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“No, Major, I’ve decided you have the need to know about this, so I’m going to tell you. But I also have to tell you this is classified Top Secret–Presidential.”

“You are aware, Cronley, are you not, that both Colonel Parsons and myself hold Top Secret–Presidential clearances?” Ashley said, angrily sarcastic. “We’re entitled to know.”

Well, I finally got you to blow up, didn’t I?

And I ain’t through.

“What you and Colonel Parsons are entitled to know about the DCI, about Operation Ost, Major, is what I decide you have the need to know.”

If that doesn’t set Parsons off, nothing will.

Greatly surprising Cronley, it didn’t.

“Warren, Mr. Cronley is right,” Parsons said. “Why don’t we let him tell us what he thinks we should know?”

I’ll be damned.

But why is it th

at I don’t think I’ve won?

“I’ll tell you what I can, sir, about the DCI and the CIC,” Cronley said. “The basic idea is, as you’re fully aware, to hide Operation Ost from just about everybody who does not have a genuine need to know. Everybody, in this sense, includes the FBI and that part of the CIC engaged in looking for Nazis. As well, of course, as just about everybody else.”

“Admiral Souers explained that to me in some detail,” Parsons said.

“Yes, sir, he told me that he had. But what he didn’t tell you, and what General Greene apparently hasn’t told you—and I really wish he had—and what I’m going to tell you now, is how the admiral decided the concealment could best be accomplished.”

“And how is that?” Ashley demanded.

“Warren,” Colonel Parsons said warningly.

Now Parsons’s on my side?

What the hell is going on?

“When Admiral Souers told me that, at his request, and with the President’s approval, the Army was going to task EUCOM-CIC with the logistical support of DCI-Europe, I suggested to him that I’d like to use EUCOM-CIC for more than that.”

“You suggested that you’d like?” Ashley demanded sarcastically.

“Warren, shut up!” Parsons ordered curtly.

Well, if nothing else, I really have Parsons’s attention.

“I suggested to the admiral that we could conceal a great deal of DCI-Europe within the CIC,” Cronley went on. “For example, if we let people think that the Pullach compound is a CIC installation, and that General Gehlen’s people were being employed by the CIC to track down Nazis . . .”

“But you’re calling it the South German Industrial Development Organization Compound,” Parsons said.

“Admiral Souers raised the same objection, sir. I suggested that if the Pullach compound was actually being used by the CIC as a Nazi hunting center, they wouldn’t put that on the sign. The sign would say something like the General-Büros Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.”

“Clever,” Colonel Parsons said thoughtfully. “And, I gather, Admiral Souers and General Greene went along with your ideas?”

“Admiral Souers did. I don’t think General Greene was unhappy with them.”

“And, in any case,” Parsons said, “what General Greene might think is moot, isn’t it?”

“Colonel, I don’t know this, but I think that if General Greene didn’t like any of this, he would have told Admiral Souers, and I know the admiral would have listened. What I’m guessing is that General Greene didn’t have any major objections.”

Parsons considered that for a moment, and then said, “You’re probably right. And now that I think about it, why should he have had problems with what the admiral asked him to do? Your suggestions make a lot of sense.”