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“I have been asking myself what do Germany, Austria, Italy, and Trieste have in common? Answer: They all have American troops who read the Stars and Stripes.”
“Which is delivered to them daily on Stripes’ trucks,” Cronley said. “Which are not usually suspected of carrying anything but newspapers.”
“Off the top of your head, my new young American friend, or do you know something?”
“We caught Odessa trying to get two SS guys across the Franco–German border in Stars and Stripes trucks.”
“Several questions, if you don’t mind,” Holzknecht said. “Was this luck, or did you know Odessa was going to try the smuggle?”
“One of my men figured it out.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Would you be even more impressed if I told you Sergeant Wagner is seventeen years old?”
“Am I supposed to believe that?”
“That’s up to you.”
“And who did you and this seventeen-year-old catch Odessa trying to get into France?”
“The bastards who murdered all the slave laborers at Peenemünde, SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Heimstadter and SS-Standartenführer Oskar Müller.”
“Senior and nasty SS. That smells like Odessa.”
“There’s no question in my mind,” Cronley said.
“Can we get back to the business at hand?” Wangermann asked.
“There is a place in the inner city,” Holzknecht resumed, “two doors down from the Drei Husaren restaurant, if any of you Amis know where that is.”
“They do a very nice paprikás csirke,” Cronley said.
“You constantly amaze me, young fellow. I’m already starting to believe the incredible yarn about your seventeen-year-old.”
“What about this place?” Wangermann asked impatiently.
“The more prominent of Vienna’s black marketeers and money-changers go there to gamble away their ill-gotten gains and then console themselves in the arms of high-priced ladies of the evening. Two of the bartenders and one of the croupiers—if that’s the proper nomenclature for a vingt-et-un dealer—are kind enough to keep me apprised of things in which I might be interested.”
“Or go to jail?” Wasserman chuckled.
“Precisely. One of the things they brought to my attention was that an American Army officer, a colonel, was an habitué at the vingt-et-un tables, that he gambled with U.S. currency rather than script, and that, until he settled on one of the girls and moved in with her . . .”
“At 71 Cobenzlgasse?” Cronley asked.
“Ah, you clever fellow! Until he moved in with Fraülein Reithoffer, he was very generous to whichever young lady consoled him for his losses at the table. With U.S. currency. And that he generously tipped, with a fifty-dollar bill, the chap who looked after his Buick Roadmaster convertible automobile while he was at the tables.
“Naturally, this piqued my curiosity. So I got the numbers on his license plate and the provost marshal ran it and told me the car was owned by a Colonel Gus T. Genetti, of Headquarters U.S. Forces in Austria, which are here in Vienna. I learned further that Colonel Genetti is the troop information officer for USFA.”
“What the hell is that?” Cronley asked.
“You don’t know? I’m amazed!” Holzknecht said.
“What it sounds like, Jim,” Wasserman said, “there’s a once-a-week hour-long session for all enlisted men, during which they are told what the troop information officer thinks they should hear about world events. And what the command wants them to do, such as avoid shady ladies, and not get into the black market.”
“I also learned, Carl, that his duties involve serving as sort of the commanding officer of the Stars and Stripes news bureau in Vienna, which involves making sure the USFA generals appear, frequently and favorably, on the front page, and that the newspaper is delivered on time. He is also charged with supervision of the Blue Danube network radio station, which serves Americans all over Austria, and in Naples and Leghorn, Italy, and Trieste. You apparently thought I wouldn’t be interested.”
“Bruno, this guy is what we call a ‘chair warmer.’ When the brass finds themselves with a full colonel who can’t find his ass with either hand, they assign them as housing officers, public relations officers, and troop information officers.”
