The Proxy Assassin (19 page)

Stela Varadja didn't add ‘Just like all you men' but Frank Wisner and I heard it just the same.

Her point about collaborators in the cities was well taken. Had she made it earlier I might have rejected Dragomir's plea for gold and munitions. Stela and I could have doped out another way to smuggle her and the boy king to freedom.

And what way was that, Schroeder? Wisner might well have dispatched a plane to retrieve me, but in Stela's mind, Frank would never permit his former mistress to climb aboard. The Vampire Princess was right. She took her only way out.

I could see Frank Wisner sorting through all this in his lawyerly way. He couldn't turn Stela over to the authorities for prosecution. And he wouldn't return the mother of his son to Communist Romania. In the words of Bill Harvey he was ‘a gentleman of the old school in the wrong line of work.'

“London will remain your destination,” said Wisner finally. He gestured for Stela to come and stand before him. She did so, eyes downcast, the humble penitent.

Ha.

“I will arrange for you a small apartment and a job to pay for it. A menial job. You will have no telephone privileges and your mail will be opened.”

“I will have minder?”

“Yes,” replied Wisner, icily, “but you're used to that. I will see to it that young Vlad is properly educated, at schools of my choosing. And if you keep to the straight and narrow for a number of years, I might consider giving you an employment opportunity.”

“Thank you, Frank,” said Stela, barely audible.

“Get
some sleep, we leave first thing.”

Princess Stela Varadja whispered down the hall in that ballet dancer way she had, her feet barely touching the ground. And why not? She had won, Sorin Dragomir had lost.

I was reminded of one of Wild Bill Donovan's pithy maxims. ‘There is bad intelligence, but there are no bad sources.' We don't deal in good and evil, in other words, just truth and fiction.

Frank Wisner would find a way to use Stela's considerable skills. She wasn't a Commie rat after all. Princess Stela was an all-purpose rat.

I
staggered into the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel more dead than alive after a Rome to Paris to London to Shannon to Gander to New York to Washington D.C. crossing. Three days and nights in the sweaty embrace of ‘the romance of winged flight.' Give me a stateroom on a liner every time.

The pigskin valise that Wisner provided before I left Rome contained new socks and underwear, a black wool topcoat and a shiny new set of lock picks. All the necessary
accoutrement
for the young-man-about-town.

Plus a gun. Wisner included the Civil War Cavalry Officer's Remington .44 he had given to Captain Dragomir who had then loaned it to me.

I got it back. Wisner said I'd earned it.

I checked in at the front desk. “Welcome, Mr. Schroeder, we've been expecting you.” I signed the ledger and gave the bell captain a buck to see to my suitcase.

Then I crossed the lobby to the Towne and Country Lounge, lust in my heart. The joint was jumping at four o'clock in the afternoon. Reporters cadging free drinks from press flacks most likely. The big election was only days away.

I searched out Winston behind the bar. He made brief eye contact, looked skyward, made more eye contact. Something was up, report to my room.

I sighed and trudged off to the bank of elevators. My room key read 640, same as before. Made sense. The spy suite, swept for mikes on a regular basis. No doubt Bill Harvey was waiting to interrogate me, sitting on my bed with a bag of doughnuts.

But the bed was unoccupied when I opened the door.

“Welcome home” said the last man in the world I expected to see. He was seated in the club chair by the window. Major General William J. Donovan.

“Thank
you, sir.”

“How was your journey?”

“Very long, sir.”

He nodded. “Worst part of the job, travel, never cared for it. But it gives you time to think.”

The great man had changed in the two years since I'd seen him. The wide-set eyes now a bit sunken, a slight tremor in his voice that hadn't been there before. Hair white as snow. I made small talk, asked him what he had been up to.

He rattled off news about a bunch of private initiatives, Committees to Save This and That. I didn't listen very closely, I could tell his heart wasn't in it. Retirement from active duty did not suit Wild Bill Donovan.

Our conversation was interrupted by a ringing phone. I hesitated.

“Answer it,” said Donovan.

I did. It was Winston.

