Lowery sit where he was, wondering what heinous new missions he was pondering that would task them to the limit.
The buzz of a phone, though muted, startled several of the senior staff officers who were close to dozing off. When they saw that it was not their phone ringing, everyone in the command booth turned this way and that to see whose phone was ringing. Only after they saw Colonel Horst Maier, the Luftwaffe liaison officer to the Military Airlift Command, pick up his phone did everyone, including Lowery, go back to their own thoughts.
Seeing that it was the encrypted direct line to the Luftwaffe's own military airlift command, Maier answered in German, 'Maier here.'
On the other end of the line he heard the familiar voice of an old classmate and fellow officer. 'Hello, Horst. This is Rudi, Rudi Poersel. Do you recognize my voice?'
Taken aback by this strange introduction, Maier frowned. 'Why of course, Rudi, I recognize your voice. What are you doing in Frankfurt? I thought?'
Poersel cut Maier's question short 'Horst, I am not in Frankfurt I am in Berlin. We have been patched into this line.' There was a pause as Maier heard his old friend take a deep breath before he continued. 'Listen, Horst. I am about to put General M. G. Gorb on the line. And believe me, this is General Gorb and I am in Berlin.'
While Maier waited for the chief of staff of the Luftwaffe to come onto the line, his surprise turned to concern. 'Colonel Maier, this is General Gorb. Do you believe me?'
Pulling the phone away from his ear, Maier stared at the receiver for a second before putting it back to his ear and acknowledging, 'Yes, General Gorb, I believe you are who you say you are. What, sir, may I do for you.'
In a hushed monotone voice, Gorb began to speak. 'This is critical. You do not have much time, and you are to tell no one where you are what you are doing. If you fail, the consequences for both the Americans at Sembach and the German people will be immeasurable. Do you understand?'
For the first time, Maier said what he was thinking. 'No, Herr General, I do not understand, but I am listening.'
'Believe me, Colonel Maier, I understand your concern at being approached like this. Unfortunately, there was no time to do things any differently. But I have been assured that you are reliable and will do what is right'
This last comment only served to heighten Maier's fears. Unable to think of anything else to say, he responded automatically. 'Of course, Herr General. You can count on me to follow your orders to the best of my abilities.'
Still in a hushed voice, Gorb continued. 'Good. That is all I ask of you. Now as soon as you hang up, you are to go to the entrance of your command and control bunker. There you are to wait for Colonel Johann Haas, commander of the 26th Parachute Brigade. Once he presents himself to you, you are to take him to General Lowery and serve as a translator. Is that clear?'
As surprising as it was to be talking to the chief of staff of the Luftwaffe at this hour, the idea of Maier finding the commander of an elite parachute unit wandering around outside his bunker in the middle of the night while such a sensitive operation was under way was incredible. 'How, Herr General, is this Colonel Haas going to make it to the bunker entrance? I myself reviewed the list of German personnel authorized to be on Sembach during this, ah, operation, and I do not recall seeing any Haas on it.'
'How Colonel Haas gains access to the American air base, Colonel, is neither your concern nor mine. You are only to meet him at the bunker entrance, get him to the American general as soon as possible, and follow Colonel Haas's orders without question, without hesitation. Those are your orders. Do you understand?'
Maier was dumbfounded. Unable to speak, he held the phone to his ear until Gorb repeated his last question with greater force than before. 'Colonel Maier, do you understand your orders?'
Without thinking, Maier responded, 'Yes, Herr General. I understand. Is that all?'
'Yes, that is all. Good luck.' With that, Gorb hung up, leaving Maier sitting there staring at the phone with a look of disbelief and thinking how stupid his last comment, 'Is that all?' had been. Damn, he thought as he looked about the room, wasn't that enough?
Maier was about to jump up and leave, then paused. If, he thought, his friend and the man who claimed to be General Gorb were calling from Berlin, he could easily find out. Picking up the phone again, he listened for it to automatically dial through. When the duty officer at the other end picked it up and identified himself, Maier asked the duty officer in Frankfurt if he could check to see if a priority call had been relayed from Berlin through their circuits to him in the last five minutes. 'I do not need to check,' the duty officer responded. 'Yes, Colonel, there was a call from the chief of staff's office. Why do you ask? Do you need to call him back? I can have the operator patch you through directly into General Gorb's office in a couple of minutes. No problem now that we know how to do that.'
For a moment Maier considered doing just that, then decided against it. 'No, that will not be necessary, thank you.'
Slowly replacing the phone receiver, Maier stared at it absentmindedly for several seconds. Finally, after convincing himself that the call had been real and the order was valid, he stood up. Tugging at the hem of his uniform blouse, he looked about the room to see if anyone was looking at him with suspicion. Satisfied that no one was paying any attention to him, Maier turned and left the command booth.
As the door closed behind Maier, the air division operations officer turned to the division intelligence officer. 'Where's he going?'
Not having noticed that anyone had left, it took the intelligence officer a couple of seconds to figure out who the operations officer was talking about. When he finally did, the intelligence officer merely shrugged. 'If he's smart, he's going to bed, like we should have an hour ago.'
Emerging from the well-lit entrance, Maier was struck by the piercing cold. Beyond the powerful beams of the security lights, he could see that the snow had stopped and that it was still dark. Actually, he corrected himself, it was dark again. A whole day had come and gone without his seeing any of it. He detested days like this when he would go into the bunker before the sun came up and wouldn't leave until it was gone. Not only did he get the feeling that he had lost a day, it compounded the depression he always experienced when working in an underground facility all day. As an officer and transport pilot in the Luftwaffe, he felt that flying was his natural element and that living in a hole in the ground was a practice best left to the Army.
He was just beginning to debate if he should go back to the doorway to wait when the figure of a man moving toward him suddenly appeared just beyond the light. Pausing, Maier watched as the figure, marching as if on parade, headed straight for him. When the sentinel on duty at the entrance also saw the figure, he came out of the warmth of his shelter, unslinging his rifle as he did so. Maier, however, raised his hand and signaled to the sentinel. 'All is in order. I have been expecting this man.'
The sentinel, caught off guard, looked at Maier, then at the figure as it continued to close on them. 'No one at the first guard post called me to tell me about anyone coming through, Colonel. I'm going to have to hold him here until I can check this out.'
Angrily Maier turned and shouted, 'We do not have time for that, airman. I will vouch for this man. He is a colonel in the German Army that your commanding general has been expecting. If there is a problem with your access roster, we will adjust it later.'
The sentinel paused, peering into Maier's eyes while he debated whether to hold the two Germans and call the commander of his relief or to accept the German colonel's story. Not that he doubted the colonel's story. From the beginning, this whole operation had been a real zoo, with scores of strange colonels and generals from the Military Airlift Command coming and going without anyone checking their credentials. All that had been necessary, for the sake of expediency, was for a regular member of the staff assigned at Sembach to verbally verify that they were okay and they were passed through. That the Germans would do the same didn't trouble the sentinel. The only thing that caused him to pause was the fact that the German Army colonel, now only a few feet from them, had come from the direction of the hangars, not along the walkway that led to the only entrance through the fence that formed an outer perimeter for the command and control bunker.
Seeing the airman's hesitation, Maier decided to push his bluff a little further. 'Is there a problem with that, airman? Or must I call General Lowery and have him personally confirm the fact that he is now waiting for Colonel Haas?'
After taking one last look at the German Army officer now standing in front of them, and then back at Maier,
