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“Colonel Cohen,” Cronley said, “you said it was forty percent probable that Odessa was involved in this break. Who else is suspect?”

“Let’s not go down that road right now,” Jackson said.

Cohen ignored him, and said, “The NKGB. That’s obvious. But I have a gut feeling that the AVO may be involved. That’s the—”

“Államvédelmi Osztálya, acronym AVO,” Cronley provided. “The Russian-controlled Secret Police in Hungary. Its chief is a real sonofabitch, Gábor Péter. He murdered Niedermeyer’s wife, Karol—”

“This escape was a professional operation,” Cohen interrupted Cronley while looking at Justice Jackson. “The AVO is very professional. Many of its members—including Gábor Péter—go back to the Nazi Arrow organization, which was run by the SS. My scenario here is that if the NKGB wanted people out of the Tribunal Prison, (a) they have been planning this for some time, (b) Cronley’s pal Ivan Serov figured that not only is the AVO very good but if something went wrong, better the AVO take the rap, not the NKGB, and (c) that the operation was designed to spring somebody else—that somebody-else list is long—not Burgdorf and von Dietelburg, who had been there only a short time. But when they learned that those two were in the prison, they decided they wanted them more than anyone on the somebody-else list.”

There was a lot to consider, and no one said anything. It was Cronley who broke the silence.

“That scenario makes a lot of sense.”

“Cronley’s pal Ivan Serov?” Jackson asked of Cohen.

“Colonel of State Security Ivan Serov, first deputy to Commissar of State Security Nikolaevich Merkulov. Super Spook dealt wit

h him when the NKGB had Colonel Mattingly and wanted to swap him for Polkóvnik Sergei Likharev and family.”

“Identify those people, please,” Jackson said.

“Super Spook turned Colonel Likharev—who we caught trying to sneak out of the DCI Pullach Compound—by promising to get his family out of Russia and then did. The Likharevs went to Argentina.”

“Where,” Cronley put in, “he has proved to be a very good asset regarding the NKGB. He used to work as Ivan’s deputy.”

“Let’s get back to what happened here,” Jackson said. “You said when you went to the prison you found the guards were unconscious?”

“Yes, sir,” Colonel Cohen said. “They’d been gassed.”

“How do you know that? With what?”

“My people found a little puddle of brown liquid outside the entrance to the prison. It had solidified. They think that it’s leakage from a gas tank. Their scenario is, the tank possibly was put on the ground, with a tube to carry the gas between the door and its sill, or maybe some kind of device to spray it in the air. Then its valve was opened. When enough time had passed to knock out the guards on the other side of the door, they entered the prison cellblock itself and knocked out the guards there, who are unarmed, by spraying the gas directly in their faces.

“Sort of strengthening this scenario is the fact that the main I.G. Farben gas plant in Hungary, which made the Zyklon B that was used in the death camps, and where they still manufacture various gases and probably still does Zyklon B, had a laboratory in which other gases were developed.

“They were tested at Treblinka, as well as other concentration camps, including those in Hungary. When the Germans were first allied with Hungary, and later took it over completely, the Arrow organization got access to and used Zyklon B and other gases to murder maybe a half-million people.

“Rephrasing it, my scenario, which may be far-fetched, is (a) that the AVO staged the prison break, (b) that it was intended to free somebody other than Burgdorf and von Dietelburg, and (c) that they used some kind of gas—something pretty sophisticated—to knock out, but intentionally not kill, the guards. Thirty-odd dead Americans would have caused an outrage that they didn’t need.”

“I don’t think it’s far-fetched,” Colonel Rasberry said. “What impressed me was the professionalism of the break. I don’t think Serov has the capability to do what was done.”

“Can you amplify that, Colonel?” Jackson asked.

“They entered the Tribunal Compound in an Army ambulance,” Rasberry said. “We finally found out that it was stolen six weeks before the escape from the Fifty-seventh Field Hospital in Giessen, which is a long way from here. They were wearing U.S. Army uniforms and they spoke English. They left the Compound the same way—I mean, they had a Trip Ticket to show my people.

“The ambulance was found in the Rhine-Main–Danube Canal five days after the break, which suggests they drove directly there, where others must’ve waited, probably with clothing and counterfeit Kennkarten for Burgdorf and von Dietelburg. The ambulance was in a sort of pool, a lake, on the canal, twenty feet under. It was found by accident—something fell off a barge and the crew was looking for it. If that hadn’t happened, we’d probably never have learned what happened to the ambulance.”

“For the record, please define Kennkarten,” Jackson said.

“German identity documents.”

“Any questions, Super Spook?” Jackson asked.

“No, sir.”

“Any suggestions on what we should do next?”

“Colonel Cohen,” Cronley asked, “was Casey Wagner involved in your interrogations of the people, German and American?”