“I don’t see where you have another option.”
He nodded at Orlovsky and turned to Staff Sergeant Lewis.
“I’m going, Sergeant. Bring people in here and make absolutely sure Major Orlovsky doesn’t have the means to pull the plug on himself.”
“Bischoff already thought of that, Captain.”
“Look again. And keep Bischoff out of here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good night, Major Orlovsky. We’ll talk again.”
“Good evening, Captain Cronley.”
[SIX]
When he had taken the chart case to his room and laid its contents out on his desk, Cronley quickly saw that Army Aviators used Air Force aerial charts, and that Air Force charts were essentially identical to the civilian charts with which he was familiar.
The case also contained a “knee-pad”—a clipboard onto which a chart could be fitted under a sheet of plastic. It had a spring clip on its underside so the board could be clipped to his pant leg — and not fall off — in flight.
He spent the better part of an hour planning his flight to Eschborn, using a grease pencil to write the critical data on the plastic over the chart, and then very carefully checking everything twice.
Then he took a shower and went to bed.
He went to sleep wondering what to think of his last conversation with Orlovsky. Was he really so resigned to being shot? Or was it a case of a skilled NKGB officer being able to use that to put a young and inexperienced officer in his pocket?
That raised the question of why he was putting his nose into something that could be — and more than likely should be — handled by Gehlen, Mannberg, and Bischoff without his interference.
The Squirt was lying asleep on her side on the couch along the right side of the Beech Model 18’s cabin. She was wearing Western boots with a skirt that had come pretty high up as she moved in her sleep.
Jimmy had always found boots on girls in skirts very erotic.
He dropped to his knees and touched the Squirt’s face tenderly with his fingertips.
Her eyes opened.
“What are you doing back here and not flying?” she said.
“I have designs on your virginal body.”
“Not so virginal anymore, thanks to you. Who’s flying the plane?”
“We’re at ten thousand feet over Midland making five-minute circles on autopilot.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m horny, is what I am.”
She sighed. “Me too, now.”
They kissed.
He put his hand up her skirt.
She put her hand to the front of his trousers.
“Well, look what I found!” the Squirt said, smiling.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” he said furiously as he awoke.
And then he wailed, “Oh, God!” in anguish.
And then he wept.
For a long time.
And then he went to sleep again.
PART IV
[ONE]
First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie, easily holding two large china mugs in his massive left hand, knocked at the door to Captain James D. Cronley Jr.’s bedroom with the knuckles of his right fist.
“Come!”
Cronley was sitting on his bed, pulling on his pointed-toe boots.
“Coffee?” Dunwiddie asked.
“Oh, yeah. Danke schön.”
Dunwiddie handed him a mug.
“You all right, Jim?”
“Why do I think you have a reason for asking beyond a first sergeant’s to-be-expected concern for his beloved commanding officer?”
Dunwiddie hesitated momentarily, then said, “I’ve been wrong before. But when I got back at oh-dark-hundred and walked past your room, I thought I heard you crying in your sleep. I almost came in then, but my back teeth were floating, so I took a leak. When I came back, you’d stopped.”
Cronley hesitated momentarily, too, before replying.
“I wasn’t crying in my sleep. I was wide awake. I had what is politely called ‘a nocturnal emission.’ I started crying when I woke up and realized that wet dream — and every goddamned thing associated with it — was never going to come true.”
Dunwiddie didn’t reply.
“Am I losing my mind, Tiny?”
Dunwiddie hesitated again before replying, and when he did it wasn’t a reply, but a question. He pointed at the chart case. “What’s that?”
“That’s an aviation chart case. Experienced pilots such as myself use them to carry maps — aviation navigation charts — around.”
“You’re going somewhere?”
“Eschborn. As soon as I have breakfast.”
“Mattingly sent for you?”
“I told him I needed to talk to him.”
“You going to tell me what about?”
“Orlovsky.”
“He told me to deal with Orlovsky, Jim.”
“That’s what I want to talk to him about.”
“I heard you went to see our Russian friend. Twice.”
“Sergeant Lewis told you?”
“Sergeant Lewis waited until I got back from Sonthofen to tell me.”
“I gather he didn’t approve?”
“Actually, he began the conversation by saying, ‘You know, our baby-faced captain isn’t really a candy-ass. He told Bischoff to fuck off, and then he told me if I told anybody but you what he said to Orlovsky he’d cut off my dick with a dull bayonet.’ Or words to that effect.”
“That’s close enough.”
“Mattingly doesn’t want to know what Gehlen does with the Russian. That’s why he told me to deal with it.”
“And you’re happy with that?”
“Do I have to point out that first sergeants — and brand-new captains — do not question what full bull colonels tell them to do?”
“Do first sergeants question their orders from brand-new captains?”
Dunwiddie didn’t reply.
“Let’s try one and see. Sergeant, if the prisoner Bischoff attempts to talk to Major Orlovsky, you will place him under arrest.”
“You’re crazy, Jim. He’ll go right to General Gehlen—”
“I’m not finished,” Cronley interrupted. “You will immediately assign enough of our men to protect Major Orlovsky around the clock from any attempt by any of the Germans to kill him. The use of deadly force is authorized to protect Major Orlovsky. The foregoing is a direct order.”
“Jesus, Jim!”
“The answer I expect from you, Sergeant, is ‘Yes, sir.’”
Dunwiddie looked at Cronley for ten seconds before coming to attention and saying, “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“Permission to speak, sir?”
“Granted.”
“Mattingly is not going to like this.”
“Probably not. On the other hand, I don’t like the way he’s trying to cover his ass about the Russian. If he wants to let the Germans shoot him — or, for that matter, torture him — I don’t know right now what I can do about that. But I do know I’m not going to let him get away with saying, ‘I didn’t know anything about what happens at Kloster Grünau,’ and then blame whatever happens on you and me.”
“You really think that’s what Mattingly is doing?”