Top Secret Part 39

The major saluted.

"Good afternoon," Clete said, crisply returning it, then addressed Jimmy: "We're running late. Where's the car?"

"I don't know, Colonel," Cronley said.

"Well, Major?" Frade demanded. "Where is it?"

"Sir, I don't know anything about a car," the major said.

"You did know we were coming, correct?"

"No, sir."

"My G.o.d, Mr. MacNamara!" Clete snapped to Jimmy. "Can't the Army do anything right? Does General Tedworth expect me to walk to the Vier Jahreszeiten? Find a phone somewhere and get General Tedworth on the line. If he's not available, I'll talk to General Dunwiddie."

"Yes, sir," Cronley said.

The major looked up from his clipboard and quickly said, "Colonel, we can get you a car. No problem."

"Please do so," Frade said. "And quickly. You heard me say we're running late. And when I come back here very early tomorrow morning, I expect my aircraft to be ready to go. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. No problem, Colonel."

The major's face showed that he was not going to ask any questions about the Storch. Colonel Frade turned his back to the major and winked at Captain Cronley.

"Take not counsel of your fears," he announced. "I believe General Patton said that, so you might wish to write it down."

[ FOUR ].

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Maximilianstra.s.se 178 Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1745 2 November 1945 Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger, wearing pinks and greens, intercepted Cronley and Frade as they headed for the elevators in the lobby of the hotel.

Elegant as usual, Cronley thought. The only thing missing is the blond-or two blonds-he usually has hanging on to his arms.

"Colonel Mattingly and the others are waiting for you in the bar, Captain Cronley," he announced.

"Colonel, this is Special Agent Hessinger," Cronley said. "Freddy, this is Colonel Frade."

"It is my pleasure, Colonel," Hessinger said.

His accent was so thick that Frade, without thinking about it, replied in German.

"And mine. Who are the others?"

Hessinger recited: "General and Mrs. Greene, Colonel and Mrs. Schumann, Major and Mrs. McClung, Captain and Mrs. Hall, and Major Wallace, sir."

"Wonderful!" Frade said sarcastically. "This should be lots of fun!"

Hessinger gave him a strange look.

"Lead on, Herr Hessinger," Frade ordered.

- "Well, everybody's here," General Greene greeted them cordially.

"And about time, too," Mrs. Greene interrupted. "Mr. Hessinger and I want to get to the English Garden before everything is gone." She smiled at Hessinger. "Don't we, Mr. Hessinger?"

Hessinger had told Cronley about the English Garden. It was in the famous Munich park that Germans swapped silverware, crystal, paintings, et cetera, with the Americans for cartons of Chesterfields, Hershey bars, and Nescafe. It was officially illegal, but no one seemed to care.

Hessinger, who had apparently been drafted as interpreter for the general's lady, smiled wanly back.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Everybody knows everybody else, right?" General Greene asked.

Frade did not know Major Wallace. That introduction was made.

Chairs were produced for Frade and Cronley. They sat down.

"We were beginning to worry," General Greene went on, when they had taken their seats. "I gather you drove from the monastery?"

"No, sir," Frade said. "We flew. I'm going to have to fly to Frankfurt first thing in the morning, so we came by Storch."

"Mattingly and I were just discussing those German airplanes, the Storches, clearing up the mystery, so to speak," Greene said, smiling broadly.

"What mystery is that, sir?" Frade asked.

"It was something right out of an Abbott and Costello routine. You know, 'Who's on first?'" Greene said. "I got a call from an Air Force colonel several days ago demanding to know why a stork with Twenty-third CIC painted on its tail had just taken off from Eschborn. I thought maybe he was drunk, so I said if this was one of those 'Why does a chicken cross the road?' jokes, I didn't have the time for it.

"That p.i.s.sed him off, so he said I would be hearing from someone else in the Air Force. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later an Air Force two-star is on the phone. This one I knew. Tommy Wilkins. Good guy. We were at the War College together.

"'Paul,' he says, 'what's your version of the encounter you just had with my guy?'

"So I told him, ending that with 'Tommy, I didn't even know what the h.e.l.l he was talking about. A stork with Twenty-third CIC painted on its tail?'

"Whereupon Tommy grows very serious. 'Hypothetical question. If I asked you why the CIC is flying Storch aircraft around after we've grounded them, you couldn't answer because it's cla.s.sified and I'm not cleared for that, right?'

"That was the first I realized his colonel had been talking about an airplane, not that big bird that brings babies . . ."

Frade and McClung laughed out loud.

". . . and the first time I realized he had said Twenty-third CIC had been painted on the tail of the big bird which had just delivered a baby to Eschborn . . ."

Everyone at the table but Mrs. Greene was now either laughing or giggling.

". . . and that suggested our own Colonel Robert Mattingly was involved, so I rose to the occasion and said, 'Tom, that about sums it up.'

