The Berkut (55 page)

After crossing the border, he caught a train to Zurich. Arriving at the gray office building, he was shown into an office and left alone to leaf through magazines from the States. The office had changed drastically; the original decor had been what Arizona called Early Married, but this was plush, the furniture antique and valuable. There was a hand
woven Oriental rug on the floor and mahogany bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. A silk flag stood in a corner, and the bases of the lamps on the end tables were of thick Irish crystal. Heavy decanters filled with smoke-colored scotch were set out on a bar near the hand-carved desk. What the hell was going on? This was not Arizona's style, but it was his office.

A man came into the office, walked past Valentine without speak ing and sat down behind the desk. He opened a drawer, extracted a name plate, put it in front of him and played with its positioning until he had it the way he wanted it. It read: Justin L. R. Creel
III.
"Where's Arizona?" Valentine demanded. The old field officer had been more than a good supervisor; he had also been a friend. An attorney from Phoenix with a sharp mind and a tongue to match, he had been demanding but reliable. This was no time to be breaking in a new control officer.

"Reassigned. "

"Where to?"

The new man scowled at him; to ask such questions was a breach of protocol in the OSS. "You'll spare me a scene if I tell you it's none of your business," he said acerbically. "You've taken a long time to comply with the directive."

"I got busy," Valentine said. The new man's suit was expensive, tailored beautifully; he wore gold cuff links and a fat watch, and his shoes were so shiny they looked wet. When the need arose, Valentine could be the most down-home country boy that ever traipsed through manure; a little voice in his head told him this was one of those times.

"I've had a thorough look at your dossier," the officer said in a precise monotone. "You have had your share of successes and failures. You have a penchant for independent action and a flair for languages. You're also fat, out of shape, dress like a slob and have virtually no future in the American intelligence network. I'm told you like to hear things 'without the frills.' Am I performing up to your expectations?"

"Boy, yewer way outta my league."

The man's eyebrows lifted briefly before he returned his attention to the folder in front of him. "On January twenty-second of this year President Truman signed an executive order establishing the National Intelligence Authority. By this order he created the Central Intelligence Group as the NIA's operating arm."

Valentine contemplated what he'd heard. "You mean the OSS is kaput?"

"Decommissioned by presidential order on October first; it's outlived its usefulness."

"But Donovan's running the new outfit, right?"

"Mr. Donovan and the president do not see eye to eye on matters of national security. The OSS was run with a complete disregard for discipline; Donovan was too free and easy in his management style. He's out, and so are the rest of his kind."

Valentine smiled and leaned forward. "You're shitting me, right?"

"Which brings us to the matter of one Beauregard Valentine. In December of '44 you were provided with forty thousand dollars in gold; our auditors report that there's been no accounting for its subsequent disbursement. We have been unable to ascertain from the Italians that they received this money; my superiors have instructed me to inquire about its whereabouts." The man's tone was that of Nobel laureate to cretin.

"Fuckin' B-
1
7s wasted forty thousand dollars in duds on every mission. Ain't nobody tryin' to account for them, is there?"

The officer pushed his gold wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his straight nose and glared at him. "The war's over for you, Mr. Valentine. Men of your ilk are no longer needed; I won't offer my own opinions about whether they were ever needed. So you are finished, Mr. Valentine. But you're not getting away until you have settled all your accounts. The OSS had its own way of doing things; we do things by the book. Our profession is in need of thinning; you, I believe, are what agriculturists would term a weed."

Valentine leaned over the desk and snapped shut the folder in Creel's hands. "All right, asshole, let's get us an understanding." Creel tensed. "I didn't steal anything, and for damn sure not a measly forty thousand bucks." He tapped the closed folder with the heel of his hand. "If you'd bothered to read close enough, you'd have found that I'm what the sociologists call part of that very small and exclusive class, the filthy rich. A regular blue blood, Social Register and all. I don't know who you are and I don't much care, friend. I could buy your wife tomorrow and give her to my Cajun friends for
Bojo
practice. I could blow you away on the street tonight, turn myself in and never spend a day in jail. Friend, you are dealing with the worst trouble you ever dreamed of when you fuck with me, so sit back on your little tin throne and shut your mouth. I came here to talk, and I'm damned well gonna do it."

