“Marshal Earp?” General Gehlen asked.
“He was a famous American cowboy, General,” Mannberg said.
“A U.S. Marshal,” Cronley corrected him. “In the Arizona Territory before it became a state. He and his brothers and a dentist named Doc Holliday were involved in—I should say won—a famous gunfight in the O.K. Corral in Tombstone.”
“Actually, it wasn’t in the O.K. Corral, but near it,” Tiny further clarified.
Gehlen, Mannberg, and Schröder obviously had no idea what they were talking about.
“Ready to go flying, Kurt?” Cronley said.
Schröder stood.
Cronley handed him the zipper jacket Lieutenant Colonel Wilson had given him.
“Put this on,” he ordered. “If we find ourselves in the hands of the MPs or anyone else asking questions, your answer is you are under orders to answer no questions without the permission of Colonel Robert Mattingly, deputy commander, Counterintelligence, European Command. Got it?”
Schröder nodded, and then repeated, as if to fix it in his memory, “Colonel Robert Mattingly, deputy commander, Counterintelligence, European Command.”
“That’s it,” Cronley confirmed, and then turned to General Gehlen. “When I get back, I want to see our guest.”
Gehlen nodded.
[ THREE ]
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1705 29 October 1945
The machine gun jeeps were already moving off the road when Cronley made his first pass over Kloster Grünau. He decided they had seen—or heard—the Storch approaching.
When he turned and made his approach, he saw that a small convoy—a lead machine gun jeep, the Opel Kapitän, two GMC 6×6 trucks, and a trailing machine gun jeep—was lined up on the road from Kloster Grünau.
Tiny’s ready to go, he thought. Why not? It’s a long ride to Sonthofen and back.
Only two trucks; Schröder must have told him he wouldn’t need four.
And then his attention was abruptly brought back to what he was doing—flying.
He was far to the left of the runway; winds had blown him off his intended track.
Well, I guess we’re going to need a windsock.
He corrected his approach and touched gently down where he had originally intended to land.
Not bad, Eddie Rickenbacker!
Especially for someone who professes to hate flying.
Who are you kidding? You love flying and re
ally missed it.
He completed the landing roll, turned the Storch, and taxied to the convoy at the end of the runway. He saw Tiny and Schröder get out of the Kapitän.