Empire and Honor (Honor Bound 7)

“How the fuck could I be unfaithful to her? She thinks I’m a boy. And she’s in fucking Argentina.”

“Hans-Peter von Wachtstein’s widowed sister-in-law? That’s who you . . . found sexual relief with?”

“Fuck you, Tiny.”

“You promised her something—or implied something—to get in her pants and didn’t deliver? Is that what’s bothering you?”

“I didn’t know about the brother-in-law. Before Mattingly showed up in Marburg, before I knew what was going on, I told her she didn’t have to worry, I was . . . I was in a . . . a position to help her.”

“You told her you were rich?”

Dunwiddie then saw the look on Cronley’s face, and explained: “Mattingly showed me your dossier before you came down from Marburg.”

“Yeah. And her reaction was to make me promise I would never tell another German woman. She was afraid they’d take advantage of me.”

“And they would. She was right.”

“I’m in love with her.”

“She is thirty-something. You’re twenty-one. And you better hope Mattingly never finds out you screwed her.”

“I don’t really give a damn if he does.”

“Come on! Operation Ost needs you.”

“Needs me? I’m a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant.”

“Charged with protecting what is probably the number one secret project going. Maybe somebody could do that better, but you have the job. You and me, Lieutenant. This is for real.”

“So, what should I do?”

“Close that dossier and give it back to Hessinger and forget it and her.”

“And then what?”

“Pull your necktie back up and we’ll go back to the whorehouse and tie one on. We don’t have to leave first thing in the morning. Wallace won’t be back until late tomorrow, if then.”

When Cronley didn’t reply, Dunwiddie said, “Drink your cognac.”

Cronley stood. He picked up the cognac snifter and drained it.

Then he bent over the dossier, opened the metal fastener over the photos, and removed the picture of Elsa in her bathing suit.

“That’s not smart, Jimmy,” Dunwiddie said as Cronley closed the metal clasp.

“She’s gone. Nobody’s going to open this and count pictures.”

“I meant for you. Are you going to get all wet-eyed every time you look at it?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. We’ll just have to see.”

He pulled his necktie in place.

“I have another confession to make.”

“Oh, Christ, now what?”

“That was the first time I was ever in a whorehouse.”