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“Good,” Holzknecht said. “That should cover everything, unless Oberst Niedermeyer has . . .”
“You seem to have covered everything,” Niedermeyer said.
Cronley’s mouth went on automatic.
“Except giving a serious pep talk to all concerned,” he said.
“About what?” Wasserman asked.
“The moment anybody coming out of 71 Cobenzlgasse even suspects they’re being surveilled, the whole operation is blown.”
“You have a point, my young friend,” Holzknecht said.
Cronley’s mouth continued on automatic.
“Lieutenant Spurgeon and I were taught all about surveillance at Camp Holabird, the CIC school. By an officer who forgot to practice what he preached about the surveillor taking care to make sure he’s not being surveilled and wound up under a freight train in the Munich Hauptbahnhof.”
“Major Derwin,” Spurgeon said softly.
“Odessa?” Wasserman asked.
“Either Odessa or the NKGB,” Cronley said.
He thought, But most probably agents of the former Abwehr Ost, now known as the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.
Maybe—even probably—the same guys who are trying to get Frau Niedermeyer and her brother out of Budapest.
“If we’re finished here, I’ve got to get on the phone,” Cronley said.
[TWO]
The Hotel Bristol
Kaerntner Ring 1
Vienna, Austria
1605 28 February 1946
“Charley and I have some things to do,” Wasserman said as the staff car pulled up to the hotel. “So why don’t we just drop you guys off, and then meet later in the bar? Say at half past seven?”
“Done,” Cronley said.
“Are you mocking me, Cronley?”
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you, Colonel, sir, that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery?”
—
Seven-K was sitting with the dachshund puppy in her lap at a table in the lobby. Their eyes met briefly.
On the elevator, Zielinski wondered aloud, “I wonder what she’s up to?”
“She may be keeping an eye on us,” Niedermeyer said. “But it is equally possible that she’s keeping an eye on someone else. And just as possible that the NKGB is keeping an eye on her while she’s keeping an eye on us or someone else. Or that she is keeping an eye on an NKGB agent who is keeping an eye on us or someone else.”
“Do you ever get the feeling that we live on the other side of Alice in Wonderland’s mirror?” Cronley asked.
“Here in Vienna I do,” Niedermeyer replied. “Things are much simpler in Argentina.”
