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“What about Captain Dunwiddie?”

“Interesting guy. Real regular Army, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ll tell you about that when there’s time. What I’m asking now, Jack, is whether you would be comfortable working for Cronley, who is both only twenty-two years old and can be damned difficult, and Gehlen, who has not forgotten he was a generalmajor, and Ziegler, who knows he’s smart and doesn’t think much of CIC special agents. You know what I’m asking?”

“I really don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Yeah, you do. Which brings me to the real point of this little chat. General Greene told me he told you if you played your cards right, you could probably get recalled to active duty as Major Hammersmith.”

Hammersmith nodded.

“He was wrong to tell you that. He should have known better.”

“That’s not in the cards?”

“The only general officer—or colonel—in the Army intelligence establishment in Europe who doesn’t seriously think that DCI is a dangerous bastard organization that should be gotten rid of—‘for the good of the service’—as soon as possible by any means required is Greene.”

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“And they are encouraged by G-2 in the Pentagon. Homer Greene should have known, and told you, that the better job you do here, the more it will piss off the G-2 establishment. Especially if you refuse to be their mole in DCI—and, trust me, you will be asked—they will see you as a traitor, and they are not going to see somebody they perceive as a traitor to the establishment rewarded by pinning his gold leaf back on him.

“And I’ve got one more thing to say that will probably piss you off. Right now, we really don’t need you here.”

“General Greene told me you asked for a good agent.”

“I did. I asked for his best agent and hoped he’d send me you. That was before I knew that Cronley had found and drafted Ziegler. My take on Ziegler—based on what we saw just now of his investigation of the shooting—is that he’s a first-class investigator. You agree?”

Hammersmith nodded. “He’s very good.”

“We don’t need two investigators right now.”

“So I’m fired before I get started?”

“Your call. If you want, I’ll send you back to the CIC, where Greene can probably figure out some other way to get you your commission back, and nobody ever has to know you were ever even in Pullach.

“Or you can stay here, where, because Cronley likes him and doesn’t know you, you’ll probably be working for Ziegler until Cronley, or I, come up with something appropriate to your talents. And where you can forget your commission, unless you do something spectacular that comes to the attention of the admiral, or better yet, El Jefe, which would cause them to lean on the Pentagon to get you your commission back. Frankly, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. And, if you stay here, and the intelligence establishment does manage to flush us down the toilet, which is a real possibility, you go down the hole with the rest of us.”

“How much time do I have to think this over?”

“Ten seconds.”

“How come so long?”

“Because when we get to the senior officers’ mess”—Wallace pointed to the nearest kaserne—“there will be two officers there, Lieutenant Colonel George H. Parsons and Major Warren W. Ashley, having their lunch. They are the liaison officers between DCI-Europe and the Pentagon G-2. Once they see you, it will take them probably at least thirty minutes to let their superiors know there’s a new pariah.”

Hammersmith considered his options for perhaps five seconds, and verbalized his conclusion by saying “Shit!” and then asking: “How am I going to get my things down here from Marburg?”

[ FOUR ]

The South German Industrial Development Organization Compound

Pullach, Bavaria

American Zone of Occupation, Germany

1310 24 January 1946

When Cronley, Gehlen, and the others walked back to the cottage from the kaserne, they found an MP jeep among the others. In it, looking annoyed, were two MPs, a sergeant and a master sergeant in full MP regalia.