The Proxy Assassin

by John Knoerle

  But why did he give a shit? Unless he was working for the Romanian Army. Or, more likely and far worse, the sadistic little brother of the Soviet Secret Police, the Romanian Securitate.

  I held my breath as he examined my boots with care. Leonid Vitinov, my archrival in Berlin, had a rule. ‘Do not use gadgets – dart guns, mini-cameras and the like. If you are captured with them they cannot be explained.’

  L-pills deserved a mention.

  The boss man drew his knife and jabbed and pried at the heel of my right boot. The spring-loaded cavity popped open. He removed the little blue pill and held it up for me to see.

  I was fresh out of wisecracks.

  The boss man stood up and gestured for Dragomir’s traitor to step forward. He counted out a small stack of local currency and handed it to him.

  That was it? The traitor shot his comrade in the back and betrayed his tribe for beer money?

  My opinion of Benedict Arnold improved a moment later when a woman of middle years emerged from the hunting shack leading a frightened little girl. They made their way across the moonlit compound gingerly.

  Benedict Arnold sank to his knees. The little girl flew into his arms.

  “Nusa,” he sobbed, “Ó mea Nusa.”

  Chapter Eight

  The traitor, Captain Dragomir’s spy, took his daughter in hand and walked on down the road. I laid on my back in the mud, waiting to learn my fate and wondering what the traitor would do next.

  He would take his daughter home of course. But if he later reported to the Captain that I had been killed in a Magyar ambush then Dragomir, and Frank Wisner, would observe five seconds of silence and move on.

  But that would be a hard story to sell. Even at a distance Dragomir would have heard the four pistol shots ring out in the dead of night. The Captain would want to know why it had taken his spy several hours to report back.

  More likely Benedict Arnold would tell the Captain a slight variation of the truth. Spiru and I had been ambushed by Magyars, Spiru gunned down, me captured. Benedict Arnold had followed at a distance for a time but had been spotted and had to flee. That would explain his tardiness, and why he didn’t know where I’d been hauled off to.

  A nice yarn. The only loose brick was the little girl.

  Would little Nusa do as Daddy said and stay quiet about her ordeal? If she didn’t, word would spread quickly through her tight-knit village and Dragomir would hear the scuttlebutt in no time. Little Nusa had not been off visiting her maiden aunt, little Nusa had been kidnapped by Magyars.

  The Captain would then assume the story of my capture was cooked up to cover the time it took the traitor to return home with his daughter. I hadn’t been captured. The first two pistol shots had been for Spiru and the next two for me. Dragomir would likely conclude that I was beyond rescuing.

  I didn’t have any illusions about the Captain mounting a successful rescue in hostile territory. But Frank Wisner just might be able to move some chess pieces around the board to get me sprung. I hadn’t killed anybody, not yet anyway. So long as Dragomir didn’t tell him I was dead I had a chance.

  So please, little Nusa, do as Daddy says and keep your adorable yap shut.

  -----

  They didn’t hogtie me for my next truck ride. I was given the royal treatment now that they knew I was a gen-u-ine secret agent – cuffed and blindfolded and deposited in the cab of the boss man’s pickup. My guards rode in the back where they belonged.

  Gargoyle Head drove for two hours or so. My Teutonic gyroscope said north and west, mostly north. They removed my blindfold once the boss man parked his truck in front of a high, carved wooden gate across a dirt driveway.

  There were no sentries and only a three-wire fence on either side of the gate, intended more to keep livestock in than intruders out. We were, apparently, deep in Magyar country.

  One of the guards jumped down and opened the gate. We drove in.

  Expecting some version of Dragomir’s fort, I was surprised to see an orange brick house with a corrugated tin roof, a barn, a hog pen and a few acres of hilly farmland dotted with yellowed tomato plants and a small vineyard.

  Four young men played cards around a table covered in oilcloth. They gave me a quick once over and went back to their game. Two heavyset older men sat smoking on fold-up chairs next to the side entrance to the farmhouse. They found me considerably more interesting. The bald one said something to the hairy one that made him laugh.

