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“Well?” White pursued.

“Yes, sir. We were going to get married.”

“So soon after she lost her husband?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What, exactly, was your relationship with Mrs. Moriarty when her husband was still alive?”

“She was the wife of my best friend at A&M, General.”

“And nothing more? Am I supposed to believe that?”

Cronley heard himself blurt his reply before he could stop himself. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t give a damn what you or anyone else believes.”

There was silence in the room. Cronley could feel the tension of the others.

General White then said, evenly, “We’ve noticed, Cronley. Haven’t we, Mr. Justice? That you don’t give a damn what anyone believes, including your superiors.”

“Leave him alone, I.D.,” Jackson said. “You’ve been intentionally, for reasons I can’t imagine, trying to get him to blow his cork.”

“So you’ve noticed that, Bob, have you? And how would you judge Captain Cronley’s response to my provocation?”

“He handled it a helluva lot better than I would or could.”

“‘Great minds march down similar trails,’” White replied. “You ever hear that, Bob?”

White then reached for his telephone.

“Get me Colonel Dickinson of the Fourteenth Engineers on a secure line. If memory serves, they’re in Bad Nauheim.”

* * *

—

“Dickinson, this is General White. I’ve decided that the Constabulary needs an NCO Academy, and, further, that the Fourteenth is going to build it for us.”

There was a pause long enough for Colonel Dickinson to say “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll tell you what happens next,” White continued. “My godson is in town, and Mrs. White is going to feed us lunch. After lunch, Colonel Wilson is going to fire up my Gooney Bird and fly to Bad Nauheim, where you and either your S-3 or your executive officer—your choice—will be waiting with your bags packed for, say, five days. Got all that?”

There was again a pause long enough for the colonel to again say “Yes, sir.”

“Nice to talk to you, Dickinson,” White said, and hung up. Then he stood up. “Let’s go to lunch.”

[THREE]

Aboard Constabulary 1

Bad Nauheim, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

1725 24 April 1946

When Hotshot Billy Wilson landed General White’s Gooney Bird at Bad Nauheim, Lieutenant Colonel David P. Dickinson, CE, and another engineer officer, Major Donald G. Lomax, were waiting for them.

Both officers were visibly surprised when they were waved aboard the aircraft and found that the interior, instead of the rows of canvas-and-aluminum-pipe seating they expected, was furnished more like a living room than anything else. It had armchairs and couches affixed to a floor of nice carpet, and against the forward wall of the passenger compartment was a small bar.

“Gentlemen, I’m Justice Jackson,” Jackson greeted them, then pointed as he spoke. “That’s Colonel Cohen, and those two are Captains Dunwiddie and Cronley.”