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I

[ONE]

Schlosshotel Kronberg

Hainstrasse 25, Kronberg im Taunus

Hesse, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

1955 17 February 1946

Captain James D. Cronley Jr. sat in the back of an olive-drab 1942 Chevrolet staff car in his “pinks and greens,” which is how officers referred to the “Class A” semi-dress uniform, puffing on a long black cigar, despite a sign on the back of the front seat that read both NO SMOKING! and RAUCHEN VERBOTEN!

Jim Cronley was a six-foot-tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed Texan. The crossed sabers on his lapels identified him as a cavalryman, and his shoulder insignia—a three-inch yellow circle outlined in black, with a C in the center pierced by a red lightning bolt—identified him as a member of the U.S. Constabulary, which policed the American Zone of Occupied Germany.

Three and a half hours before, the telephone on his desk in the Compound, which housed the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation (South German Industrial Development Organization) in Pullach, a small village about twenty miles from Munich, had flashed a red button, which had caused him to say “Shit!” as he reached for it.

His office was in a small, neat building identified by a sign on its small, now snow-covered lawn as the Office of the OMGUS Liaison Officer. OMGUS was the acronym for Office of Military Government, U.S.

It was, de facto, the headquarters of DCI-Europe, the Directorate of Central Intelligence, which had been formed several months before to replace the Office of Strategic Services by President Harry S Truman and answered only to him.

The OMGUS sign was an obfuscation, a smoke screen, so to speak, to conceal the truth. So was the Constabulary shoulder insignia on Jim Cronley’s tunic. He was not assigned to the Constabulary. He was listed on the War Department’s “Detached Officer Roster,” which is classified Secret, as being assigned to the Directorate of Central Intelligence.

He was, in fact, chief, DCI-Europe.

So was the South German Industrial Development Organization an obfuscation to conceal what had once been Abwehr Ost—Intelligence East—of the Wehrmacht. Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen had made a deal with Allen Dulles, then the OSS station chief in Switzerland, not only to surrender to the Americans but to bring with him all his assets, which included agents inside the Kremlin, and to place him and them at the service of the Americans. In exchange, Dulles agreed to protect Gehlen’s officers and enlisted men, and their families, from the Russians.

“Cronley,” Cronley had said into the handset of the secure telephone.

“ASA Fulda, sir. Hold for Major Wallace.”

The Army Security Agency was charged with making sure the Army’s communications network was not compromised, and, in addition to other services, providing secure encrypted telephone, Teletype, and radio communications.

“Major Wallace, we have Captain Cronley on a secure line.”

“You’re invited to Colonel Bob Mattingly’s ‘Farewell to USFET’ party.”

“I must regretfully decline the kind invitation.”

“It will be held at Schlosshotel Kronberg.”

“As I have a previous social engagement.”

“So put on your pinks and greens and get in your airplane within the next thirty minutes. A car will be waiting for you at Eschborn.”

“No.”

“And wear your DSM.”

“I was told I wasn’t supposed to wear it.”

“This is a special occasion.”