The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

What the hell is he doing here?

With General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s Number Two?

What’s going on here?

“Rest, gentlemen, please,” Smith said. “General Gehlen just told me what he was doing in Frankfurt, and I invited myself to the ceremony. I hope that’s all right.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” General Greene said, not quite succeeding in concealing his surprise.

General Smith turned to Captain Cronley.

“Cronley, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I had no idea who you were, Captain, just now at the rear entrance. Until General Eisenhower corrected me a few minutes ago, I thought the Captain Cronley who is

to be chief, DCI-Europe, was going to be a barnacle-encrusted naval officer formerly on Admiral Souers’s staff.”

General Greene and Colonel Mattingly dutifully chuckled at General Smith’s wit.

Major Derwin wondered, What the hell is DCI-Europe? And who the hell is Admiral Souers?

“No, sir. I’m just a simple, and junior, cavalryman.”

“Well, you may be junior, Captain, but you’re not simple. General Eisenhower also told me the circumstances of your recent promotion. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He offered Cronley his hand.

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

General Smith turned to the enormous black man.

“Now to the second case of mistaken identity,” he said, and then asked, “Son, are you still a first sergeant?”

“Sir, at the moment I’m sort of in limbo. I was discharged yesterday.”

He spoke softly in a very deep voice.

“Then I will call you what I used to call your father,” General Smith said, “when, in the age of the dinosaurs, I was his company commander and your dad was one of my second lieutenants: Tiny.”

“That’s fine with me, sir.”

“Tiny, I had no idea until just now, when General Gehlen told me, that you were even in the Army, much less what you’ve done and what you’re about to do. Just as soon as things slow down a little, you’re going to have to come to dinner. My wife remembers you as a tiny—well, maybe not tiny—infant.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir.”

“Homer, where the hell is the photographer?”

A full colonel, wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp to a four-star general, stepped into the office.

“Anytime you’re ready for him, General,” he said.

The general waved the photographer, a plump corporal carrying a Speed Graphic press camera, into the room.

“What’s the protocol for this, Homer?” General Smith asked.

“First, the insignia is pinned to his epaulets, sir . . .”