He stopped, paused, and then looked at Richter.
“You may comment.”
“I can’t find a flaw in your reasoning, sir.”
“All right. Get started on a plan, multiple plans, to eliminate Cletus Frade. And as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
IX
[ONE]
Rhine-Main Airfield
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
0835 19 October 1945
Colonel Robert Mattingly, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr., Technical Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth, and Staff Sergeant Paul D. Miller were all crammed in Mattingly’s Horch when La Ciudad de Mar del Plata taxied up to the terminal.
The car was filthy. Its passengers looked both tired and scruffy.
Mattingly and the sergeants had left Berlin just after noon the day before, headed directly for Kloster Grünau in Bavaria, a distance of approximately 360 miles. They paused only for fuel and coffee and bologna sandwiches at Quartermaster POL (for Petrol, Oil, and Lubricants) stations, and for roadside breaks for draining their bladders and taking turns at the wheel.
En route, they had been forced three times to pull off the autobahn after having been caught by Military Police speed traps driving in excess—far in excess—of the rigidly enforced 35 m.p.h. speed limit. Once, at a speed trap south of Kassel, an MP sergeant, who appeared more impressed than indignant, told Mattingly that he had clocked him at 105 m.p.h., which was three times the limit.
The normal procedure called for the detention of both driver and vehicle until, in the case of enlisted men, the miscreant could be turned over to his first sergeant or, in the case of officers, an officer of superior grade from his unit.
The detention procedure was waived for Mattingly. He was a colonel; Rank Hath Its Privileges.
He and the Horch were released after he signed an acknowledgment that he had been speeding. A report detailing his misbehavior would be sent through channels to his commanding officer. The MP sergeant also told him that the violation, speeding, was automatically upgraded to reckless driving when the speeder was caught going ten miles over the 35 m.p.h. limit.
At Kloster Grünau, Mattingly raised Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr. and First Sergeant Tiny Dunwiddie from their more or less innocent sleep. He told the latter he was going to have to hold down the fort for a couple of weeks as the former was going to Argentina.
He then proceeded to brief Lieutenant Cronley as to what was expected of him, including the means of protecting the two canvas suitcases that he was not to let out of his sight until he placed them into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Frade.
They then drove the approximately 226 road miles from Kloster Grünau to the Rhine-Main airfield outside Frankfurt am Main, acquiring en route two more citations for far exceeding the speed limit.
The citations, Mattingly knew, were going to delight General Greene when they came down through channels and landed on his desk requiring that he reply as to what punitive action he had taken. Greene would salivate when he got the one reporting that Mattingly had been clocked at triple the speed limit and cited for reckless driving.
While there were a number of punitive possibilities the speeding could cause, ranging from a verbal reprimand to a court-martial, the most likely thing that could happen was that Mattingly would find himself standing at attention before Lieutenant General Seidel—the EUCOM intelligence officer and General Greene’s boss.
Seidel would ask him what the hell the speeding was all about, and Mattingly would reply with the truth: “I had to get an officer onto the Buenos Aires plane, sir. The weather precluded the use of a light airplane, so the only way I could do that in the time available was by car, and ignoring the speed limit. Sir.”
It was possible—unlikely but possible—that General Seidel would give him a pass on that alone. He had worked if not for, then around, Seidel in London and Paris. And Seidel had raised no objections when he had—with, to be sure, the blessings of both I. D. White and David Bruce, head of OSS in London—been named chief of OSS in Germany.
More likely was the probability that Seidel would ask, “What officer? Buenos Aires? Why?”
Questions that Mattingly could not answer, which would annoy Seidel even more than his refusal to answer Greene’s questions had annoyed Greene.
And that would see him standing before Ike’s chief of staff, General “Beetle” Smith. Smith knew about OPERATION OST, so Mattingly could explain to him why he had acted as he had, but Smith was not likely to give him a pass. Eisenhower would have to be told of the problem.
The problem of course was not Colonel Robert Mattingly’s five citations for reckless driving, but the compromise of OPERATION OST, which carried with it the absolutely unacceptable embarrassment of both Eisenhower and President Truman.
It was possible, once Mattingly told Eisenhower that the files he had sent to Argentina were the ones—the only ones—that, should they fall into the wrong hands, could embarrass the President, that Eisenhower would tell Seidel to back off, what was going on at Kloster Grünau was none of his business. Or bring Seidel into the picture—he was, after all, the EUCOM G-2—and have him tell Greene to back off.
More likely, however, Eisenhower’s reaction to the situation would be: “Shut down Operation Ost.”