Serov bowed to everyone at the table and then, with Major Sergei Alekseevich following him, walked out of the dining room.
Cronley waited until they were out of sight, and then said, “Come on, Max. Let’s have a look at the Mansion.”
[TWO]
It had been Cronley’s intention that once they were in the Horch, he would “counsel” Ostrowski about his insulting Serov, but even before they left the hotel Ostrowski put his hand on Cronley’s arm and stopped him.
“I’m really sorry for showing my contempt for Colonel Serov and all things Russian. It won’t happen again.”
“However justified, Max, I’m glad you stopped when you did. Colonel Cohen has an agenda for Serov, and we
shouldn’t fuck it up.”
“Too late, I figured that out. What’s he up to?”
“I have no idea, and we won’t know until he decides to tell us.”
“You think it might have something to do with Cohen suggesting this chap, Brigadeführer von Dietelburg, might be in East Berlin or East Germany?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Max. Turning to another subject: What do you think of assigning Karwowski as chief of Judge Biddle’s security detail?”
“A very good idea. He’s a good man. I thought he was really wasted guarding the SIGABA.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was going to wait until things settled down.”
“Next time, don’t.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I was planning, if you thought giving him the job was a good idea, of introducing him to Biddle tomorrow. But now I’m going to Wewelsburg. Will you handle Biddle?”
“I will if you say so, but I think it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“My English is good, but I have an accent. Karwowski sounds like the King of England. If I were Biddle, and a man with an accent shows up to introduce his new bodyguard, I’d wonder where the American in charge was, and if he was being snubbed. If Karwowski walks into his office in pinks and greens, flashes his DCI credentials, and announces—looking and sounding as if he graduated from Sandhurst—that he’s been named Judge Biddle’s chief of security, no problem.”
“Good thinking. That’s what we’ll do.”
[THREE]
Offenbach Platz 101
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2105 21 February 1946
“Gauleiters lived pretty high on the hog, didn’t they?” Cronley observed, as he stopped the car before the wide marble stairs leading up to the imposing double doors of the mansion.
“I don’t know what ‘high on the hog’ means,” Ostrowski confessed.
“That’s Texan for ‘like Roman emperors.’”
“Or high priests,” Ostrowski said.
As they walked up the stairs, Florence Miller came through the doors. She wasn’t wearing her tunic, which revealed the snub-nosed .38 revolver on her hip.