“Anyone for a ham sandwich?” he asked.
“Does that about conclude your business here?” Dunwiddie asked Special Agent Hammersmith.
“Sir, could I get a receipt?” Hammersmith asked.
“Hessinger, type up a receipt for the special agent,” Dunwiddie ordered. “Get his name. ‘I acknowledge receipt from Special Agent . . .’”
“Hammersmith,” Hammersmith furnished.
“‘. . . of one official letter, one personal letter, and four cartons, contents unknown.’ For Captain Cronley’s signature.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Cronley?” Hammersmith asked.
Dunwiddie did not respond to the question, instead saying, “Special Agent Hessinger can arrange rooms for the night for you, if you’d like, in the Vier Jahreszeiten hotel in Munich.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Hammersmith said, adding, “Captain, can I ask what’s going on around here?”
“No, you can’t,” Dunwiddie said simply.
Hessinger came back into the sitting room with the announcement that the two CIC agents had gone.
“Jim, you knew those guys when you first came to Germany, right?” El Jefe asked.
Cronley nodded.
“In Marburg,” he said. “And the first thing they’re going to do when they get back there is tell Major Connell—”
“Who is he?” El Jefe asked.
“The Twenty-second’s executive officer. But he really runs the outfit. ‘Major, you’re not going to believe this, but that wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant you put on the road block? He’s now a captain, and . . .’”
“That can’t be helped,” Dunwiddie said. “You are now a captain. And if this Major Connell is curious enough to ask Mattingly, Mattingly will either tell him how you got promoted or that it’s none of his business.”
“Or tell him,” Hessinger said, “just between them, that for reasons he doesn’t understand, Jim was transferred to the DCI. Where . . . witness the black market goodies . . . he has already shown he’s absolutely way over his head and a petty crook to boot.”
“You don’t like Colonel Mattingly much, do you, Freddy?” El Jefe asked.
“He is a man of low principle,” Hessinger announced righteously.
Cronley laughed.
“Don’t laugh,” Hessinger said. “He’s determined to get you out of chief, DCI-Europe, and himself in. You noticed he sent copies of that letter to the admiral and Ashton? Showing what a really nice guy he is and what an incompetent dummkopf black marketeer you are.”
“Where is Ashton, by the way?” Cronley asked.
“He asked for a car to take him into the PX in Munich,” Hessinger began.
“Christ, Freddy, we could have sent somebody shopping for him,” Cronley said. “I don’t want him breaking his other leg staggering around the PX on crutches.”
“I offered that,” Hessinger said. “He refused. But don’t worry.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he really went to the orthopedic ward of the 98th General Hospital in Schwabing. I told Sergeant Miller—”
“Who?”