The co-pilot, Lieutenant Samuels, with his head half turned, shouted from the cockpit, "We’re passing fifteen thousand now! Time to go to oxygen! Twelve minutes to DZ!"
Grant gave a thumb's up. He and Adler put on their rubber aviator masks, adjusted the straps and turned on the O2. The last thing they did was secure their rucksacks to the D-rings attached to their reserve chutes. Minutes later they were standing by the open door. The weather was on their side, bringing in heavy cloud coverage that would prevent the possibility of moonlight giving them away as they made their drop. They looked out into the night, unable to see above or below as the chopper passed through a thick cloud bank. They grabbed hold of the overhead as the chopper was buffeted by air turbulence.
"Get ready for my signal!" Samuels yelled and held his fist in the air, ready to count down.
Grant quickly glanced at his wrist altimeter. His eyes shot back to Samuels' hand, anticipating the ‘go’ sign. The light went green just as Samuels pointed toward the door and shouted, "Go!"
Adler and Grant left the door in unison, diving head first into nothing but space, arching their backs to attain a good tracking position. With their arms and legs out slightly, they shot through the cold, damp clouds, traveling at nearly 130 miles an hour.
Grant eyed the backup altimeter on the top of his reserve chute. He maneuvered farther away from Adler, getting ready for chute deployment. At 13,000 feet he took another bearing on Adler. As they broke through the clouds at nine thousand feet, they popped their chutes simultaneously. Glancing over his shoulder, Grant spotted Adler swinging in his harness no more than fifty yards away. The ram air chutes floated them gently into the wind as both men checked their coordinates to make the LZ.
Grant tried focusing on the ground as he pulled on the toggles. Come on, come on! Where the hell are you? Somewhere in the surrounding area was supposed to be the signal light. His altimeter showed 5,000 feet. They had gone almost two horizontal miles when he began to pick up three faint white lights showing up off to his right, a little between him and Adler. Joe signaled that he'd seen them, too.
Thanks again, old friend, Grant smiled as he watched the lights on Manfred's farm guiding them in. It was the same as last time — three lights in the shape of the letter L.
Spotting the two jumpers moments before they hit the ground, Manfred extinguished the small lights on the roof of his house, then cautiously climbed down the ladder. Grant and Adler both did a standing landing within twenty yards of one another in the north corner of a plowed field. They quickly unhooked and began figure-eighting their shroud lines.
Manfred hobbled over to them. His left knee was riddled with arthritis, stemming from an injury received during World War II. He patted Grant on the back. "So, Captain, we meet again, and sooner than we both expected. And this time you've brought company, I see."
Grant gathered up his chute. "Manfred, this is Joe Adler."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Adler said, peering over an armful of black parachute silk. He used the shroud lines to tie the chute into a tight package.
"So, did Herr Captain promise you anything special for making the trip with him, Joe?"
Deep creases formed in Adler's smiling, rugged face. "We've yet to work that out, sir." After a brief pause, he winked and added, "But he knows I won't forget!"
They stored their gear in the safe room under the shed and changed their clothes. "Come then," Manfred said as he motioned with his arm, "I have some food for you in the kitchen."
"Maybe we'd better just stay in the safe room, Manfred," Grant replied, ever wary.
"No, no. It will be all right. At this late hour it is unlikely we will have to worry."
Grant gave a half smile. "You know I don't like surprises."
The hinges squeaked as Manfred opened the solid wood front door covered with scratches. A panel at the bottom had turned a weathered gray color. Dampness pervaded the small house, partly from lack of sufficient heat. One source of heat was an inefficient, small coal burning fireplace in the living room.
"Wait here," the elderly man said as he closed the door. A moment later he returned with a lighted kerosene lamp. Dark curtains had already been drawn across windows. Manfred removed his cap, revealing silver hair that curled over the tops of his ears. He handed the lamp to Grant as he hung the gray cap on a peg next to the door then took off his gray tweed jacket. "Come into the kitchen," he said as he reached for the lamp. The dim light cast eerie shadows across the walls, ceiling and meager furnishings in the kitchen as Manfred led the two men toward the kitchen table. Motioning towards the chairs he said, "Sit down, sit down.”
The two Americans complied, pulling out straight-backed wooden chairs from beneath a wobbly, hand-hewn table. Grant unzipped his leather jacket part way, then pulled out a sealed paper bag, putting it in the center of the table. "Thought you might need a refill, Manfred."
The old German picked up the bag of his favorite Chase & Sanborn coffee and brought it close to his nose. He inhaled the contents' aroma. "Ahh. Your timing could not be more perfect, Captain! Danke." He lifted the kettle from the stove and placed it on a metal trivet. "Help yourselves, my friends, and I will make some of this wonderful coffee. You will eat, warm up, and then we will talk."
Adler looked at Grant as if to ask, "Where the hell did you get that coffee?"
Grant used the ladle and spooned steaming porridge into chipped, blue pottery bowls. "Coffee's one of the premium luxuries here, Joe; costs almost as much as a bike." He winked, adding, "The Embassy cook is Fritz Landen. He was President Kennedy's old yacht chef. He assured me the staff will never miss it."
The porridge was hot and sweetened with honey. Adler ate two bowls, grateful Manfred had insisted. Grant made a note to himself to leave some East German Marks for the old man, even though he anticipated there'd be protesting.
He pulled back his jacket sleeve just enough to be able to see his watch. At 0530 hours he had to make contact with Torrinson.
After freshening up their coffee, Manfred placed the pot back on the wood burning stove and asked enthusiastically, "So, my friends, how can I help?"
"Manfred, does the name 'Greta Verner' wouldn't happen to ring a bell, would it?" The more he had thought about Lampson's relationship with the woman, the more his instincts started to set off a distant alarm. At the moment he couldn't explain why it was trying to warn him.
The old man shook his head. "No. Who is she?" Grant responded, keeping the explanation brief, and then Manfred said, "These are strange, difficult times, Captain. It is understandable why so many of the young people do what they do. Lampson was an intelligent man and held a prestigious position at the university. Perhaps she saw a way to lift herself out of the mire. Who knows?"
Adler leaned forward, his blue eyes staring at Grant as he pointed a finger at him. "Yeah, or just maybe she had a deeper ulterior motive."
The distant alarm suddenly sounded loudly in Grant's head. "Think you may be onto something, Sherlock. It might be a long shot, but, shit! It's all we've got right now." It was obvious the two men were heading down the same path, one of the reasons they worked so well as a team.
"Of course," Adler said, "if that's the case, why the hell wouldn't she have protected herself, you know, taken the pill or something? The kids couldn't have been part of the plan, if there was a plan."
"I didn't go into that with Lampson, but it's possible she could've been taking it. I don't think those things are completely foolproof." Grant slowly held up his hand, with the palm facing Adler. "Wait a minute, Joe, wait a minute. I know this'll sound like it's coming out of left field, but what if, and I do mean a big what if, the kids aren't Lampson's?"