Chapter 15

The morning after her return from Germany, Kelly was in the Army hospital at Mike’s bedside when he awakened. He looked up and found her staring at him, while tears were rolling slowly down her cheeks. The surgery on his shoulder had been completed successfully with all of the shrapnel removed.

“Hello, darling,” he said softly. “What’s wrong?”

She ignored his question. Instead, she replied. “How do you feel? How’s the shoulder?”

“It’s been better. But you didn’t answer me. What’s wrong?”

Kelly tried to smile, but the tears kept running. “I’m sorry. Nothing’s wrong, really. Maybe I’m happy that you’re alive.” She sat up straight in her chair, and said, “I’m lying, Mike. I’m crying because it’s not fair!”

“What’s not fair?” Mike asked, showing concern.

“I’ve been promoted again! I’m a full colonel. I outrank you,” she wailed.

Mike reached across the bed with his good right hand and took hers in it. “Congratulations, darling! I think it’s wonderful.”

“And I think it stinks! It’s not fair. Mike, you’re West Point. You’ve studied this military stuff. You’re a career officer. I’m a damned high-school dropout who can’t do anything right!” Her tears started to flow again.

Mike said sharply, “Jackson! Stand at attention!”

Kelly unthinkingly dropped his hand and stood at attention.

“Jackson,” Mike ordered, maintaining the same command tone, “what are those ribbons on your chest?”

“Sir! The first is the Medal of Honor, the second...”

Kelly appeared startled as she realized what he was doing. She frowned and said, “Mike Callahan! You can’t do that. I outrank you! You can’t give me ... Michael Callahan, now I know the truth for sure. You’re parents were never married, and your mother was a female dog! You are cruel, mean, nasty...”

She stopped as she saw a grin spread across his face which drove away her tears as she finished, “But I love you anyway!”

Being careful to stay clear of his shoulder, she took him in her arms and kissed him. The kiss was loaded with love and passion. She felt better as his good right arm closed around her.

She heard him whisper in her ear, now so close to his lips, “You’re awfully cute for a bird colonel ... especially when you’re mad.” He pulled her face down to his and kissed her again. When she finally straightened up in her chair he could see the love shining in her eyes. “Are you sure you still want to marry me? You outrank me now.”

“The answer is yes!” she answered brightly. “I just realized there are some advantages: For example, you can be on permanent KP. And you can get to walk the floor with the baby at 0200 and...”

Mike’s eyes widened. “Kelly! You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t use your rank...”

“ ... then there are other things,” Kelly ignored the outburst. Her eyes took on a faraway look as she continued, “I can order you to strip for me so I can look at your body ... Of course, it’s getting pretty shot up, so I’m not really sure it’s worth looking at anymore.” She got to her feet and bent over to kiss him again. “But there are still the bells! God, I love kissing you!” And she did, again.

She smiled and then returned to her office where Cathy gave her a message to call John St. Clair. When she reached John, he asked her to go to Germany. “Kelly, we have a strange situation. Using the Kelly Jackson/George Patton assault, we’ve captured several Soviet headquarters with their staffs intact. One of them appears to be the Russian headquarters for the Western front. However, we can’t find the commanding general. We think we identified the man, but he’s wearing the uniform of a lieutenant colonel. Could you go over and take a look?”

Kelly agreed. John pointed out that it was no longer necessary to wear a combat uniform since the front was now hundreds of miles farther to the east. Spearheads were now in Czechoslovakia and East Germany and moving rapidly eastward.

Cathy made immediate transport arrangements and buzzed Kelly. “Colonel Jackson, ma’am, you’re going to have to start traveling incognito. I said we needed transportation for Colonel Jackson and nearly triggered a riot as the guys fought over who was going to get to fly you over. And you realize, I hope, that normally VIP flights are detested. Anyway, a chopper will be on the pad in five minutes.”

Kelly went out and boarded the waiting helicopter. The crew chief gave her his very best salute and welcomed her on board. A short time later they were on the pad in Germany. Kelly was driven to a POW compound and greeted by Ned Carlson’s chief of intelligence, Tom Marlow.

He saluted smartly and said, “General Carlson’s respects, Colonel. Welcome to Germany. I ... I’ve heard so much about you, I didn’t know quite what to expect. I guess you know that Kelly Jackson is a legend with the troops over here. In fact someone has a big mouth. They heard you were coming, so they organized a little surprise for later this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind.”