"To which he replied, 'I thought it had to be something like that. Sorry he bothered you. I'll turn him off. Your storks are free to fly.'"

"General," Frade said, "thank you very much. Cronley says he needs the Storches. What they are, sir, is sort of super Piper Cubs. Among other advantages, you can get-actually, stuff-three people in them. You can get only two in a Cub."

"When can I go to the English Garden?" Mrs. Greene inquired.

"Well, now that Colonel Frade has flown in in his stork," General Greene said, "we can sort things out. What I suggest, dear, is that Mr. Hessinger drop Major Wallace at the bahnhof, then take you to the English Garden. What's departure time of the Blue Danube, Wallace?"

"Twenty-twenty, sir."

"I figured someone should be holding down the shop in the Farben Building, since we're all here, and Wallace volunteered," General Greene explained.

"I'm tempted to get on the train with him," Frade said. "But I really should have a look at Pullach, even in the dark."

"Not a problem, Colonel," Major Wallace said. "The engineers are working around the clock. The site is covered with floodlights."

"How many of you ladies are going with Grace?" Greene asked.

"I'll pa.s.s," Rachel said. "I'm too tired to do all that walking. Can I go to Pullach?"

"Certainly."

"And I'll go with Rachel," Mrs. McClung announced. "You can find some wonderful things in the English Garden but I want to see Pullach."

"You can see Pullach in the morning," Mrs. Greene proclaimed. "Come with me."

So you, Mrs. McClung, Cronley thought unkindly, can carry whatever she swaps her Chesterfields and Hershey bars for that exceeds Freddy's carrying capacity.

"What would you like Mary-Beth and me to do, General?" Captain Hall asked.

Mrs. Greene answered for her husband: "You two can come with me. There is safety in numbers."

"To further complicate things," Frade said, "I'd hoped to have a private word with you, General, and Colonel Mattingly. When can you fit that into our schedule?"

"Okay," General Greene said. "Munich Military Post gave me a staff car . . ."

"Only because I insisted that Captain Hall call down here and get you one," Mrs. Greene interrupted.

". . . a requisitioned old Packard limousine," Greene went on. "It has a window between the front and back seats. You, Mattingly, and I can have that private chat on our way to Pullach. And back. And there's a car here, right?"

"Two, sir," Major Wallace said. "We have a Kapitn and an Admiral."

"Captain Cronley's in special agent mode," Greene said, pointing to the blue U.S. triangles on Cronley's lapels, "so he can drive the Schumanns in one of them. The Schumanns and Major McClung." He paused. "Okay? The only question seems to be where are all these cars?"

"Yours is outside, General," Major Wallace said. "The others are in the bas.e.m.e.nt garage."

"Let's get this show on the road," Greene said. "Otherwise it'll be midnight before we get to eat. Go get the cars. We'll meet in front."

[ FIVE ].

Cronley pulled up the Opel Kapitn behind the Packard in front of the hotel as a natty sergeant took the cover off a red plate with a silver star in its center mounted on the rear b.u.mper. The sergeant then scurried to the side of the car and opened the door for General Greene, Mattingly, and Frade.

Cronley found the limousine fascinating. He couldn't identify the year, but guessed it was at least ten years old. It looked like something a movie star would own, and he wondered who it had belonged to, and how it had survived the war looking as if it had just come off the showroom floor.

It was only when the pa.s.senger door started to open that he wondered if he was supposed to have jumped out and opened the door as the sergeant had on the Packard. He looked to see who was getting in.

"I'll ride in front with Jim," Rachel announced to her husband and Major McClung, "and leave the backseat for you two."

The Packard moved off. Jimmy followed it.

Rachel's left hand slid from her lap and into Jimmy's.

When she didn't find what she was looking for, she s.h.i.+fted on the seat, looked into the backseat, and innocently asked, "How far is this place?"

"About twenty miles," Iron Lung McClung boomed.

Rachel's right hand, searching for what she wanted, found it, arranged it so that she could find it again with her left hand when she had turned back on the seat, and then did so.

Two minutes later, his crotch becoming uncomfortably tight, Jimmy pushed her hand away. She caught his hand and moved it to her knee, then put her hand back on his crotch.

What the h.e.l.l? Her husband's three feet away!

If she keeps this up . . .

As if she had read his mind, she took her hand off him, then pushed his hand away from her knee, and finally folded her hands together in her lap. And then she chuckled.

- About a half hour later, the Packard braked so suddenly that Cronley almost ran into it.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Iron Lung McClung boomed from the backseat.

"We've been stopped," Jimmy reported.

He could see there was a barrier-two-by-fours laced with concertina barbed wire-across the road. Four men armed with U.S. Army .30 caliber carbines had approached the Packard. They appeared to be wearing U.S. Army fatigue uniforms that had been dyed black.

This won't take long, Cronley decided.

Generals generally get to go wherever they want to go.