“General Schwarzkopf, can we offer a reward for information?” Cronley asked.
“I don’t know where we’d get it, Mr. Cronley.”
“Give me a figure.”
“A thousand dollars. Perhaps a little more.”
“How about five?”
“The more the better, of course.”
“You’ve got it,” Cronley said, and then went on: “For her story, the MPs are offering the award, not the CIC. And certainly not DCI. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“Tell her how much of a reward.”
“How about twenty-five hundred dollars?” Schwarzkopf suggested.
“You got that, Janice?”
“Got it.”
“And no mention of the NKGB. Okay?”
“None. And after I do this, will you buy me dinner?”
&nb
sp; “It will be my pleasure.”
“Ten minutes,” she said, and walked farther into the hotel.
“Jim, when I spoke with Major Wallace, I asked him to send Jack Hammersmith up here. I hope that’s all right.”
“Fine with me.”
“One of your people will fly him up at first light.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll get on the horn and tell Winters to use a Storch and bring Augie Ziegler with him. And twenty-five hundred in greenbacks, not script.”
“Augie Ziegler is?” Greene said.
“He used to be a CID agent. Now he’s DCI. One smart cop.”
“You mentioned something about a prisoner swap,” General Schwarzkopf said.
“You don’t want to know about that, General,” Cronley said.
“There’s two things I’d like to say to you, Mr. Cronley,” General Schwarzkopf said. “First, that you are everything General Greene said you would be, and more, and that I am very impressed with you.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“The last time I tried to tell Miss Johansen something to do, she told me to go fu— attempt self-impregnation. What’s your secret?”
“I don’t think you want to know about that, either, General,” Cronley said.
VII