“Max Ostrowski, Kurt Schröder, and me. We used our Storches.”
“Who’s Schröder?” Ziegler asked.
“He used to fly the general around those steppes in Russia. He taught Max to fly Storches. Max used to fly Spitfires in the Free Polish Air Force.”
“And they’re now working for the DCI?” Hammersmith asked. “You have the authority to recruit people like that?”
“They’re in the DCI and have DCI credentials to prove it,” Cronley said. “Which reminds me. Dette, would you get Comrade Hammersmith and the Dutchman credentials?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think what we have to do now is go see the general,” Cronley said, and stood up. “And after that we’ll see to getting two refrigerators to the Engineer Depot for our French friends.”
[ TWO ]
Ward 17 (Secure Psychiatric)
98th General Hospital
Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2050 25 January 1946
“Colonel, I told these people that they had to have permission from you, sir, to even be in this ward, much less to visit the patient in 303,” Major Bethany Cramer, ANC, an intense woman who stood five feet three inches tall and weighed 105 pounds, announced, righteously indignant. “They refused to leave, and I called you.”
Colonel Oscar J. Davis, MC, who was serving as Medical Officer of the Day for the 98th General Hospital, looked coldly between Augie Ziegler and the woman with him.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“My name is Ziegler, Colonel. I’m with the CID.”
Ziegler showed the colonel his credentials.
Colonel Davis examined them and then said, “These don’t give you the right to be here.”
“No, they don’t, Colonel,” Claudette Colbert said. “But these give me the right to be here, and Mr. Ziegler works for me.”
She held out her DCI credentials.
“Well, Miss Colbert,” Colonel Davis said after he had examined them, “I was told you DCI people—frankly, no offense intended, I didn’t expect a woman—would be involved and to cooperate fully with you. If you had checked in with me before you came here, we wouldn’t have had this misunderstanding.”
“Since I knew the hospital had been made aware of DCI’s interest in Sergeant Miller, I didn’t think that would be necessary.”
“Well, what can we do for you, Miss Colbert?”
“We have been informed that the sergeant has fully recovered from the effects of sedation she was given. True?”
Colonel Davis looked at Major Cramer, who nodded.
“That being the case, all DCI is here to do is take the sergeant off your hands,” Claudette said. “I suspect the presence of the MPs and our security people has disrupted the major’s running of her ward . . .”
She nodded towa
rd the two MPs and two PSO guards in the hall.
“. . . and that she’ll be glad to see the sergeant go.”
“Is there any reason the patient can’t be discharged, Major?” Colonel Davis asked.