  None of them wore uniforms, no one was armed, yet none were dressed for farm work. They were soldiers, if not as spit-and-polish as Captain Dragomir’s men.

  They didn’t need to be. You don’t need white glove inspections to instill military discipline at platoon level when you’ve got Securitate goons and Red Army regiments to back you up.

  I was, I understood, up to my chin in shit. They wouldn’t have removed my blindfold and allowed me to eyeball their layout if they thought I was going to leave here alive.

  My guards cinched me up under both arms and walked me into the orange brick farmhouse, blood hammering in my ears. The two heavyset men got up and followed us inside. To my surprise the boss man swung his truck around and headed back up the road. I took that to mean I was about to meet the boss man’s boss.

  I didn’t have any illusions about my ability to stand up to torture. I’d spill my guts at the first sight of alligator clips attached to crank generator or a filet knife dipped in lye.

  The only good news was that I didn’t know a damn thing worth knowing. They would know all about Dragomir and his little fort. They already knew I was an American spy. My chain of command in D.C. didn’t figure to interest them much. What they’d want to know was why I was here. What diabolical plot had Captain Dragomir cooked up that was worth the CIA sending me halfway round the world.

  I didn’t know. We had never gotten around to talking about it.

  It was quite homey for a torture chamber. A country kitchen with a wood burning stove, a table draped with a colorful, hand-stitched tablecloth and framed religious icons on the walls. I recognized Saint Michael the Archangel. Bet they didn’t know he was the patron saint of paratroopers.

  There was a platter of food on the table. Quartered tomatoes, sliced cukes and chunks of soft cheese.

  What was it about the Magyars and the Romanians? They ate the same food, they looked alike, their families had shared the mountains for umpteen generations. Why the savage enmity?

  The power of words maybe. Magyars and Romanians spoke different languages and called themselves by different names.

  The boss man’s boss was a leathery old man with stooped shoulders and a big narrow head that, as he leaned his elbows on the table, made him look like a buzzard sizing up a meal.

  There weren’t any telephone lines in this part of the world that I had seen and I hadn’t used my real name to anyone but Dragomir. Beats me how the old buzzard knew to say, in good English, “Welcome to Transylvania, Domnule Schroeder.”

  -----

  They dumped me in a barn stall when they were done with me. My interrogators were dumb thugs, unskilled in the black arts. Getting beat up hurts of course but it isn’t terrifying. And they didn’t know how to mete it out, take a breather, give me a sip of water. Let me ponder what was coming next.

  They just beat me up. And, I’m happy to report, the body protects the brain under those circumstances. I went into shock after the first few haymakers. And then I blacked out.

  The real pain comes later. When you roll over in your bed of straw and groan, feeling every thudding bruise on your body. They must have worked my gut some too.

  Maybe they did understand the black arts. My tormentors had thoughtfully provided me with a bowl of cold beans and crusty bread. I was starving, I dug in. Hard to do with loose teeth.

  I ate what I could then lay back in the straw. A horse snorted from somewhere close. Any minute now I would get up and mount him, bust through the barn doors and ride bareback into the Carpathian hill
s. Any minute now.

  In the meantime I tried to get my brain to work. My tormentors barely had time to ask me any questions before they put me out. Maybe that was the plan, to introduce themselves good and proper.

  They figured to take it slower the second time. They’d want to hear all about Captain Dragomir’s nefarious plot. Did it involve other partisans in the mountains? What level of munitions? How much cash in what currency? What were the ins and outs of the operation and did it roll all the way down the hill to Bucharest?

  I didn’t know any of that, save for the last question. Neither Frank Wisner nor Sorin Dragomir would be satisfied with lighting a few bonfires in the mountains. Bucharest was their ultimate destination.

  I had a decision to make. They had tossed me in the barn stall unconstrained. No cuffs. I didn’t have any illusions about escaping the compound. Guards were afoot and I had nowhere to go. I wasn’t keen on starring in the Punch and Judy show every day and twice on Sundays, not when I was dead meat at the end of the run.

