How the hell do I handle this?
I certainly can’t piss this guy off.
And I will if I get on my high horse.
Or play dumb.
“Justice Jackson told me that General Seidel had called him and told him all about me. Not nice things. And then he told me that both the President and Admiral Souers had called him—”
“And said nice things about you?” Janice asked.
“And said he was going to have protection, bodyguards, whether or not he liked it.”
“And how did he react, to get back to my original question?” Sy asked.
“One of my guys, Max Ostrowski, is with him now, as his interpreter, and I just sent two more guys to his office.”
“You’re here on the sly, right? You don’t want it to get out that the DCI is now protecting Jackson and company?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You open to suggestion?”
Cronley nodded. “Shoot.”
“If Jackson now has a new interpreter, why can’t he have a new public relations assistant? That would mean you could live here.”
“What do I do with the rest of my guys? I’ve got more coming.”
“Move them in with the CIC. They’ve already got their own Kaserne.”
“My guys have CIC credentials, but they’re not CIC.”
The conversation was interrupted when the door to the bar was opened.
“Breakfast time!” Sy cried, as he got to his feet.
Cy was not kidding about his breakfast beer. As soon as they had taken seats at a table, the bartender set a bottle of beer before him.
Cronley read the label and his mouth went on automatic:
“Berliner Kindl? They don’t make beer in Nuremberg?”
“Not as good as Berliner Kindl. The PIO is kind enough to import it for me. It’s nice to be head of the AP.”
Cronley and Janice ordered coffee and were told that some was being brewed.
Sy carefully poured the Berliner Kindl so that there was just the right amount of foam and then took a healthy swallow that left beer foam on his mustache. He wiped it off with the back of his hand.
“Janice thinks you don’t know enough about the trials,” Sy said, “and since I know all about them, suggests I should bring you up to speed. So what don’t you know about the International Military Tribunal?”
Cronley’s mouth went on automatic: “After a fair trial, we’re going to hang the bastards.”
“In other words, you know little about it?”
“Yeah.”
“Winston Churchill thought we should shoot the bastards on the spot whenever we found them. I think that was the thing to do. Franklin Roosevelt thought there should be a trial. I think that was another of his monumental mistakes. Bottom line, there are trials. Four-Power.