cronley said, almost in unison.
“If you come across a bit of information you think would be of interest to me, I’d be grateful for it. I will not share it with anyone.”
“Yes, sir,” they said.
“Good luck to you,” Clay said, then snuffed out his cigarette.
“Thank you, sir,” Cohen and Cronley said again in chorus.
They stood up and walked to the door.
Makamson’s senior aide-de-camp, the major, was waiting for them.
“If you’ll follow me, please, gentlemen.”
[THREE]
44-46 Beerenstrasse
Zehlendorf, Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1105 20 April 1946
General Makamson’s driver, after taking a circuitous route, dropped off Cohen and Cronley in an alley a block from the safe house and immediately drove away. Before they were halfway to the next alley, headed for the back door of the house, an unmarked Chevrolet staff car stopped near where they had been dropped off. Two men stepped out of passenger doors.
Cronley saw that one was Colonel Switzer, the Berlin CIC chief, and was not surprised. Switzer’s boss, Brigadier General Greene, had provided a cover for the safe house. Officially, it was the living quarters for South American Airlines personnel, including flight crews.
Switzer had with him a trim, dark-haired lieutenant colonel, who Cronley didn’t recognize.
Cohen seemed unconcerned and continued up the alley, then into the house. Cronley quickly followed, passing the DCI agent guarding the back door.
Ginger, holding the baby, came into the foyer.
“After that ambush at the train station, Jimmy, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again when they drove you away.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but here I am, if somewhat battered and bloody.”
The DCI agent at the door called out, “A Colonel Switzer to see you, Colonel.”
“Let him in. He’s one of the good guys,” Cohen said, then added in a loud stage voice, “Unless you’re here, Lou, to tell me what a disgrace I am to the CIC and to the Army in general.”
Switzer entered the room, trailed by the lieutenant colonel. Cronley thought he looked to be in his early thirties.
Switzer and Cohen shook hands, then embraced, patting each other on the back.
“Morty,” Switzer said, “this is my deputy, Frank Williams.”
“Colonel,” Cohen said to Williams.
As they shook hands, Cohen added, “This is Captain Cronley, in case you don’t know. And this is his fiancée, Virginia Moriarty.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Switzer said, taking her hand.
“And mine,” Williams then said, and shook her now free hand.
“Now that we’re all friends, Morty,” Switzer said, “why don’t we have something alcoholic to celebrate your miraculous escape from spending the rest of your life in Leavenworth, the psychiatric wing thereof?”
Cohen chuckled.
“The bar would be this way,” Cohen said, making a sweeping gesture with his arm toward its door.
“So that’s where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing,” Cohen concluded his report to everyone in the safe house of what had happened.
Switzer cleared his throat. “If I may, Morty. I want everybody to understand that when General Makamson said he wanted Colonel Cohen and Captain Cronley taken to the lunatic ward for a thorough examination, he was damn dead serious.”
“I can understand that,” Ginger said.
“Thank you so kindly, my love,” Cronley said.
“I have a question for you, Captain Cronley,” Colonel Switzer said.
“Sir?”
“Do you also go along with Mort’s nutty idea that Himmler was starting a new religion?”
“Colonel, Himmler has started a Nazi religion,” Cronley said.
Ginger put in: “We were in Wewelsburg Castle yesterday. What I saw there convinced me that Himmler has indeed started something terrible. I have never felt such evil in my life. I wanted to scream and grab my baby and run for our lives.”
Switzer was silent, deep in thought.
Finally, he said, “Well, I’m going to be on Makamson’s shit list if I loan you so much as a lined pad and a pencil. So, I might as well go whole hog. What do you need, Mort?”
“We need people to sit on this place while our guys are out stealing briefcases. Can I have four of your agents? Preferably with radio-equipped cars.”
“Frank?”
“Done,” Williams said.
“Thank you,” Cohen said. “This one may not be so easy, so feel free to say ‘Hell, no.’ If I had one of your radio-equipped cars, one with sirens and flashing lights, Cronley and I could hang around the K’damm without drawing too much attention.”
Switzer nodded. “It would be useful, wouldn’t it, Morty, if my agent knew what was going on? Then if you jumped in the back with a briefcase, he could turn on the lights and siren and get you the hell out of there. I don’t mind sticking my neck out, but I don’t like to put my guys at risk.”
“I’ll drive the car,” Williams said.
“Why would you want to do that?” Switzer asked.
