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Cronley laughed again and then asked, “Freddy, how long have you been carrying a .45 in that Secret Service holster?”

“Ever since Tedworth caught the Russian,” Hessinger said. “The first Russian. I thought the NKGB might try to kidnap one of us, and then try to make a swap. You didn’t think about that?”

No, goddammit, I didn’t.

One more entry in the stupid column.

Cronley saw El Jefe scribble something on a piece of paper and hand it to Ashton.

What the hell is that?

“Freddy,” Cronley asked, “you just said ‘we’ and ‘for us.’ How strongly do you feel about that?”

“When I was growing up, my father told me you couldn’t choose your parents, but you should choose your associates. Then I was drafted and found out you can’t choose either,” Hessinger said. “Why do I think there is a question behind that question?”

“Because you’re not nearly as dumb as you look?” Dunwiddie asked.

“Now that you’re an officer, you’re not supposed to insult junior enlisted men,” Hessinger said. “Isn’t that right, Captain Cronley?”

“Absolutely. That’s two apologies you owe Fat Freddy, Captain Dunwiddie.”

“And one, I would say, Captain Cronley, that you owe the sergeant,” Ashton said.

“Excuse me, Colonel,” Hessinger said. “We do this all the time. What it is is that they’re jealous of my education.”

“Did I mention that Hessinger is a Harvard graduate, Colonel?” Cronley asked.

“I’ll try not to hold that against you, Sergeant Hessinger,” Ashton said. “We all have a cross to bear, and your Harvard diploma must be a very heavy one.”

There were chuckles all around. Even Hessinger smiled.

“Why did you ask me what you asked before?” he asked.

“Freddy, what if I told you Colonel Ashton believes, and so do Tiny and me, that if Operation Ost blows up in our face, everybody from Admiral Souers on down is going to throw us to the wolves?”

“That surprises you? In Russian literature there are many vignettes of the nobility throwing peasants out of troikas to save themselves from the wolves. Which is of course the etymological source of that expression.”

“What’s a troika?” El Jefe asked.

“A horse-drawn sleigh,” Dunwiddie furnished.

“Three horses, side by side,” Hessinger further amplified, using his hands to demonstrate.

“If we can turn from this fascinating lecture on Russian customs to the subject at hand, stemming the tide of the Red Menace?” Cronley asked. “Freddy, we’ve decided that if getting tossed from this three-horse buggy is the price that we have to pay for trying to protect Operation Ost and the President, okay, we’ll take our lumps.”

Hessinger was now paying close attention.

“And, further, we have decided that if we get tossed from the buggy, it will be because we fucked up somehow, not because we blindly followed the friendly suggestions of anybody—Mattingly, Greene, or even the admiral—on how to do the job.

“And, we have concluded that despite our best efforts, the odds are we’re going to wind up over our asses in the snow with the wolves gnawing on our balls. Both the colonel and I have decided, with Captain Dunwiddie concurring, that we have to ask you whether or not you wish to join the lunatics or whether you should return to the bona fide CIC and chase Nazis.”

“In other words, Tubby,” El Jefe said, “there’s no reason you should get your ass burned because these two nuts think they’re Alan Ladd and Errol Flynn saving the world for Veronica Lake and Mom’s apple pie. You want to take my advice, get as far away from this as soon as you can.”

“Thank you just the same,” Hessinger said, “but I don’t want your advice. What I do want is for you, Jim, to tell me what I have done to make you think you had to ask me that question.”

“What does that mean, Tubby?” El Jefe asked. “Are you in, or are you out?”

“Don’t call me Tubby.”