“Good. Any problems, call me. If I’m not here, speak with Colonel Jim Born.”
“Colonel Jim Born. Yes, sir.”
“Don’t fuck this up, Major,” Colonel Mattingly concluded, and broke the connection.
John Connell hung up.
The action seemed to remind Elsa that she was leaning against the boy who looked like an SS recruiting poster, and when she straightened, Cronley was reminded that he had his arm around the soft, warm back of a woman who looked fifty and was in fact thirty-two. He withdrew it as if it was burning him.
“Major, can I ask who Colonel Mattingly is?” Cronley asked.
“You certainly can,” Connell said. “It is important, Lieutenant, that you know.”
So the boy is an officer, Elsa thought. So he’s not a boy?
And why isn’t he wearing officer’s insignia?
“Colonel Robert Mattingly is the commanding officer of OSS Forward,” Connell explained. “Know what that means? The OSS?”
“I’ve heard of the OSS, sir, but I really don’t know what it is,” Cronley said.
“The Office of Strategic Services,” Connell clarified, “is our super-secret intelligence organization. In the European Theater of Operations it is directly under General Eisenhower. OSS Forward is the OSS in Germany. In the last Intelligence Conference—two weeks ago at U.S. Forces European Theater headquarters in the I.G. Farben Building in Frankfurt—the USFET intelligence officer, Major General Seidel, told us that we were to cooperate fully with OSS Forward, and if we were unable to comply with any of their requests, he was to be personally notified. Getting the picture?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When we first met, Cronley, I said something to the effect that we would find something for you to do, where, despite your somewhat rudimentary—strike that—your nonexistent intelligence background, you could cause only minimal damage. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That opportunity seems to have been dropped in our laps, doesn’t it? Except for your ability to cause only minimal damage.”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“I’m throwing you to the wolves, Cronley,” Connell said. “For the good of the service, so to speak. I could assign one of the other officers—one of my few remaining competent officers—to care for Frau von Wachtstein. But if I did, and the performance of that officer failed to meet Colonel Mattingly’s expectations—and he has the reputation for being impossible to satisfy—that would result in the loss to the Twenty-second of an officer whose services the Twenty-second desperately needs. Still with me?”
“I think so, sir.”
“On the other hand, if your caring for Frau von Wachtstein until Colonel Mattingly shows up here to take her off our hands failed to meet Colonel Mattingly’s expectations, and you were transferred to duties counting snowballs in Alaska, the loss to the Twenty-second would not be so devastating.”
“I understand, sir.”
“You are relieved of all other duties, Lieutenant, except those of caring for Frau von Wachtstein, until relieved by Colonel Mattingly.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, I don’t have any idea how to do that.”
“I suspected that might be the case. So let’s consider what has to be done. For one thing, you’ll need a place for her to stay. I will call the Kurhotel and order that she be placed in their best accommodations, and you in an adjacent room.”
The Kurhotel, on Marburg’s south side, had a natural spring that allegedly offered health-giving properties. The large, fairly modern hotel had been requisitioned to house field grade officers in the Marburg area.
“Yes, sir.”
“You will require transportation. Take my car—I’ll use your jeep until I can get something from the motor pool.”
Major Connell drove a requisitioned Opel Kapitän, a GM-produced car about the size of a Chevrolet.
“Yes, sir. Clothing, sir?”
“Good question. It shows you’re thinking, son. Take her to the Officers’ Sales Store. I’ll call ahead and tell them they are to sell you two complete WAC officer’s uniforms, including the appropriate undergarments. As an honored guest, I see no reason Frau von Wachtstein cannot be attired in an officer-equivalent civilian uniform, can you?”