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“Yes, sir. He’s a good soldier. But I wouldn’t call him smart.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t think he has a clue what’s going on.”

“And what’s that, son?”

“He told me that the motto of the Red Ball Express was Keep the Supplies Moving, No Matter What, and that’s what he was doing with the Stars and Stripes delivery system.”

“Tell me how that works,” White said. “From the beginning.”

“Yes, sir. Well, when the papers come off the press, most of them are bundled in packages of a hundred.”

He held his hands about two feet apart to show the size of the bundles.

“Then they’re put on pallets—wooden things that can be picked up with a forklift?”

White nodded to indicate that he knew about pallets and forklifts.

“Then, for example, the papers coming here to Munich. They send twenty-six hundred papers here. So they load thirteen packages on two pallets, label them ‘Munich,’ then pick them up with a forklift and load them onto a six-by-six. You can get two pallets in a row.”

He paused. “It gets a little complicated here, General.”

“So far I’m with you, son.”

“Yes, sir. Well, on the way to Munich there are—I don’t know—say, twenty places that get newspapers. The QM gas stations, for example, along the autobahn, get one, maybe two bundles. So they lay tarps on top of the Munich pallets, and then put the single bundles, or two bundles tied together, on top of the tarp, with signs saying, for example, ‘QM Gas Station, Mile 45’ or whatever.”

He looked questioningly at General White.

“Got it,” White said. “And?”

“Well, that’s how it works, all the six-by-sixes are loaded the same way, no matter if they’re going to Munich, or Naples, or Cherbourg, in France.”

“Now I’m a little confused,” White said.

“Well, sir, Master Sergeant Gallant told me he kept the Stars and Stripes delivery trucks rolling the same way he’d kept the original Red Ball trucks rolling. Or the supplies, in this case, the newspapers, moving when the trucks broke down, had a flat tire, et cetera.”

“And did he tell you how he was doing this?”

“Yes, sir. By doing what the Red Ball did.”

“Which was?”

“By stationing a wrecker and an empty truck every fifty miles along the delivery routes. If a truck gets a flat tire, or breaks down, the driver, or the assistant driver, hitches a ride to the wrecker. The wrecker and the empty truck then go to the broken-down truck, carrying spare wheels, gasoline, and a mechanic.”

“I’m not quite following you now, son.”

“Well, what I think happens, General, is that one of the trucks carrying the Nazis we’re looking for, quote, breaks down, unquote, near the border. Borders. Between Germany and Austria. Between Austria and Germany. Between Germany and France. Those borders. The driver then hitches a ride—maybe from one of the Constabulary jeeps patrolling the highway—and goes to the wrecker. The wrecker then goes to the, quote, broken-down, unquote, truck—”

“Carrying spare wheels, gasoline, a mechanic, and one or more of the people the CIC is looking for,” Hotshot Billy Wilson said. “Who then hide behind the pallets. The truck then drives across the border. How the hell did the entire CIC miss that?”

“Pray let PFC Wagner continue, Colonel,” White said icily.

“That’s what I think, General,” Wagner said. “Except the way it’s set up, they could take people from the trucks, as well as putting them on.”

“And do you think Master Sergeant Red Ball knows what’s going on?”

“No, sir. He’s not smart enough to figure it out himself. What I think is that one or two of the drivers, maybe more, are the people smugglers.”