When do I tell Mattingly?
“And afterward?”
“You’re on the twenty-one hundred MATS flight . . . we’re on the twenty-one hundred MATS flight . . . from Bethesda to Frankfurt.”
“Shit!”
“That one I understand,” Mattingly said. “It’s out of my hands, Jim.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“See you shortly.”
[ SIX ]
Main Gate
U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center & School
Camp Holabird
1019 Dundalk Avenue, Baltimore 19, Maryland
1132 26 October 1945
Marjorie kissed him when he got into the Buick.
“Well,” she said, “whatever should we do now to pass the time?”
“They called. We all have to be at the White House at three.”
She didn’t reply.
“My folks are there,” he said. “At the Hay-Adams.”
“I know. I thought I was going to have to break your mother’s legs to keep her from coming here with me. Grandpa saved me. He said, ‘Well, Virginia, I guess you are too old to remember that when you’re in love, you don’t want your mother hanging around.’”
“And then I’m on a plane at nine tonight for Frankfurt.”
“I didn’t know that. Oh God, Jimmy!”
“Yeah, oh God!”
“Well, maybe we can find a five-dollar motel between here and Washington,” Marjie said. “For a quickie.”
“They’re sending a car for me.”
“Wonderful!” she said, thickly sarcastic. Then she had a second thought. “I can’t go to the White House dressed like this. I’ll have to change!”
“Yeah. I guess.”
They locked eyes.
“I don’t know how yet,” Marjorie said, “but we’re going to find time between now and when you get on the plane.”
“God, I hope so!”
“Kiss me quick, Jimmy, before I start saying a lot of dirty words.”