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“Sit,” Cronley ordered. She remained standing.

“I heard what happened,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right. How did you hear? And what?”

“I put that major . . . Henderson? . . . on the SIGABA and happened to overhear what he told Colonel Wallace.”

“Major Anthony ‘Tony’ Henderson is one of the good guys, Flo. He reports to Oscar Schultz, not Wallace. What did he tell Wallace?”

“That when Lieutenant Winters was driving you from the airport to the Farber Palast, somebody opened up on you with a Schmeisser.”

“And?”

“Colonel Wallace said he’s not going to drive here at night in a snowstorm, but that he’ll be here as soon as he can in the morning. And he told the major to make sure you and Winters were available.”

“Winters won’t be. He’s flying to the Compound first thing in the morning to tell his wife what happened. I wanted her to hear it from him, not Wallace.”

“You think she’ll still come down here?”

“I dunno, Flo. But keep whatever you set up for her here in place.”

“Yes, sir.”

“From now until we get this situation straightened out, I don’t want you and any of the girls to go anywhere, and I mean anywhere, alone. And take your pistols with you.”

“I already told them. Can I ask who you think did this?”

“Probably Odessa, but maybe the same people who went after you and Claudette.”

“Can I tell her what happened?”

“Why do I think you’ve already told her?”

Florence looked very uncomfortable.

“I thought I had made it clear that Claudette’s in the loop.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“The next time you’re not sure, ask.”

“Yes, sir.”

[SIX]

The Bar

Farber Palast

Stein, near Nuremberg

American Zone of Occupation, Germany

2120 24 February 1946

Cronley more or less expected to find Janice in the bar when he walked in with his bodyguard. She wasn’t. Polkovnik Ivan Serov and Major Sergei Alekseevich were.

Cronley pointed to an empty table, an order for his bodyguard to sit there, and then walked to Serov’s table.