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Cronley climbed down from the Storch, and Charley Spurgeon climbed down after him.
“Now what, Loose Cannon?” Wallace greeted him.
“Lieutenant Spurgeon, this is Colonel Wallace, chief of DCI-Europe,” Cronley said.
“Who the hell is he?”
“He was formerly Colonel Wasserman’s assistant.”
“Formerly?”
“Colonel, if you would please summon a squad—a platoon would be better—of the security force, I will introduce our other passengers.”
“Who are?”
“I’d really rather not say until we get a platoon out here.”
“Goddamn you! Who?”
“If you insist, sir. I have former SS-Brigadeführer Franz von Dietelburg in my aircraft and former General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf neatly trussed up in Lieutenant Winters’s aircraft.”
“Are you drunk, Cronley?”
“No,” Cronley said. “And while you’re summoning the troops, you’d better get Dr. Williamson out here.”
“Somebody injured, Cronley?” Dr. Williamson asked from the rear of the pack gathered around Wallace. Cronley hadn’t seen him.
“There’s some injured ego, Doctor, but what I need you to do for me is to body-search my guests. We were in sort of a rush leaving Vienna, and there wasn’t time to do it there. And I don’t want either of the bastards to bite on a cyanide capsule.”
A jeep and a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier loaded with large black soldiers rolled up.
First Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth got out of the jeep.
“Honest Abe, I’m really glad to see you!” Cronley said. “There are two characters in the Storchs who need to be taken to my former quarters, where Doc Williamson will body-search them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If they give you any trouble, do not, repeat not, kill them. Break an arm, maybe, but we need these bastards alive.”
“Yes, sir.”
He made the Join on me gesture—balled fist held over his head in a pumping motion—and a dozen soldiers jumped out of the weapons carrier.
They went to the aircraft and removed the passengers, both wrapped in what looked like miles of adhesive tape. As they did so, General Gehlen and former Obersten Niedermeyer and Mannberg walked up.
“What the hell?” Wallace asked.
Gehlen looked down at former General Burgdorf.
“Back from the dead, are you, Wilhelm?” he said.
“You treasonous swine!” Burgdorf said.
“I suppose that depends on your point of view,” Gehlen said.
The soldiers put them in the bed of the weapons carrier, which then very slowly started off, with the soldiers trotting along beside and behind it.
[FIVE]