“I took the liberty of sending up a pitcher of Manhattans and a tray of hors d'oeuvres, Mistah Hal. I wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you, Winston, well done.” A waiter wheeled in the goodies not thirty seconds later.

General Donovan declined a cocktail. I suppose it was rude of me to pour one for myself but Carrie Nation and her hatchet couldn't have stopped me at that point. I was keen to tell him about my recent cockeyed mission but Donovan closed that door before I could open it.

“We can't discuss your trip.”

“But sir…”

Donovan held up his hand. “I was a civilian in '46 as well, yes. But it's different now. There are competent people in charge, professionals. They deserve your silence.”

Frank Wisner worked for Wild Bill during the war. Sounded to me like this was Donovan's laying on of hands.

“Would you like a bite, sir?”

I wheeled the tray over. Not a cucumber sandwich in sight. Donovan helped himself to a pickled egg and a handful of beer nuts. Apparently he and Winston had done this before.

“Did you know that your father worked for me?”

I was shocked to silence.

“He was a translator on my office staff during the Great War. I barely knew him at the time but he did me a service later on.”

I backed up and sat on the edge of the bed. Donovan crossed his legs and laced his hands behind his head.

“I was not a popular choice for OSS Chief on the Hill. Congress wanted someone more ‘sophisticated' to better cozy up to the British gentry of MI6. They didn't want a dumb Mick in other words. If I wanted a serious budget from Ways and Means I had to impress the bastards going in. Your father helped me do that.”

“Sir, my father runs a candy store in Youngstown, Ohio.”

“Is that right? I never knew what he did for a living.” The old lion pointed to the pitcher. I poured him one. He took a sip and continued.

“Your father had been brought along to some German Bund meetings by his brother. He didn't take them seriously, a chance for married men to get out of the house and drink beer.

But the meetings after Pearl Harbor turned serious. They had, your old man soon discovered, a fundraising network that stretched from Pittsburg to Chicago. And safe houses, hidden boat docks on Lake Erie.”

Donovan leaned forward, took another nip, sat back. “Two days before my scheduled testimony I received his registered letter. And it was my distinct pleasure to reveal this network of fifth columnists to a closed session of the House Ways and Means Committee.”

And the old man never said a word about it. I was beaming ear to ear when Wild Bill dropped the hammer.

“Allen Dulles wants a favor.”

I was
flattered of course. The top guns of OSS teaming up to ask a favor of little ol' me. But I'd been asked favors before and they generally led to a lowering of my life expectancy. I wasn't going back out again. Not for Wild Bill, Allen Dulles or Abe Lincoln back from the grave.

But it wasn't like that.

“Allen knows politics better than I do and it's all politics now. He thinks Dewey is vulnerable since Truman got religion on the Red Menace. Dewey's camp is planning a big rally in the VFW Hall on the Sunday before election day, with the hero of the Berlin airlift as the guest of honor.”

“Captain Candybar?”

Donovan nodded. “Dulles told Dewey's campaign manager that you'd make a nice addition to the rally.”

Me?

“It would be the end of your career as a field agent of course. Do you still have ambitions in that regard?”

“Not a one, sir.”

Donovan grunted. “Yes, it's different now.”

I asked if Frank Wisner knew about this request for me to appear at a political rally.

“No. The Chief of OPC doesn't get involved in politics.”

“Not in this country anyway.”

A pause, then a bark
of laughter from Wild Bill.

“You can tell Frank I put the arm on you. And you have my word that no mention of your latest…adventure will be made.”

Donovan wasn't as out of the loop as he let on. And could be Wild Bill wasn't completely sold on Wisner's professionalism. It wasn't a ‘mission' or an ‘operation.' It was an ‘adventure.'

I didn't ask about my end. There's always a payoff in politics, provided the front-runner stayed that way. I told the General I would give it a go.

Donovan's request answered a nagging question. Why had Frank Wisner gone to all the trouble and expense of my frantic
six-legged plane trip when a train to Naples and a leisurely ocean crossing would have done just as well?

Bill Donovan nibbled his drink and stared out the window. I couldn't imagine what else he might have to say.

