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“Yes, sir. Sir, that really breaks down into two functions. One, which I think the Army can handle, is physically keeping them in their cells or from breaking out of them. The second part of controlling the bastards—”
“I like to think of them as ‘the accused,’” Jackson said. “You know, ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ I find that difficult, but I think it is incumbent upon me to think of them that way, and treat them accordingly.”
“Yes, sir. I was about to say that the second part of keeping the accused in their cells and from causing trouble, or have them harmed—”
“Have them harmed? By whom?”
“For example, sir, by Mossad, or other Jews. Or by some Odessa Nazis still on the loose who are afraid of what the accused might say to save their skins.”
“Mossad? The Zionist intelligence service?”
“They are determined that the Nazis not escape punishment.”
“You sound as if you’re familiar with Mossad?”
“Yes, sir, I am. More accurately, General Gehlen is. I’ve only met one of their agents.”
“The current wisdom around here is that Odessa is a myth, like the ‘National Redoubt’ the SS was supposed to have had at Berchtesgaden.”
“Sir, Odessa exists. We just caught two really bad SS officers Odessa was trying to sneak out of Germany and through France into Spain.”
“Two questions, Mr. Cronley . . . or do I call you ‘Captain Cronley’?”
“That’s your call, sir. Most of the time I don’t wear my railroad tracks.”
“Why not?”
“People are not surprised to see somebody my age wearing civilian triangles. They often look curiously—”
“At someone your age wearing ‘railroad tracks’?”
“Yes, sir.”
“People are going to look curiously at you for just being here. How are you going to handle that?”
“Sir, one of the ways we’re going to try to keep you safe is for you to add a translator to your personal staff. One of the men I have with me, Maksymilian ‘Max’ Ostrowski, is a former Free Polish Air Force fighter pilot. He speaks German, Russian, French, and a couple of other languages.”
“How is he at protecting people?”
“He was the same thing as a lieutenant in the PSO—the Provisional Security Organization—when he saved the life of one of my sergeants by killing the NKGB people who were trying to . . . I don’t know, make contact with a mole, or kidnap or murder one of us in Kloster Grünau.”
“Kloster Grünau?”
“It used to be a monastery. It’s near Schollbrunn in the foothills of the Alps. The Vatican turned it over to us. It’s where we had General Gehlen until we got the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation Compound up and running.”
“Why did the Vatican do that?”
“They had people they wanted to get out of Europe and to South America. We had the means to do that. I’m told Mr. Dulles made the deal.”
“I want to hear more about that, but I’m hearing so much it’s overloading me. Let’s start again. With what do I call you? How about by your first name?”
“That would be fine with me, sir. It’s James. Jim. But what do I call you?”
“It wouldn’t bother me, Jim, if you called me by my first name. But it would bother Ken . . . Ken Brewster . . . the man in the outer office. He was—still is—clerk to Supreme Court Justice Jackson, and takes that role, and Mr. Justice Jackson’s dignity, very seriously. He would have a heart attack if he heard you calling me ‘Bob,’ so that won’t work. Can you live with calling me ‘Mr. Jackson’?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Jackson.”
“‘Sir’ would also work. But in Ken’s hearing, ‘Mr. Justice’ would be better.”
