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A third and fourth waiter appeared, bearing towel-wrapped bottles in wine coolers and champagne flutes.
“Wrong table,” Cronley said in German.
“Courtesy of Colonel Serov, Mein Herr,” the waiter replied.
“What?” Cronley asked. Then he saw two Soviet Army officers walking across the room toward them. They were in dress uniform, a light blue single-breasted tunic with shoulder boards showing their rank and branch of service. A gold cloth belt was around their waists, and both wore an impressive display of ornate medals.
One of them, a pleasant-looking blond-haired man in his early thirties, was wearing the shoulder boards of an infantry colonel. The officer with him was wearing infantry major’s shoulder boards.
Cronley knew the man wearing the polkovnik shoulder boards was neither a colonel nor in the infantry, which made it very likely the man with him was also neither a major nor in the infantry.
“James, I heard you were here, and I was hoping to see you,” the man Cronley knew to be Major of State Security Ivan Serov, first deputy to Commissar of State Security Nikolayevich Merkulov, said, extending his hand and smiling warmly. His English was only slightly accented.
“How goes it, Ivan?” Cronley replied, taking the hand. “Why don’t you and your friend pull up a chair?”
“I would hate to intrude.”
“Not at all, Colonel,” Cohen said. “Please join us. I was hoping to meet you.”
And what’s that all about? “Hoping to meet you”?
Serov made an impatient gesture to the major, who immediately set off to find chairs.
When they were seated, Serov between Cohen, who was at the head of the table, and Cronley to his right, Serov said, “The wine is French, Veuve Clicquot, which is what James and I drank the last time we had dinner.”
“Colonel Cohen,” Cronley said, “this is Senior Major of State Security Ivan Serov.”
“Not any longer,” Serov said. “I have returned to my first love, the Queen of Battles, infantry.”
You can tell by the look on the bastard’s face that he knows we know he’s lying, and doesn’t give a damn.
“I’m very happy to meet you, Colonel,” Serov said. “We’re going to be coworkers.”
“So I understand,” Cohen said.
So you understand? What the hell does that mean?
“Colonel, Major—forgive me, Colonel of Infantry—how do I say this?—Serov took care of Colonel Mattingly when he was—”
“In the hands of Thuringian authorities for having over-imbibed,” Serov interrupted. “I wanted to thank you for coming up with that scenario, James. It solved many problems for me. Or perhaps I should be thanking Miss Johansen.”
“You’re welcome, handsome,” Janice said.
“You are a credit to the DCI, madam.”
“I don’t work for the DCI, handsome.”
“Of course you don’t. I can’t imagine why I thought that.”
You sly sonofabitch!
Actually, I think I’m thinking that with admiration.
The major began to pour the Veuve Clicquot.
“Gentlemen and lady, this is Major Sergei Alekseevich, my aide-de-camp,” Serov said.
“Colonels in my army don’t get aides to pour champagne,” Cronley said.
