Top Secret Part 46

As he went into his room, after a moment's indecision, Cronley dropped a matchbook in the doorjamb so it wouldn't close.

He didn't know if Rachel would come to his room instead of waiting for him in the bar. He hoped she wouldn't. But she might. She seemed oblivious to the risks of their getting caught. And he didn't want her to be seen knocking at his door. By Freddy Hessinger, for example, who might be leaving his down-the-corridor office as she did so.

After thinking about this, too, he laid an Ike jacket with the insignia of captain of Cavalry on the bed before going in the shower. That would enable him to play the role of the nice captain entertaining the colonel's lady at dinner in the colonel's absence. Colonels' ladies do not fool around with young captains. They just might fool around with CIC special agents.

What stupid games am I playing?

He got as far as the bathroom door before returning to the bed. He put the captain's jacket back into the closet and tossed the Ike jacket with civilian triangles he had been wearing all day onto the bed.

He was standing naked in front of the sink several minutes later wiping shaving cream from his face when Rachel came in.

"Why do I think you knew I wasn't going to wait for you in the bar?"

"Because you know I know you take chances you shouldn't take?"

She walked up to him and put her hand on him and then pulled his face down to hers. She kissed him lewdly for a moment, then pulled away.

"That's what you're not going to get," she said, "because you were flying your d.a.m.ned Russian around all day and not paying attention to me."

Then she walked out of the bathroom.

He finished wiping the shaving cream off his face and put on his underwear before going back into the bedroom. She was sitting in an armchair, her legs crossed and showing-he was sure intentionally-a good deal of leg.

"Well, are you going to say you're sorry?" she asked.

"For what?"

"You know for what. I spent all day waiting to just hear from you."

"What was I supposed to do, Rachel, call your room?"

"Why not?"

"'Colonel Schumann, this is Cronley. Can I speak with your wife?' Come on, Rachel."

"Tony went to Vienna. You knew that."

"I didn't."

"On the phone just now you knew."

"Hessinger had just told me."

She considered that.

"I spent all day waiting for you to call."

"I'm sorry. Frade wanted me to fly him to Frankfurt. I flew him to Frankfurt. I waited for him and the admiral to take off. He took off. I came back here. The defense rests."

"I believe you," she said after a moment. "I'm sorry."

"Not necessary."

"You want to know how sorry I am?"

"You're going to slash your wrists?"

"Come here."

He walked closer to her. She sat forward in the armchair.

"Closer," she ordered. "I'm sorry I thought you spent all day with that Russian."

She put her hand to his shorts, pushed them aside, and took him into her mouth.

Some time later, she tucked it back in.

"That's how sorry I am," she said. "Forgive me?"

"My G.o.d!"

"But that's all you get now. I spent two hours in the beauty salon making myself pretty for you, and I don't want to mess my hair. Right away. After dinner is another matter."

[ SIX ].

"I can't believe you ate all that," Rachel said, as he put his knife and fork across the plate that had held a medium-rare porterhouse steak, baked potato, and b.u.t.tered peas.

"I said all I had to eat all day was a bacon-and-egg sandwich," he said, then drained what was left of his double Jack Daniel's rocks.

"I hope you got your strength back, you poor starving boy."

"That was a very nice steak."

"And a large one. I had an idea when I was sitting under the dryer in the beauty shop," she said.

"Why do I think it was lewd?"

"I don't suppose you could put me in that German airplane of yours and fly me up to your monastery? Just the thought of doing it there feels delightfully lewd."

"I couldn't fly you there without a lot of people asking questions."

"But you can use that Opel Kapitn, right?"

Cronley nodded.

"So you could drive me to your monastery tomorrow?"

When he didn't reply immediately, she went on: "Everybody knows I stayed here when Tony went to Vienna so I could look into the enlisted men's welfare facilities. No one would ask questions if I went there. And while I was there, perhaps the commanding officer would show me his quarters. I'd really like to have the commanding officer show me his quarters."

"Great idea, except that I'm under orders to stay here until I hear from Colonel Frade."

