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hard to pin him down. But I’ve never known him to lie.”
    Bazata had lived a fascinating life. Not only had he been a spy, saboteur, and intelligence agent, he had been a wine expert who had managed the famous Mumm Champagne works near the French-German border, and an artist so good that he had been touted by the so-called “Jet-set” of European high society and been given one-man shows by patrons such as Princess Grace of Monaco, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And it had all been a cover for Bazata’s secret work. 9
    Longworth, who had been urging Bazata to put his life story into a book, broached my interest to him and Bazata agreed to meet.

CHAPTER NINE

    DANCING WITH THE DEVIL
    It’s not clear exactly when Skubik had the second confrontation with Donovan. Probably it was sometime in the late summer or early fall 1945. In September, however, Skubik, Toombs, and May were charged by a fellow CIC agent with stealing and looting. An investigation was launched. According to formerly top secret documents I obtained from the National Archives, the charges stemmed from the mass exodus out of Zwickau when the Russians, per the Yalta agreements, were to be given that territory. In helping many to escape, the team had broken rules about transporting refugees, moved the refugees’ possessions under their own names rather than the owners (which looked suspicious) and had strong-armed people to get them to do what they wanted. Some they had strong-armed were German officials.
    The rival CIC accuser, in whose territory Skubik’s team had sometimes surreptitiously worked—thus incurring his anger—brought in witnesses like Walter Ulbricht, the communist organizer
Skubik had arrested, to claim that he had seen them packing railroad cars with loot and even carting off entire factories, a charge CIC investigating officer, Major Donovan Ault, found ludicrous. Testifying on behalf of the three were many Zwickau refugees who swore the so-called “stolen loot” was what was being transported for them. Not only did they have no other way to get their own posessions out, but everything had been given back to them after they reached their destination. While Major Ault wrote that the three acted as “big shots” and “displayed poor judgment,” he concluded that there was no evidence to substantiate the charges and declared them innocent. Skubik was exonerated, and in fact he was promoted on November 3 to sergeant. 1
    November 3 was a little more than a month before Patton’s fateful accident. What Skubik had been doing in regard to the warnings about Patton is unclear. He does not address it per se in his book. Presumably he had to spend considerable time defending himself from the looting charges. He also had a full plate continuing his daily job of hunting Nazis and countering Russian espionage, which was on the increase. The Russians were now in firm control of Eastern Europe and stepping up espionage in the Western sectors. In the meantime, Patton had been fired by Eisenhower and exiled to Bad Nauheim, which made him more vulnerable. As the governor of Bavaria, he had been bowed to, pampered, and attended by many who could protect him. But the clerical 15 th Army had few such amenities. “Patton’s bodyguards were removed,” wrote Skubik. “I have spoken to Bert Goldstein, one of Patton’s bodyguards at that time. Bert told me that... had the bodyguards not been removed Patton would not have been murdered.” ae 2

    The stage, in Skubik’s opinion, had been set. But before anything happened to Patton, Skubik would have a final row involving Donovan after accusing a Russian general of planning Patton’s assassination.
    A few weeks before Patton’s accident, Skubik was ordered to arrest his own driver, Alfred Schoenstein, a Yugoslav refugee. Schoenstein was one of several “camp followers” Skubik’s CIC team had acquired. The camp followers were “happy to share our billets . . . food . . . and were generally