Curtain of Death (Clandestine Operations 3)

“Yes, sir,” Second Lieutenant Gregory Douglas said.

“And now that we are apparently through here, Mr. Cronley,” White said, “I presume you will get back in your illegal airplane and fly off to your monastery, and deliver a message to Hotshot Billy to get his tail back here?”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said. “But not today. That will have to wait until tomorrow. I have things to do at the Compound, and I don’t want Colonel Wilson to think I’m looking over his shoulder while he sets up the operation.”

“You know, I know that we’re pressed for time. Having said that, I’d be pleased if you—all of you—would join me at lunch.”

“Very kind of you, sir. Thank you very much.”

[ THREE ]

Kloster Grünau

Schollbrunn, Bavaria

American Zone of Occupation, Germany

1355 9 February 1946

“Everything seems to be in order,” Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson said to Captain James D. Cronley Jr. “That worries the hell out of me.”

First Sergeant Abraham Lincoln Tedworth laughed.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men . . .” Wilson began.

“Gang aft agley,” Tedworth finished for him. “But I think we have everything covered, Colonel.”

Me too, Cronley thought.

He was impressed with what Wilson and Honest Abe had set up in so little time.

There were six Constabulary jeeps lined up. Each had a BC-654 Radio Receiver Transmitter mounted in it. It would permit communication not only between the jeeps, but with Kloster Grünau, where he and Hotshot Billy would be during the operation.

The jeeps were also stuffed with sleeping bags, which Honest Abe had told them, based on his experiences in the Battle of the Bulge, were about the best way to keep warm when one was “standing around in the woods in the middle of winter with a thumb in one’s anal orifice waiting to see what was going to happen next.”

Tedworth and Wilson had also come up with stoves burning jellied gasoline—which gave off no smoke—on which the men could heat rations and reheat previously brewed coffee during the long hours they would be hiding in the forest waiting for what they were looking for to appear.

“Boots and saddles time, Colonel?” Tedworth asked.

Wilson had decided the best way to avoid suspicion about half a dozen Constabulary jeeps driving through Oberotterbach was to send the first one as soon as possible, with the others following at staggered, long intervals.

“Why not?” Wilson said, and then put his fist to his mouth and mimicked the bugle call.

Tedworth smiled, and then put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

Two of Tiny’s Troopers and the Constabulary trooper who would drive the jeep trotted up to them.

“Load up,” Tedworth ordered. The men began to load themselves and their weapons into the first jeep in the line.

The plan was that Tedworth would go to the road between Oberotterbach and the Franco-German border first, and find a place to hide the jeep about halfway down the road. He and his men would then find the best places for the other jeeps to hide, marking them by doing something to the kilometer markers along the road—putting a rock on them, or overturning them, or sweeping the snow away from them. When the arriving jeep teams were off the road, they’d contact Tedworth by radio, and then he or one of his men would meet them and show them the best place to hide.

When the others had finished cramming themselves into the jeep, Tedworth got into the front seat. He saluted and then gestured for the driver to get going.

“I guess it’s time for Schröder to fly me to face the wrath of ol’ I.D.,” Wilson said.

“I don’t think he’s pissed.”

“He’s always pissed,” Wilson said, offered Cronley his hand, and then walked to where the Storches were parked.