Ruins of War Read Online Free PDF

leave when the colonel said, “Mr. Collins, just a few more questions.” Mason turned, as did Havers, but the colonel waved a dismissive hand at Havers. “You can go.”
    Colonel Walton leaned back in his chair and studied Mason. “Havers is a good investigator, but he’s had little homicide experience. Few of my investigators do. That’s why I sent you out there to investigate that murder. It’s why I accepted your transfer request—withsome reluctance, I might add.” He plucked a file off his desk and opened it. “You’ve been here, what? Twelve days?”
    Mason offered only a slight nod; he knew what was coming.
    “We should have had this talk when you first arrived,” Colonel Walton said into the open file. “I know about you being fired from the Chicago PD for kickbacks and shakedowns—”
    “Colonel, those were trumped-up charges—”
    The colonel jerked up his head and glared at Mason. “You will let me finish. I have your statements on the affair. I’m aware of the controversy surrounding you.” He paused and turned his attention back to the open file. “I only bring this up because of tension concerning you and the other intelligence agents while you worked human intelligence at G2. I don’t need it, and I’m expecting you to defuse it. You got exemplary marks for your investigative work, but there are criticisms of being too independent, less than stellar regard for authority, et cetera, et cetera. You keep that kind of thinking out of this outfit, or I’ll see to it you go back to pushing papers in Frankfurt. You think joining the CID is a new start for you. Well, I say it’s the end of the line. You’ve been blackballed back home. No city police department will hire you. You screw up here, and that’s it. Am I understood?”
    Mason acknowledged. Colonel Walton rose from his chair and went to a file cabinet. The colonel, a good-looking man with chiseled features, stood a head taller than Mason, and Mason measured six feet. He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of cognac along with two glasses. Mason welcomed a drink—maybe two or three after what he’d witnessed in the warehouse. But this gesture wasn’t a peace offering or sharing a drink among comrades in arms; more a pacifier for what was about to come.
    The colonel offered Mason one of the glasses. “A VSOP distilled in 1870. About six months’ worth of your salary would buy this in the States. Here, I traded it for a smoked ham and five pounds of coffee from some wealthy hausfrau.” He held up his glass. “Cheers.”
    They both took a sip of their drinks, then Colonel Walton asked, as if in casual conversation, “How’s the train robbery case going?”
    “Sir, you have my latest report, so I’m not sure what your point is in asking.” Though he had a pretty good idea.
    “I’m not required to have a point. Answer the question.”
    “After the gang robbed a trainload of army supplies and PX goods, I was able to trace them to Augsburg. I alerted the 385th MP train security battalion. They laid a trap for the gang at the Augsburg train station, but the gang started shooting their way out—submachine guns, grenades, the whole bit—and escaped.”
    “That’s right. And that gang of about twenty U.S. deserters, with another forty or so DPs, are out there plundering the countryside.”
    DP stood for “displaced person.” When Germany surrendered there were more than ten million displaced persons in Germany: ex–prisoners of war, ex–concentration camp internees, and people from every Nazi-occupied country brought in as slave labor. For years the slave laborers had been forced to work in the factories, on the farms, or as domestic servants. Now released from bondage, a majority of the ten million had already made their way home, but hundreds of thousands remained in Germany, and some of them had decided to take advantage of the chaos of a war-torn country and formed gangs that roamed the countryside, raping, stealing,