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This is where the crews rest for twenty-four hours before heading back to Buenos Aires.
Was there an SAA Constellation at Tempelhof? It was too damn dark to see!
If there is an SAA crew here and, please, God, one of them is somebody I know, I can get word to Clete without anybody finding out that I have.
—
When he was allowed to enter the house—after having to show his DCI credentials to a security guard armed with a Thompson submachine gun—he found the foyer crowded with what looked like a party, one that was spreading into the adjacent dining and living rooms.
More than a dozen of the men in the foyer were Tiny’s Troopers, just about all of whom had beer bottles in their massive hands. There were also about eight men whose blue-triangled OD Ike jackets bulged with concealed weapons.
CIC agents? What the hell?
Cronley walked to the door of the living room. He saw that there were a number of Ostrowski’s men, all with beer bottles, two more CIC types, and a lieutenant colonel and a major he had never seen before.
Who the hell are they?
He went to the dining room.
Tiny Dunwiddie, wearing his captain’s uniform, was sitting at the table with Claudette Colbert, Freddy Hessinger, and Jack Hammersmith. They were all wearing pinks and greens with triangles. There were also seven men wearing parts of SAA aircrew uniforms at the table.
Pilot, Cronley thought, as he searched for a familiar face among them, copilot, flight engineer, radio operator/navigator, and three stewards.
SAA doesn’t have stewardesses.
And then he found whom he was looking for seated at the head of the table.
A handsome blond-haired man in his late twenties was refilling his glass from a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch Scots whisky. He looked up and saw Cronley.
The man cheerfully called, “Hey, look who’s finally showed up!”
Cronley went to him.
“Hansel, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!”
Former Luftwaffe major Hans-Peter Freiherr von Wachtstein, now Captain von Wachtstein of South American Airways, stood up.
Cronley wrapped his arms around him and kissed him wetly on the forehead.
At that moment, the lieutenant colonel and the major whom Cronley had seen in the living room approached. Both looked confused or disapproving or, more precisely, confused and disapproving.
“Mr. Cronley?” the lieutenant colonel asked.
“Guilty.”
“My name is Ledbetter, Mr. Cronley. I command the Twenty-sixth CIC. This is Major Rogers, my deputy.”
Cronley shook their hands. “What can I do for you, Colonel?”
“That shoe’s on the other foot,” Ledbetter said. “General Greene called and ordered me to get in touch with you and provide whatever assistance you require.”
Cronley looked into Colonel Ledbetter’s eyes.
Are you really here, Colonel, to provide whatever assistance I require?
Or are you here so that you can tell General Greene and he can tell General Seidel and the USFET intelligence establishment what the loose-cannon young captain who has been given more authority than he can be expected to handle is up to?
General Gehlen told me that the one thing intelligence officers should always remember is to trust no one.
