[ONE]
Office of the Chief U.S. Prosecutor
Palace of Justice
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0735 24 April 1946
Executive Officer Kenneth Brewster opened the door to Justice Jackson’s office and formally announced, “Mr. Justice, General Serov, Colonel Cohen, Father McKenna, and Captain Cronley.”
Justice Jackson’s response was far less formal. He came quickly from behind his desk, went to Cronley, and put his hands on the captain’s arms.
Then he hugged him.
“Jim, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Mrs. Moriarty. I’m so damn sorry.”
“I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” Cronley said.
Jackson patted Cronley’s arms, then turned to the priest.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure . . .” he said.
“This is Father McKenna,” Cronley said. “He’s here to hear your confession and save your soul.”
“Cronley,” the priest snapped, “I’ve had about all I can stand of you and your so-called wit.”
“But you’re stuck with me, right? Or can you go to Cardinal von Hassburger and complain I’m not being nice?”
“And who is Cardinal von Hassburger?” Jackson asked.
“A Vatican big shot,” Cronley said, “who is worried (a) that the world is about to hear they’ve been guarding Odessa’s money for them and (b) that General Serov, Colonel Cohen, and I are right that the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine poses a greater threat to Holy Mother Church than does communism.”
“The first is a hell of an accusation,” Jackson said. “Easy—but dangerous—to make and hard to prove. How’re you going to do that?”
“Well, for one thing,” Serov said, then paused and dramatically put his briefcase on Jackson’s desk, “there’s a little over two million dollars in various hard currencies in there. We snatched it from one of von Hassburger’s bishops while he was trying to hand it over to Odessa, maybe even to von Dietelburg himself.”
“Are you giving me that money?” Jackson asked.
Cronley couldn’t tell if Jackson was joking. He was reminded of his observation about Serov and his men using the captured small Mercedes and the fact that the Soviets essentially were broke.
“You jest,” Serov said.
“I hope you’re not thinking of sending it to Lubyanka Square,” Jackson said.
Serov chuckled and shook his head.
“I spoke to the President yesterday,” Jackson volunteered. “Surprising me only a little, he had heard from General Clay about the attack on the safe house. For some reason, Clay didn’t mention to the President that Mrs. Moriarty was murdered in the attack.
“The President now harbors the opinion that the target of the safe house attack was you, Super Spook. As very well it may have been. And he made it clear that he is holding me responsible for keeping you alive. Get yourself a bodyguard, Cronley. Better yet, get two.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet a better idea than that . . .” Jackson said, pulling his telephone to him and then dialing a number from memory. “Ostrowski, Justice Jackson. Further on our conversation designating you as Captain Cronley’s bodyguard, pick two good men to assist you and bring them to my office prepared to guard Cronley around the clock whither in the wide world his duties may take him.”
Visibly pleased with himself, Jackson hung the telephone up, and asked Cronley, “Now tell me when I—and, more important, our commander in chief—can expect you to have von Dietelburg and Burgdorf back in the Tribunal Prison?”
“I have no idea where they are, sir, nor do Colonel Cohen, General Serov, or General Gehlen.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“I agree. Which made me wonder why. And then on the way over here from the Compound, I had one of my famous epiphanies.”
“Oh, really, Super Spook?” Cohen said, sarcastically. “Please do share it with us.”
“One of two things is true,” Cronley said. “Let me back up a little. This is where my epiphany got started anyway. With the CIC, the Russians, the DCI, and even the German police looking for von Dietelburg and Burgdorf, why haven’t we had at least a sighting of either of them?”
When no one answered, Cronley went on. “Because the German people don’t want them caught. They don’t give a damn what they’ve done. All the Kraut population wants is to be able to thumb their nose at the Army of Occupation and the Nuremberg Tribunal. And as long as we don’t have them, that’s what’s happening.”
“Super Spook may be onto something,” Jackson said, thoughtfully.
“So where are they?” Cohen asked.
