After that late-evening exchange, Milo took pains to avoid further one-on-ones with Father Karl, nor did the priest ever again try to speak with him alone. When, years later, he saw Padre again, Milo was to wish he had found a way to kill him quietly in Munich. But more than two decades was to trickle away before that meeting.
In August of 1945, the world entered into the Atomic Age, a deeply shocked, stunned, terrified Japanese Empire surrendered unconditionally, and the main event of what history was to call by the name of World War Two was concluded. That is to say, the real fighting was concluded, but not the vengeance-taking against the prostrate, disarmed and helpless Germans, Japanese, Italians, Austrians, Hungarians, Rumanians, Vichy French, anti-Communist Russians, Ukrainians and Albanians. Many heinous injustices were perpetrated in that brief spate of quasi-legal revenge, but those nations who came to be known as Western Powers were not to realize just how unjust they had been, just how much they had been misled by certain of their own leftist leaders and by the self-serving Russians until it was far too late.
On an icy January morning of 1946* Barstow called Milo to his office and said without preamble, “You’ve done good work for me, and this is reward time. Think you can get back to wearing uniforms again, Major Moray?”
“You’re sending me back to my unit, then, colonel?” asked Milo.
Barstow’s burgeoning potbelly jiggled as he laughed. “Not a bit of it, old bean. No, I’ve just been given my first star—Brigadier General Eustace Barstow now sits before you. Raaay!—and an immediate reassignment to Holabird. I’ll be taking along some of the personnel. Would you like to be one of my jolly crew?”
“You’re goddamn right I would, col … uhh, general, but I don’t want to accept under false pretenses, either. For reasons I explained to you shortly after I arrived here and for others as well, there is an even chance that I won’t stay in the Army at all, whenever the Powers That May Be decide that my hitch is up,” Milo told Barstow in complete sincerity. The new-made general’s reply almost floored him.
“Aside from your desire to fulfill your pledge to the late General Stiles and take care of his widow and their children, which pledge I assume you have translated into marriage to her and the Stiles fortune, what other pressing reasons have you to leave the Army, Milo?”
Milo just stared at the pudgy officer across the desk from him. Then, finally, he demanded, “General, are you some kind of fucking telepath? Have you been reading my mind? I’ve never once so much as mentioned Mrs. Stiles to you or to anyone else here in Munich, and to damned few back in my battalion.”
Barstow showed several gold dental inlays in a broad grin. “Heh, heh, heh, Milo, you forget, this is an intelligence operation, and I feel the need to know everything I can dig up about everyone connected with it and me. Not that I had to go any further than to certain files to find out about you and your rich widow lady.”
“What is that supposed to mean, general? Why should there have been a file on me? I was nothing more or less than a simple captain of infantry before you had me transferred in here,” said Milo in obvious puzzlement.
In place of an immediate answer, Barstow just looked at Milo in silence for a long moment, nodded brusquely, then got up and strode to the office door and opened it. To the uniformed first lieutenant behind the desk in the outer office, he said only, “Condition Four-Oh.”
In silence, the junior officer opened a drawer of his desk to reveal an array of buttons. He pressed one of them and a succession of metallic slamming noises from the direction of the door to the reception office told of a number of bolts now in place. The pressing of another button brought forth a deep-toned humming noise that pervaded the room. Then the lieutenant opened the cabinet behind him, took out a civilian-model Thompson with no shoulder stock and a drum rather than the military box magazine, armed it and laid it on the desktop before him. Then and only then he spoke.
“Condition Four-Oh, sir.”
When once more Barstow had closed and, this time, multiply bolted his office door and resumed his seat, Milo said, “Jesus fucking Christ, general, what are you expecting? The survivors of the Das Reich SS-Panzer Division to assault this place?”
“As I said earlier, Milo, you forget that this is a counter-intelligence operation, but you can bet your bottom dollar on the fact that the NKVD and Red Army intelligence don’t forget just what we have here. And the real pity of it all is that certain persons in very highly placed offices in Washington have allowed our armed services to become so infiltrated with Uncle Joe Stalin’s agents that it sometimes is difficult to be sure of the motives of anyone. But, for now, let’s get your question out of the way. I can’t maintain Condition Four-Oh for any length of time without arousing comment.
“Why were your name and other facts about you in a certain file? For this reason, Milo: your involvement with Brigadier General Jethro Stiles, deceased.”
“Oh, come on, general, I knew Jethro from my basic training days on. He was no fucking spy for the Red Army, the Nazis or any fucking body else, and you’re not going to convince me that he was!” Milo exploded with heat.
“Please keep your voice down,” said Barstow mildly. “The device we activated only mutes out normal, conversational speech. You are quite correct, Milo, Stiles was not a spy, not in the ordinary sense of that word. But still we felt it well advised to keep an eye on him and any of his friends who spent time alone with him. We also had in his quarters microphones connected to a listening post and a wire-recording instrument.”
“Well, you’re sweet, trusting bastards, aren’t you?” Milo said bitterly. “And why all of this shit, just because he was buying a few things from Nazis who were due to lose everything soon anyway?”
Barstow smiled thinly. “That operation was nothing more than what we in the intelligence community call a cover, Milo. It gave him a reason for being in touch with the still-unconquered portions of Germany, a reason even for occasional trips behind German lines. The few who knew aught about his clandestine ‘purchasing trips’ were of the consensus that he was representing and given protection by a clique of greedy general officers at corps or possibly army level, and he himself enhanced that impression by allowing the commander of your division to buy in on the operation.
“In reality, of course, General Stiles was performing something of inestimable importance for the United States and the future. It was something that is still too highly classified to tell you about. But we are certain that sudden realization of the truth, the real purposes of his activities, was what got General Stiles and ..Captain Wesley killed that day in Delitzsch.”
“General, I was there, remember? Jethro was killed by three Hitler Youth amateur snipers. And who the hell is Captain Wesley?” Milo tersely informed and demanded.
“Wesley? Oh, you knew him as Sergeant Webber, his cover name for that operation. He was a loan from another agency. And yes, the shootings were very cut-and dried, but only on the surface, Milo. And I cannot impart any more information on that subject to you, not now. Should you decide to remain in the Army and should you be cleared to work for me in my new assignment, I might be able to tell you more, someday.
“But for now, Milo, the war is over. You’ve done all that you can in Europe, so why not take this opportunity to go home?”