AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Jimmy?” Claudia asked. “Who’s Jimmy?”
“He’s sort of my little brother, Claudia,” Frade said.
“Of course,” von Dattenberg said. “I remember it well.”
“Jimmy first got me some clean clothing—that uniform I was wearing when I arrived here—and then took me to dinner. It was more food than I’d seen in years. A huge steak and a baked potato and corn on the cob. The only reason I didn’t gorge myself was that I knew what would happen if I did.”
“I don’t understand,” Claudia said.
“If you’ve been starving for a while,” Frade expained, “and then eat a good meal, and quickly, the body reacts.”
He mimed throwing up.
“Good God, Cletus!” Claudia snapped.
“He’s right,” Elsa said. “So Jimmy waited patiently until I’d eaten maybe half of what I was served. And then we went to the basement of the hotel and Jimmy burned the clothing I had been wearing. When there was nothing left of it but ash, I told Jimmy, ‘So ends my old life, and begins my new one.’”
She raised her eyes to von Dattenberg.
“Willi, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you came through, and to see you here. But please don’t call me baroness. That was in another life, a long time ago.”
Doña Claudia wrapped her arms around her.
“I still don’t understand any of this,” Claudia said. “I didn’t know until just now, Cletus, that you have a little brother.”
“If I explained it to you, Claudia, I’d have to kill you,” Frade said.
“Goddamn it, Clete!” Doña Dorotea said furiously.
“What I think we should do now,” Frade said, “is open some wine. But before we do that, I’m going to take Willi with me and get him out of his sailor suit.”
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t tell you, Willi,” Peter said, “but you’ve just escaped from Villa General Belgrano.”
“But I gave my parole to General Martín,” von Dattenberg protested.
“He’s released you from it,” von Wachtstein said. “He’s the one who told me to tell you you’ve escaped.”
VI
[ONE]
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria, Germany
1400 15 October 1945
Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr., First Sergeant Tiny Dunwiddie, and former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg were sitting around the large table that normally served as the commanding officer’s desk. It was literally covered with stacks of files.
Mannberg had suggested that “care be exercised” to make sure that as few people as possible knew what they were doing with the files. Tiny had instructed Technical Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth that no one—not even “H
onest Abe” himself—was to open the office until permission had been granted over the telephone.
All three of them looked up with mingled surprise, concern, and annoyance when they heard the door open without so much as a knock.
A moment later, all three sprang to attention.