“Boss, I know you’re skeptical, but I think Colonel Cohen is onto something, and I don’t want to remember in a couple of years—or maybe even next Friday—that I turned down a chance to be in on it.”
“Understood,” Switzer said, nodding.
“What I’d like to do, then,” Cohen said, “is send at least two guys over to the Am Zoo.”
“I think we have to wait until we hear from Serov,” Cronley said.
Cohen met his eyes and, after a pause, said, “I think you’re right.”
“And while we’re waiting, I’ll summon the reinforcements,” Williams said. “Where’s the secure phone?”
They didn’t have to wait long. At 1215, there came a knock at the front door of the safe house. A scrawny, middle-aged German on a bicycle handed the plainclothes DCI agent who answered the door an envelope. It bore no return address. There was only block lettering handwritten in black ink, the penmanship impeccable: HERR J. CRONLEY.
The agent delivered it to Cronley, and, when he opened it, he found it contained a plain sheet of paper with more block lettering: KEMPINSKI BRISTOL HOTEL BAR, KURFÜRSTENDAMM 25 1300-1430.
It was unsigned. But there was no question in Cronley’s mind that it came from Ivan Serov.
[FOUR]
Kempinski Bristol Hotel
Kurfürstendamm 25
Berlin, International Zone of Occupation, Germany
1350 20 April 1946
Serov, wearing the uniform of an NKGB general officer, was sitting at a booth in the bar with another man, who was wearing the uniform of an NKGB colonel. Cronley recognized him as Sergei Alekseevich. He had met him while negotiating with Serov to get the kidnapped Colonel Mattingly back from the NKGB. Alekseevich then had been wearing the uniform of an NKGB major.
“What a pleasant surprise!” Cronley said, in German, as he walked up to the booth.
He sat down—without being invited and without shaking Serov’s outstretched hand—and switched to English. “How they hanging, Sergei?”
After a bit, Alekseevich grunted, “Herr Cronley.”
“You came alone,” Serov said.
“Not exactly, Ivan. Everybody but Colonel Cohen is in the lobby, waiting to hear what’s going on with you.”
“Everybody?”
“Father J-for-Jack McGrath, Max Ostrowski, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Williams. Plus, of course, Ginger and the baby.”
“Who is this Colonel Williams?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know. More than once I thought I’d been reliably informed that the NKGB knew all.”
That earned him a glare from Serov.
Cronley went on. “Actually, he’s a lieutenant colonel. He’s number two in Berlin CIC.”
“Sergei,” Serov ordered, “go to the maître d’hôtel, tell them we have unexpected guests, and then ask James’s people to join you in the dining room. I need a moment alone with James.”
Alekseevich stood up, acknowledged the order with a curt nod of his head, and left the bar.
“I have two tidbits of new information,” Serov then said. “Burgdorf and von Dietelburg have escaped from the AVO.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“What is it you’re always saying, James? Money talks? Colonel Alekseevich was able to get the Hungarians to turn them loose with a remarkably small gift.”
“What the hell was the purpose of turning them loose?”
“Both were prepared to die as martyrs to the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine rather than give up Odessa. I confess I was sorely tempted to let them, but then I thought they just might interpret getting free of AVO as an act of God and run right to Odessa, or at least to some high-ranking member of Odessa.”
“You are a really devious bastard, Ivan. I say that with all due admiration.”
“They sneaked across the Hungarian border into Austria and then across the Austrian border into Germany. They made no attempt to contact anyone during their journey. They’re now in Wiesbaden, in Hesse. My people tell me they will probably make their way to the Autobahn at Helmstedt, on the American–Russian Zone border, where they will bribe a truck driver to carry them through East Germany to Berlin.”
“Bribe a truck driver? Where did they get the money to do that?”
“I can only assume they stole it from the AVO guard they overpowered when he went unaccompanied into their cell, reeking of Slivovitz. It will take them at least three days, possibly as many as five, to make it to Berlin. So, we’ll have that much time in case our plans during that time bear no fruit.”
“And what are our plans?”
“His Eminence Cardinal von Hassburger, under the aegis of either John Jay McCloy or General Clay, possibly both, is to tour the Kaiser Wilhelm Church at ten-hundred hours tomorrow, which will give him, or a member of his entourage, at least the chance to meet with someone from Odessa, if not pass a briefcase to him.
“I think we should be there, don’t you, James? By we, I mean your people and mine.”
“Let me see if I can fit it into our schedule.”
“Wonderful! Now let’s go to lunch. They serve a marvelous sauerbraten here.”