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“You noticed, huh?”

“You going to tell me why not?”

“First of all, nothing happened at Kloster Grünau. Write that down.”

“You mean two guys we strongly suspect were NKGB agents penetrated Kloster Grünau, tried to kill Tedworth, were killed by Ostrowski, and then buried in unmarked graves, that ‘nothing’?”

“If I had told Wallace about that incident that never happened, he would have felt duty bound to tell Mattingly. Mattingly, to cover his ass, would have brought this to the attention of at least Greene, and maybe the EUCOM G2. A platoon of EUCOM brass, all with Top Secret clearances, all of whom are curious as hell about Kloster Grünau, would descend on our monastery to investigate the incident. It would be both a waste of time and would compromise Operation Ost. As Captain Cronley of the Twenty-third CIC, I can’t tell them to butt out. So I didn’t tell Wallace. Okay?”

“Okay. Incident closed.”

“Not quite. I haven’t figured out what to do with Ostrowski.”

“Meaning?”

“That I haven’t figured out what to do about . . . or with him.”

“For example?”

“You do hang on like a starving dog does to a bone, don’t you, Mr. Dunwiddie?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Among other things, he could fly one of our Storchs. He used to fly Spitfires.”

“That would mean we would have an ex-Luftwaffe pilot and a Polish DP flying airplanes we’re not supposed to have in the first place. And among what other things?”

“The OSS used to have civilian employees. Maybe the Directorate of Central Intelligence can.”

“Interesting thought,” General Gehlen said. “Ostrowski is an interesting man.”

“With all respect, sir,” Dunwiddie said,

“whenever you and Captain Cronley agree on something, I worry.”

[TWO]

Office of the Chief, Counterintelligence Corps

Headquarters, European Command

The I.G. Farben Building

Frankfurt am Main

American Zone of Occupation, Germany

1145 29 December 1945

Major Thomas J. Derwin, who was thirty-four, five feet ten, weighed 165 pounds, and to whose green tunic lapels were pinned the crossed rifles of Infantry and whose shoulder bore the embroidered insignia of Army Ground Forces, pushed open the door under the sign identifying the suite of offices of the chief, Counterintelligence Corps, European Command.

Derwin was carrying two canvas suitcases, called Valv-Paks. He set them down just inside the door and looked around the office. There were four people in it. One of them, sitting behind a desk, was a Women’s Army Corps—WAC—chief warrant officer, an attractive woman in her late twenties. She was wearing the female version of pinks and greens—a green tunic over a pink skirt.

The three men were wearing OD Ike jackets and trousers. One of them was a stocky, nearly bald master sergeant. He was sitting behind a desk next to the WAC’s desk. Sitting slumped in chairs before the master sergeant’s desk were a captain—a good-looking young guy—and an enormous black man whose uniform was bare of any insignia of rank.

As they rose to their feet, Derwin realized he knew the captain.

Cronley, he thought. James D. Cronley Jr. I had him in a Techniques of Surveillance class at Holabird. They were so short of officers in Germany that they pulled him out of school and sent him over here before he finished. Then I saw him again at the officers’ club at Holabird a couple of months ago. He said he was in the States as an escort officer for some classified material.