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“Correct.”
“Well, there’s no way we could set up a wind sock in that field. Seven-K is going to come down that road two minutes before, or a minute after, we land. She’s not going to be able to park on that road and wait for us.”
“So we pray for winds from the North,” Schröder said, “will be satisfied with either easterly or westerly, and will hope for the best if they’re from the South.”
“Wait a minute,” Cronley said. “Ludwig, could we get a message to Seven-K, asking her to park her car, or whatever she’s driving, with the nose, the front, facing into the wind?”
Mannberg considered the question a moment.
“So you’ll know the winds on the ground?” he asked. His tone suggested he already knew the answer. “Yes,” he went on. “It’ll . . . the encryption of the message . . . will take a little doing. But yes, it can be done. And I think it should. I’ll get right on it. We don’t have much time.”
“How much time do you think we do have?” Cronley asked.
“If I had to guess, which I hate to do, I’d say Seven-K would probably want to make the transfer at first light tomorrow, or just before it gets dark tomorrow. Or—she’s very cautious—at first light the day after tomorrow. Or just before sunset the day after tomorrow.”
“Makes sense. Then, since I have nothing else to do between now and tomorrow morning, I am now going to the O Club and drink the hearty last meal to which condemned men are entitled. Would anyone care to join me?”
“Wrong,” Wallace said.
“I don’t get a hearty, liquid last meal?”
“You have plenty to do between now and tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, presuming you can get Mrs. Likharev and the boys over the border, what are you going to do with them once they are here?”
Cronley actually felt a painful contraction in his stomach, as if he’d been kicked.
“Jesus H. Christ, that never entered my mind. How could I have been so stupid?”
“Because I have been almost that stupid myself, I’m resisting the temptation to say because being stupid comes to you naturally,” Wallace said. “I thought about it, but didn’t recognize how many problems we have until Hessinger started bringing them to my attention.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Cronley repeated.
“You’ve already said that,” Wallace said. “Now, what I suggest we do is send somebody to the PX snack bar for hamburgers, hot dogs, Coke, and potato chips, which we will consume as we sit at the Ping-Pong table and discuss solutions.”
“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.
“You are appointed Recorder of this meeting, Captain Cronley, which means you will write everything down on a lined pad as we speak. We can’t afford forgetting anything again.”
“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.
He sat down at the table. Dunwiddie handed him a lined paper tablet and half a dozen pencils.
Wallace, Mannberg, and Dunwiddie sat down. Schröder and Ostrowski looked as if they didn’t know what they should do.
“Please be seated, gentlemen,” Wallace said. Then he turned to Cronley. “The floor is yours, Captain Cronley.”
“Sir, I’d rather you run this. I don’t even know where to start.”
Wallace looked at him, then opened his mouth, and visibly changed his mind about saying what immediately came to him, and then said, “At the beginning would seem to be a good place.
“Presumption One,” he began. “Both planes take off from Thuringia with everybody on board and make it back here.
“Unknowns: Condition of the aircraft and the people on board.
“Worst-case scenario: Airplanes are shot up and there are dead or wounded aboard.
