The Assassination Option (Clandestine Operations 2)

When Cronley, El Jefe, and Finney walked into the Café Weitz, several of the waiters were drawing heavy curtains over the large windows looking out on the street. This would keep people on Gumpendorferstrasse, and on the trolley cars running down it, from looking into the café.

The curtains were drawn every night as darkness fell. During the day, the curtains were open, so Café Weitz patrons could look out onto Gumpendorferstrasse and the trolley cars.

But drawing the curtains did something else. During the day, looking out from the café gave the patrons a look at the empty windows of the bombed-out, roofless five-story apartment buildings across the street. With the curtains drawn, they were no longer visible.

And with the drawn curtains shutting out any light from the street, the only light in the café came from small bulbs in wall fixtures and in three chandeliers and small candles burning in tiny lamps on all the tables. This served to hide the shabbiness of the café’s curtains and walls and everything else, and to offer at least a suggestion of its prewar elegance.

In one corner of the room, a string quartet (or quintet or sextet, it varied with the hour) of elderly musicians in formal clothing played continuously, mostly Strauss, but sometimes tunes from Hungarian light opera.

Cronley knew all this because he had come to the café three times before. So had everybody else. Cronley thought of it as reconnaissance, but Schultz called it “casing the joint.”

After the first visit, they had gone back to the hotel, then, at Mannberg’s suggestion, drawn maps of the café from memory. Very few of the first maps drawn agreed on any of the details except the location of the doors and the musicians, but the third, final maps drawn were pretty much identical.

It was decided that Cronley, El Jefe, and Sergeant Finney, who were all wearing OD Ike jackets with civilian insignia, would enter the café first and take the closest table they could find to the musicians. This would give them a pretty good view of most of the interior. Then Mannberg would enter, alone, and take a table that would be in clear view of anyone coming into the café. On his heels, but not with him, would be Maksymilian Ostrowski, who would take the closest table he could find to the door of the vestibule outside the restrooms, which, they were guessing, would be where, presuming she showed up, Seven-K/Rahil would take the money from Mannberg.

Or where agents of the NKGB would attempt to steal the fifty thousand dollars from Mannberg. Ostrowski’s job was to see that didn’t happen.

Cronley pointed to a table near the musicians, and a waiter who looked like he was in his mid-eighties led them to it and pulled out chairs for them.

A dog yipped at Cronley and he turned to see a tiny hot dog, as they called dachshunds back in Midland, in the lap of an old lady. About half the old women in the place had dogs of all sizes with them.

Cronley barked back at the tiny dachshund, wondering if it was a puppy or whether there was such a thing as a miniature dachshund.

Then he ordered a pilsner, the same for Finney, and El Jefe said he would have a pilsner and a Slivovitz.

“What the hell is that?”

“Hungarian plum brandy. Got a kick like a mule.”

Cronley was tempted, but resisted. If they were going to meet a top-level agent of both the NKGB and the Mossad, he obviously should not be drinking anything that had a kick like a mule.

“And ask

him if they have any peanuts,” El Jefe said.

“I brought some, when they didn’t have any last night,” Finney said, and produced a tin can of Planters peanuts, opened it, and put it on the table.

The tiny dachshund barked.

Cronley looked at him.

“Franz Josef,” the old lady said in English, “likes peanuts.”

Cronley offered Franz Josef a peanut, which he quickly devoured.

“Is that a full-sized dog, or is he a puppy?” Cronley asked in German.

He felt Finney’s knee signal him under the table, and saw that Mannberg had come into the café.

“Franz Josef is four,” she said, this time in German.

“He’s so small,” Cronley said, and fed the dog another peanut.

He took a closer look at the woman. She wasn’t as old as he had originally thought, maybe fifty-something, or sixty-something, but not really old. She had rouged cheeks and wore surprisingly red lipstick.

“Good things come in small packages,” the old lady said.

“So they say,” Cronley said. “Would you like a peanut? A handful of peanuts?”