Kelly had shaken hands but now looked puzzled. “Colonel, I don’t understand. I just came over to see if I could help you with a POW problem. What is it, by the way? General St. Clair said you would fill me in.”

“Colonel, we have a guy with an ill-fitting lieutenant colonel’s uniform. The other Russians ... particularly including generals ... appear to defer to him. He insists he’s only a lieutenant colonel. Right now he’s in an interrogation room. And that’s going slowly, too: My G-2 people’s Russian is inadequate for the questioning, so we need an interpreter. Maybe you can us help there, too. I hear your Russian is pretty good.”

By this time they had reached the POW compound and the interrogation center. Marlow led Kelly into an observation room separated from the interrogation room by one-way glass. Kelly glanced at the man being questioned. He was very big, although being seated it was not clear how tall he was. Even seated, though, he had an aura of command.

Kelly turned to Marlow and asked, “May I go in?” He nodded, and took her out to a door. He knocked and entered.

Kelly went past him and said in her fluent Russian, “Uncle Mischa!”

The Russian jumped to his feet, shocked. He looked at Kelly who took off her uniform cap and tossed it into the corner, shaking her golden hair free. He looked at her again, and there was clear recognition in his face. He grabbed Kelly, enfolded her in his arms like a bear, and kissed her. She kissed him back. Then he held her away at arms length and saw the rank insignia and the ribbons for the medals she was wearing.

Slowly shaking his head he said, “I told them they were making a very dangerous mistake, didn’t I, my pet?”

The Americans in the room had been watching the unfolding scene with utter amazement. Kelly put her arm around the Russian’s waist and turned to Marlow. “Colonel, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to General ... or is it Field Marshal now?”

She looked at him, and he gave a little shrug and a grin.

She continued, “Field Marshal Mikhail Solov, commander of all Warsaw Pact forces in the West. Mischa, this is Colonel Thomas Marlow, chief of intelligence for the Allied Forces. Tom, I think you’ll want to call Ned immediately. Mischa, will you give me your parole for the rest of the day? I would like to get us to some place more comfortable.”

“When you ask, Kelly,” he replied, speaking excellent English, “how can I refuse? Of course. I promise to be a good boy for the rest of the day.”

They left the interrogation room, and Marlow, still stunned by the sudden turn of events, took him to a German castle now being used as Carlson’s headquarters. Ned Carlson was waiting for them as they drove up. He saluted Kelly and then gave her a big hug and a kiss.

She poked him in the ribs and said, “General, I wish you would quit picking on poor defenseless little girls. You big lug! It’s bad for my image, besides: being manhandled by a dirty old man!”

At that both Ned and the Russian cracked up in laughter. Ned looked at Solov and said, “Does she look like a defenseless little girl to you, Marshal? She’s about as defenseless as a Siberian tiger!” Solov nodded his agreement. They were still grinning as Kelly made the introductions.

Ned led the way into his office and told Marlow that he would like to talk with the marshal and Kelly alone for a while. Marlow excused himself while the others took seats.

Kelly said, “General, do you recall me mentioning Field Marshal Vasilly Solov who wrote the book on Russian tactics? Mikhail is his grandson. He now commands ... or did ... all Warsaw Pact forces here in the West.”

Carlson just shook his head in amazement. He looked at Kelly and asked, “And how is it you know the Field Marshal?”

Kelly sat up straight in her chair and her face became impassive. “Because I entertained him at the school, General. Or I was supposed to. Actually, we spent the night with him coaching me for a Russian test I had to take the next day.”

She turned to Solov and asked, “How is your daughter, Katrina, by the way?” Turning back to Carlson, she added, “He told me a lot about her that night.”

Solov had been studying Kelly, and he now spoke. “General, will you answer some questions for me if I give you my word of honor nothing will leave this room or ever be used against you or your forces?”

Carlson looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments and then looked at Kelly who nodded. “Yes, Marshal. Agreed. What questions?”

“General, we know Kelly killed Major Vishinsky. No loss, I should add. We believe she killed a guard on the street with the same knife a few minutes later. General, she dynamited the bridge over the River Weser, didn’t she?”

