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“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It stands for the Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen,” Hessinger said. “Organization of Former German SS Officers.”
“Sort of a VFW for Nazis?” Cronley asked.
“‘VFW’?” Fortin parroted.
“Veterans of Foreign Wars,” Cronley explained. “An American veterans organization. My father has been president of VFW Post 9900 in Midland as long as I can remember.”
“Your father was in the First War?” Fortin asked.
“He was. And he was here in Strasbourg when the Communists tried to take over the city. That’s where he met my mother.”
“Which you said is why you speak German like a Strasbourger,” Fortin said. “And your mother, I gather, maintained a close relationship with her family here?”
“No. Quite the opposite. Once she married my father, her family wanted nothing to do with her. The only contact she ever had with them was a letter before the war saying her mother had died. And then the letter asking for help.”
“What would your reaction be if I told you that once I get what I want to know from Luther Stauffer about Odessa, I’m going to arrest him and charge him with collaboration?”
“Why is Odessa so important?”
“The purpose of Odessa is to help SS officers get out of Germany so they can’t be tried for war crimes. I like SS officers only slightly more than I like collaborators.”
“What I have heard of Odessa,” Hessinger said, “is that it’s more fancy than fact.”
“Then, Herr Hessinger, you have heard wrong,” Fortin said simply.
“I can ask General Greene what he knows about Odessa,” Cronley said to Hessinger.
“And what is your relationship with the chief of CIC of the European Command?” Fortin asked.
So he knows who Greene is. Commandant Fortin does get around, doesn’t he?
“He tells me what I want to know,” Cronley said.
“I’m just a simple policeman,” Fortin repeated. “So when I look at you, Mr. Cronley, I see a young man. Logic tells me you are either a junior civilian, or a junior officer. And that makes me wonder why the chief of CIC, European Command, would tell you anything he didn’t want to tell you.”
When you can’t think of anything else, tell the truth.
“Actually, I’m a captain seconded to DCI,” Cronley said. “The reason General Greene will tell me everything I want to know is because he has been ordered to do so by Admiral Souers, who speaks with the authority of President Truman.”
“And who do you work directly for, Captain Cronley?”
Army captains are rarely, if ever, directly subordinate to Navy admirals. And “Commandant” Fortin knows that. So the truth—that I work directly under Admiral Souers—won’t work here.
“We have a phrase, Commandant, ‘Need to Know.’ With respect, I don’t think you have the need to know that.”
“I’m familiar with the phrase, Captain.”
“If you don’t mind, Commandant, I prefer ‘Mr. Cronley.’”
“Of course,” Fortin said. “I asked you before, Mr. Cronley, what your reaction would be if I told you I sooner or later intend to arrest your cousin Luther and see that he’s tried as a collaborator?”
Cronley very carefully considered his reply before deciding again that when all else fails, tell the truth.
“I don’t think I’d like the effect that would have on my mother.”
“But you just told me she’s had no contact with him since she married.”
