Page 9

There were two bullet holes in the left rear door of the car, and another in the left front door. The damage had occurred while the NKGB was kidnapping Colonel Robert Mattingly as he was en route from Schlosshotel Kronberg to the I.G. Farben Building.

The vehicle had come into Captain Cronley’s possession via Mr. Oscar Schultz, executive assistant to the chief of the Directorate of Central Intelligence, who had decided that Cronley had behaved himself at Colonel Mattingly’s farewell party.

Sitting beside Cronley was Miss Janice Johansen of the Associated Press. Seated in the back were DCI special agents August Ziegler and Karl-Christoph Wagner. Ziegler was thirty-one but looked younger. “Casey” Wagner had the innocent face of a seventeen-year-old, but was six-feet-two, weighed 232 pounds, and could pass for, say, eighteen or nineteen.

At the wheel of the Ford staff car was DCI special agent Maksymilian “Max” Ostrowski. Beside him sat another former member of the Free Polish Air Force, and there were two more men with a similar background in the backseat, and four more in the trailing ambulance.

All the males, who were all wearing OD uniforms with civilian triangles identifying them as civilian employees of the U.S. Army, comprised the entire complement of the newly formed Detachment “A” of DCI-Europe, and also of the newly formed XXXIVth CIC Detachment, which had been established in the hope it would obfuscate the existence of Detachment “A.”

They were going to Farber Palast at the recommendation of Miss Johansen, who said the accommodations of Farber Palast, which housed the press corps covering the Nuremberg trials, were far superior to the Bachelor Officer quarters in Nuremberg. She said she was sure Cronley’s DCI credentials would dazzle the officer in charge of assigning rooms to the press.

Cronley agreed. DCI credentials did dazzle people.

Office of the President of the United States

Central Intelligence Directorate

Washington, D.C.

The Bearer of This Identity Document

James D. Cronley Jr.

Is an officer of the Central Intelligence Directorate acting with the authority of the President of the United States. Any questions regarding him or his activities should be addressed to the undersigned only.

Sidney W. Souers

Sidney W. Souers,

Rear Admiral

Director, U.S. Central Intelligence Directorate

The convoy rolled into a parking lot half full of vehicles, most of them Army staff cars and jeeps but with a few American and German passenger cars among them. All the jeeps had PRESS painted on the panel below their windshields.

“Casey,” Cronley ordered, “you come in with Janice and me while I see if we get to rest our heads in this palace.”

The three got out of the Horch and walked into the palace’s lobby.

There was a wide-curving staircase leading up from the lobby. At the foot of the staircase was a life-size statue of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. She was almost naked, bow and arrow in hand, standing on one foot as she presumably looked for game.

She was also wearing a pink brassiere and matching panties, and a six-inch cigar was planted between her lips.

“I think I’m going to like this place,” Cronley said.

“Ernest Hemingway found it satisfactory,” Janice said. “The bar offers Hemingways, which are gin martinis made to his personal recipe.”

“Now I know I’m going to like it,” Cronley said.

To one side of the stairway was what had once been, before the castle had been requisitioned by the Army of Occupation, a cloakroom. Now it bore a sign: REGISTRY.

It was not attended, but there was a bell on its counter. Cronley thumped it, and a moment later a sergeant appeared. He looked to be about as old as Casey, which caused a statistic to pop into Cronley’s mind. The average age of enlisted men in USFET was eighteen-point-something years.

“Hello, Miss Johansen,” the sergeant said. “Welcome back. Would you like your usual room?”

“Please. Thank you,” she said, and then added, “It has a large bed, sweetie, with a marvelous feather-filled mattress.”

“And what can I do for you, sir?”