When Valentine paused, Creel was fully back in his chair, clutching the armrests, still as death, his eyes wide.

"I've got reason to believe that the Russians are still hunting for Hitler's body. I've got one damned good lead-hotter than anything I've ever been around. I need two things from you, Mr. Asshole Case Supervisor Creel. First, I want you write down in your report
exactly
what I'm telling you. Use my words so you don't get it garbled, sonny. Second, I want you to slap a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Hitler's bunker in Berlin."

"That's in the Russian zone," Creel countered, his voice cracking in mid-sentence.

"I know it's Russian territory, idiot! That's why I want surveillance. Around-the-clock with the best people you've got. If anything happens in or around that place, I want to know pronto and not in some cute code. And don't worry about calling me;
I'll
call
you."

"You are no longer authorized to undertake new initiatives," Creel said defensively. "You are without portfolio."

Valentine leaned forward. "Fuck your portfolio, you upper-case pain in the ass. You call Donovan and tell him the score. Tell him you got it from Valentine.
He'll
tell the new big shots to authorize the goddamned initiative!" He turned away from the desk and sat on a small love seat, his leg draped over one arm. "Pick up your pencil, sonny, and write this down. If I'm going too fast, stop me." He laid out his activities since entering Germany. He had Creel read it back to him, added a sentence or two, and then got up. "One last thing: Italians are like Swiss when it comes to money. I gave the money to my partisans, just like all the other money. If you want to see their bankbooks, ask them. Put that in your report, too."

He opened the door. "Any questions?" Creel shook his head. Valentine smiled, pointed his finger and rotated it slowly. "Then pick up the damn phone, sonny, and get some coverage in Berlin."

The door slammed. Creel read his handwritten notes again, then fumbled with the telephone.

Outside the office Valentine paused to calm himself. The OSS was gone; he was out of a job. Fuck 'em, he decided. This one I'm taking all the way to the end. For Arizona. For Wild Bill. For me.

76 – March 25, 1946, Noon

They were dressed as farmers. Brumm led them quickly out of the mountains, but as soon as they cleared the wilderness he slowed them to a pace so sluggish that it frightened Herr Wolf. Their route was due south, but winding in its dependence on topography. Their lack of speed was deliberate, the result of a hard lesson well learned. Behind enemy lines you had to convince casual onlookers that you belonged. Haste not only led to errors in judgment, but made you conspicuous. Farmers seldom hurried, so Brumm set a pace that was in keeping with their cover.

With the SS colonel on the point and Beard trailing, Herr Wolf was sandwiched between them. He seldom complained, and did exactly as he was told. The two soldiers each carried a machine pistol tucked into the folds of his overcoat, gunnysacks over their shoulders like sailors, and a cloth satchel containing clothing, medicine and other essentials. From a distance Brumm knew they would pass muster.

The plan was to head south toward the western fringes of the Thuringian Forest, and from there to veer west to an area north of Marburg. This part of the journey was calculated by Brumm to be less than two hundred kilometers, but because they would be traveling with the terrain, the actual distance would be 25 percent greater, he estimated. Figuring an average daily pace of nearly thirty kilometers and, allowing for obstacles and delays, they would reach their destination in nine or ten days.

Brumm had decided that they would travel during the day. It was risky, but Herr Wolf would have too much difficulty in the darkness. Their plan was to sleep from dark to first light, then move out, foraging for their food as they went by stealing from the farms and isolated houses they encountered. Such losses were common to country
folk, and while the residents might be irritated, it was unlikely that they would make an official complaint.

