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When Cronley got out of the copilot’s position, both engineers were surprised there were no pilot’s wings on his tunic chest.

“Captain,” Major Lomax offered helpfully, “you seem to have lost your wings.”

“Major, you can’t lose something you never had,” Cronley replied.

The major, his face blank, did not know how to reply.

“This is what happens next, after we take on fuel and stow your gear,” Cronley then said. “First, we’re going to Wetzlar to pick up Sergeant K. C. Wagner. Then we’re going to Castle Wewelsburg, where Colonel Cohen will show our new engineer friends here around. Then Nuremberg. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Colonel Dickinson,” Cronley said, “have you got any large—the larger, the better—bulldozers, hole diggers, heavy equipment like that, that you’re not going to need, say, for the next three weeks?”

“Why do you want to know, Captain?”

“Well, if you do, I want you to get them on their way to Wewelsburg as soon as possible.”

“Is that so, Captain? On whose authority?”

“Mine.”

“Colonel,” Cohen said, chuckling, “welcome to our world. You will have to get used to the idea that we’re all working for Captain Cronley—Lord knows that I have fought that battle and lost. The next person up in his chain of command is Harry S Truman.”

Dickinson looked in disbelief at Justice Jackson, who, smiling, said, “This is the other side of Alice’s looking glass: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’”

[FOUR]

Farber Palast

Stein, near Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany

2005 24 April 1946

Cronley’s bodyguard detail, which now consisted of Max Ostrowski and two other Polish DCI agents, hadn’t gone with them to Sonthofen, but when they landed at Nuremberg, they found the three waiting for the

m.

Also waiting were Cronley’s Horch touring car, a Chevrolet staff car, and three jeeps.

Cronley offered the Horch to Justice Jackson, who smiled.

“Thanks all the same, Jim. Maybe you can pull it off, but I cannot afford to look like Hitler in a Nazimobile on the way to a rally of the faithful.”

Minutes later, preceded by a jeep, and trailed by another, Cronley and Casey Wagner rode to the castle in the backseat of the Horch.

* * *

—

There was a large ex-Wehrmacht Mercedes with Red Army plates sitting in a NO PARKING area in front of the hotel, so when Cronley entered the lobby bar, he was not surprised to see Ivan Serov. But he was surprised that instead of sitting with Father McKenna, Serov was with Miss Janice Johansen. He had last seen her in the hospital in Berlin.

“Where’s our friend from the Vatican?” Cronley said. “You were supposed to be watching him, Ivan.”

“I passed him to Mortimer, who is giving him a first look at the castle.”

“You look a lot better than I expected you to, Jimmy,” she greeted him. “Nice to see that you’ve improved, sweetie. And good to see you, too, Casey.”

Wagner made a thin smile and nodded once.