“Through that door,” Cronley said. “First door to the right.”
“Actually, it’s Cuban,” Ashton said, and then switched to English. “If you will hand me my goddamn crutches, I can handle it from here. But while I’m communing with nature, see if Captain Cronley has any medicine.”
“What kind of medicine?” Cronley asked, with concern in his voice.
“Almost anything that comes out of a bottle reading ‘Distilled in Scotland’ will do,” Ashton said, as he began to lurch across the room.
When he was out of earshot, Gehlen said, “Interesting man. I like his sense of humor.”
“Don’t be too quick to judge him by that,” Cronley said. “He’s very good at what he does.”
As the words came out of his mouth, Cronley thought, What am I doing? Warning Gehlen about the man he’s now working for? That’s absolutely ass-backwards!
“He would not have been selected as Cletus Frade’s replacement if he was not very good at what he does,” Gehlen said.
So what’s the truth there?
Ashton is very good. That’s true.
But it’s also true that he was selected as an expendable who can be thrown to the wolves.
“That’s true, of course,” Cronley began. “But there is another, frankly unpleasant, possib—”
“Freddy,” El Jefe interrupted him, “I’m not feeling too well myself, so while you’re getting the colonel’s medicine, how about making a dose for me?”
He looked at Cronley. “How about you? A little medicine for you?”
El Jefe didn’t want me to get into that subject—for that matter, any subject—with Gehlen while Ashton is out of the room.
And he’s right.
And Gehlen and ol’ Ludwig certainly picked up on that.
And Tiny did.
And, of course, Fat Freddy.
I just had my wrist slapped in public.
And deserved it.
“A splendid idea,” Cronley said. “I wonder why I didn’t think of that myself?”
Because I’m stupid, that’s why.
Ashton hobbled, far from nimbly, across the room and again collapsed into the armchair.
Hessinger handed him a glass of whisky, straight, and then offered a bowl of ice cubes. Ashton waved them away and took a healthy swallow of the scotch.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I had an idea just now. That sometimes happens to me when I am in that circumstance and have nothing to read while waiting for Mother Nature to turn her attention to me. And since I am drunk with the power with which Admiral Souers has invested me, we’re going to try it. I ask your indulgence.
“There will be no briefing of Lieutenant Schultz and myself in the usual sense. Instead of each of you, junior first, taking turns telling El Jefe and me what has happened in the past—which of course the others already know—we are going to reverse the procedure . . .”
Where the hell is he going with this?
“. . . specifically, General Gehlen is going to start by telling us of the most recent development in our noble crusade against the Red Menace—which not all of you, perhaps none of you, will know. Then, I will ask and all of you may ask, questions to fill in the blanks in our knowledge. This is known as ‘reverse engineering.’ General Gehlen, please tell us all what you would have told Captain Cronley had he walked in here just now, and Lieutenant Schultz and myself were nowhere around.”
Gehlen, a slight smile on his lips, looked at Cronley, who shrugged.