“I asked Ike what he had in mind, and surprising me not at all, it made a hell of a lot of sense, so I took it to the President, and he agreed, a little reluctantly, to it. Harry said it looked like you were getting the shitty end of the stick, and he didn’t like that. Hence, the Legion of Merit, and his own contribution to Operation Peace.
“What Ike is going to do is transfer General Seidel to the Pentagon, where Ike will tell him to lay off DCI. He will also tell him that you’ve been relieved as chief, DCI-Europe, and that an officer of suitable rank and experience has been appointed to that position, Harold Wallace. When a new man is sent to be USFE
T G-2, that’s who he’ll deal with.
“There were a number of reasons Harold got the job. DCI-Europe is about to be greatly expanded. The President is really worried about the Russians. So I started recruiting people who had been in the OSS. Bill, Jack, and Tony, for example, all ex-OSS. Bill and Tony had the bad luck to work for Harold in London. But they’re willing to give him a second chance.”
“But they would be unhappy working for me?”
The admiral did not reply directly, instead saying, “What you’re going to be doing, Jim, is making yourself useful to Justice Jackson.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know? I’m really surprised. He’s our chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials.”
“So I’m really out of DCI?”
“Oh, no. What you are now is commanding officer of Detachment ‘A’ of DCI-Europe, which is charged with protecting Justice Jackson, under the cover of the Thirty-fourth CIC Detachment, which of course will be commanded by CIC Supervisory Special Agent Cronley.”
“What’s that all about?”
“The decision to provide Bob Jackson with additional security had already been made, and General Greene had set up the Thirty-fourth to do that before Ike came to see me. The kidnapping of Bob Mattingly showed—in case anybody didn’t already know—that the Soviets are now playing hardball. After Ike, so to speak, I called Greene, explained the situation, and suggested you were just the guy to protect Justice Jackson. He agreed.”
“And what is Mr. Justice Jackson going to think when all he gets to protect him is a young CIC agent?”
“That potential problem came up and the President dealt with it. He and Jackson are old friends. He shared—the three of us shared—many a dram or two when Bob was attorney general. So Harry called him and told him he was concerned with his safety and the way he was dealing with that was to send the DCI man who’d gotten Mattingly back from the Russians to protect him.”
“I don’t suppose the President said ‘the twenty-two-year-old DCI man’?”
“No, he didn’t. I was there. You’re going to have to deal with that problem yourself. It never seemed to bother you before.”
“It doesn’t bother me, but it seems to bother the hell out of senior officers.”
“I’ve noticed,” Admiral Souers said drily. “Well, finish your drink, and then we’ll go and make nice with those senior officers who are now gathered in the main ballroom to say auf Wiedersehen to Colonel Mattingly.”
“No way I can get out of that, Admiral?”
“By now you should have learned that serving with the DCI often requires that one must endure distasteful, even painful, situations while smiling broadly.”
“And if you behave, Jimmy,” Oscar Schultz said, “you get a prize.”
“I’m afraid to ask what.”
“Mattingly’s Horch. He asked me what to do about it. I think he wanted me to help him get it to the States. I told him it belongs to the government. So it’s in the provost marshal’s impound lot, where they put it after he was grabbed. If you behave in the ballroom, you can have it. Otherwise, I’ll ship it to Clete in Argentina. He can use it for spare parts.”
“I will behave.”
“I expect nothing less of you, Captain Cronley,” Admiral Souers said.
[THREE]
The Main Ballroom
Schlosshotel Kronberg
Hainstrasse 25, Kronberg im Taunus
Hesse, American Zone of Occupation, Germany