“Actually,” Cronley replied, “the first question is, where aren’t they? In Hungary? I don’t think so, not with the NKGB looking for them. Vienna? I don’t think they’re there either. That’s where they were bagged. Humiliating the Austrians, who wanted—want—to put them on display on trial in Austria. Have they gone to Prague? Or Croatia? France? Spain? I don’t think so.”
Cohen said, “At the risk of repeating myself, so then where are they?”
“I think in Germany, either Berlin or the American Zone. And I don’t think we’re going to find them. We’re going to have to make them come to us.”
“How are we going to do that?” Cohen asked, dubiously.
“My epiphany is, they’re still interested in Castle Wewelsburg. When I thought about it, there was something fishy about their attempt to blow it up.”
“But they tried, James,” Serov said.
“And failed.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if von Dietelburg, head of the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine, wanted the Vatican of said church to be destroyed, all we would have found was rubble. They wanted—want—us to think that it’s no longer of any real value to them.”
“To what end?” Justice Jackson asked.
“So that after we’ve had our look around, satisfied our curiosity, and left, they can come back.”
“For those golden death’s-head rings?” Jackson asked.
“And for the contents of Saint Heinrich’s safe, which we haven’t found; for the ‘holy relics,’ and almost certainly for God only knows how much money. Now that I think about it, the only reason they were trying to make a withdrawal from the Vatican Bank is because Cohen’s guys are sitting on the castle, where they have day-to-day expenses’ money.”
No one said anything, and then Cronley continued. “I think—hell, I’m sure—that at this very moment one of von Dietelburg’s disciples is watching Wewelsburg to see what we’re up to.”
“Cut to the chase, Jim,” Jackson said.
“I’ve come up with an idea that will bring them back to Wewelsburg. First of all, we have to convince them we’re really leaving. I mean, we can’t just drive away. They know that Cohen’s people have been sitting on the place since he first became involved.”
“Whatever your harebrained epiphany is telling you,” Cohen said, “I am not prepared to give up control of the castle even for thirty seconds. There’s a hell of a lot we don’t know about it.”
“It will be impossible for us to get them to think we have really given up and left the castle until we do, in fact, leave the castle.”
“Did you hear what I just said?” Cohen snapped.
“If we in fact give up and leave the castle, that would make it available to the rest of the European Command, right?”
Cohen repeated: “Did you just hear—”
“Such as the United States Constabulary, right?” Cronley finished.
“What the hell would the Constab want with Wewelsburg?” Cohen demanded.
“Well, after suitable renovation, of course, it would make a lovely home for the Constabulary Non-Commissioned Officer Academy.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Cohen said, disgustedly.
“Let him finish, Mort,” Jackson ordered.
“The only way von Dietelburg is going to believe we have left Wewelsburg is if we do, in fact, leave,” Cronley said. “Which we can do. The proof of that for von Dietelburg is that the Constabulary then moves in and construction on the NCO Academy begins.”
“By whom?” Jackson asked.
“The One Hundred Fourteenth Engineer Company (Light), U.S. Constabulary. Presuming I can talk General White into letting me have it.”
Cohen said, “I had to have Jim explain to me what the hell’s a Light Engineer company. He did. But I’m still not convinced.”
“Colonel, sir, it would be inappropriate for a very young and very junior officer such as myself to question the decisions of officers much senior to myself.”
Justice Jackson laughed.
“I’ll call I. D. White for you, if you’d like.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d rather do it myself. Or, actually, set up Tiny Dunwiddie to ask him. Tiny usually gets what he asks General White for. And I’d like to pick General White’s brain about Burgdorf. Ever since the general saw the grave at Peenemünde where Burgdorf buried the slave workers alive, he’s had a special place in his heart for him.”
Jackson considered that for a minute and then reached for the telephone.
“Get me General White in Sonthofen,” he ordered into the receiver, then looked at Cronley, and said, “Bear with me a moment.”