“You father traveled to D.C. in November of '44, waited in my office all day,” said the General after a time. “He demanded to know if you were still alive and when you were coming home, insisted your tour of duty had expired. I said you were still alive to the best of my knowledge. And I told him why we hadn't brought you home on schedule.”

“Why was that, sir?”

“We were too close to victory. And you were too damn effective.”

And with that Wild Bill Donovan got up, shook my hand and walked out the door.

I poured myself a second Manhattan and mulled it over. Hard to believe that jolly-jolly Uncle Jorg was a fifth columnist, though I did recall long silences around the dinner table in those days. Mom wiping a tear for no reason, Uncle Jorg no longer a weekend visitor. Then a brick through the front window late one night. Dad was already sweeping up when I got there. ‘Some drunk,' was all he said.

I eyed the telephone on the desk. I owed my parents a phone call. I've been putting it off because Mom had been pestering me. ‘Even your crazy kid sister settled down and got married.'

I would call them after the rally. It was time to cash in my chips – intel analyst or field agent instructor. A grown-up job. Then I'd call ‘em.

I wasn't a total shit. I picked up the phone and dictated a telegram, telling Ma and Pa Schroeder I had returned to D.C. in one piece and would call soon.

My suite at
the Mayflower had a dressing area off the bathroom with a full-length mirror. I had checked my dress-up duds with the bell captain before my trip. They were hanging in my closet when I returned, cleaned and pressed.

I stood in front of the mirror for a longer time than I'd care to admit, trying to decide whether to wear my black suit with the narrow lapels that made me look like a small town mortician. Or my double-breasted navy blue blazer with fake brass buttons that made me look like an insurance salesman out for a big night.

Captain Candybar would doubtless be turned out in his dress blues, a silver oak leaf cluster gleaming on his chest.

I chose the black suit with a white shirt and blue tie with red polka dots.

The Dewey rally started at seven. I went down to the Towne and Country Lounge about five-thirty but Winston was not in residence. Just as well. Much as I craved strong drink I had a beer and a quick bite instead, then walked the six extra-long blocks to the VFW Hall on Vermont Ave.

I was still the ‘Hero of Mahlendamm Bridge.' No reports of my disastrous trip to Romania had made the press. Goings-on in Transylvania were well down the list of pressing concerns for Americans in November of 1948.

The hall was cavernous. Men were already trickling in, mostly Great War vets with enameled corp and regiment pins on their caps. The curtain was down, the proscenium hung with red, white and blue bunting and a big Dewey-Warren banner. To the left of the stage stood three newsreel cameras flanked by floodlights.

A
tall man who looked as if he'd lived the last fifty years on nothing but cigs and black coffee hurried up to me.

“You Schroeder?” he said, his breath strong as a train trestle. I nodded. “I'm Al, been a change of plans.”

“Oh?”

“You and the Captain were s'posed to grin, wave and go. But the newsies wanna talk to da heroes. So we agreed to a brief Q&A. General interest, where you're from and whatnot.”

“They're going to want to know why I'm supporting Dewey. And I don't know diddly about his foreign policy.”

“Here's all you need to know: Governor Dewey loves America, Governor Dewey hates Communism. And you think that a Dewey Administration – a
President
Dewey, is the best choice to preserve America's freedom and liberty.”

“What the difference?”

“Heh?”

“Between freedom and liberty.”

Al shut his eyes and opened them again. “Don't be a smartass.”

He gave me a quick once over. “We'll get you a decent tie. Makeup's in the green room,” he said, shoving me down the aisle toward the stage.

Makeup?

I wandered around backstage until a stagehand pointed me toward a small room in the corner. The door was open. Captain Candybar sat on a stool, his back to the dressing mirror. He had a paper bib around his neck as a frizzy-haired girl patted his chiseled mug with pancake makeup.

It was a difficult situation in which to radiate manly self-assurance but the Captain managed it. He looked like a hero – wavy blond hair and a dimpled chin you could park a twenty-five cent piece in.

“Pull up a stool, Schroeder,” he said. “You're next.”