Spoils of Victory Read Online Free Page B

you, so forget it.”
    â€œMaybe he, the third bodyguard, and Olsen set this whole thing up.”
    Mason shook his head as he rifled through the cash register. “Olsen doesn’t have the pull or the brains to pull off a coup like this. A group of around five guys met them in the alley, by the looks of it. There wasn’t much of a struggle, so my guess is they all knew each other or were taken by surprise.”
    Questions already circulated in Mason’s mind: How would the group know that the three leaders would be coming their way? Was it a prearranged ambush? But how would the assailants know where the meeting was taking place? Was it a coincidence that it happened just as Mason had tried to infiltrate the gang? Were they killed because Mason almost succeeded?
    Abrams was apparently thinking on similar lines, as he asked, “How did they identify you? The way you were disguised, even I’d have trouble recognizing you. Maybe Olsen double-crossed you.”
    Mason thought of the odor of Turkish cigarettes. “My gut tells me it was Volker. He’s someone I knew during the war. Someone who nearly killed me when I was a POW.”
    â€œBut you don’t know for sure?”
    â€œMy back was to the room.”
    â€œWho’s been pounding into my head that I should never get into a situation where my back is to the room?”
    Mason ignored Abrams and turned his attention back to the filth behind the bar. “I doubt we’re going to find much that will help us. Every kind of scumbag used this place to make deals.”
    â€œWe’ll get footprint castings in the snow,” Abrams said. “But other than that and those shell casings, we don’t have much to go on.”
    â€œWe’ll see what the canvassing turns up.”
    â€œChief Warrant Officer Collins?” a voice inquired from the front door.
    Mason looked up to see two men in matching black overcoats and equally black suits standing inside the door. He knew them as U.S. agents with the Counter Intelligence Corps, or CIC, but neither was American. Their names were Werner and Hans, but Mason called them Frick and Frack after the famous comedy ice-skating team, though there was nothing jolly about their stony expressions. They were both former German army intelligence officers, who now worked for the Americans.
    Hans said, “Special Agent Winstone would like to have a word with you.”
    â€œIf you two haven’t noticed, we’re busy investigating a crime scene at the moment. Tell him I’ll see him later.”
    â€œI’m afraid he insists.”
    â€œWell, you tell him he can shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
    The two agents took a moment to try to process this. Finally Werner said, “He said you just screwed an old friend. He is outside. It will only take a few minutes.”
    Mason stopped, wondering how he could have possibly screwed Winstone. Shaking his head, he followed the pair out of the bar and down the street.
    It had become too common, in Mason’s opinion, for the CIC to recruit Germans for the expanding task of investigating the growing presence of Russian spy networks, hunting down Nazi war criminals, and searching for the missing Nazi gold. Mason understood why: They were better than their American counterparts at using the locals to sniff out hiding places, potential Nazi fanatics, and Germans now working for the Russians. Still, Mason didn’t like the idea of the American army employing German ex-intelligence and ex-Gestapo goons, glossing over their Nazi pasts for the sake of solving cases. Times were already changing, the Russians being the newthreat, but Mason still had a hard time moving on after all he’d seen in the war.
    Frick and Frack finally stopped at a long black Mercedes 320 Stromlinien-Limousine parked at the curb.
    â€œDoes everything have to be black with you guys?” Mason said.
    Werner’s expression remained frozen