“We have heard from our master, now ensconced in the I.G. Farben Building, right behind the throne of Eisenhower,” Wallace said. “So where to begin?” he asked rhetorically, and then began.
“Welcome to the CIC, Tiny,” he said.
“Sir?”
Wallace opened a drawer in his desk, took out something—Cronley thought it looked like a leather CIC credentials wallet—and tossed it to Dunwiddie. He examined it, then tossed it to Cronley.
It was indeed a set of CIC special agent credentials, badge and plastic-sealed identity card providing the photo, physical description, and name of the agent: CHAUNCEY L. DUNWIDDIE.
“Chauncey?” Cronley asked, smiling.
“Fuck you, with all possible respect, Lieutenant, sir.”
“Colonel Mattingly said to tell you that while he thinks these credentials will probably prove useful, he doesn’t think you should tell anybody about them, or rush off to the Officers’ Sales Store to buy pinks and greens. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just get another Ike jacket and sew the triangles on it, for use as needed,” Wallace said, pointing to one of the small blue triangles with the letters “US” inside them on his lapels.
“Yes, sir.”
“Those ordinarily come with a .38 S&W snub-nosed,” Wallace said, indicating the credentials. “You want one?”
“Absolutely,” Tiny said.
“Colonel Mattingly thought you would think the .38 was beneath the dignity of a cavalryman,” Wallace said. “That you would prefer the 1911-A1 .45.”
“I’m curious. I’ve never shot one of those little snub-nose .38s.”
“Freddy here shot Expert on the range at Camp Holabird with one,” Wallace said. “Which brings us to him. Or, more precisely, to that subject.
“Freddy, like you, Jim, is a graduate of one of those abbreviated classes at Holabird. The CIC needs German-speaking people to run down Nazis. Many of them, like Freddy, are German Jews who have a personal interest in seeing that Nazis are rounded up. While this is of course a noble endeavor, it is somewhat at odds with our mission. How many of you were there on the plane, Freddy?”
“There were twenty-two of us, sir.”
“Colonel Mattingly had a chat with each of the twenty-two,” Wallace said. “And he liked Freddy for two reasons. One, Freddy wants to be an historian when he gets out of the Army, and the colonel, as you know, was a professor of history.”
Second Lieutenant Cronley thought: Mattingly was a what?
“The second thing that caused the colonel to look fondly upon Freddy,” Wall
ace went on, “is that he said Freddy was the only one who had ever heard of the Communists—frankly, I think this was a bit of hyperbole—much less regarded them as a major threat to anything.
“After giving Freddy what has now become a standard cautionary note vis-à-vis Operation Ost—‘Reveal any of this to anyone and we’ll kill you’—the colonel told him what we’re doing here.
“This included telling him that while, thank God, Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau has left government service, he left in place a large number of people as devoted as he was to running down Nazis wherever found. For example, in Kloster Grünau or even in Argentina.
“He also told Freddy of his concern that—with the most noble of motive—the CIC Nazi hunters, especially those of the Hebrew persuasion, would happily share with these people whatever they had heard—fact and rumor—about Nazis being in Kloster Grünau or even in Argentina, and this would be unfortunate for Operation Ost.
“The colonel told me he realized that there should be—had to be—two branches of the CIC in USFET—one dedicated to finding Nazis and the other to frustrating the Soviets. And he realized that the structure to do this was fortuitously already in place, the Twenty-seventh CIC Detachment. At the time, there were only two personnel assigned to the Twenty-seventh, Second Lieutenant Cronley and myself. Now there are four, counting you two.
“The colonel also told me he realized the Twenty-seventh would itself have to have two divisions, one of them nameless and secret and charged with the support and security of General Gehlen and his people—Operation Ost. The other would perform more or less routine counterintelligence operations involving the Soviets. The colonel feels their activities will provide a credible cover for the activities of the unnamed section. They will know nothing of the unnamed section.”
He paused, looking between them.
“Getting the picture?” Wallace said.
“Where does Hessinger fit in?” Dunwiddie asked.