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As Cronley cut his first bite from the grilled pork tenderloin that had been quickly laid before him, Fortin asked, “So what happened, mon ami?”
“I am now in charge of security for Judge Biddle and Justice Jackson at the War Crimes Trials in Nuremberg.”
“That’s not your basic area of expertise, is it?”
“President Truman and Justice Jackson are old friends. The President decided he needed more protection than the CIC sitting on him was providing. He selected me.”
“That must have been flattering for a very junior captain.”
“I went right out and bought a bigger hat.”
“So it wasn’t a demotion?”
“DCI-Europe is being tripled, quadrupled in size. It can no longer pretend to be commanded by a very junior captain.”
“So Colonel Wallace took over?”
“And I think was very happy when the President ordered me, and my people, to Nuremberg.”
“Henri de Vabres introduced me to Colonel Cohen . . .”
What? He knows Morty Cohen?
“Who?”
“The French chief judge. He is concerned with the safety of the prisoners. He wanted me to have a look at what Colonel Cohen had set up.”
“That must have been flattering for a lowly major.”
“Henri and I served together during the war. He speaks very highly of Cohen, and I was impressed with him. Not charmed. Cohen is a difficult man. But I could find no flaw in what he’d set up to protect the prisoners, and their judges.”
“Colonel Cohen was not pleased when I told him what I had been sent to Nuremberg to do.”
“Then I suggest you be careful, James. Colonel Cohen—I say this with admiration—is not the sort of man a very junior captain should annoy.”
“Truth being stranger than fiction, Jean-Paul, Morty Cohen and I have become chums.”
“That I find hard to believe. First that he would allow a man known to be—what is it General Seidel calls you? ‘A dangerous loose cannon’?—to get close to him, and second that you would believe that his offered friendship did not have an agenda.”
“Oh, he had an agenda, all right. Have you ever heard of Castle Wewelsburg, Jean-Paul?”
“I have heard some frankly absurd rumors.”
“That Himmler was trying to establish a Nazi religion there?”
Fortin nodded.
“All true, Jean-Paul.”
“Nonsense.”
“All true, Jean-Paul. And Colonel Cohen wanted to—has—recruited me to join his noble crusade to cut its head off.”
“If you’re—what do you say?—‘trying to pull my leg,’ I am not amused.”
“I am not trying to be clever, Jean-Paul. I’ve seen the evidence.”
“And what is Colonel Cohen’s interest in this Nazi nonsense?”
