“You don’t think you’re going to get anywhere with these two today because you didn’t get very far with them the last time you tried. Correct?”
“Go on. You have my attention.”
McKenna patted the back of the front seat.
“If either one of them was seen riding through the streets of Nuremberg in the backseat of your Nazimobile, it would be all over the prison within hours.”
“I see where you’re going. You are a devious sonofabitch, Father McKenna—I say that with admiration.”
“There are a number of other possibilities that I see.”
“Such as?”
McKenna told him.
[THREE]
Palace of Justice
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1135 26 April 1946
“You sure you know what to do?” Max Ostrowski, standing next to the Horch, asked of DCI Agent Cyril Kochanski, who was in the front passenger seat, the car’s roof still folded down. DCI Agent Basil Frankowski was behind the wheel.
Kochanski nodded. “First, I load the Nazi bastard—”
“SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Heimstadter,” Ostrowski furnished.
“SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Heimstadter,” Kochanski dutifully repeated. “First, I load him in the backseat of the Nazimobile, then get in beside him, and we take off. Then, as soon as we’re out of sight of the Tribunal, I get out of the backseat and climb up front.”
“After telling the general what?”
“That if he even looks like he’s thinking of running off, I’m going to shoot him in the knees.”
“And then?”
“And then Basil takes us on a fifteen-minute tour of Nuremberg, finally ending up at the Mansion.”
“Correct.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Ostrowski said, smiling.
Cyril Kochanski gave Max Ostrowski the finger and then signaled Basil Frankowski to get moving.
* * *
—
Forty-five minutes later, the Horch turned off Offenbach Platz and stopped before the twelve-foot-tall gate in the Compound wall. Frankowski tapped the horn to get inside.
Kochanski turned in his seat so that he could keep an eye on SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Heimstadter. He grunted. Heimstadter, riding alone in back, looked much like a Nazi big shot en route to a rally that Kochanski had heard Captain Cronley mention.
The gate opened inward, and the Horch drove through and up to the front of the large, luxurious house. Kochanski gestured with his fist for Heimstadter to get out. His massive hand almost completely hid the full-size Colt .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol it held.
Then Kochanski got out of the Horch and gestured for Heimstadter to enter the Mansion.