“In a way, it was amusing. But it could have turned out the other way. She could very easily have not been as charming to you as she was. Some wives might be offended that a young officer had shot out the engine of their husband’s car and act accordingly. You follow me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She could have asked, ‘I’m curious why, Colonel Mattingly, after Captain Cronley fired a machine gun at my husband, he’s here and not in the EUCOM stockade awaiting court-martial?’”
I wonder why she didn’t?
Maybe Colonel and Mrs. Schumann aren’t the happy couple everyone thinks they are.
Happily married women don’t usually drink four martinis before lunch and then grope officers under the table.
“As you suggested, sir, Colonel Schumann probably told her not to ask questions about what happened at Kloster Grünau.”
“What I’m worried about, Jim, is that you don’t fully understand (a) the absolute necessity of maintaining the security of Operation Ost, and, more important, (b) that you’re in a position where a careless act of yours can cause more trouble in that regard than you fully understand.”
Here it comes.
“I must respectfully argue, sir, that I fully understand both.”
“Then what the hell did you think you were doing when you interrogated the NKGB agent? I told Dunwiddie to deal with that situation.”
When Cronley didn’t immediately reply, Mattingly went on, “Cat got your tongue, Captain? I’m surprised. You usually have an answer for everything at the tip of your tongue.”
“I have an answer, sir, but I suspect you’re not going to like it.”
“Let’s find out.”
“For one thing, sir, Major Orlovsky is my prisoner, not General Gehlen’s.”
“Your prisoner?”
“And I didn’t like the way he was being treated by Gehlen’s man, Bischoff.”
“What do you mean your prisoner?”
“Sir, Orlovsky was arrested trying to sneak out of Kloster Grünau by one of my men. Doesn’t that make him my prisoner?”
“I am beginning to see where you’re coming from,” Mattingly said after a moment. “So tell me, Captain Cronley: What are your plans for your prisoner? What are you going to do with him?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out, sir.”
“Has it occurred to you that he may have to be disposed of?”
“If you mean shot, yes, sir.”
“And, that being the case, it would be much better if he was disposed of by someone other than an American officer?”
“If Major Orlovsky has to be shot, sir, I’ll do it. I’m not willing to turn that — or Major Orlovsky — over to Gehlen.”
“It didn’t take long for those new captain’s bars to go to your head, did it?” Mattingly said furiously. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m the officer you put in charge of security of Operation Ost, sir.”
“Captain, I am the officer in charge of security for Operation Ost.”
“Sir, that’s not my understanding.”
“What is your understanding, you impertinent sonofabitch?”
“That you, sir, are in charge of the European functions of Operation Ost, that Lieutenant Colonel Frade is in charge of the Argentine functions, that the whole thing is under Admiral Souers, and that, far down on the Table of Organization, I’m in charge of security for European functions under you.”
“And would you say that gives me the authority to tell you what to do and how to do it?”
“So long as your orders are lawful, sir.”
“Meaning what?”
“That I don’t think you have the authority to grant authority to Gehlen to take prisoners, to interrogate prisoners, and certainly not to shoot them.”
“Maybe you do belong in the EUCOM stockade. For disobedience to my orders to you to let Sergeant Dunwiddie deal with the NKGB problem.”
“If you put me in the stockade, sir…” Cronley began, then hesitated.
“Finish what you started to say,” Mattingly ordered coldly.
“… or if I should drop out of contact for more than a day or two… or should something happen to me, Colonel Frade would want, would demand, an explanation.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you? God damn you!”
Cronley didn’t reply.
Mattingly tugged a silver cigarette case from his tunic pocket, took a cigarette from it, and then lit it with a Zippo lighter.
He exhaled the smoke.
“This has gone far enough,” he announced.
He took another puff and exhaled it through pursed lips.
“My mistake was in taking you into the OSS in the first place,” he said thoughtfully, almost as if talking to himself. “I should have known your relationship with Colonel Frade was going to cause me problems. And which I compounded by sending you to Argentina with those files.”
He looked into Cronley’s eyes.
“So, what do I do with you, Captain Cronley? I can’t leave you at Kloster Grünau thinking you’re not subject to my orders.”
“Was that a question, sir?”
“Consider it one.”
“You can let me deal with the problem of Major Orlovsky.”
“What does that mean?”
“Let me see if I can get the names of Gehlen’s people who gave him those rosters.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to try. And, sir, I don’t think that I’m not subject to your orders. I just think you’re wrong for wanting to turn the problem over to Gehlen.”
“Don’t you mean ‘General Gehlen,’ Captain?”
“Herr Gehlen has been run through a De-Nazification Court and released from POW status to civilian life. He no longer has military rank, and I think it’s a mistake to let him pretend he does.”
“It makes it easier for him to control his people, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t care if they call him Der Führer. I am not going to treat him as a general in a position to give me orders. It has to be the other way around.”
“Or what?”
“You have to go along with that, or relieve me.”
“Whereupon you would tell Colonel Frade why I relieved you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what makes you think Frade wouldn’t think relieving a twenty-two-year-old captain who wouldn’t take orders was something I had every right to do?”
“I’ll have to take that chance, sir.”
Mattingly looked at him a long moment. “My biggest mistake was in underestimating your ego,” he said, almost sadly. “I should have known better. Why the hell couldn’t you have stayed a nice young second lieutenant who only knew how to say ‘Yes, sir’ and wouldn’t dream of questioning his orders?”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“We seem to be back to: ‘What the hell do I do with you?’”
“You can let me see how I do with Major Orlovsky.”
“My question was rhetorical, Captain Cronley. I was not asking for a reply.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Prefacing the following by saying that this conversation is by no means over, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen now. In the morning, you will return to Kloster Grünau. I’ll give you a week to see what you can learn from Major Orlovsky. One week. Seven days from now, you will come back here and report to me what, if anything, you think you have learned, and offer any suggestions you might have regarding the next step.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Don’t entertain any illusions that you have come out on top of our little tête-à-tête. Whatever happens, our relationship in the future will be considerably less cordial than it has been in the past.”