“Well?” a gruff voice demanded over the phone seconds later.
White apparently had not only answered his own line but answered it on the first ring.
“I’m sorry your gout is out of control again, General. I’ll call later.”
He hung up and glanced across his desk at the others.
Thirty seconds after that, his telephone rang.
Surprising no one, it was General White.
“Sorry, Bob,” he said. “This is one of those mornings where I’m surrounded by idiots.”
“I.D., I need to talk to you, but I don’t want to do it over the phone.”
“I can’t get away right now. Would you consider coming here? I can send Billy Wilson in the C-45.”
“I’d like to bring Cohen, Cronley, and Dunwiddie with me.”
“You may consider that Hotshot Billy is on the way,” White said, and then the line went dead.
“That work, Cronley?” Justice Jackson said.
“Yes, sir.”
Serov then said, “I think I would be of more value to our noble cause by encouraging my countrymen to exert more effort in looking for von Dietelburg and Burgdorf than they are. Is there any reason I have to go to Sonthofen?”
“No,” Cronley decided. “And I think our spiritual adviser would be in the way. Can you keep him occupied, Ivan?”
“Oh, yes,” Serov replied.
For some reason, Cronley thought, that sounds menacing.
[TWO]
Office of the Commanding General
United States Constabulary
Sonthofen, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1455 24 April 1946
Major General I. D. White signaled for the people in his office doorway to come in.
“Now that I’ve had time to think it over, why am I worried that you’ve accepted my gracious invitation?” the stocky, forty-six-year-old White greeted them.
No one saluted, but, in turn, Cohen, Cronley, and Tiny Dunwiddie approached White’s desk, came to a stance very much like attention, then shook White’s extended hand. When they had finished, Justice Jackson went to the side of the desk and shook hands with him.
“My spies tell me you have been infiltrated by the NKGB,” White said. “Where’s Serov?”
“I can only conclude he’s afraid of you,” Jackson said. “I can’t imagine why. Anyway, he sends his respects.”
“As well he should. And you, Chauncey, has the Texan here managed to completely corrupt you? Or are you still redeemable?”
“Unfortunately, I’m afraid it’s the former, Uncle Isaac. I have the strength of zero because in my heart I’m completely corrupted.”
“In a manner of speaking? Or is there something specific?”
“I think for once Super Spook is right.”
White’s eyes went from Dunwiddie to Cronley.
“I’m now afraid, Captain Cronley, to ask what I can do for you. What is it you want from me?”
“Sir, your Fourteenth Light Engineer Company.”
White’s eyebrows went up.
“Now you have piqued my curiosity. What in the world would you do with it?”
“Would you believe,” Jackson said, “that as a token of his admiration for yourself specifically, I.D., and the Constabulary generally, he intends to use it to convert an existing structure into the U.S. Constabulary NCO Academy.”
White grunted. “No. I would not.”
“Sir,” Cronley said, “I would apply its many talents in my unending war to save the world from the Thousand-Year Reich.”
White’s eyes went back to Dunwiddie.
“Chauncey, can you tell me what Super Spook is talking about?” Then he immediately changed his mind. “No, Cronley, you try—hard—to tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, would you be surprised if I told you I forgot one of the basic principles of warfare?”
“I’d be surprised if you remember any of them. Which particular one, pray tell, are you referring to?”
“‘Never underestimate your enemy,’ sir.”
White lit a cigarette, exhaled, and said, “Okay, this game of Twenty Questions is over. Let’s have it, Cronley. Nothing cute.”
“Sir, yes, sir. Sir, you’re aware that just as the war was ending, Colonel Cohen smelled something was off about Castle Wewelsburg and took it under his wing.”
White nodded. “Whereupon he learned that the Nazis had attempted to start a lunatic and/or obscene religion with the castle as its Vatican?”
“Yes, sir. That’s correct.”
“I also heard the Nazis abandoned it after trying and failing to blow it up?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I’m getting to. I started thinking about that. They had what they thought was a good reason to blow the castle up. That raised two questions. What was the reason? And since they had made the decision to blow it up, why had they failed?
