“How much are you going to tell the Russian about these messages?” Mannberg asked after Cronley had, so to speak, translated the code in both messages and then answered the questions the messages raised for the Germans.
“The Russian,” not “Major Orlovsky.” You don’t give up, Ludwig, do you?
In your mind he’s a Russian and therefore a member of the Untermenschen.
“Dunwiddie and I had Major Orlovsky to dinner last night. He didn’t eat but he did read the first message.”
“You didn’t feed him?” Mannberg said. “I had the impression your theory of interrogation was Christian compassion.”
Well, fuck you!
“No, we didn’t feed him . . .” Cronley began, wondering how far he could go in telling Mannberg to go fuck himself without forcing Gehlen to come to Mannberg’s aid.
Dunwiddie stepped up to the plate.
“Captain Cronley did a masterful job of introducing God and a Christian’s duty to his wife and children into the conversation. That seemed to kill Major Orlovsky’s appetite.”
“‘Masterful’?” Mannberg parroted, a hair’s-breadth from openly sarcastic.
“Absolutely masterful,” Tiny confirmed. “The proof of that pudding being Major Orlovsky called Captain Cronley a sonofabitch at least four times and damned him to hell at least three.”
Gehlen chuckled.
“That’s progress,” Gehlen said. “The only reaction you and Bischoff could get out of the major was a cold look of Communist disdain. Anything else come out of the dinner?”
“Well, sir,” Tiny said, “we learned that his son is too young to be a Young Pioneer.”
“And that the Czarevich Alexei was a Boy Scout before the Cheka shot him,” Cronley said. “We got him talking, General. Not much, but talking.”
“That’s a step forward,” Gehlen said.
“And you showed him these messages?” Mannberg asked, his tone suggesting he didn’t think doing so was a very good idea.
“I showed him Message One, only,” Cronley said. “I have a suggestion for Message Two, but first I want you to have a look at a proposed Operations Plan I had the chief of my General Staff draw up.”
He motioned for Dunwiddie to produce Hessinger’s plan.
Mannberg stood to look over Gehlen’s shoulder as Gehlen opened the folder.
The waiter appeared. Gehlen quickly closed the folder. The waiter silently placed their breakfast before Cronley and Dunwiddie, then left. Dunwiddie again closed the door. Gehlen opened the folder and Mannberg again rose to read the document over Gehlen’s shoulder.
Cronley and Dunwiddie turned to their breakfast.
“Rather thorough, isn’t it?” Gehlen finally said. “I don’t know who the chief of your General Staff is, but he certainly proves he has the every-detail-counts mentality of a good staff officer.”
“Yes, sir. That was the conclusion First Sergeant Dunwiddie and I reached before we decided we would no longer refer to Sergeant Hessinger as ‘Fat Freddy.’”
“Would you be surprised to hear I’m not surprised?”
“General, nothing you do will ever surprise me.”
“I got into a conversation with the sergeant at the Vier Jahreszeiten one day while waiting for Colonel Mattingly. I was not surprised that he was familiar with Helmuth von Moltke the Elder’s ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’ theory.”
“I think they even teach that at Captain Cronley’s alma mater,” Dunwiddie said.
Cronley gave him the finger.
“But I was surprised at Hessinger’s argument that the seeds for it can be found in von Moltke’s book The Russo-Turkish Campaign in Europe, 1828–1829. Are you familiar with that?”