his topcoat pocket. Then he knelt down and examined both men. He rose and said, “Yours is dead, too.”
Padillo looked up and down the street. It was empty. “Let’s get rid of them,” he said. He led the way to the middle of the street and then began to run, zigzagging back and forth until he found what he was looking for. It was a manhole cover—the kind that has three inch-long, half-inch-wide holes for lifting it up. Padillo took out a four-inch pocket knife, unknotted his tie, and made a small square knot around the knife. He slipped it through one of the holes in the cover, fiddled it around until it was crossways with the hole, and started to pull. The manhole cover came up an inch and I got my fingers around it and pulled until it was upright and then eased it back on the pavement.
We ran back to the Vopos and dragged them by the legs over to the manhole. We dumped them in without ceremony. Padillo went quickly back to the spot where they had asked for our papers. He took the flashlight out of his pocket and shined it around. He found their two hats and carried them over to the manhole and threw them in. Then we quietly put the cover back. Padillo slipped his knife into his pocket and reknotted his tie as we walked down the street.
I was still shaking when we got to the alley that ran behind Langeman’s garage. I wanted a drink badly and decided that I would even settle for the unlabeled potato gin that Langeman had supplied. Padillo knocked softly on the door that led to the cubicle office. It opened a crack and Max whispered Padillo’s name. Padillo replied and we went in.
“They O.K.?” Padillo asked.
“Still sleeping,” Max said.
“Close the trap door. We’ve got some things to talk about.”
Max undid the hook and eye and lowered the trap door. I sat on the desk, Padillo sat in the old swivel chair, and Max stood.
“We ran into trouble on the way back,” Padillo said. “Two Vopos asked for our papers. We dropped them down a manhole.”
Max nodded his head in approval. “They won’t find them until in the morning,” he said. “But they’ll start looking for them in an hour or two when they don’t check in.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that. Do you think you’re still clean—enough to get across to the West Sector?”
“If I could get home, shave, take a bath,” Max said. “I have the proper papers. They’re valid—not even forged.”
“The exporter’s papers?”
“Yes.”
“Did you bring the map?”
Max reached into his inside coat pocket and produced the map that we had used to trace the route of Burchwood and Symmes from the airport. It seemed that all of that had happened sometime last month. Max spread the map out on the floor. Padillo knelt beside it and ran his finger through the Kreuzberg area for a moment. “Here. This park. The one in the shape of a triangle.”
“I know it,” Max said.
“We’re coming out there—in the middle of a clump of arborvitae. There’s a tunnel from a house that’s located here.” And his finger moved to a block shaded in light tan, which indicated, according to the map, a “built-up area.”
Max tapped a finger against his lower lip. “I don’t remember that block—just the park. But the wall runs right next to the park. It almost touches its point.”
“Right,” Padillo said. “I want you to be there at five-thirty with a van: a Volkswagen panel truck will do. Park it here. Also set up a place for us to go and get in touch with Kurt’s outfit. Now you’d better write this down.”
Max produced a spiral notebook and a ball-point pen.
“Four GI uniforms,” Padillo said. “One with tech-sergeant’s stripes, one with master-sergeant’s, one with corporal’s, and one with bucksergeant’s. Get hold of two combat infantry badges.”
“What sizes?” Max asked.
“What do you take, Mac?”
“Forty-two long,” I said.
“One forty-two long, one forty regular, one thirty-eight short—you think that’ll do for Burchwood?” I nodded. “And a thirty-eight long for Symmes. And get them some shoes: they can wear ten-B. Anybody can.”
“You want this by five-thirty?” Max asked. “It can’t be done.”
“No, just get Kurt’s outfit working on it and tell them to get it to wherever they’re going to hole us up. Don’t forget the shirts—all fifteen necks and thirty-four-inch sleeves.”
“They’ve got most of this stuff already,” Max said.
“How about the identification?”
“No trouble.”
“Furlough papers?”
Max paused and thought. “We worked that once before with Passen, if you remember. We may have to cut some new orders, but maybe not. I’ll check. Fourteen-day ones?”
“Good,” Padillo said. “And four round-trip tickets to Frankfurt. Let them figure out the names, but tell him not to get clever. Just plain names like Johnson and Thompson and Miller. The kind you don’t remember.”
Max scribbled some more.