Carlson nodded and said, “Yes, but how did you know?”

“We didn’t. The KGB and the GRE still don’t. However, there was a guard on the bridge — later executed for dereliction of duty — who claimed someone crossed the bridge several times under orders from Major Vishinsky. The description he gave seems to fit. That was Kelly, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” Carlson admitted.

“I could not get the KGB to abandon their little home at the school. I told them that making war on women and children would be very expensive. I never dreamed it could be so expensive! It may have cost us the war.”

He turned to Kelly and said, “You asked about Katrina. The answer is, I don’t know where she is. I suspect she, too, is a prisoner. Could you find out for me?”

Kelly looked at Carlson who nodded. She asked, “What is her name, rank, and serial number?” Solov gave Kelly the information, and she left the office. She found Marlow waiting outside and after explaining what she wanted, he placed a call and waited. A few moments later he told Kelly that Captain Katrina Solov was a prisoner in an Allied POW camp and could be brought to headquarters in an hour. She gave the order and returned to Carlson’s office.

She told Solov that his daughter was, indeed, a prisoner and was being escorted to headquarters. Carlson wanted to talk with Kelly alone so Marlow came in and escorted the Marshal to the senior officers’ lounge.

Carlson looked at Kelly and shook his head. “Jackson, is there anyone you don’t know? In any army? It seems the Marshal takes credit for being the first to sense that you had a natural sense of weapons, tactics and so forth. How did you ever get on such subjects? You were a prisoner.”

Kelly smiled as she remembered. “General ... Sir, do you mind if I call you Ned? This gets a little personal.”

Carlson looked at her fondly and said, “Kelly, I wish you would. Go on.”

“Ned, first of all, I wore no clothes after the Russians arrived. Correction. I wore clothes when I was on stage, but only to take them off. Anyway, I guess I was the school’s featured attraction. I was offered to Solov for the night following a show. He didn’t want to accept the favor. He felt the whole arrangement was a disgrace to the Red Army. Then he thought he could do me a favor, so he accepted.

“It seems I remind him of his daughter, Katrina. His wife is dead and she is all he has. We were in the VIP suite together all night.”

She smiled wryly as she remembered. “The funny thing is we were awake all night, so we were suitably tired the next day. But instead of taking me, he talked to me. I practiced my Russian. What we talked about was what he was most interested in and knowledgeable about ... Russian strategy and tactics. Ned, I was kneeling on the bed naked while he still had his full uniform on.

“And by the way, I owe him. For my dancing they put makeup on my back and legs to conceal the whip marks. He washed my back and got some ointment to put on them. He was most kind to me, really.

“Ned, I think there’s a better-than-even chance I could get him to defect. Are you interested?”

Carlson had been striving to keep his face impassive as he listened to Kelly’s recital. When she mentioned “defect,” he nodded and picked up a direct telephone to headquarters. He got Sam Adams on the line. “Your favorite teenybopper colonel is here with me, Sam. She thinks we could get Field Marshal Mikhail Solov, commander of all Warsaw Pact forces in the West to defect. Interested?”

Adams chuckled and said, “I thought you told her to confine her reading to Gothic novels? Can’t she follow orders?”

“Sam, I’m only a troop commander. If the Commander in Chief can’t even keep his secretary out of her clutches, what the hell do you expect me to do?”

“I expect it to be a challenge to you, Ned! Do as I say, not as I do. The answer is the usual one: When a girl is winning the war for us at a negligible cost in casualties, you stick with her. She’s authorized to do any damn thing she wants to! Fair enough?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her. Incidentally, Sam, the last time I saw you, you looked about ten years younger and happier than I can remember you looking in years — at least since your wife died. What’s going on?”

Again there was a chuckle on the phone. “What the hell do you think is happening? It’s just a Colonel Kelly Jackson’s spare-time project. Ask her.”

Carlson hung up and looked at Kelly. Kelly just smiled at him sweetly. “Jackson, what did you do for General Adams?”

“Nothing, sir. I did absolutely nothing for General Adams. What did he say?”

“He told me to ask you. As for Solov, you have a blank check. What do you want to do?”

“I want to spend the day with him and his daughter. Colonel Marlow said there was some surprise for me later today. What is it?”