Free Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow Page B

added bitterly. All idiots. "I ran from there in 1940. After the Germans killed my mother."
    I offered my condolences, but she shrugged them off.
    "In Europe now we all have these stories. But I could not stay. I hated the Germans, naturally. And also the Poles, because they hated me. Bastards are not favorites in small Polish towns, Doo-bean. So I left. You see?"
    "Yes," I said. In English, I quoted Exodus. " have been a stranger in a strange land.' "
    She lit up. The phrase delighted her. "Parfait!" she declared and haltingly repeated as much as she could.
    Martin reappeared just then and swept behind her.
    "Ah, but no stranger to me," he said, and with his arms around her waist swung her off the floor. Once she was down she pried his hands apart to escape.
    "I am enjoying this conversation," she told him in French.
    "So you like this American?" Martin asked her.
    "I like Americans," she answered. "That must be what interested me in you. Pas mar she added--Not bad--a reference to my looks, then winked at me with Martin behind her. She clearly had no wish to let him know I understood.
    "You think he has silk stockings and chocolate bars?" asked Martin.
    "Merde. You are always jealous."
    Not without reason," he answered.
    "Yes, but without right."
    "Eh," he responded. It was banter. Both were grinning. He faced me and said that the Comtesse would be down momentarily.
    With Martin's reappearance, I had taken a notebook from my fatigues and asked the Major if we might use the interval before the Comtesse's arrival to discuss my mission here. I presented him with an order from Patton's adjutant authorizing the Rule 35 investigation, but Martin did not read more than the first lines.
    "Teedle," he said then, as if it were the most tiresome word in any language. "What does he say? No, don't bother. Mark it as true, whatever he says. All true. 'Insubordinate.' 'Mutinous.' Whatever the hell he wants to call it. Write down in your little book: Guilty as hell. The Army still doesn't know what to do with me." He laughed, just as he had when he recollected the Negro speakeasy.
    I followed him across the kitchen. "I wouldn't make light of this, Major. Teedle has laid serious charges, sir." I explained his rights to Martin--he could give a statement himself or direct me to other witnesses. If he preferred to speak to a superior officer, he was entitled to do so. And certainly he could hear a specification of what had been said against him.
    "If you must," he answered. He picked at a plate of grapes.
    "General Teedle alleges that you've been ordere d t o disband your Operational Group and return to London. He says you've refused."
    "Refused'? What rubbish. I'm here under the command of OSS London, and London has directed me to continue as before. Gita and I and the others are going to finish our business in France, then continue on to Germany. I have built networks there, too, Dubin. We will see this to an end. Teedle can be damned with his nonsense about refusing orders."
    This is a misunderstanding, then?"
    If you wish to call it that."
    I was somewhat relieved to find the matter could be settled quickly. I asked Martin to see his orders from OSS, which brought an indulgent smile.
    "You don't know much about OSS, do you, Dubin?" In fact, I had tried to learn as much as I could, but except for an old propaganda piece in Stars and Stripes and what I gleaned at the i8th Division from Martin's sanitized zoI file, I was largely in the dark. "An OSS officer carries no written orders," he told me. "The Nazis have said forthrightly that they'll shoot any OSS member they capture. Teedle knows this. But mine are orders nonetheless."
    "Well, if I may, sir, who gave those orders?"
    "My operational officer in London. I was ordered back to see him the last week in September, as a matter of fact."
    "And his name, if you please?"
    Again, Martin smiled as he would with a boy.
    "Dubin, OSS has strict rules of secrecy. It is not a normal military