It had begun raining as they left the Harz and it was still coming down, a soft soaking drizzle that drenched the countryside, activated the soil and christened new flowers. Though they were frequently wet,
whenever possible,
Brumm kept them under the canopies of red-pine forests, their floors covered by a thick matting of aging brown needles. He estimated that it would take seven days to reach the Christianburg area, and he hoped that the charts stolen from the American major would prove accurate.

77 – March 26, 1946, 3:00 P.M.

It was a travesty; with the war less than a year into history, the
ass
had been mothballed, consigned to the scrap heap. Arizona had been a damn fine case officer, the best Valentine had ever worked with. He'd known how to get the most out of his men in the field without treating them like toy soldiers. He'd understood that "out there" an agent needed freedom to operate, current information to help him make decisions and, above all else, complete support. What it boiled down to was mutual respect. The new man was about as far removed from Arizona as could be imagined. When Ivy Leaguers like Creel started taking control, it was time for old hands to fade away. It was galling to think that Wild Bill could have allowed this to happen.

It had been a long war with a big price tag, and now it was time to move on, Valentine told himself. Back to Louisiana. Maybe a stint in "Nawlins" would clear his mind and help him to decide his future. Birth with wealth was a true burden. To those without, it looked like a cushy life, but it wasn't. The wealth hadn't come to the family in a single stroke of good fortune; it had been accumulated by generations of Valentines, and their riches were not fluid. The lives of hundreds of people depended on the Valentines, and it fell to some selected members to dedicate their lives to increasing the size and scope of the fortune. Every Valentine learned hard economic lessons early in life. The golden principle was that wealth could not remain static; it either grew or diminished, with the former state preferred.

In the existing Valentine clan it was Beau's younger brother Buster who aspired to the stewardship of the fortune, and Beau was more than happy to leave him to it. But if his role was not that of capitalist, this left only one option, for the rich had only two: to increase the fortune or to serve mankind. It was ironic, Valentine often thought, that only the very rich and the very poor-those with everything and those with nothing-had the time or motivation to dedicate their lives to pursuits of a higher order. Serving his country had always been a noble notion, and he knew that what he had done had contributed to the eventual demise of the Nazis. But the job had sapped most of his energy, and now the road ahead was not well defined. In the end he decided that there was one job left to do, the one he had already started, whether Uncle Sam approved or not; he'd see it through, whatever the cost, and when it was finished, he'd pack it in and head for home. There he'd lie low for a while and decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Following the leads provided by Skorzeny would be a fairly straightforward proposition. Brumm was from Bad Harzburg, and judging from what Valentine had heard from various dogfaces about heavy refugee traffic there, he reasoned it was worth investigating. He drove toward the little mountain town two hundred and ten kilometers north of the cluttered confines of Frankfurt, spending most of the journey trying to figure out what the Russians were up to. It was a frustrating exercise in deductive reasoning. Before leaving Switzerland, he'd done some checking around with his sources: a press attache at the American embassy, a watchmaker named Hubert, who fenced stolen currencies and other items, and Ermine.

Ermine Malone, who worked in the OSS office in Zurich, had been married three times: to a plumber from Salem, Oregon; to an FBI agent from Philly; and to a drummer from Baltimore, who had been killed in a plane crash during a USO tour in North Africa. She was small but compactly built, shy in public and sexually insatiable when it came to Beau Valentine. He'd never met anybody like her. Like him, she was not what she appeared to be, and he suspected that it was this similarity that bonded them. His sometime lover and friend, she was also his informer inside the agency, his insurance policy.

On leaving the meeting with Creel, Valentine had stopped by her desk, caught her eye and flashed his hand, showing her five fingers. She nodded her understanding and signaled back with three fingers, and added with a whisper, "Tomorrow." They'd meet at three o'clock in her fifth-floor flat.

Her apartment was a cramped studio affair with a large skylight and bare plaster walls. When Valentine entered, the woman fell on him in a fury, kicking him and raining blows at his ribs and forearms with her hard little knuckles. He retreated, trying to fend her off with his huge hands. Eventually her anger gave way to laughter, then to lust; they made love on the floor still wearing most of their clothes.