“You go to the barracks and get enough men to push this airplane up beside the chapel. Then put a tarp over it so it’ll be hard to see from the air.”
The jeep driver, a sergeant, nodded, and the moment the corporal had tied down his Browning and jumped free of the jeep, turned it around and drove off.
“You can get out now, Herr Schröder,” Cronley said in German.
They set out for the headquarters building, Cronley and Dunwiddie walking side by side. Schröder walked behind them as the corporal, now cradling a Thompson submachine gun like a hunter’s shotgun, followed him.
As they approached the building, Cronley saw General Reinhard Gehlen and Oberst Ludwig Mannberg standing just outside. That made moot the question he had had in his mind about how he was going to get one or the other of them out of the mess in order to explain the situation.
Cronley also saw on Schröder’s face that he recognized one of them. Or both.
“Good afternoon, Herr Cronley,” Gehlen said courteously.
“I hope my arrival didn’t disturb your lunch, sir.”
“It did, but the sound of a Storch coming in here caused my curiosity to overwhelm my hunger.” He looked closely at Schröder. “We know one another, don’t we?”
Schröder snapped to rigid attention, clicked his heels, bobbed his head, and said, “Herr General, I had the honor of flying the general on many occasions. In Poland and the East, Herr General.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” Gehlen said. “Schröder, isn’t it?”
Schröder bobbed his head and clicked his heels again.
“Herr General, I am flattered that the general remembers.”
“We don’t do that here, Schröder,” Mannberg said. “The war is over and we are no longer in military service.”
“Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”
“And,” Mannberg added, drily sarcastic, “it would follow that since we are no longer in military service, neither do we have military rank.”
“Corporal, take our guest around the corner, please,” Cronley said, “while I have a word with these gentlemen.”
Schröder went around the corner of the building with the corporal three steps behind him.
Gehlen looked expectantly at Cronley to see what he wanted.
“General, how would you feel about Schröder joining us here?”
“In connection with that Storch he just flew in here, you mean?”
Cronley nodded.
“The Storch, and another one, is now ours,” he said.
“I think he could prove quite useful. But I suspect you have some doubt?”
“Yes, sir. You think he can be trusted?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Could you tell me why?”
“Because right now he’s wondering whether he’s going to be put to work, or be shot for having seen too much,” Gehlen explained.
Cronley thought there was a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
“Exactly what has he seen?”