That thought was immediately followed by his realization that he was never going back to the ranch in Midland.
Not after what happened to the Squirt…
He realized he had to put the Squirt, the jeep, and Midland out of his mind.
The first thing he thought next was that while he knew he had seen a chart case in Storch Two, which meant there was probably also one in Storch One, he hadn’t actually seen a chart, and a chart would be a damned good thing to have when trying to fly to Eschborn.
The first time he’d flown into Sonthofen he had made a straight-in approach on a heading of 270, the course Colonel Wilson had ordered him to fly. The first time he’d flown back to Kloster Grünau, he’d had Schröder with him, and since that was before Schröder had been vetted by General Gehlen and he hadn’t wanted Schröder to know where they were going, Cronley simply had taken off and set a course of 90 degrees, the reciprocal of 270, and flown that until he saw Schollbrunn ahead of him. He knew where Kloster Grünau was from there. On his second flight from Sonthofen, he’d done the same thing; the second time it was easier.
Flying to Eschborn is not going to be so simple. I am going to need a chart of the route showing, among other things, the available en-route navigation aids and the Eschborn tower frequencies so I can call and get approach and landing instructions.
Come to think of it, I have never seen an Air Corps chart.
Are there Air Corps charts and Army charts? Or does the Army use Air Corps charts? And what’s the difference, if any, between military charts and the civilian ones I know?
Jesus, am I going to have to call Mattingly back and tell him that on second thought I’ve decided to put off flying into Eschborn until I think I know what I’m doing?
He got up quickly from the table and walked out of the room and then the building. He saw one of the machine gun jeeps making its rounds and flagged it down.
“Take me to the Storches,” he ordered.
“The what, sir?” the sergeant driving asked as the corporal who had been in the front seat scurried into the back.
“The airplanes,” Cronley clarified.
Getting to the map cases in the airplane turned out to be a pain in the ass. The troopers had done a good job putting them under tarpaulins so they would be less visible from the air. Untying the tarpaulins so that he could get under them was difficult in the dark, and once he got to the chart case and looked inside, he knew that he would not be able to examine what it contained in the light of his flashlight. Sticking the nose of the jeep under the tarpaulin to use the jeep’s headlights proved to be difficult and then ineffective.
Finally, he stuffed the charts back into the case, removed it from the Storch’s cockpit, and made his way out from under the tarpaulin.
“You want us to take the tarpaulin all the way off, Captain?”
“No, thanks. Just take me back to the mess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No. Take me to the chapel,” he said. He thought: So I can see if they changed the shit bucket in Orlovsky’s cell, or whether Bischoff told them to ignore me.
Bischoff and the small, tough sergeant who had been in the room behind the altar were again sitting at the card table, playing poker with packs of cigarettes and Hershey bars for chips. There were two others at the table, both soldiers, neither of whom Cronley had seen.
The sergeant stood.
He nodded politely and said, “Captain.”
“What does it smell like down there?” Cronley asked.
“Well, Captain, it don’t smell like roses,” the sergeant said. “But it smells better… scratch that. It don’t smell near as bad as it did.”
“Show me,” Cronley said, and then added, “We won’t need you down there, Herr Bischoff.”
Major Konstantin Orlovsky of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs reacted to the opening of his cell door as he had the first time. Shielding his eyes from the headlights, he slid his back up the wall until he was standing.
“Take the light out of his eyes,” Cronley ordered, and then, “If you can, turn all but one of those headlights off.”
“I’ll have to rip them loose,” the sergeant said.
“Then do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everybody out of here but you and me, Sergeant, and then close the door.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” Orlovsky said.
Cronley didn’t reply.
When the door had creaked closed behind them, Cronley looked at the sergeant.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Staff Sergeant Lewis, Harold Junior, Captain.”
“If I hear that you have repeated to anyone but First Sergeant Dunwiddie one word of what I’m about to say in here, Staff Sergeant Harold Lewis Junior, you will be Private Lewis, washing pots and pans for the Germans in the kitchen until I decide whether or not to castrate you with a dull bayonet before I send you home in a body bag. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir, Captain.”
“Okay. Now the question, Major Orlovsky, is, ‘What do I do with you?’”
Orlovsky didn’t reply.
“What the Germans want from you are the names of the people here who gave you those rosters Sergeant Tedworth took away from you. Once you give them the names, you’ll all be… disposed of.”
“That’s the scenario I reached, Captain Cronley.”
“It doesn’t seem to worry you very much.”
“Are you familiar with Roman poet Ovid, Captain?”
“I can’t say that I am. I’m just a simple cowboy. We don’t know much about Roman poets — for that matter, about any poets — in West Texas.”
Orlovsky smiled.
“Ovid wrote, ‘Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.’”
“Which means what? That you’re happy to be locked up in the dark, waiting to be shot?”
“Which means that my only worry is that I will be subjected to a painful interrogation — for you a useless interrogation — before I am shot. That I will be shot is a given.”
“Why useless? And why is you being shot a given?”
“So far as your first question is concerned, since I know I’m to be shot, why should I give you those names? And how could you be sure, if I gave you a name, or names, that they would be the names of the people you want? As to the second, what alternative do you have to eliminating me? You can’t free me, and you can’t keep me here for long.”
Cronley didn’t reply. He instead asked, “Where’d you learn your English?”
“In university. Leningrad State University. Why do you ask?”
“You speak it very well. I was curious.”
“And you speak German very well,” Orlovsky said, his tone making it a question.
“My mother taught me — she’s German. I’ll tell you what, Major: You think some more. Think of some way that you can give me the names I want in exchange for your life. And I’ll do the same. Maybe we can make a deal.”
“Why should I believe you have the authority to ‘make a deal’?”
“Because I’m telling you I do.”
“And what would Major Bischoff have to say about you making a deal?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. The Germans lost the war. I’m the honcho here. ‘Honcho’ is West Texas talk for ‘the man in charge.’”
“That’s a good deal of authority for a simple West Texas cowboy to have. Why should I believe you?”