  The only way to win was to beat them to it. Every barn has a few tools scattered about. A rusty saw I could use to cut my wrists. A length of rope.

  I was going to get my woebegone carcass off this straw and rummage around the barn for a suicide weapon while there was still sunlight leaking under the eaves. Any minute now. As soon as I convinced myself not to be a hero.

  The real heroes, the ones who did what they didn’t have to do, are all dead. That I was about to cross the Stygian Ferry didn’t make me a hero. I got caught.

  What might make me a minor league hero would be to absorb enough abuse so that my tormentors might believe my elaborately fabricated version of Captain Dragomir’s nefarious plot, so that they and the Securitate goons they reported to would waste time and troops on a wild goose chase.

  Elaborate fabrication. That would require ten dollars worth of concentration at a time I didn’t have a dime in the bank. But I’m a good bouncer-back. I could probably muster it after a couple hours sleep.

  The question I had to answer was straightforward. Was I willing to get thumped like a bass drum in the St. Paddy’s Day Parade to advance the cause of freedom and democracy?

  No, I was not.

  Would I suffer abuse to help decent and courageous men like Sorin Dragomir and Frank Wisner fulfill their admirable if farfetched schemes?

  Yes, I believe I would.

  Shuteye, Schroeder, you need sleep. You’re talking crazy talk. I got my ragged breathing smoothed out and drifted off in the scratchy hay.

  Chapter Nine

  I was halfway out the door of my Mayflower Hotel room the morning after I returned from Frank Wisner’s farm, looking forward to a day of sightseeing, when the phone rang. The hotel operator wanted to know if I would take a call from Senator Daniel Conklin’s social secretary.

  “Sure. I guess.”

  Senator Conklin’s social secretary wanted to know if I was indeed Harold Schroeder.

  “None other.”

  “Please hold.”

  I held. Another lady got on the blower. “Mr. Schroeder, this is Winifred Conklin. I’m sorry to be so last-minute but the Senator and I are hosting a cocktail reception this afternoon and we would be ever so pleased if you would accept our invitation to attend.”

  Not one to turn down free food and drink, I accepted Mrs. Conklin’s invitation.

  -----

  Georgetown is hilly, with brick sidewalks and two and three story shoulder-to-shoulder, 19th-century homes painted in bright yellows and pale blues. A pleasant change from the limestone monoliths downtown.

  Senator Conklin’s house on P Street didn’t rub shoulders with its neighbors, however. A three-story white colonial with a red door and black shutters, it stood alone on a double lot, with a narrow circular driveway and a tall flagpole in front proudly flying the stars and stripes.

  I looked up at the big handsome house. There were powerful people inside who wanted to make my acquaintance. It would be interesting to find out why. I wasn’t nervous. If my debut on the Georgetown circuit was a flop I would take the bus back to the Mayflower Hotel, pay a lengthy visit to Winston at the Towne and Country Lounge and charge it to my room. I walked up the driveway.

  Senator Conklin hailed from the Northern Plains. Why else have a snarling, eight-foot stuffed grizzly bear in your entry hall? Though the bear’s head and paws did serve as a handy hat rack for those tall enough to take advantage.

  On the wall to my right hung a framed and matted photo of Teddy Roosevelt on horseback, leading mounted men into battle. It was signed by TR himself. Had Senator Conklin been a Rough Rider?

  You’d never know it to look at him. The Senator was a bald, gaunt old gent with one foot in the grave and the other wrapped in gauze and stuffed into a quilted house slipper. He didn’t want to be seen hobbling around on a cane apparently so he used his wife’s shoulder as a crutch as he stumped forward to greet me. His hand was soft, and cold as ice.

  “You must be Harold Schroeder.” I said that I was. “Meet Harold Schroeder, Winnie. The hero of Muhlendamm Bridge.”

  The what?

  Mrs. Conklin looked as if she had stepped out of a 1920s’ tintype in her violet dress ringed with matching fringe, her iron gray hair set in concentric curls. A marcel I think they call it. Age is a terrible thing. No doubt the Conklin’s cut a dashing figure twenty-five years ago.

