“Come on in, Jack,” he said. “And close the door.”
The man did so.
“Good morning, General.”
Greene waved him onto a couch before a coffee table, and then rose from his desk and joined him.
The door opened and the WAC came in with a thermos and two coffee mugs.
“I’ve been reading your mind,” she said.
“Good for you. Don’t let anybody in but Major Wallace and/or General Gehlen,” General Greene ordered.
The WAC nodded, poured coffee into the mugs, and then left.
“General Gehlen?” Jack asked.
Greene nodded.
“What Helen has been doing is cutting orders putting you on indefinite temporary duty with Military Detachment, Central Intelligence Directorate, Europe, APO 907,” he said.
“Jesus! What—”
“And if that didn’t get your attention, Jack, maybe this will: You play your cards right, you just might get your commission back.”
“I’m all ears.”
—
Brigadier General Homer P. Greene and CIC Supervisory Special Agent John D. “Jack” Hammersmith were old friends.
Hammersmith had been an enlisted man before the war, quickly promoted to technical sergeant when he had become a CIC special agent. When war came, he had been directly commissioned into the Military Intelligence Service as a first lieutenant.
His first assignment had been to the 1st Army Counter Intelligence Detachment, Major H. P. Greene, commanding. They had later served together in Morocco, England, and then France and Germany. Greene had come out of the war with a brigadier general’s star and Hammersmith a major’s gold leaf.
As soon as the war was over, the Army began a Reduction in Force. Fearing that he was likely to be among the first majors to be “RIFed” as he had only a high school education, Hammersmith had accepted relief from active duty as a reserve major to reenlist as a regular Army master sergeant. That way, he would not only have a job, but when he retired he would do so at the highest rank held in wartime.
It had seemed to be the smart thing to do, although when he heard about it, General Greene told him he had been a damned fool, and Hammersmith had come to agree with him. A great many officers had been RIFed, but only a very few from Intelligence.
—
“Major Harold Wallace?” Greene began, and continued after Hammersmith’s nod told him he knew who Wallace was: “He got me out of bed at quarter to four this morning to tell me—”
Greene interrupted himself.
“Jack, this is all classified Top Secret–Presidential. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“. . . To tell me there had been a shooting in Munich. One of his WACs had killed three men and wounded another. Wallace’s initial take on the incident was that the NKGB and/or Odessa had tried to kidnap the WAC . . . actually two WACs . . . whereupon one of the WACs had popped all of them.”
“Jesus Christ! What the hell was that all about?”
“Wallace said what he wanted from me was my best agent, and he wanted him yesterday. I said ‘sure’ and called Marburg and told you to shag your ass down here bringing a change of clothes.
“The reason I said ‘sure’ so quickly was because General Harry Bull told me that I was to give Wallace—this Directorate of Central Intelligence–Europe he runs—anything at all he wants, emphasis on anything.”
“It’s not under Seidel?”