“I do not in the least like this dirty business of listening to the conversations and private acts of our subjects without their knowledge or leave, Milo. Yes, I know, you are going to say that the general says that it is necessary to do such things for the good of the nation, but reflect, if you all will—this is precisely the excuse used by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and every other dictator to legalize even the most heinous and unspeakable acts against individuals and groups.
“After this exchange, tonight, I suggest, in the pursuit of being fair and truly objective, that Herr Hizinger be turned over to Team Two. Let Hugo, Ned and Dr. Jones determine his true status-to-be.”
The next morning, Milo did turn Hizinger over to Hugo, giving the subject called Faber to Team One and the one called Gries to Team Three, with Emil Schrader filling in for him in his absence. He felt a need to confer with Barstow, not because of what Judy had said as much as because of the way she had said it, and also partially because of things not heard but felt, sensed.
Barstow ushered Milo back into the small window-less, soundproofed conference room, closed and locked the door, and offered Scotch and a cigar. When he had heard it all, he carefully nudged the ash from off the end of hispuro and raised his bushy eyebrows. “Milo, in any operations of the kinds I’ve been running, the chance of innocently harboring one or more jokers in the deck is a distinct possibility, but if we do have such here, I don’t think Judy is the one. I’m going to tell you why, but what I say is for your ears alone—you don’t repeat it to anyone, not even to Betty. Verstehen?
“Of course, you’ve noted how close Buck and Judy are? They’ve been together for a long time and through particular hell. They’re what is left of a team of three people, the third of whom was Judy’s husband. They were not really military, they worked for another group and worked in France for quite some time before D-Day and after, successfully passing themselves off as French.
“After the landings, as the Allied armies got closer, Judy’s husband must have gotten a little too cocksure. He stayed on the air long enough one night for the Germans to finally triangulate the location of his transmitter. When the Gestapo and Wehrmacht burst in, they caught both Judy and her husband, and very nearly Buck and a member of the underground.
“At that particular time, Milo, maquis units were shooting German soldiers in the countryside and underground types were doing the same thing in the very streets of Paris while the German Occupation Command was debating just how and when to start to demolish Paris as ordered by Hitler himself. The German forces at the front were fighting like hell and still getting pushed farther and farther back, day by day. In that aura of pessimism and facing the specter of approaching defeat, the Gestapo was become exceedingly vicious, frantic to obtain information that might help to briefly stave off or even slow down Armageddon.
“The things that were done first to Judy’s husband, then to Judy herself, were unprintable, unspeakable, almost unthinkable to any sane, normal human being. Townspeople said that their screams could be heard even through the five-foot-thick stone walls of the seventeenth-century building the Gestapo was using for a headquarters and prison in that area.
“By the time Buck had gotten together enough men and arms, ammo and explosives, to blast his way into that complex and, after killing a number of Germans, rescue them, Judy was the only one left alive, and she was in a bad way.
“Two days later, elements of the American Second Army liberated the town and Judy was flown to a hospital in England. Buck went back to England, too, but only long enough to be teamed up with some new people and gotten into still-occupied Elsass—Alsace, as the French call it. I understand that they did a bang-up job there, too. Buck was recommended to me when the München operation was first being planned at SHAEF, in England. When I offered him a slot, he told me flat out that he would only come with me if Judy came with him, and I’ve yet to have reason to regret that I took them both on.
“As you’ve accurately guessed, Judy is a German. Although her family were aristocrats, the Great War transformed them into what we Americans would call ‘genteel poor.’ In her teens, she met and married the son of a wealthy, titled English house while the young man was pursuing a course of study at one of the great German universities. Despite the unholy, sophisticated barbarities committed by Gestapo perverts upon her and her Sate husband, Judy still is proud to be a German, and in light of the truly stupendous fight that Germany put up against impossible odds—a little country of only some sixty million people, total, taking on half the world . . . and nearly winning!—I can’t blame her, I’d guess that her outburst last night was simply an upswelling surge of national pride, Milo, nothing more sinister than that.
“Sodon’t worry anymore about Judy, but still keep me informed of any odd or unusual things you notice in the conduct of any of the rest of the group over there.
“And as far as Hizinger is concerned, that’s not his name, of course. He was one of Erwin Rommel’s favorite young officers. He was ordered back to Germany despite his and Rommel’s objections in order to do the other thing he does well, which is said to be a certain realm of higher mathematics. It’s considered that if he does agree to work with us, he’ll be a real prize.”
Outside, in Barstow’s office, he pressed a bottle of Scotch and a handful of cigars on Milo, saying, “Don’t worry so much, major . You’re doing a splendid job. Operation Newhaven is progressing marvelously, and my superiors are very pleased. Didn’t I tell you, back in Germany, in Mlinchen, that if you stuck with me you’dhave a sky’s-the-limit future in the Army? By the way, I’ve already put in paperwork on your lieutenant colonelcy, Milo.”
But Milo did continue to worry. He felt a vague sense of unease. And he soon was to find that he had good reason.
IV
With the dawning of Sacred Sun over the vast prairie, one of the young warriors, Djessee-Kahl Staiklee, set out with several spare horses to search out and bring back Clans Staiklee and Gahdfree to the rich treasure trove of metals that awaited them all in the ruined city of ancient times. He bore written messages from both Little Djahn Staiklee and Uncle Milo, as well as oral urgings from his peers to their own chiefs, sires and siblings.
Of course, he also bore his own eyewitness testimony to the lush verdancy of the well-watered prairie in the proximity of the ruins and of the profusion of the relatively unchary game animals thereabouts. All of these facts would constitute telling arguments in the favor of a movement of both clans, entire—women, children, horses, dogs, cattle, sheep, goats and all—rather than just a party of men to strip what they could from the ruins before rejoining families and moving on.
With plenty of food in camp, Milo took Gy, Djoolya, Little Djahn Staiklee and all but two of the other young warriors back to the ruins, this time with two carts and the proper tools for more thorough delving into those ruins. They hitched up the teams, loaded the carts, mounted and rode out in an icy drizzle borne on a strong but steady wind. However, by the time they came into the far-flung outskirts of the sometime city, the wind had weakened consider-ably, the drizzle had entirely ceased and Sacred Sun was again peeking here and there through the dissipating cloud cover.