“I began to give that some serious thought. Neither von Dietelburg nor Burgdorf were run-of-the-mill Nazis. Von Dietelburg was Himmler’s adjutant. I suspect he was a lot more than that, but I know that if he was Himmler’s adjutant, he was privy to ninety-plus percent of Himmler’s secrets—including, of course, being up to his eyeballs in the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine.
“And SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Burgdorf wasn’t a run-of-the-mill Nazi big shot either. He was dispatched by Himmler himself to Peenemünde to make sure that there was nothing of value left when we got there. I suspect he wasn’t sent there until whoever was first sent had failed.
“That gives us two really top-drawer Nazi officials. Which raises the question of how come they failed in blowing up an old castle?
“Answer: Because they—for a number of reasons I’ll get into later—didn’t want to destroy it. They just wanted it to look like they had tried to demolish it.”
“Interesting reasoning,” White said, thoughtfully.
“Once I started down that road, sir, a lot of other things began to fall into place. As Colonel Cohen first found, Sergeant Johann Strauss isn’t who he says he is. He was left behind at the castle to tell whichever Americans showed up that all the goodies—the secret relics, the death’s-head rings, the contents of Himmler’s safe, et cetera—were long gone when he got there.
“It probably would have worked with anyone else, but Colonel Cohen smelled a rat—although he didn’t say so out loud—from the beginning.”
“What’s this got to do with my Fourteenth Engineers?” White asked.
“Sir, the only way von Dietelburg and/or Burgdorf are going to believe Cohen’s people have left Wewelsburg is for Cohen’s people to actually leave Wewelsburg.”
“General,” Cohen put in, “I’ve made it clear that that will happen over my dead body.”
White made a gesture which Cohen instantly understood was an order to shut up. Then he gestured for Cronley to continue.
“Sir, in my scenario, as Cohen’s people move out, the Fourteenth Engineers move in.”
“And do what?” White asked, suspiciously.
“Sir, the first thing they do is prepare signs on four-by-eight sheets of plywood. The one hanging over the main entrance would read ‘Welcome to the U.S. Constabulary NCO Academy.’”
“I don’t think you are trying to be cute, Cronley,” White said, “but it damn sure is starting to sound like it.”
“Sir, I’m dead serious. If nothing else works, at the end of this, the Constab will have a first-rate NCO Academy.”
“Define ‘nothing else,’” White said.
“Yes, sir. If the Fourteenth Engineers are unable to discover hidden passages and tunnels, and the like, in Castle Wewelsburg as they build this NCO Academy. Or if we’re unable to bag some von Dietelburg underling visiting the castle to see what we’re up to.”
“Why do you think he’ll be interested?”
“I think he took—takes—the dignity of the SS seriously. It’s like a religion to him. We know Wewelsburg was intended for the SS elite, the SS’s Generals Corps. And here we are, turning it into a school that will turn PFCs into corporals. I think that’s going to piss them off. All of them.”
White abruptly changed the subject.
“Cronley, I know what happened in Berlin. At the safe house. Including what happened to Mrs. Moriarty.”
“Yes, sir?”
“My wife thinks that you and Mrs. Moriarty were more than good friends from your college days. That you had something going on. True?”
Cronley felt his anger immediately build.
That’s really none of your fucking business, General.
However, I damn sure cannot tell you that.
But neither am I going to lie about it.
“Well?” White pursued.
“Yes, sir. We were going to get married.”
“So soon after she lost her husband?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What, exactly, was your relationship with Mrs. Moriarty when her husband was still alive?”
“She was the wife of my best friend at A&M, General.”
“And nothing more? Am I supposed to believe that?”
Cronley heard himself blurt his reply before he could stop himself. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t give a damn what you or anyone else believes.”
There was silence in the room. Cronley could feel the tension of the others.
