“I’ve been nosing around ever since I heard Casey was going to be undercover. I really like the youngest DCI agent.”
“And?”
“Well, the guards are just kids. Not nearly as smart as Casey. And that Casey, unless he’s far more clever than we have any right to expect him to be, is in some danger. And it would be a lot easier to whack him than it would be to whack Cronley, especially since Cronley will now have one of my people around twenty-four hours a day covering his back.”
“What?” Cronley asked.
Ostrowski smiled at Cronley.
“I was playing chess with Justice Jackson when Tiny called to give me a heads-up on what had happened to you. When I told Justice Jackson what had happened, he asked, ‘What about Jim’s bodyguard?’ I told him you didn’t think you needed one. To which he replied, ‘Get him one right now, and keep one on him from now on.’ To which I replied, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Justice, sir.’”
Cohen chuckled.
“Janice, Jim was just about to tell us what happened in Strasbourg,” Cohen said.
“How’d you know I was in Strasbourg?”
“I’m CIC. We know everything about everything.”
“Well, since you asked, I told Cousin Luther that he has until two-thirty tomorrow to give me von Dietelburg or I will let Colonel Fortin have him. He knows that Fortin has expressed an interest in shooting him in the knees and elbows with a .22 and then seeing how well he can swim.”
“You think he’ll cave under a threat like that?” Dunwiddie asked. “It doesn’t seem very credible to me. The caving or the .22s in the knees.”
“There is a legend, one that I’m sure Cousin Luther has heard. It alleges that shortly after the French returned to Strasbourg, a priest was sent swimming that way. The legend further alleges that the priest—for the good of the Catholic Church—didn’t do enough to try to convince the Milice and the SS that Fortin’s family really didn’t know where Fortin was. I also offered him a new life in bucolic Paraguay. That, I think, may work.”
“And if he doesn’t cave? You’re going to let Fortin throw him in the Rhine?” Dunwiddie pursued.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, to coin a phrase.”
“Wallace told you to offer him Paraguay?” Cohen asked.
“Actually, the subject never came up between us.”
“So you’re not going to send him to
Paraguay?” Cohen asked.
“If he gives me von Dietelburg, I am. I have high hopes that Colonel Stroessner, once he gets to know Cousin Luther, will put him in front of a firing squad. He does that to unrepentant Nazis.”
“And you don’t believe Cousin Luther is repentant?” Dunwiddie asked.
“Tiny, I know a little something about Colonel Fortin’s interrogation techniques. Anyone who doesn’t tell Fortin what he wants to know is a fool, or thinks he is responsible to a higher power. Cousin Luther has many character flaws, but he’s not a fool.”
“You think he’s part of this Nazi religion crap?” Dunwiddie asked.
“He may be. What I do know is he thinks he’s still alive because Fortin doesn’t want to annoy the chief, DCI-Europe—the former chief, DCI-Europe—by sending his cousin for a swim. I have now told him Fortin will get him if he doesn’t come up with von Dietelburg by half past two tomorrow. I suspect Cousin Luther could give Wallace lessons in How to Protect One’s Own Ass, and will see the light.”
“Two questions, Super Spook,” Cohen said. “How are you going to get him to Paraguay? And how are you going to Cover Your Ass—presuming you’re successful—when Colonel Wallace finds out what you’ve done without his permission?”
“I’m going on the SIGABA tonight and tell Ashton and Frade in Buenos Aires that I will require passage on the next available flight for a French Nazi and his wife who want to go to Paraguay. That will probably see Cletus or von Wachtstein in the pilot’s seat on the next SAA flight to Berlin.
“Fortin will transfer Cousin Luther and wife to the French Zone of Berlin. If by then we have von Dietelburg in the bag, the Stauffers will get on the plane.”
“And if Colonel Wallace finds out what you’re up to before you have von Dietelburg and/or before they get on the plane?”
“I will cross that bridge—those bridges—if I get to them.”
“I can’t imagine why General Seidel and Colonel Wallace think of you as a dangerous loose cannon,” Cohen said, and went on. “You didn’t answer my question. What do you think Wallace is going to do when he finds out what you’ve done?”