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assign it to Woody Ward? Probably. Nobody would be better qualified. A pain in the ass sometimes. Too damned much of an individualist. The kind of guy who never bowed to authority, just touched his fingers to his cap. Anywhere but in the informal atmosphere of the CIC where everybody was pretty much on his own, he’d have spent the greater part of his army career in the stockade. But as a CIC agent he was top drawer. He shook his head.
    “I’ve got nothing in the files, Woody,” he said. “Not a damned thing.” He nodded toward an olive drab filing cabinet, the one that rode with him in his personal vehicle every time Iceberg Forward moved to a new location. “You’re welcome to take a look.”
    Woody looked disappointed. “Hell, Mort,” he said, “I believe you.”
    He stood up. “I’d better get back,” he said. “See what’s cooking at 2nd Cavalry.” He started to leave.
    The telephone rang.
    Hall picked it up. “CIC,” he said crisply. “Major Hall.” He listened for a moment. He looked startled. He glanced at Woody, who had stopped and stood watching him. He frowned, and tried to speak. “Who is . . .” He was obviously not able to interrupt whoever was talking on the phone. Hastily he scribbled something on his pad. “Listen,” he said firmly. “Who is this?” There was a click. Hall looked angrily at the receiver and hung up.
    “What the hell was that all about?” Woody asked.
    Hall scowled at the phone. “Beats me,” he said. “Some joker— German, judging from his accent—got himself patched through.” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever heard.”
    “What?” Woody was intrigued.
    “This Kraut says to me”—he looked at his pad—“count your soldiers, Major. And if you are one short you will find him lying at the side of the road to Albersdorf. Dead.” Hall looked disgusted. “What kind of melodramatic claptrap is that supposed to be?”
    “Albersdorf,” Woody said, his interest at once aroused. “I know the burg. Off the road to Vohenstrauss. We’ve held that real estate for a week.”
    His mind raced. Who was the dead “soldier”? How was he killed? Why? By whom? And who was the informer? Could it be a Werewolf action? Like those werewolves who murdered the Mayor of Aachen about a month ago because he cooperated with the US forces? Sure sounded like it. They’d advertised themselves enough with that corny radio program of theirs. They certainly were talked about. If he could get a line on them, crack the Werewolf Organization, get enough information to make a real dent, he might just have his “glamour” case. Get his cluster. His five points. Even if it was some other subversive action, it might do it.
    “Look, Mort,” he said eagerly, “I’ll take the case. I’ll get over there right now. Take a look. Okay?” He was halfway out the door before Hall could call after him:
    “Not alone, dammit! That’s an order!”
    “Sure,” Woody called over his shoulder. “I’ll pick up a driver at the pool.”
    “Find somebody who speaks the lingo!”
    And Woody was off.
    Hall looked after him. He glanced at the note on his pad. “ Count your soldiers, Major.” He shook his head. It might well be a wild goose chase.
    Then again, it might not be.
    An hour later Woody and a corporal named Tony Fossano turned their jeep off the main road between Schwarzenfeld and Vohenstrauss and barreled down a forest-lined dirt road toward the village of Albersdorf, visible in the distance. Fossano, a streetwise kid from lower Manhattan spoke a smattering of German, learned in a high school course he’d elected to take in the school’s foreign language program to spite his old man who wanted him to learn Italian. His knowledge of the language wasn’t enough for him to have been “raided” by the CIC for use as interpreter but enough for him to get along.
    As long as things stayed simple.
    Suddenly Woody sang out. “Hold it! Stop!”
    Fossano stomped on the brake and