General White then said, evenly, “We’ve noticed, Cronley. Haven’t we, Mr. Justice? That you don’t give a damn what anyone believes, including your superiors.”
“Leave him alone, I.D.,” Jackson said. “You’ve been intentionally, for reasons I can’t imagine, trying to get him to blow his cork.”
“So you’ve noticed that, Bob, have you? And how would you judge Captain Cronley’s response to my provocation?”
“He handled it a helluva lot better than I would or could.”
“‘Great minds march down similar trails,’” White replied. “You ever hear that, Bob?”
White then reached for his telephone.
“Get me Colonel Dickinson of the Fourteenth Engineers on a secure line. If memory serves, they’re in Bad Nauheim.”
“Dickinson, this is General White. I’ve decided that the Constabulary needs an NCO Academy, and, further, that the Fourteenth is going to build it for us.”
There was a pause long enough for Colonel Dickinson to say “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll tell you what happens next,” White continued. “My godson is in town, and Mrs. White is going to feed us lunch. After lunch, Colonel Wilson is going to fire up my Gooney Bird and fly to Bad Nauheim, where you and either your S-3 or your executive officer—your choice—will be waiting with your bags packed for, say, five days. Got all that?”
There was again a pause long enough for the colonel to again say “Yes, sir.”
“Nice to talk to you, Dickinson,” White said, and hung up. Then he stood up. “Let’s go to lunch.”
[THREE]
Aboard Constabulary 1
Bad Nauheim, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1725 24 April 1946
When Hotshot Billy Wilson landed General White’s Gooney Bird at Bad Nauheim, Lieutenant Colonel David P. Dickinson, CE, and another engineer officer, Major Donald G. Lomax, were waiting for them.
Both officers were visibly surprised when they were waved aboard the aircraft and found that the interior, instead of the rows of canvas-and-aluminum-pipe seating they expected, was furnished more like a living room than anything else. It had armchairs and couches affixed to a floor of nice carpet, and against the forward wall of the passenger compartment was a small bar.
“Gentlemen, I’m Justice Jackson,” Jackson greeted them, then pointed as he spoke. “That’s Colonel Cohen, and those two are Captains Dunwiddie and Cronley.”
When Cronley got out of the copilot’s position, both engineers were surprised there were no pilot’s wings on his tunic chest.
“Captain,” Major Lomax offered helpfully, “you seem to have lost your wings.”
“Major, you can’t lose something you never had,” Cronley replied.
The major, his face blank, did not know how to reply.
“This is what happens next, after we take on fuel and stow your gear,” Cronley then said. “First, we’re going to Wetzlar to pick up Sergeant K. C. Wagner. Then we’re going to Castle Wewelsburg, where Colonel Cohen will show our new engineer friends here around. Then Nuremberg. Any questions?”
There were none.
“Colonel Dickinson,” Cronley said, “have you got any large—the larger, the better—bulldozers, hole diggers, heavy equipment like that, that you’re not going to need, say, for the next three weeks?”
“Why do you want to know, Captain?”
“Well, if you do, I want you to get them on their way to Wewelsburg as soon as possible.”
“Is that so, Captain? On whose authority?”
“Mine.”
“Colonel,” Cohen said, chuckling, “welcome to our world. You will have to get used to the idea that we’re all working for Captain Cronley—Lord knows that I have fought that battle and lost. The next person up in his chain of command is Harry S Truman.”
Dickinson looked in disbelief at Justice Jackson, who, smiling, said, “This is the other side of Alice’s looking glass: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’”
[FOUR]
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2005 24 April 1946
Cronley’s bodyguard detail, which now consisted of Max Ostrowski and two other Polish DCI agents, hadn’t gone with them to Sonthofen, but when they landed at Nuremberg, they found the three waiting for them.
Also waiting were Cronley’s Horch touring car, a Chevrolet staff car, and three jeeps.
Cronley offered the Horch to Justice Jackson, who smiled.
