Page 100

“Let him finish, Mort,” Jackson ordered.

“The only way von Dietelburg is going to believe we have left Wewelsburg is if we do, in fact, leave,” Cronley said. “Which we can do. The proof of that for von Dietelburg is that the Constabulary then moves in and construction on the NCO Academy begins.”

“By whom?” Jackson asked.

“The One Hundred Fourteenth Engineer Company (Light), U.S. Constabulary. Presuming I can talk General White into letting me have it.”

Cohen said, “I had to have Jim explain to me what the hell’s a Light Engineer company. He did. But I’m still not convinced.”

“Colonel, sir, it would be inappropriate for a very young and very junior officer such as myself to question the decisions of officers much senior to myself.”

Justice Jackson laughed.

“I’ll call I. D. White for you, if you’d like.”

“Thank you, sir. I’d rather do it myself. Or, actually, set up Tiny Dunwiddie to ask him. Tiny usually gets what he asks General White for. And I’d like to pick General White’s brain about Burgdorf. Ever since the general saw the grave at Peenemünde where Burgdorf buried the slave workers alive, he’s had a special place in his heart for him.”

Jackson considered that for a minute and then reached for the telephone.

“Get me General White in Sonthofen,” he ordered into the receiver, then looked at Cronley, and said, “Bear with me a moment.”

“Well?” a gruff voice demanded over the phone seconds later.

White apparently had not only answered his own line but answered it on the first ring.

“I’m sorry your gout is out of control again, General. I’ll call later.”

He hung up and glanced across his desk at the others.

Thirty seconds after that, his telephone rang.

Surprising no one, it was General White.

“Sorry, Bob,” he said. “This is one of those mornings where I’m surrounded by idiots.”

“I.D., I need to talk to you, but I don’t want to do it over the phone.”

“I can’t get away right now. Would you consider coming here? I can send Billy Wilson in the C-45.”

“I’d like to bring Cohen, Cronley, and Dunwiddie with me.”

“You may consider that Hotshot Billy is on the way,” White said, and then the line went dead.

“That work, Cronley?” Justice Jackson said.

“Yes, sir.”

Serov then said, “I think I would be of more value to our noble cause by encouraging my countrymen to exert more effort in looking for von Dietelburg and Burgdorf than they are. Is there any reason I have to go to Sonthofen?”

“No,” Cronley decided. “And I think our spiritual adviser would be in the way. Can you keep him occupied, Ivan?”

“Oh, yes,” Serov replied.

For some reason, Cronley thought, that sounds menacing.

[TWO]

Office of the Commanding General