“If it works, he’ll take credit for the success of DCI-Europe in taking out Odessa’s head man.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“He can truthfully tell Oscar Schultz that I didn’t tell him anything about what I was doing. And that if he had known, he would have stopped me, as my trying to take down Odessa was not only not my business, but would distract me from my primary duty of protecting Justice Jackson.”
“Have you thought about that? That your primary duty is protecting Justice Jackson?” Cohen asked.
“That was all I thought of until you took me on a tour of Wewelsburg Castle. That changed things. And Max doesn’t need my help to protect Justice Jackson.”
“I really would like to see that place. As promised,” Janice said.
“So would I,” Tiny said.
“Colonel, Winters could drop them off tomorrow morning on his way to the Compound,” Cronley said.
“Okay. I’ll call and tell my people to give them the tour.”
“But how would they get back?” Cronley said. “I suspect that my morning will be occupied chatting with Wallace, and I have to stick around here to hear from Fortin, or maybe even have to fly to Strasbourg.”
“How to get back is one of those bridges to be crossed when we get to it,” Janice said.
“I think I better tell El Jefe what happened before he hears it from Wallace,” Cronley said. “So I think I better get on the SIGABA right now.”
—
When Cronley went into the corridor outside the Duchess Suite, there was a Polish special agent of the DCI sitting there with a Thompson submachine gun in his lap.
“There’s a car outside?” Max asked him.
“Two, sir. Yours and one for Mr. Cronley.”
“Fine.”
The man with the submachine gun stood up and followed them as they went down the curving stairway to the lobby and then outside. As they went down the stairway outside the hotel, two Ford staff cars pulled up to them.
Ostrowski walked to the first car and opened both doors.
“You may sit, sir, wherever it pleases you.”
Cronley looked in the front seat, saw that a Thompson was lying across it, gave Ostrowski the finger, and then got in the backseat.
“There’s more room back here,” he said to the man who had followed him from the Duchess Suite.
[FOUR]
The Mansion
Offenbach Platz 101
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2020 24 February 1946
“Fulda, Cronley, James, for Schultz, Oscar, in Washington.”
“Vint Hill.”
“Cronley, James, for Oscar Schultz.”