“Thanks all the same, Jim. Maybe you can pull it off, but I cannot afford to look like Hitler in a Nazimobile on the way to a rally of the faithful.”
Minutes later, preceded by a jeep, and trailed by another, Cronley and Casey Wagner rode to the castle in the backseat of the Horch.
There was a large ex-Wehrmacht Mercedes with Red Army plates sitting in a NO PARKING area in front of the hotel, so when Cronley entered the lobby bar, he was not surprised to see Ivan Serov. But he was surprised that instead of sitting with Father McKenna, Serov was with Miss Janice Johansen. He had last seen her in the hospital in Berlin.
“Where’s our friend from the Vatican?” Cronley said. “You were supposed to be watching him, Ivan.”
“I passed him to Mortimer, who is giving him a first look at the castle.”
“You look a lot better than I expected you to, Jimmy,” she greeted him. “Nice to see that you’ve improved, sweetie. And good to see you, too, Casey.”
Wagner made a thin smile and nodded once.
“Thank you, Miss Johansen,” Cronley said as he and Casey took their seats. “When your life is FUBAR, and there’s nothing you can do about it, you throw yourself into your work. I learned that from Ivan.”
“Or turn to drink,” Serov said, reaching for a bottle of Haig & Haig and offering it to Cronley.
Cronley took the bottle, then poured two inches of the scotch whisky into one glass and half an inch into a second. The latter he slid over to K. C. Wagner.
“Jimmy,” Janice said. “I realize this sounds a little lame, but is there anything I can do for you?”
“Oddly enough, I just thought of something . . . Ivan, did you tell her why I went to see General White?”
Serov shook his head.
“I need your literary talent,” Cronley said, turning back to Janice.
“To write about what?”
“The about-to-be-built Constabulary NCO Academy.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Not at all.”
Cronley then told her why he wanted her to craft a story that would appear on the front page of Stars and Stripes and possibly even the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune.
“You realize, Jimmy, that I couldn’t write such a piece without first having seen Castle Wewelsburg?”
“That poses problems.” He pointed to the table at which Max Ostrowski and the two Polish DCI agent/bodyguards had taken seats. “Not only them, but Justice Jackson just pointed out that when we ride around in my Horch, we look like Hitler en route to a Nazi rally. I don’t want whoever is watching the Wewelsburg to report that someone very important just showed up.”
“I can have an unmarked car here in thirty minutes,” Serov said. “Providing, of course, that I get to go along.”
“Your car, the one in the NO PARKING zone outside, will do just fine,” Cronley replied. “Whoever wants to know what’s going on at Wewelsburg will be confused by a report that a car of a senior Russian officer arrived at the castle accompanied by two jeeps full of DCI agents.”
“And Janice,” K. C. Wagner chimed in.
“And Miss Johansen. We leave immediately after breakfast.”
[FIVE]
Wewelsburg Castle
Near Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0915 25 April 1946
They found Cohen, Father McKenna, and the engineer officers in the castle kitchen, drinking coffee with Cohen’s CIC agents.
“This is General Serov,” Cronley announced to Dickinson and Lomax. “And Miss Janice Johansen of the Associated Press. And, last but not least, Casey Wagner of the DCI. I’ve promised them all a—”
“Of the what?” Major Lomax interrupted. “Did you say of the DCI?”
“Yes, I did. And, to clear the air, so am I. Of the DCI, I mean. Any other questions?”
“No . . . No, sir,” Lomax said.
“As I started to say, I’ve promised them all a tour of the castle. I was about to ask who’s best qualified to be the guide, but I think it would be better if we found our own way, and if Colonel Cohen, our de facto tour guide, should miss something, whoever else knows anything can speak up. Any objections?”
There were none.
The tour took just over two hours.
When they had returned to the kitchen and were all seated around the table, Cronley stood up.
“This question is directed to Lieutenant Colonel Dickinson,” he said. “But I want anybody who knows something to chime in. Got it?”
