“What have you got against the FBI, Cronley?” Preston said. “More to the point, what is there in these places that you don’t want the FBI to see?”
“Is there something else you’d like to ask me, General Seidel?” Cronley asked.
“Excuse me?”
“If not, I have things to do.”
“I have nothing further for you, Mr. Cronley. But may I suggest that you keep yourself available in case General Bull might wish a word with you?”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Cronley said, and got up and walked out of the room.
[ THREE ]
Visiting Senior Officers’ Parking Area
The I.G. Farben Building
Frankfurt am Main
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1435 27 January 1946
When Cronley saw Major Wallace walk into the parking area, Cronley tapped the horn of the Ford staff car he had driven to the Farben Building from the Eschborn airfield.
Wallace saw him and walked to the car and got in the front passenger seat.
For a moment Wallace said nothing. Then he said, “Jesus, what smells in here?”
“That’s me. Sorry. It must have been something I ate. As I started down here, I tossed my cookies before I could make it to a men’s room. Most of it went into a wastebasket, but some of it, a lot of it, got on my trousers and shoes.”
Wallace rolled down his window.
“Or it could be,” Wallace said, “that you were just a little worried about what was going to happen to you now after you had, in effect, told the USFET G-2 to go fuck himself.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
Wallace exhaled audibly.
“Don’t let this go to your head, Loose Cannon, but I was proud of you in there. You did exactly what was called for in the circumstances.”
“So what do I tell General Bull?”
“Bringing him into the conversation was an idle threat and, I think, directed more to me and Greene than to you. Seidel’s not going to go to Harry Bull. Not now. Bull’s not part of the Let’s Kill the DCI Conspiracy. What happened in there, Jim, was that Seidel took his best shot and missed. That doesn’t mean the war is over, just this one battle. What he was hoping was that the FBI would find unmarked graves.”
“And they would have.”
“Which would have lent credence to their theory that Gehlen was responsible for them, and that further would lend credence to their theory that he was also responsible for Schumann’s water heater and Derwin getting shoved under the freight train.”
Which theories are right on the fucking money.
Doesn’t Wallace know this?
Is this where I tell him?
Which brings us to the new question: Does Gehlen have anything to do with Mattingly going missing?
“And finally to their theory,” Wallace went on, “that Gehlen is responsible for Mattingly going missing.”