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But I didn’t have to think about coming up with an excuse to go to Kloster Grünau. The excuse—the story, the bullshit, the lie—leapt to my lips.

Why am I surprised?

Everybody in this surreal world I’m now living in lies so often about everything, and I’m so used to that it never even occurred to me to tell the simple truth that I need some time to think.

[FIVE]

Kloster Grünau

Schollbrunn, Bavaria

American Zone of Occupation, Germany

0015 30 December 1945

The conclusion Cronley reached after thinking all the way to Kloster Grünau was that not only would he be way over his head when he became chief, DCI-Europe, but that Admiral Souers damned well knew it.

So why isn’t there some grizzled full-bird colonel available to do what I’m clearly unqualified to do?

The non-availability of such a grizzled full-bird colonel—and Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell T. “Polo” Ashton would not qualify as even a grizzled lieutenant colonel even if he showed up here, which, considering his broken leg and other infirmities, I now think seems highly unlikely—was not a satisfactory answer to the question.

So what to do?

Face it that Gehlen has taken over Operation Ost.

Not for any political reasons, but because nature abhors a vacuum.

So how do I handle that?

Sit there with my ears open and my mouth shut?

It’s already obvious that he and ol’ Ludwig are only telling me what they think I can be trusted to know.

Not one word about Mata Hari, the super Mossad spy, until tonight.

A/K/A Rachel.

And didn’t Fat Freddy pick up on that?

Does he suspect anything? Fat Freddy is pretty damned smart.

So what do I do about Gehlen not telling me what I should be told?

“See here, General, you and ol’ Ludwig are going to have to tell me everything.”

To which he would say, “Absolutely,” and tell me not one goddamned thing he doesn’t think I should know.

So what should I do?

Admit you don’t have a fucking clue what to do, and place your faith in the truism that God takes care of fools and drunks and you fully qualify as both.

When he drove the Kapitän past the second barrier fence, Cronley saw that floodlights were on in the tent hangar built for the Storchs.

Maybe something is wrong with one of them. Truth being stranger than fiction.

He drove to the hangar.

Kurt Schröder was working on the vertical stabilizer assembly of one of them. And apparently being assisted by Lieutenant Max—whose name Cronley was wholly unsure he could ever pronounce.