Ruin Value: A Mystery of the Third Reich (2013) by J. Sydney Jones

Author:J. Sydney Jones [Jones, J. Sydney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480426870
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2013-07-11T21:00:00+00:00

Part III

November 20, 1945

“Exactly what part of my command yesterday did you not understand, Captain Morgan? The part where I requested you to keep any bad news off the front pages or when I ordered you to keep deaths in the streets of Nuremberg from upstaging our trial?”

Morgan stood helmet in hands in front of Colonel Adams. He hadn’t slept after the shootout; no stand-down, just coffee and the should’ve-could’ve routine. He didn’t attempt to answer Adams. It wasn’t really a question.

“But you’re too smart for authorization, aren’t you, Captain? You and all your OSS friends. Do you have the slightest idea of what it means to follow orders? This isn’t your OSS cowboy and Indian games anymore, this is the army.”

Adams was working himself up, but Morgan, his nerves shot, wished he would just get it over with.

“You know, you are making me sorry I requested you from Donovan. I thought you were a hotshot inspector who cleared cases, not another OSS wild man. What in God’s name were you thinking? The trial starts in a matter of minutes, probably the single most important trial in the history of the world, and you decide to have a shoot-up the night before. You’ve got a great sense of timing, Captain.”

The voice echoed off the wall in the large office. Out the window, Morgan could see dignitaries filing into the Palace of Justice, ready to start the proceedings. At least it seemed to disprove his fears that the killings had anything to do with the trial.

“Do you hear a word I’m saying, Captain? Is this sinking in at all? I won’t have this type of insubordination—hell, I won’t have any sort of insubordination. You’ve got the entire city at our throats, you realize that?”

“Sorry, sir,” Morgan mumbled.

“What’s that soldier?”

Morgan cleared his throat. “I said, sorry, sir.”

“Oh, that’s marvelous. Contrition. That and a pack of cigarettes will surely buy back the trust of all the Adolfs and Evas out there. Heavens above, Morgan, we’re trying to win these people over. You comprehend that? They were our enemy. Past tense. That’s what this trial is about, man. Hang the villains who misled the poor dumb Germans and get on with realpolitik. We need these folks.”

Morgan did not like Adams, especially now, repeating the very arguments he had come up with halfway through the war. The working brief of the OSS was that the new enemy was going to be the Russians. That the Germans, neutralized, would provide a buffer between East and West. Christ, Adams and his by-the-book Military Intelligence G-2 friends would still be cozying up to Ivan if not for Morgan’s assessment.

But he told himself to get it over with, to give Adams what he wanted.

“I see that, sir. New realities.”

“You bet your sweet whatever on that, Captain. The new reality is that we’ll need all the allies we can get to stop the Sovs in Europe. And to do that, we don’t go shooting up a bunch of kids. Not in front of their parents and uncles and cousins and I don’t know who all.

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