Curtain of Death (Clandestine Operations 3)

When Winters parked the L-4 in front of Base Operations at the airfield, Commandant Jean-Paul Fortin, a natty man in his early thirties with a trim mustache, was waiting for them. Fortin was wearing U.S. Army ODs with his French rank insignia—shoulder boards with four gold stripes—on the epaulets and a French officer’s “kepi.”

Cronley saluted and Fortin returned it.

“Your man Hessinger telephoned to tell me you were coming,” Fortin said in German.

“Thank you for meeting us,” Cronley replied in German. “Commandant, this is Lieutenant Winters.”

Winters saluted and said, “Mon Commandant.”

“You speak French,” Fortin said in French. It was impossible to determine if it was an observation, a question, or a challenge.

“Sir, let’s say I was exposed to French for four years at school,” Winters said in English.

“So was I,” Cronley said. “With little or no effect.”

Fortin switched to German: “So you are now Captain Cronley’s French-speaking pilot, Lieutenant?”

“Why do I suspect you’re really asking, ‘How much can I say before this officer?’” Cronley said.

“Because you have a naturally suspicious nature?”

“That’s supposed to be an asset in our line of work,” Cronley said. “I wouldn’t want this to get around, Commandant, but Lieutenant Winters is a special agent of the DCI. You can tell him all your secrets.”

“People in our line of work should never tell anyone all their secrets.”

“Write that down, Tom,” Cronley said. “And remind me when I forget.”

“Hessinger said you have something for me,” Fortin said.

Cronley handed him the briefcase.

“This is?”

“What General Greene has on Odessa.”

“It all fits in one briefcase?”

“I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but I suspect it’s what he thought you don’t already have.”

“You don’t know what’s in here?”

“Which brings us to that. Have you the facilities to copy what’s in there?”

“You didn’t make copies?”

“I’m sure General Greene did. What I would like to do is see that you have copies. Then, when I get back to Germany, I will give General Greene his originals back, and he will give me his copies.”

“Was there some reason you didn’t have copies made before you came here?”

Cronley raised his eyebrows. “Which brings us to that. My superiors have told me that if we can slow down, or at least seriously impede, Odessa, at the same time bagging three or four former senior officers of the SS—even better, of the SS-Sicherheitsdienst—who are running it, it would tend to squash those terrible rumors going around that there’s something called Operation Ost which has been slipping Nazis out of Germany to Argentina. With that in mind, I wanted to get the briefcase to you as soon as possible.”

“May I infer that DCI is now going to work with the DST to deal with Odessa?”

“You may infer that DCI is now going to work with Commandant Jean-Paul Fortin. I don’t know anyone else in the DST and I don’t trust anyone I don’t know.”

“You seem to be trusting me.”

“You have such an innocent face, Mon Commandant, how could anyone not trust you?”