Brownlee did not reply.
“You know Sergeant Wagner, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I should have said, ‘You think you know Sergeant Wagner,’” Cronley said. “Because you really don’t. Wagner, show Sergeant Brownlee your credentials.”
Brownlee examined the folder, looked confused, and then confessed, “Sir, I don’t know what this is, this DCI.”
“Few people do,” Cronley said. “It is an organization answerable only to the President. Among the responsibilities President Truman has given the DCI is the protection of Judge Biddle, Justice Jackson, and the prisoners in the Tribunal prison. With me so far?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“It is the desire of President Truman that, after a fair trial to prove what monsters Göring and the other people in the prison are, that they be hanged for their crimes. You understand, I hope, that a President’s desires are legal orders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When it came to our attention that messages and other items were being smuggled into and out of the prison, I sent DCI Special Agent Wagner into the prison, with the cover of translator, to determine who was doing the smuggling.
“He had already determined before the death of former Sturmführer Luther Stauffer this morning that you were the smuggler.”
The poor bastard looks like he’s going to faint. Or throw up.
I think I’ve got him.
“The decision was made by Colonel Cohen and myself that, rather than arrest and court-martial you immediately, that Sergeant Wagner would keep you under observation and see where that led.
“That decision was bad luck for you, Sergeant. If we had arrested you yesterday, all you would have been charged with would have been failure to obey standing orders, dereliction of duty, something like that. Special court-martial charges, maybe a year in the Frankfurt stockade. Now, following the murder of Stauffer, you’ll be charged, in a general court-martial, with being an accessory before the fact to first degree, that is to say, premeditated murder.”
Sergeant Brownlee threw up on the floor, narrowly missing Justice Jackson’s desk.
Cronley waited until Brownlee had wiped his face with a well-used handkerchief before continuing, “There’s no use, Brownlee, in denying what you did. We know.”
“I didn’t know it was cyanide,” Brownlee said. “I swear to God.”
“What did you think it was?”
“Laxative. Like German Ex-Lax.”
“Laxative?” Cohen said. “You thought you were smuggling laxative into the prison?”
“Come on, Brownlee!” Cronley said.
“Sir, I swear to God that’s what I thought it was. Trude’s uncle has constipation, and our medics won’t give him anything.”
“Trude?”
“My fiancée, sir. We’ve applied for permission to get married.”
“And Trude’s uncle is?”
“His name is Macher.”
“I know him,” Cohen said. “I had him transferred here from Darmstadt when we learned of his connection to Castle Wewelsburg.”
“Bring me up to speed on that, please, Colonel,” Justice Jackson asked.
“I think Cronley has told you what was going on at Castle Wewelsburg?”