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White silenced him with a raised hand.
“My festive lunch will just have to wait,” he said. “Tim, my compliments to Colonel Wilson. Please inform him I would be pleased if he could attend me at his earliest convenience.”
The junior aide-de-camp said, “Yes, sir,” and headed for the door.
He slid it open, went through it, and slid it closed.
Thirty seconds later, the door slid open again.
Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson came through it, marched up to General White, saluted, and holding it, barked, “Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson reporting to the commanding general as ordered, sir.”
White returned the salute with a casual wave of his hand in the general direction of his forehead.
“Waiting for me in the vestibule, were you, Bill?”
“Yes, sir. I hoped to get a minute or two of the general’s time.”
“How modest of you! Captain Cronley hoped to get ten minutes.”
Wilson didn’t reply.
“Where to start?” General White asked rhetorically. “Bill, Captain Cronley tells me you suggested he bring Chauncey to Rhine-Main because he wanted the aforementioned ten minutes of my valuable time, and you thought his bringing Chauncey would help him achieve that goal. True?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are going to tell me why this is so important, right?”
“Sir, I suggest that Captain Cronley could do that better than I can.”
White looked at Cronley, and when Cronley didn’t immediately open his mouth, said, “You heard the colonel, Captain. Cat got your tongue?”
“General, the subject is classified Top Secret–Presidential . . .” Cronley said uneasily.
“And these people, so far as you know, might be Russian spies?” General White said, waving his hand at his aides and his wife.
“Sir—”
“Actually, I’m not sure about her, so throughout our twenty-nine years of married bliss, I have never shared so much as a memorandum cla
ssified ‘confidential’ with her. As far as Colonel Davidson and Captain Wayne are concerned, if you say anything I think they should not have heard, I’ll have them shot and have their bodies thrown off the train. You may proceed.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, we have turned a Russian, NKGB Colonel Sergei Likharev—”
“Who is ‘we’? Are you referring to Colonel Mattingly? Is that why he’s among the missing?”
“No, sir. Colonel Mattingly had nothing to do with turning Colonel Likharev. Tiny and I turned him.”
“You and Chauncey turned an NKGB colonel?” White asked incredulously.
“Uncle Isaac, please give Jim, and me, the benefit of the doubt,” Tiny said.
“I.D.,” Mrs. White ordered, “get off your high horse and hear the captain out.”
“You may proceed, Captain Cronley,” General White said.
“Yes, sir. Sir, one of the reasons Colonel Likharev turned was because we promised him—”
“‘We’ being you and Chauncey?”
