Wallace was silent for thirty seconds—which seemed longer—and then he said, “Well, I’ve kept you long enough.”
Then he turned and walked back to his jeep.
“That didn’t go well, but it could have gone worse,” Niedermeyer said. “And I know if somebody told me what I just told him, I’d be just as unhappy.”
“He’s also pissed at me,” Cronley said. “And I didn’t go over his head to talk to El Jefe or the admiral, and nobody asked me if I wanted to go after Odessa and von Dietelburg.”
“Well, let’s go chat with General Gehlen,” Niedermeyer said, “and see how he reacts when I order him to call off the elimination of Gábor Péter. I was his Number Three—or Four—in Abwehr Ost. And as Ludwig Mannberg will tell you, he didn’t at all like unsolicited suggestions from his Number Two, much less orders.”
[THREE]
Headquarters, 26th Infantry Regiment
The International Tribunal Compound
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1635 1 March 1946
Tiny Dunwiddie was waiting for Cronley at Soldier’s Field.
“I’ve got my bodyguard, where’s yours?” he greeted Cronley.
“In Vienna, looking for von Dietelburg.”
“So we better stop by the Mansion and get you one before we go to the Tribunal Compound.”
“One isn’t enough?”
“Justice Jackson thinks you should have one. We’re liable to run into him when we go to the Compound, and I don’t think you want pissing him off added to your problems.”
“Why are we going to the Compound?”
“Because Colonel Cohen and Colonel Rasberry are waiting there to discuss the demise of your cousin Luther.”
—
Cronley was surprised when Rasberry’s sergeant major led them past Rasberry’s office and to the day room. When he got inside, he saw why the meeting was not being held in Rasberry’s office; it just wouldn’t fit.
Sitting on chrome-and-plastic chairs around a pool table that was covered with a black plastic sheet and on which sat a coffeemaker and plates of doughnuts were maybe twenty people, the soldiers among them ranging in rank from sergeant (Casey Wagner) to four colonels, including Cohen and Rasberry. There were half a dozen bodyguards. And one man Cronley didn’t expect to see, Justice Robert Jackson.
“Super Spook,” Cohen greeted him. “How good of you to find time in your busy schedule for us.”
Cronley ignored him, instead saying, “Mr. Justice.”
“Before this starts,” Jackson said, “I’d like a private word with Mr. Cronley and Colonels Cohen, Rasberry, and Thomas. May we use your office, Colonel Rasberry?”
“Of course.”
“And will you please join us, Mr. Ziegler?” Jackson asked. “And you, too, Ken?”
Cronley hadn’t noticed Kenneth Brewster, Jackson’s law clerk.
—
“As this is a quasi-legal proceeding, may I usurp your desk, Colonel Rasberry, to serve as my bench?”
“Of course, sir,” Rasberry said.