Top Secret Part 19

". . . or if I should drop out of contact for more than a day or two . . . or should something happen to me, Colonel Frade would want, would demand, an explanation."

"You've got it all figured out, haven't you? G.o.d d.a.m.n you!"

Cronley didn't reply.

Mattingly tugged a silver cigarette case from his tunic pocket, took a cigarette from it, and then lit it with a Zippo lighter.

He exhaled the smoke.

"This has gone far enough," he announced.

He took another puff and exhaled it through pursed lips.

"My mistake was in taking you into the OSS in the first place," he said thoughtfully, almost as if talking to himself. "I should have known your relations.h.i.+p with Colonel Frade was going to cause me problems. And which I compounded by sending you to Argentina with those files."

He looked into Cronley's eyes.

"So, what do I do with you, Captain Cronley? I can't leave you at Kloster Grnau thinking you're not subject to my orders."

"Was that a question, sir?"

"Consider it one."

"You can let me deal with the problem of Major Orlovsky."

"What does that mean?"

"Let me see if I can get the names of Gehlen's people who gave him those rosters."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"I don't know. But I'd like to try. And, sir, I don't think that I'm not subject to your orders. I just think you're wrong for wanting to turn the problem over to Gehlen."

"Don't you mean 'General Gehlen,' Captain?"

"Herr Gehlen has been run through a De-n.a.z.ification Court and released from POW status to civilian life. He no longer has military rank, and I think it's a mistake to let him pretend he does."

"It makes it easier for him to control his people, wouldn't you say?"

"I don't care if they call him Der Fhrer. I am not going to treat him as a general in a position to give me orders. It has to be the other way around."

"Or what?"

"You have to go along with that, or relieve me."

"Whereupon you would tell Colonel Frade why I relieved you?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what makes you think Frade wouldn't think relieving a twenty-two-year-old captain who wouldn't take orders was something I had every right to do?"

"I'll have to take that chance, sir."

Mattingly looked at him a long moment. "My biggest mistake was in underestimating your ego," he said, almost sadly. "I should have known better. Why the h.e.l.l couldn't you have stayed a nice young second lieutenant who only knew how to say 'Yes, sir' and wouldn't dream of questioning his orders?"

Cronley didn't reply.

"We seem to be back to: 'What the h.e.l.l do I do with you?'"

"You can let me see how I do with Major Orlovsky."

"My question was rhetorical, Captain Cronley. I was not asking for a reply."

"Yes, sir."

"Prefacing the following by saying that this conversation is by no means over, I'll tell you what's going to happen now. In the morning, you will return to Kloster Grnau. I'll give you a week to see what you can learn from Major Orlovsky. One week. Seven days from now, you will come back here and report to me what, if anything, you think you have learned, and offer any suggestions you might have regarding the next step."

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

"Don't entertain any illusions that you have come out on top of our little tte--tte. Whatever happens, our relations.h.i.+p in the future will be considerably less cordial than it has been in the past."

"I understand, sir."

"Now, presuming you still take some orders, I don't want you to leave this room until you get in the staff car that takes you to the airfield in the morning. There is room service. You will eat your supper and breakfast in the room. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't want you b.u.mping into Mrs. Schumann. Your first encounter with her ended without anything untoward happening. I want to keep it that way."

"Yes, sir."

Mattingly got out of his chair and left the suite without saying another word.

Cronley looked at the closed door, and then wondered aloud, "Why the h.e.l.l couldn't I have stayed a nice young second lieutenant who only knew how to say 'Yes, sir' and wouldn't dream of questioning my orders?"

Then he walked into the bathroom to meet the call of nature.

[ SIX ].

When Cronley came back into the sitting room, he pushed the curtains on the French doors aside and looked out. It was drizzling, a precursor, he thought, of the bad weather moving in. Defying the drizzle, four golfers were walking down the fairway with their caddies trailing after them.

He let the curtain fall back, having remembered that there was room service.

A little celebratory Jack Daniel's is in order for the prisoner in Room 112.

After that confrontation with Mattingly, while things are certainly not ginger-peachy, Mattingly knows he can't let Gehlen's men shoot Orlovsky. At least right away.

He had just picked up the telephone when there was a knock at his door.

s.h.i.+t! Mattingly's back with something devastating to say to me.

He swung open the door.

Mrs. Colonel Schumann was standing there.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Aren't you going to ask me in?"

"Mrs. Schumann, I don't think that's a very good idea."

"Would you prefer that I cause a scene in the corridor?"

He backed away far enough for her to enter, leaving the door open.

She glanced at it. "If you leave the door open, someone's likely to see me in here."

"I don't think us being in here behind a closed door is a very good idea."

She moved quickly around him and slammed the door closed.

"I have no more interest in getting caught doing this than you do."

"Ma'am, I think you've had a little too much to drink."

"Just enough to find the courage to do this."

She advanced on him. He retreated until his back was against the door.

Jesus, she's going to grope me!

"Shut up and kiss me," she ordered. "And for G.o.d's sake, Jimmy, stop calling me 'ma'am.'"

She raised her face to his.

And then she groped him.

[ SEVEN ].

1405 30 October 1945 Why do I really not want to open my eyes?

Maybe I'm thinking that if I just lie here keeping them closed I won't have to face what I just did.

Cronley felt Mrs. Schumann's fingers on his face and opened his eyes.

She was beside him in the bed, supporting herself on an elbow, looking down at him.

"What did you do, doze off?" she asked.

She had a sheet and blanket over her shoulders, but they did not conceal her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her stomach, or her large patch of black pubic hair.

"What we just did wasn't smart," he said.

"Probably not. But we did it, and we can't take it back."

He looked at her, and then away, and now he saw their clothing scattered between the bed and the door to the sitting room.

"So tell me about those sad eyes," she said.

He didn't reply.

"They're what attracted me to you. So tell me."

"You really want to know?"

"I really want to know."

"Okay. The day after we eloped, my wife was killed when a drunk hit her head-on with his sixteen-wheeler."

"Oh, Jimmy, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah."

"When did this happen?"

"Five days ago. No, four."

"I don't believe that. And if you think you're being amusing, you're not."

"Boy Scout's Honor, Mrs. Schumann. And if you don't believe that, try this on for size: That same afternoon, the President of the United States, the Honorable Harry S Truman, pinned the Distinguished Service Medal, and captain's bars, on me. And at nine o'clock-excuse me, let's keep this military-at twenty-one hundred hours that same night, Colonel Mattingly and I got on the plane that brought us back here."

"My G.o.d, you're telling me the truth!"