Curtain of Death (Clandestine Operations 3)

She giggled, then took a heavy pull on the flask.

[ FIVE ]

The WAC Non-Commissioned Officers’ Club

Munich Military Post

Munich, American Zone of Occupied Germany

0415 24 January 1946

Claudette sat in the front seat of Ziegler’s car, a 1941 black Ford sedan, and watched as Ziegler watched Hessinger drive the ambulance past the MPs and Polish security guards at the gate.

Then he trotted to the car, got quickly behind the wheel, and started out after the ambulance.

“Miss Colbert,” Ziegler said, “Mr. Hessinger introduced me to you as ‘Mr. Ziegler.’ My name is August. My friends call me Augie.”

He put his hand out to her, and she shook it.

“My name is Claudette, and my friends call me Dette.”

“Hello, Dette.”

“Hello, Augie.”

He smiled, then reached inside his Ike jacket, came out with a short-barreled Colt “Detective Special” .38 Special caliber revolver, and handed it to her.

She looked at it, saw lead bullets in its cylinders, and then opened the action to see how many of its five cylinders contained cartridges, and then closed it.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Claudette asked.

“You can borrow it,” he said. “Mr. Cronley told me to get your snub-nosed back to you, but I don’t want to do that until the lab in Heidelberg establishes that the bullets in the dead people—and the bad guy still alive—came from your gun.”

“Dotting the i’s?”

“And crossing the t’s.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve got a .45 in the safe in the office, but . . .”

“That .45 will be easier to carry?”

“You’re right. Thank you for this. I’ll take good care of it.”

She put it in her purse.

“I used to be a cop in Reading, Pennsylvania,” he said.

Why am I telling her this?

For that matter, why am I loaning her my gun?

“My father, who is also a cop in Reading, gave me that .38 when I passed the detective exam.”

“Really?”

“I never got to be a detective. When I missed the cut for detective, I got pissed and told the draft board they could have me.”

“Missed the cut?”