There were nods and murmured “Yes, sir”s.
“Colonel, what do you think the chances are that hidden passages and/or rooms in the castle exist that we haven’t found?”
Dickinson, without hesitation, replied, “There’s absolutely no question in my mind that there are both. The larger question is, how to find access to them.”
“No question at all?” Cronley asked, genuinely surprised.
“None,” Dickinson said with finality.
“Can I ask why you’re so sure?”
“Castles, fortifications, have always fascinated me. Going back to my days in Boston.”
“What’s in Boston?”
“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a dozen lesser schools.”
“Can you give us a little lecture?” Cronley asked.
“It will be a short one,” Dickinson said. “Okay. Starting with the idea that castles like Wewelsburg were built primarily for defense. Not like Buckingham Palace, for example, which was designed to let royalty live high on the hog.
“Because places like this were designed for war, they were always making changes to them. Making a wall thicker, for example. Or higher. So how do you make a wall higher or thicker, or both? You try, of course, to use the existing wall. But often that doesn’t work out. So you build a new wall. Where? Most often, inside the old wall. That leaves a space between the walls. Am I getting through?”
“You are, but keep talking,” Cronley replied.
“Okay, here you are, about to lay the first stone of the new wall. Your back is to the old wall. So where do you try to lay that stone? At a distance that will allow you to work comfortably when the new wall is, say, three feet tall. Two or three feet inside the old wall. So you lay the first couple of stones.
“And then you have a look. And realize that if the old wall is only three feet distant from the new wall, no one will be able to get past the stonemason. So you move those first stones to five feet and have a look and decide, what the hell, it won’t cost any more if I put the new wall ten feet away from the old wall. And that’s what you do.
“So when you get the new wall as tall, or taller, than the old wall, you connect them, and no one remembers there’s ten feet between the walls.” He paused and glanced around at everyone. “Still with me?”
Cronley said, “What about inside the castle? For example, you want to make two small rooms out of a big one.”
Dickinson nodded. “Think about it. You’re building a new wall. Same rules apply, except you may now be thinking of the space between the walls as a passageway. Get it?”
“Got it,” Cronley replied. “So how do you find these hidden walls or passageways—whatever they’re called?”
“The easiest way would be to look for them on the original plans for the castle. I don’t suppose they’ve survived the centuries, but a lot of work has been done here. Even partials would be helpful.”
“Maybe we could find some of those,” Colonel Cohen said.
“Johann Strauss,” Cronley blurted. “If we can find him, and put the fear of God in him, that would probably help us find the plans. And a lot else.”
Cohen met his eyes, and said, “Yeah, but that’s a big if. I’ve got my people looking for him. About the only thing we’ve learned is that there was no SS-Truppführer Johann Strauss anywhere near either Himmler’s or von Dietelburg’s offices in Berlin.”
“Okay,” Cronley said, “but he doesn’t know you’ve learned that. When he sees the activity around here, he’s likely to walk right in.”
“I’m not holding my breath,” Cohen said.
“Then tell your guys to look harder.”
“Actually, Super Spook,” Cohen said, thickly sarcastic, “that thought occurred to me.”
Cronley turned to Dickinson.
“Without a floor plan, is there another way?”
“Sure. Tape measure.”
“Excuse me?”
“You measure a room. Then you go outside the castle’s wall, outside that room, and measure there. If there’s a significant difference—the outside measures twenty-eight feet, say, and the inside is twenty—you know there’s eight feet of something missing.”
“Dumb question: Do you have a tape measure?”
“Never leave home without it.”
“Okay, then you start measuring while Colonel Cohen gets on the telephone.”
“Who’s Colonel Cohen calling?” Colonel Cohen asked.
“General White.”
“And what am I going to say to General White?”
“You’re going to talk him out of a troop of Constabulary. We need to really guard this place.”
Cohen looked at Dickinson, and said, “The most annoying thing Captain Cronley does, Colonel, is think of something minutes before you do.”