Death at Nuremberg (Clandestine Operations 4)

“Let’s say this American tourist has a passport identifying him as a tourist, which satisfied the Austrian authorities when he landed at Schwechat. In his private airplane—”

“That black Storch with identification marks that can’t be read from twenty feet,” Wangermann said. “I should have guessed that was yours.”

“And let’s say this nice Jewish lady told this American tourist that she had a problem. This got to the American tourist because he had been a Boy Scout, and there is nothing that makes a Boy Scout happier than when he is able to help a nice old lady. To get across the street, for example, or to get her puppy out of Austria and into another country even if the puppy didn’t have the proper papers to satisfy the authorities.

“Now, hypothetically, of course, if the American tourist had arranged for the nice old lady and her pooch to get discreetly out of Austria and into another country, she would not have had to appeal to Walter Wangermann for asylum and Walter would have been able to look the Soviet member of the Quadripartite Commission in the eye and declare, ‘I don’t know nothing about no Jewish lady and her dachshund.’”

“And what would you have done, Captain Strasbourger, if the NKGB had wanted the nice old Jewish lady so bad they tried to take you down in the lobby of the hotel? Or on the sidewalk?”

“Shot back,” Cronley said. “But I thought it was worth the risk. They like the odds in their favor. I didn’t think they’d have more than four bad guys. We had eight of Wasserman’s people, plus Tom, Charley, Oskar, and me.”

Wangermann considered that a moment, and then asked, “So she’s out of Austria?”

Cronley nodded.

“To where?”

“If I told you that, you wouldn’t be able to say, ‘I have no idea where this woman you’re talking about is.’”

Wangermann nodded.

“Bruno,” he ordered, “tell him what you know about Zielinski.”

Holzknecht chuckled as he gathered his thoughts.

“As I said before, Captain Cronley, he’s having a good time losing a lot of your money and being consoled by our ladies of the evening. This, if he shows up at the Viktoria Palast as he usually does between eight and eight-thirty, will be his fifth night there. On the second night, he won a bundle, but on the other nights he lost. Heavily. He has spent every night—actually every morning after three or four a.m.—with a different whore.”

“At this place? At the Viktoria Palast?”

“No. It’s not a brothel. He goes with them. And that’s what’s made it difficult—impossible—to surveil him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The girls use private apartments—not theirs, apartments of ordinary people down on their luck who really need the money—or the carton of cigarettes, pound of coffee—the girls give them for the use of a room. My people can follow him until he enters a usually bomb-damaged and yet-to-be-repaired building. But they don’t know where he’s going in the building. Or if he is going through the building to another location. Get the picture?”

“Yeah.”

“So, my people lose him at, say, three or four o’clock in the morning and don’t pick him up again until he shows up at the Vik at eight or eight-thirty that night.”

“Which means you don’t know where he is.”

“What I can do, Captain, is have one of my men intercept him as he’s about to enter the Vik and whisper in his ear that you’re here in the Bristol.”

“Or I could go to this place.”

“You know better than that, Captain Strasbourger,” Wangermann said.

“I don’t look like a successful black marketeer? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No offense, but you and Lieutenant Spurgeon look like those Boy Scouts you’re always talking about.”

“That leaves us only Bruno’s guy whispering in his ear when he shows up at the Viktoria tonight.”

“That’s what it looks like to me,” Wangermann said. “If you’re worried about the NKGB bursting in here, I can send you some company.”

Cronley considered that a moment.

“Thanks, many thanks, but no thanks. Maybe one guy, or two, drinking tea in the lobby. I don’t think Joe Stalin’s evil minions will try to whack us if they see you’re watching over us.”