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And then, immediately, Derwin knew he was wrong.
What the hell. I’ve just spent twenty-six hours flying over here. Brain-wise, I’m not functioning on all six cylinders. Which is not going to help me when I meet my new boss. First impressions do matter. That captain is not Cronley. Cronley’s a second lieutenant. Amazing physical resemblance.
“May I help you, sir?” the master sergeant asked.
“I’m Major Derwin, Sergeant. Reporting for duty.”
“Yes, sir, we’ve been expecting you,” the WAC said. “I’ll let the general know you’re here.”
She went to an interior door and pushed it open.
“General, Major Derwin is here.”
“Captain,” Derwin asked, “has anyone ever told you that you bear a striking resemblance to a second lieutenant named Cronley?”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said, smiling. “I’ve heard that.”
A stocky, forty-three-year-old officer with a crew cut appeared in the inner office door. His olive-drab uniform had the single star of a brigadier general on its epaulets.
That has to be my new boss, Brigadier General H. Paul Greene, chief, Counterintelligence, European Command.
And he looks like the tough sonofabitch everybody says he is.
General Greene looked at the WAC.
“Why didn’t you tell me these two were here?”
The captain answered for her.
“We’re waiting for General Gehlen, sir. He said he’d like to be present, and I thought it was a nice gesture on his part, so I brought him along.”
Did he say “General Gehlen”? Not, certainly, Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen?
“And where is General Gehlen?”
“As we tried to sneak in the back door, General Smith’s convoy rolled up,” Captain Cronley replied. “He asked the general if he had a few minutes for him, and of course General Gehlen did.”
General Smith? General Walter Bedell Smith, chief of staff to General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander in chief, European Command?
“And that surprised you?” General Greene said, chuckling.
“No, sir, it did not.”
“You’re Derwin?”
“Yes, sir, I’m Major Derwin.”
The general’s face showed he was thinking.
“Okay, everybody come in,” he said finally. “They call that ‘killing two birds with one stone.’”
He turned and they followed him into the office.
There was an elegantly turned out, handsome colonel of Armor slouched on a couch before a coffee table. He wore a green Ike jacket over pink trousers. His trousers were pulled up high enough to reveal highly polished Tanker boots.
The general went behind his desk.
Derwin marched up to it, came to attention, and saluted.
