I ran at the mouth to her, which damned near got Likharev killed.
And when I confessed my stupidity—my unbelievable fucking stupidity—to General Gehlen, and told him I was going to fly to Frankfurt and confess my stupidity to Mattingly, and then shoot both Schumann and his loving wife, he told me that wouldn’t be wise, and reminded me that Cletus Frade had told me—had ordered me—to get out of Gehlen’s way.
So I got out of the way.
And shortly thereafter, the Schumanns’ water heater developed a gas leak and blew them both up.
Problem solved.
I don’t know that Gehlen did it—or had it done—which is on the order of me not knowing the sun will rise tomorrow, either.
Cronley heard Major General Seidel respond: “If that’s your professional opinion, General.”
“And the professional opinion of the best CIC special agent I have ever known, Jack Hammersmith, who I told to investigate the explosion,” General Greene said.
Which proves that Gehlen’s people are very clever in making an explosion look innocent.
And smarter than the MPs, the CID, and the CIC combined.
Not to mention me.
“As I say, if that is your professional opinion, we’ll leave it at that for the moment. Which brings us to Major Derwin, who replaced Lieutenant Colonel Schumann as the CIC inspector general.”
“What about him?” General Greene asked.
“Major Derwin had a fatal, quote, accident, unquote, in the Munich railway station.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Schwarzkopf said. “Derwin fell under a freight train passing through the station. The Munich provost marshal personally investigated the incident and declared it an accident.”
“Really?”
“And,” Schwarzkopf said, “this is out of school, okay?”
“Very well,” General Seidel said. “Out of school.”
“His report said that Derwin had stumbled and fallen under the train. Left out of that was the fact that there was a perceptible smell of alcohol on the corpse, and that there was a paper cup of coffee from the PX coffee shop in the station found with the body which contained whisky, most probably from the fifth of Jack Daniel’s in Derwin’s suitcase.”
“You’re saying the Munich provost marshal filed a dishonest report?” SAC Preston challenged.
“I don’t know how much you know about what happens in the Army when there is a death, Mr. Preston,” Schwarzkopf said. “But one of the things that has to be determined is if the death occurred in the line of the deceased’s duty. In this case, it was determined that Major Derwin was in the Munich station because he was either on his way to, or coming from, General Gehlen’s compound.”
“It is not General Gehlen’s compound, General,” Cronley said. “It is the DCI’s compound.”
“I stand corrected, Mr. Cronley,” Schwarzkopf said.
“Where Derwin had no right to be,” Cronley added. “The Compound is not subject to investigation by the CIC’s IG.”
“Please let me continue, Mr. Cronley,” Schwarzkopf said.
“Sorry.”
“General Greene told me there was some question about what Major Derwin was doing at the DCI compound—whether he had gone there on duty or not, or whether he had been there, or was intending to go there—in addition to the questions raised by the alcohol. So we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, so to speak. The report of his death did not raise the question of whether or not he was on duty, or sober, when he fell under the freight train. His death was adjudged to be accidental, while he was on duty. This gave his family all the benefits which accrue to someone who dies while on duty.”
“That was very generous of you and General Greene,” General Seidel said sarcastically.
“May I have the floor a minute?” SAC Preston asked.
“Certainly,” General Seidel said.