"Hear from him about what?"

"He didn't choose to tell me that."

"d.a.m.n."

"I would be delighted to show you my commanding officer's quarters in Pullach tomorrow."

"I really would like to tell Tony that I got into the monastery after you shot up his car to keep him out. We couldn't make a quick trip early in the morning?"

"Maybe after I hear from Colonel Frade."

"I suppose that's better than a flat-out 'h.e.l.l no, Rachel, you can't go to my monastery.'"

"I'm being charming as I have designs on your body."

Cronley then had a fresh disturbing thought: Now that I have decided-and really believe-Mrs. Colonel Schumann is really somebody I shouldn't be f.u.c.king, what's going to happen when we get upstairs? What if I can't get it up?

X.

[ ONE ].

The Dining Room Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Maximilianstra.s.se 178 Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany 0655 4 November 1945 Special Agent Friedrich Hessinger was sitting at a small table in a far corner of the dining room when Cronley walked in.

A waiter followed Cronley to the table and took their order. When he had gone, Hessinger asked, "How did it go with Mrs. Colonel Schumann last night?"

"I bought her dinner and then we went to bed."

"You weren't listening when I told you that would be dangerous?"

It took a moment for Cronley to take his meaning.

"Screw you, Freddy."

"A little joke," Hessinger said. "But you should watch what you say. You should have said, 'After dinner she went to her room. And then I went to mine.'"

"f.u.c.k you."

"You shouldn't talk to me that way. Officers are not supposed to say unkind things to enlisted men. It hurts our feelings. And then we can go to the inspector general to complain. You know our IG, right? Colonel Schumann?"

Delighted with his own wit, Hessinger was smiling broadly.

"And today what are Mrs. Colonel Schumann's plans for you?"

"I'll call her after we eat and see how I can be of service."

"Do that. We can't afford to have her p.i.s.sed at you."

- Cronley didn't think Rachel was p.i.s.sed at him, but he did suspect that the bloom had begun to come off their roses, so to speak.

After dinner, when they had gone to his room, there had been maybe ten minutes of athletic thras.h.i.+ng about on his bed, followed by maybe sixty seconds of breath-catching. Then Rachel had matter-of-factly announced that she'd better get back to her room, "Tony will probably call." She had then dressed as quickly as she had undressed and left.

That was probably, he decided, his punishment for his refusal to take her to Kloster Grnau. His reaction to her leaving had been one of relief. Although Ole Willie had answered the call of duty, the cold fact seemed to be that since he now accepted that he really shouldn't be f.u.c.king Rachel, he really didn't want to.

There were a number of reasons for this, high among them that the late Mrs. James D. Cronley Jr. had startled him by returning to his thoughts while he and Rachel were having dinner. While he didn't think the Squirt was really riding around on a cloud up there playing a mournful tune on her harp while looking down at him with tear-filled eyes as he wined, dined, and prepared to f.u.c.k a married woman who had two children-he wasn't completely sure she wasn't, either.

It had also occurred to him that maybe Rachel had also been thinking of her children, or more accurately, as herself as the mother of two children who should not be f.u.c.king a young captain. Maybe, he thought, she had for the first time really considered the consequences of their getting caught.

- "She wanted me to take the Kapitn and drive her to Kloster Grnau," Cronley told Hessinger. "She said she would love to be able to tell her husband that she got into the monastery after he couldn't."

"Taking her to Kloster Grnau would be even more stupid than taking her to bed. What did you tell her?"

"That I had been ordered to stay in Munich until I heard from Colonel Frade."

"And she believed you?"

"She didn't like it, but she believed me."

"I asked you what do you think she'll want you to do for her today?"

"Probably take her to the Pullach compound. She wants to see how the Engineers are coming with the service club."

"A lieutenant and three sergeants from the ASA in Frankfurt were on the Blue Danube last night. Major McClung sent them to install a Collins radio and a SIGABA in the compound. The lieutenant wanted to know where you wanted him to put it. I told him you would let him know."

"Where did McClung get a SIGABA and a Collins?"