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“And Rachel came to see me there.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because the Boy Wonder called her. The Boy Wonder had just loaded an NKGB major—this was before Clete turned him, and we learned Likharev’s really a colonel—on an airplane, and the Boy Wonder thought he was entitled to a little prize for all his good work. Like some good whisky and a piece of ass.”
“You were fucking Rachel Schumann?” Wallace asked incredulously.
“In hindsight, in a non-sexual sense, Rachel was fucking me. At the time, I thought it was my masculine charm. And I thought all her questions about Kloster Grünau were simply feminine curiosity. So, when she showed up at the Park Hotel for fun and games, I proudly told her what I had just done. And thirty minutes later, she left. She had to go home, she said, to her husband.”
“So when we heard what had happened in Buenos Aires, I put two and two together. The only way the Russians in Buenos Aires could have heard the precise details of when Likharev would get there was because they had gotten them from Rachel. And I’d given them to Rachel. The only other people who knew the details were Tiny and Hessinger, and I didn’t think either one of them would have tipped the NKGB. So I finally gathered my courage and fessed up.”
“To Gehlen?”
“Gehlen, Tiny, and Hessinger. Gehlen wasn’t as surprised, or as contemptuous, as I thought he would be. He said that he’d always wondered what Colonel Schumann was doing on that obscure back road in Schollbrunn, the day I shot up his car, why he had been so determined to get inside Kloster Grünau right then.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, he talked me out of my solution to the problem.”
“Which was?”
“I wanted to shoot both of them and then tell General Greene why I had. General Gehlen said the damage was done, and my going to the stockade, or the gallows, would accomplish nothing. And so, coward that I am, I accepted his advice.”
After a long moment, Wallace said, “We joke about the assassination option, but sometimes . . .”
“So I’ve learned.”
“You’re sure . . . ?”
“The other thing I’ve learned is never to be sure about anything.”
“And Tiny? And Hessinger? Are you sure they can be . . .”
“Trusted? As sure as I am of anything.”
“What does Brunhilde know about this?”
“I don’t know what she knows, but I’m presuming she knows everything.”
“And do you think she might somehow try to use this knowledge to further her intelligence career?”
“I don’t know she wouldn’t, but how could I be sure?”
“You can’t. Have you told her what you’ve been thinking?”
“No.”
“You ever hear that the bedroom is usually where the most important secrets are compromised?”
“I guess I’m proof of that, aren’t I?”
“That argument could be reasonably made,” Wallace said drily.
“Colonel,” Cronley began, and stopped.
“What, Cronley?”
“Sir, the only thing I can say in my defense is that I very seldom make the same mistake twice.”
