American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1805 21 February 1946
Colonel Harold Wallace was sitting behind the desk that had been Cronley’s, when Cronley and Ziegler walked in. Captain “Tiny” Dunwiddie and Claudette Colbert sat on chairs facing it. Dunwiddie was wearing his captain’s insignia, and Colbert was wearing the triangles of a civilian employee of the Army.
“Please don’t tell me you left Ostrowski in charge of guarding Jackson,” Wallace greeted them.
“Ostrowski was playing chess with Justice Jackson when I called Jackson to tell him I was coming here.”
“You’re supposed to be guarding Jackson,” Wallace said.
Cronley was about to reply when the door opened and former Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen, former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg, and former Major Konrad Bischoff came into the building.
“We heard the Storch come in,” Gehlen said. “Jim, I’m very sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you. Colonel Wallace was just about to tell me about it.”
“And I will, just as soon as you tell me why you brought Ziegler with you. Which means Justice Jackson is now being guarded by a Polish displaced person. I don’t think that’s what the President had in mind when he ordered you to Nuremberg.”
“Max Ostrowski is a DCI special agent, and I think he makes a better bodyguard than either me or Augie Ziegler. The President ordered me there because he trusts my judgment. I decided that I could leave Jackson in Ostrowski’s capable hands. Okay?”
“Not okay. But there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it, does there? You did it, it’s done.”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“What did you tell Jackson about your coming here?”
“I told him that Moriarty, a good friend, had been murdered in the Compound, and that I was coming here to help find the bastards that did it.”
“Jesus Christ, weren’t you thinking? That’s going to scare the shit out of him, and I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when he tells the President, which he damned sure will.”
“What I think will happen is Jackson will now do what Max tells him to do. That, and as far as the President is concerned, I think he’ll see it as proof he did the right thing by sending me to Nuremberg.”
“At the risk of further inflaming your temper,” Mannberg said to Wallace, “I think Jim has made his point.”
“Let me get this off my chest before I forget it,” Cronley said. “I made my manners to Colonel Mortimer Cohen, who has the Tribunal CIC detachment—”
“And?” Wallace demanded i
mpatiently.
“Two things. First, he was upset when I told him I was taking over Justice Jackson’s security—”
“Which I’m sure you did with your legendary tact,” Wallace said.
“So he called General Greene—”
“Who is on his way here and should be walking through the door at any moment,” Wallace said. “And?”
“General Greene told him I had the authority to do so. Which pissed him off. And during the course of our chat, he let me know that he was a friend of Colonel and Mrs. Schumann and had been wondering if perhaps General Gehlen had something to do with that exploding water heater. And with Major Derwin’s falling under the train.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Wallace said. “So what—I’m afraid to ask this—what did you say, Loose Cannon, when he told you this?”
“I told him that both General Greene and General Schwarzkopf had personally investigated the water heater explosion and found nothing to suggest it wasn’t an accident. I don’t think he believes that.”
Cronley glanced at Gehlen and Mannberg. Neither’s face showed anything.
“And Derwin’s accident?”