Winters sat down.
“Clever fellow that I am, I suspected it was you the moment I saw the West Point ring. And, of course, the wings.”
“Sir?”
“What the hell are you talking about, Jim?” Dunwiddie said, not at all pleasantly.
“You’re an intelligence officer . . . and on that subject, show Lieutenant Winters your credentials. And that’s not a suggestion, either.”
“Jesus!” Tiny said, but handed Winters his credentials folder.
“You may show that to Mrs. Winters, Lieutenant, but you are cautioned not to tell anyone what you saw.”
Mrs. Winters’s eyes widened when she examined the credentials.
“Now, where were we?” Cronley asked rhetorically. “Oh, yeah. Tell me, Captain Dunwiddie, if you were a West Pointer, and a lieutenant colonel of artillery, and an aviator, and required the services of another aviator to fly a mission . . .”
“Along the border,” Dunwiddie picked up. “That you didn’t want anybody talking about . . .”
“. . . wouldn’t you turn first to another graduate of Hudson High who was also an artilleryman?”
Dunwiddie shook his head.
“I thought you were just being a pr— giving him a hard time.”
“That thought never entered my mind,” Cronley said. “Because if he turned out to be who I thought he was, I wanted to be very nice to him, because first thing tomorrow morning he’s going to take me border-flying again. I want to see what he saw and photographed.”
“Sir, I couldn’t do that without authorization,” Winters said.
“Did Colonel Fishburn authorize the flights you already made?”
“No, sir. But—”
“A certain lieutenant colonel, whose name we shall not mention, told you it was all right, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he tell you why we were interested in the fields and back roads of Thuringia?”
“Yes, sir. He said that somebody was going to land a light airplane . . .”
“I’m one of them,” Cronley said. “Now, we can go to Colonel Fishburn, which you will note Hot—the unnamed lieutenant colonel . . . did not do . . . and show him our credentials, following which I’m sure he will tell you to take me flying down the border. But if we do that, his sergeant major will hear about it, and so will his wife, and all the girls in what Captain Dunwiddie calls the Officers’ Ladies Intelligence Network . . . which would not be a good thing.”
Lieutenant Winters looked at Cronley, expressionlessly, for twenty seconds.
Then he said, “Sir, if you’ll tell me where you’re staying, I’ll pick you up at 0530, which will give us time for a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich before we take off at first light.”
XII
[ONE]
Hangar Two
U.S. Air Force Base, Fritzlar, Hesse
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0840 19 January 1946