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[ SIX ]
When he had taken the chart case to his room and laid its contents out on his desk, Cronley quickly saw that Army Aviators used Air Force aerial charts, and that Air Force charts were essentially identical to the civilian charts with which he was familiar.
The case also contained a “knee-pad”—a clipboard onto which a chart could be fitted under a sheet of plastic. It had a spring clip on its underside so the board could be clipped to his pant leg—and not fall off—in flight.
He spent the better part of an hour planning his flight to Eschborn, using a grease pencil to write the critical data on the plastic over the chart, and then very carefully checking everything twice.
Then he took a shower and went to bed.
He went to sleep wondering what to think of his last conversation with Orlovsky. Was he really so resigned to being shot? Or was it a case of a skilled NKGB officer being able to use that to put a young and inexperienced officer in his pocket?
That raised the question of why he was putting his nose into something that could be—and more than likely should be—handled by Gehlen, Mannberg, and Bischoff without his interference.
The Squirt was lying asleep on her side on the couch along the right side of the Beech Model 18’s cabin. She was wearing Western boots with a skirt that had come pretty high up as she moved in her sleep.
Jimmy had always found boots on girls in skirts very erotic.
He dropped to his knees and touched the Squirt’s face tenderly with his fingertips.
Her eyes opened.
“What are you doing back here and not flying?” she said.
“I have designs on your virginal body.”
“Not so virginal anymore, thanks to you. Who’s flying the plane?”
“We’re at ten thousand feet over Midland making five-minute circles on autopilot.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m horny, is what I am.”
She sighed. “Me too, now.”
They kissed.
He put his hand up her skirt.
She put her hand to the front of his trousers.
“Well, look what I found!” the Squirt said, smiling.
—
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” he said furiously as he awoke.
And then he wailed, “Oh, God!” in anguish.
And then he wept.
For a long time.
And then he went to sleep again.
IV
[ ONE ]
