The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

“Why not? It fits.”

“They can call me ‘Fat Freddy’ or whatever they want. They’re my friends. You’re not. You can either call me ‘Sergeant Hessinger’ or ‘Mr. Hessinger.’ Got it, Popeye the Sailor Man?”

“Enlisted men aren’t supposed to talk to officers like that, Freddy,” Dunwiddie said.

“When I’m in my CIC suit,” Hessinger said, pointing to the blue triangles on his lapels, “nobody’s supposed to know I’m an enlisted man.”

“Mr. Hessinger’s got you, Captain Dunwiddie,” Cronley said, and added, “Yet again.”

“May I infer, Mr. Hessinger, that you wish to remain allied with us, despite the risks doing so entails?” Ashton asked.

“Yes, sir. He didn’t have to ask me that.”

“No offense intended, Freddy,” Cronley said.

“Offense taken, thank you very much,” Hessinger said.

“At this point, I would like to introduce an intelligence analysis I received a short time ago,” Ashton said. “Would you read this aloud, Captain Dunwiddie?”

Ashton handed Dunwiddie a small sheet of paper.

That’s what El Jefe handed him.

“‘If Jim wants to let him go, overrule him. Trust me. We need this guy,’” Dunwiddie read.

Hessinger looked at El Jefe for a long moment, and then said, “Thank you, Lieutenant Schultz.”

“Just the honest judgment of an old chief petty officer, Mr. Hessinger.”

“You can call me Fat Freddy, if you like.”

“Thank you. Fat Freddy, if you ever call me ‘Popeye the Sailor Man’ again, I will tear off one of your legs and shove it up your ass.”

“Moving right along,” Ashton said, “what I think we should do now is go to Munich and meet with General Gehlen.”

“Stopping along the way wherever Fred has stashed the other five .45 holsters he said he has,” El Jefe said. “I want one.”

“They’re in the Kapitän,” Hessinger said. “I thought you would need them, so I brought them out here with me.”

[FOUR]

Quarters of the U.S. Military Government Liaison Officer

The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound

Pullach, Bavaria

The American Zone of Occupied Germany

1735 2 January 1946

Ashton had trouble getting off the couch, which had been bolted to the floor of the ambulance, and then had more trouble getting out of the ambulance and onto his crutches. The ground behind the ambulance’s doors was covered with frozen snow ruts. Ashton looked to be in great danger of falling, but bluntly refused Schultz’s and Dunwiddie’s offer of “a ride”: “When I need help, I’ll ask for it.”

So the others followed him very slowly as he hobbled on his crutches through the snow from the curb to the small, tile-roofed building.

“Who is this guy?” Schultz demanded of Cronley, “and what’s he got to do with us?”

“What guy?”