The lieutenant jumped down, then stood by the side of the road almost at attention, awaiting further orders.
Cronley climbed down from the M8. Father McKenna followed, and then came the sergeant.
“Stand at ease, Lieutenant,” Cronley ordered. “We’re on the side of a road in rural Germany, not on the parade ground.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lieutenant shifted positions, this time assuming parade rest.
Curiosity overtook Cronley.
“What’s your name, Lieutenant, and where did you get your commission? And when?”
“Lieutenant Freeman, sir, John H. the Third. I’m Norwich, sir. Class of 1945. Is the captain familiar with Norwich, sir?”
If I told this guy I was A&M ’45, he’d think I was lying.
And this is not the time or place to get into why I’m a captain, and his First John bars look brand new.
“I have a very good friend, Captain Tiny Dunwiddie, who’s Norwich.”
“Sir, we had a great big black guy named Dunwiddie in my class, but he can’t be the same one. There’s no way he could be a captain.”
“Maybe a cousin or something,” Cronley said, more than a little lamely. “We can talk about it later. Let’s talk about what happens next.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re going to the—I guess the word is ‘headquarters’—of what was an experimental farm of the German Agricultural Ministry. It is now run by Military Government. A warrant officer named Wynne is in charge, and there are half a dozen GIs assigned.
“We have reason to believe that there are four to six—maybe eight—really bad Nazis hiding out on the place, passing themselves off as farmworkers. They’re all members of Odessa.”
“Of what, sir?”
“It’s an organization of ex-SS guys, Lieutenant,” the sergeant explained more than a little tolerantly as if speaking to a backward child. “The bastards take care of each other.”
“But since they are not locals,” Cronley went on, “they can’t go home at night. Fortunately for them, when the SS was working on Castle Wewelsburg, they built a house on the farm. They live there. We don’t know much about the house—specifically, its connection with Wewelsburg—but we were reliably informed (a) there is a connection and (b) the house sits on a bunch of rooms and passageways and the like.
“There’s probably a connection with the castle, but we can only guess what it is.
“As we speak, General White and the others are
approaching—or possibly are already at—the house. They’re going to seal off the roads leading to it, cut the telephone wires, and then go inside and see what’s there. We hope to catch and identify one of the Odessa guys, thinking that if we do, he just may turn on the others to save his own ass. That may be, and quite probably is, wishful thinking.
“If it comes to this, and it probably will, we’re going to tie all the Germans working here to their original homes, check to see that their Kennkarten aren’t phony, and so on.
“As I said, we hope to get lucky, to catch one Odessa guy and get him to turn on the others. On top of this, we’re looking for two really dirty bastards, SS-Brigadeführer von Dietelburg and General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf. We don’t expect them to be here, but we do expect that the Odessa people know where they are and will flip on them to save their own collective skin. Still with me?”
The sergeant nodded. Lieutenant Freeman came to attention, and said, “Yes, sir.”
“Now, here’s what I’m worried about. Your teenage troopers and their Thompsons.”
“Sir?” the lieutenant said. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“They all know something unusual is going around, and most of them, having missed seeing combat, might be looking forward to shooting some Nazis. I don’t know how this Mr. Wynne is going to react to us showing up, but I suspect he’s not going to like it. I certainly do not want him or any of the other Americans shot. And my preference is to keep the Nazis alive and arrest them so that we can collect more information. See my problem?”
“I can handle it, sir,” Lieutenant Freeman said, confidently.
“I suggest both of you have a word with them before we go to the headquarters,” Cronley said.