Like him? I’m actually fond of the sonofabitch!
“. . . and hopes that I can take advantage of our relationship and have you tell me about what happened to your cousin, former Sturmführer Luther Stauffer.”
“In other words, Justice Jackson wouldn’t tell him?”
“I think the general would like confirmation of what Justice Jackson has told him.”
“Well, chum, I guess General Nikitchenko knows the way to have me abandon my virtue is to send me flowers and champagne. So what do you want to know?”
“My God, Jimmy,” Dunwiddie blurted, “it was agreed that this couldn’t get out of the tent.”
“And I have just decided Ivan gets into the tent,” Cronley replied.
“Tiny,” Serov said, “the Soviet Union considers it immensely important that the Nazis in the Tribunal prison not be allowed to become martyrs to National Socialism by taking their own lives before we can prove them in court to be common criminals, and hang them—publicly—as such.”
“So does the President of the United States,” Cronley said.
“So what happened, Jim?” Serov asked.
“A well-meaning young sergeant, because his fiancée asked him to, smuggled what he believed to be laxatives into the prison intended to provide relief, which our medics cruelly refused to supply, to our sergeant’s girlfriend’s uncle for his constipation.”
“And the constipated uncle is?” Serov asked.
“SS Major Heinz Macher.”
“The one Morty Cohen brought here from the Darmstadt compound?”
“One and the same.”
“Because Morty thought there was an Odessa connection?”
“Correct.”
“So Odessa—von Dietelburg or Burgdorf—wanted Macher eliminated?”
“‘Or Burgdorf’? Who the hell is Burgdorf?” Cronley asked.
“General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf. Another former personal adjutant to Hitler,” Serov replied. “Specializing in eliminating threats—real or perceived—to Der Führer.”
“Wasn’t he one of the generals who went to Stuttgart? . . .” Tiny asked.
“At Hitler’s orders to convince General Rommel that biting on a cyanide capsule was his best option under the circumstances? That was Burgdorf,” Serov said.
“I thought Burgdorf committed suicide in the Führerbunker. That you found his body there,” Dunwiddie said.
“That was his intention. That we find his body outside the Führerbunker. And stop looking for him.”
“I never heard any of this before,” Cronley confessed.
“Why is it so important to you that you find this guy?” Dunwiddie asked.
“Because of his relationship with Operation Phoenix, with Odessa, Himmler, and what went on at Castle Wewelsburg.”
“What was his connection with Himmler?” Cronley asked.
“I’ve heard he was the only man Himmler feared,” Serov said. “Toward the end, when Hitler became really paranoid—especially after the bomb von Stauffenberg planted at his Wolf’s Lair failed to take him out—Hitler began, with some reason, to distrust not only Wehrmacht and Navy officers—Rommel, most notably, and Canaris—but others high in the Nazi hierarchy. Göring, Himmler, and others.
“But not Burgdorf, whom Hitler—correctly—believed to be absolutely devoted to National Socialism and to himself, personally,” Serov said. “One credible scenario is that Hitler began to take a closer look—sent Burgdorf to take a closer look—at what was going on at Castle Wewelsburg under Himmler’s adjutant von Dietelburg.