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“Tomorrow, or the day after.”
“I’ll see you at the Bristol, Otto. You can show me where von Dietelburg stashed his girlfriend.”
[FOUR]
The Mansion
Offenbach Platz 101
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2230 26 February 1946
A soldier was walking slowly down Lorenzer Strasse, approaching the medieval twin-towered Saint Lorenz Church, when a Ford staff car turned onto the street and drove up to him. It stopped. The soldier went quickly to the car and jumped into the backseat. The staff car drove quickly away.
“Wie geht’s, Casey?” Cronley inquired from the front seat. “If I didn’t know what a God-fearing Christian you are, I would suspect you were looking for a little Hershey bar romance.”
“Not funny,” Max Ostrows
ki, who was driving, said.
“No offense, Casey,” Cronley said. “Just a little joke.”
“None taken, sir,” Sergeant Wagner said.
—
“Just in case the bad guys are watching, Casey . . .”
“They are,” Ostrowski said.
“. . . lie down on the seat. We’re almost there, and we don’t want them to see you,” Cronley finished.
“Yes, sir.”
The car stopped before the gate at Offenbach Platz 101. Ostrowski blew the horn three times. The solid twelve-foot-high gate rolled out of the way, and then, when the car had passed, rolled back in place.
“Okay, we’re home,” Cronley said. “Let’s go inside.”
“Sir, should I bring the Thompsons?” Casey asked.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Ostrowski said drily. “One never knows when one will have need of a Thompson.”
—
Dunwiddie and Augie Ziegler were waiting for them in the library of the Mansion, which quickly had been changed into a bar. Both shook Wagner’s hand, and Dunwiddie affectionately patted his shoulder.
“Now that you’ve got him here, how are you going to get him back to the Tribunal Compound?” Ziegler asked.
“Dunwiddie and you are going to take the younger Pennsylvania Dutchman to the Bahnhof—take him a couple of blocks from the Bahnhof—and discreetly drop him off. He will then walk to the Bahnhof and take the Army bus to the Compound,” Cronley ordered. “Verstehen Sie?”
“Jawohl, Herr Captain.”
“We don’t have much time,” Ostrowski said. “So let’s get to it.”
“Casey, we need to know what’s going on in the prison, how it’s done and by who,” Ziegler said. “Start anywhere you want to.”
“Lieutenant Anderson knows,” Casey began, “and has made the sergeants understand that the guards are teenagers who don’t have a clue how important what they’re doing is.
