“Did General Greene have anything more to say about Major Wallace?” Cronley asked.
“He said the major had been told to lean over backward to ensure that no one suspected he was in the wings.”
“That’s all?”
“He told me that Major Wallace is actually Colonel Wallace,” Wassermann said.
“Well, I see that he’s told you just about everything that no one’s supposed to know,” Cronley said. “Which leaves just one question: How do you feel about being drafted into the loop?”
Wassermann visibly considered his reply before giving it.
“I’m fine with it, Mr. Cronley,” he said finally. “To tell you the truth, when I heard that the OSS was being shut down, I thought it was a mistake.”
“Why?” Cronley asked.
“The CIC is pretty good at sensing Joe Stalin’s nose trying to get under the tent flap, but it doesn’t have the authority, or the assets, to stick a bayonet in his nose when he does. I’m hoping the DCI does, that it has the authority to do what needs to be done.”
“And I’m hoping that the CIC does have enough assets to keep Ludwig and me safe from Joe Stalin’s evil minions while we’re having our dinner tonight,” Cronley said. “Welcome to the loop, Colonel.”
“I think we do,” Wassermann said. “Let me tell you what I think we should do.”
Cronley looked at Spurgeon.
“I wonder what Dick Tracy Derwin would think of you and me being here tonight under these circumstances?”
“He’d probably wet his pants,” Spurgeon said, chuckling. “We heard what happened to him. He got drunk and fell under a freight train?”
“That was the conclusion,” Cronley said.
He met Mannberg’s eyes. There was no visible reaction.
[ TWO ]
Drei Husaren Restaurant
Weihburggasse 4
Vienna, Austria
2010 29 January 1946
On the way to the restaurant from the Hotel Bristol, Cronley and Mannberg walked past the ruins of the Vienna Opera and the Stephansdom—Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. As they passed the latter Mannberg enriched Cronl
ey’s fund of cultural knowledge by telling him that in the cathedral were buried the bodies, or the hearts, or the viscera, of seventy-two members of the Habsburg dynasty, it being the odd Habsburg custom to bury various parts of the bodies of deceased noblemen in separate places.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all. By removing the organs, they made sure they were really dead.”
—
They were expected at the restaurant. Once Mannberg invoked the name of Colonel Serov, the elegantly uniformed headwaiter bowed them down a flight of stairs to the main dining room.
Mannberg further added to Cronley’s cultural knowledge by telling him the headwaiter was wearing the uniform of the Fourth Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Hussars, which meant light cavalry.
“Surreal, Ludwig. People outside are wearing rags and this guy is dressed like a character in a Franz Lehár operetta.”
“And we haven’t even met Comrade Serov yet,” Mannberg replied. “You know Lehár, do you?”