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“I said Harold.”
“So you did. As I was saying, Harry, a WAC blowing away three guys with a snub-nosed .38 she carries in her brassiere is a story that’s going to get out whether or not it’s convenient for you.”
“Who told you about that?”
“It’s what we call ‘unidentified military police officials speaking off the record.’”
“By the name of Ziegler, maybe?”
“When I asked Augie, he told me that if I didn’t back off this story, a hard-ass guy named Cronley of the DCI was going to bury me. I’d already heard his name connected with this DCI, about which I was also very curious. So I went looking for DCI Chief Cronley. I expected an old fart with a paunch, and instead I got this blond Adonis. So, batting my eyes at him, I told him I had the story, and was going to write it and the only choice he had in the matter was to tell me what DCI didn’t want in the story and why.”
“He could have had you arrested.”
“Killed, sure. He threatened that. Convincingly . . .”
What the hell does she mean by that?
Did my loose cannon actually threaten seriously to take her out?
Why not? He may look like an aging choir boy, but . . .
“. . . Arrested, no. People don’t seem to give a damn when they hear of some journalist getting blown away. But people go ballistic when they hear that somebody is trying to lock reporters up to shut them up.”
Well, she’s right about that.
“Interesting point,” Wallace said.
“So, Harry, he told me what he’d rather not see in my story and why. And, since what he told me made sense, I wrote it that way.”
“Am I supposed to say, ‘Thank you’?”
“That would be nice. You’re welcome. Anyway, Harry, at some point in our conversation, Odessa came up. I told Jim that was a story I’d really like to write and was going to write whether he liked it or not, but maybe we could scratch each other’s back. Or rub each other’s back, whichever he might prefer. So we made a deal.”
“As I understand that, what he contributes is telling you things you have no right to know. So what are you contributing to this mutual back rubbing?”
“For openers,” Cronley answered, “she’s going to arrange for us to get a guy into the Stars and Stripes plant in Pfungstadt.”
“How?”
“She’s got a jeep. From USFET Public Relations—”
“The USFET Press Office,” she corrected him.
“No driver,” Cronley said. “So we give her a driver, one of Tiny’s guys, and they drive this jeep to Pfungstadt. She leaves Tiny’s guy there to see what he can find out about Odessa using the Stripes trucks—”
“She’s not going to stay there?”
“No. Just the driver. I’ll go pick her up in an L-4, or send Winters, and bring her back here. If our guy is going to find anything out, he should be able to do it in three or four days. Then she calls Pfungstadt and tells them to send her driver down here with the jeep.”
That just might work. I’ll be damned.
“Miss Johansen . . .”
“You can call me Janice, Harry.”
“Only if you call me Harold, Janice.”
“Does that mean you’ve accepted me as a fellow warrior in the holy war against the Red Menace?”
