Top Secret Part 21

"What's funny? This is not funny!"

"When I was in the eighth grade, thirteen, fourteen years old . . ."

"As old as Anton Junior. So?"

"Our teacher, Miss Schenck, introduced us to cla.s.sical music. Started out easy. We were all ranch kids in West Texas. She set up her phonograph and said she was going to play a Viennese operetta for us. She said it was called Die l.u.s.tige Witwe and that meant 'The Merry Widow.' So I put up my hand and said, 'Excuse me, Miss Schenck, but l.u.s.tige doesn't mean 'merry.' It means 'l.u.s.ty.' And she said, 'What are you talking about?' So I told her, 'l.u.s.tige means "h.o.r.n.y." You know, like a bull is when you turn him loose in the pasture with the cows.'"

"Oh, Jimmy, you didn't!"

"Miss Schenk snapped, 'James Cronley, you go straight to the princ.i.p.al's office! This instant!'"

Rachel laughed.

"So my mother was called in, heard what happened, and told me I was just going to have to learn (a) I should never correct my teachers, and (b) I should never try to explain what l.u.s.t means to any female."

"And here you are discussing l.u.s.t with me."

"Yeah."

"Can we leave . . . what we have . . . to that, Jimmy?"

"The only other alternative that comes to mind is chast.i.ty, and as I stand here 'staring hungrily' at your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, that doesn't have much appeal."

She smiled in the mirror. "To me either."

"If you really want to see l.u.s.t in action, drop that towel."

"My G.o.d!" Rachel said, and shook her head in disbelief.

Then she put down the comb and dropped the towel.

[ NINE ].

1615 30 October 1945 "The kids get home from school about five," Rachel said. "I have to go."

She got out of bed and went to the armchair onto which she had put her clothing after gathering it up from where it had been on the floor.

"It was nice b.u.mping into you, Mrs. Schumann. We'll have to try to get together again real soon."

"I'm going to do my best to see that doesn't happen for a long time. But when it does, you better remember to call me Mrs. Schumann."

"Yes, ma'am. Are you going to tell your husband about me?"

"Well, I'm not going to tell him everything, mein Trottel. It wouldn't surprise me that he's already heard that you were here with Colonel Mattingly."

"I should have thought of that."

"Yes, you should have," she said, turning her back to him to put on her bra.s.siere.

"Rachel, about this unfounded rumor your husband has heard about some people smuggling n.a.z.is out of Germany . . ."

"What about it?"

"For the sake of argument, let's say, hypothetically, that there's something to it."

"And?"

"You don't seem to be very upset about it."

"I don't like it. But I think General Greene must know about it. And I'm sure Colonel Mattingly knows about it, and probably is involved with it. And I know you are-"

"You know nothing of the kind," he interrupted.

"If Tony strongly suspects you're involved, you're involved. And you as much as admitted to me you are. What did you expect I would think when you told me you had just been in Argentina? That you were on one of those ninety-nine-dollar all-expenses-paid Special Service tours, a little vacation from your exhausting duties in the Army of Occupation?"

She turned to face him as she stepped into her skirt.

"Rachel, you could cause a h.e.l.l of a lot of damage to something very important if you dropped that little gem into any conversations you have with your husband."

"As I started to say, if General Greene and Colonel Mattingly know about it, and they do, then the fact that it's still going on tells me there has to be a good reason for it."

"There is."

"Hypothetically speaking, of course?"

"Hypothetically speaking."

She put her blouse on and b.u.t.toned it, and then tucked it into her skirt, and then she reached for her jacket.

"Where do you live?"

"Hoechst. Not far. A little suburb not far from the Eschborn airstrip. It somehow didn't get leveled in the war."

She slipped into her shoes.

Jimmy got out of bed and went to her.

"Uh-oh," she said. "I don't think I'm going to like this."

"You won't like what?"

"Don't say anything foolish, Jimmy, please."

"Okay."

"And you don't have to tell me not to tell my husband about what you let slip."

"Thank you."

"And don't try to entice me back into bed. I really have to be at home when the kids get there."

"What gave you the idea I was going to try something like that?"

"This," she said, putting her hand on him. "You know what happens to me when it stands up and waves at me like that. I lose all control."

"What do I do now?"

"Kiss me quick, and then go back to bed. Alone."

He kissed her. It was quick.

She took her hand off him and walked out of the bedroom without looking back.

After a moment, he walked into the sitting room. Rachel was gone.

So, what do I do now?

I take a shower. Then I get dressed.

And, f.u.c.k Mattingly, I go to the dining room and get something to eat.

He looked at his watch.

Well, since the dining room doesn't open until five, and I can't drink as I'm flying in the morning, what do I do for the next thirty-five minutes?

I take a little nap is what I do for the next thirty-five minutes.

And then I take a shower and go get something to eat.

[ TEN ].

0800 31 October 1945 He first had trouble waking, and then he couldn't find the G.o.dd.a.m.ned ringing telephone.

"Captain Cronley."

"Captain, your car is here to take you to the Eschborn airstrip."

"I'll be right there."

Jesus Christ, I never woke up!

V.

[ ONE ].

U.S. Army Airfield H-7 Eschborn, Hesse American Zone of Occupation, Germany 0825 31 October 1945 As the olive drab 1942 Ford staff car drove Cronley up to Base Operations, he saw that the Storch had been moved off the tarmac in front of Base Operations. It was now on the gra.s.s across from it-and the subject of attention of a group of officers, the senior of them a full bull colonel wearing Air Force insignia.

As Cronley got out of the car, he saw a lieutenant writing something in a notebook.

Probably the tail numbers and XXIIIrd CIC.

Colonel Wilson warned me the Air Force doesn't want the Army to have Storches. He wouldn't have given me his if there was any way he could have kept them. And he's much higher on the totem pole than I am.

So what the h.e.l.l am I going to do if that colonel tries to grab my Storch?

The only thing I can try-hide behind the secrecy that covers the CIC.

And maybe be a little deceptive.

Cronley went into Base Operations and checked the weather map. The front had pa.s.sed through the Munich area. Then he checked the local map, saw there was a small airstrip in Fulda, and filed a Visual Flight Rules flight plan giving that as his destination.

Then he walked out to the airplane and the officers examining it.

He did not salute, as he was wearing his civilian triangles, and civilians don't salute.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully.

"This your aircraft?" the Air Force colonel said.

"Well, actually it belongs to the Army," Cronley said, as he opened the rear window and tossed his overnight bag through it.