  “Senator, permit me,” I said, offering my arm. “We’ll pretend we’re war buddies from way back.”

  The Senator accepted my offer with a dry laugh or cough, it was hard to tell. His wife thanked me with a look. And thus I made the circuit of a jam-packed cocktail reception on P Street with the senior senator from North Dakota on my arm.

  Conklin was a tough old bird. His foot was bunged up pretty bad, judging by how hard he yanked on my arm every time we had to step up or step down. Something we had to do often in the sprawling house with all its added-on rooms. But he kept a game smile on his mug as he worked the crowd.

  At each stop the Senator would introduce me as Harold Schroeder, the hero of Muhlendamm Bridge. And at each stop the cluster of guests would go Ohhhhh.

  The bridge in question spans the river Spree in East Berlin. It’s the place where the Mooney boys and I – and Eva Litinov, God rest her soul – confronted a truckload of duped White Russian freedom fighters intent on attacking a Soviet armory. It was a clever NKVD ruse intended to justify a Soviet invasion of West Germany. A moment both proud and bitter for me. And largely ignored by the American press who, in 1946, still called Stalin ‘Uncle Joe.’

  We wound our way back to the high-beamed parlor. At the center of the room was a compact, pipe-smoking gentleman I had never met. Allen Dulles, General Wild Bill Donovan’s second-in-command at the OSS. We stumped over to greet him.

  Dulles wore gold-rim spectacles and a little feather duster mustache. He shook my hand and said he had heard so much about me. I blushed seven shades of crimson and dug my toe in the dirt. Then I asked him what he’d heard from our mutual friend General Donovan.

  Dulles gave me a quick ‘not too much’ and changed the subject. I took this to mean that Allen Dulles, a Republican and a prime candidate for CIA Director if Dewey got elected, considered Wild Bill more rival than friend.

  I didn’t much like Allen Dulles to start with and his answer didn’t improve my opinion. I didn’t like him because he was snug as a bug in Bern while I was hiding behind hedgerows in Nazi Germany. I didn’t like him because he was a Wall Street lawyer who, unlike Wild Bill, never tasted battle. Mostly I didn’t like him because he was one of those posh gents who sail through life on a smooth line of patter and a wry smile.

  I was jealous maybe.

  Dulles carried me along to an imposing Englishman of about thirty-five. I’m not sure how I knew the man was a Brit exactly. The equine face perhaps. I read a quote somewhere about how to spot a British aristocrat. ‘He’ll either look like his dog or look like his horse.’

 
Dulles introduced me to the Englishman. It was Harold ‘Kim’ Philby, MI6’s liaison to OSS in London in ’42. I’d heard tales of young OSS staffers gathering in Philby’s office after hours, sitting at his feet, inhaling g&t’s and the great man’s wisdom.

  “Mr. Philby did brilliant work against the Abwehr early on, in concert with the Soviets,” said Dulles. “Top notch, schooled us well.”

  Dulles gave Philby some softsoap about my important mission behind German lines but we didn’t buy it, Philby and me. I was transmitting weather reports while Philby was running a Continental spy ring that broke Nazi codes and foiled sabotage that targeted Great Britain’s all important lifeline. Shipping.

  We chatted a while till Dulles and Philby inclined their heads. Time for the chiefs to powwow. I excused myself, grabbed a glass of bubbly from a passing tray and headed off to the kitchen to mingle with the help.

  A man of middle years wearing Royal Navy ducks hovered above a tray of popovers fresh from the oven. He snagged a morsel between long fingernails and popped it into his mouth, steam leaking through his gappy teeth. “It’s only hot if you think it is,” he said, chewing.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The man washed it down with very tall Scotch and soda. “You don’t recognize me,” he said in a proper British accent.

  “No, I don’t. Give me a hint.”

  “Ernstrasse.”

  Oh yeah. He was one of the ‘handsome lads’ who flocked to Col. Norwood’s salon in Berlin in ’46, though he looked like he’d aged ten years. He asked me if I’d heard from the Colonel.

  “Not a word.”

  “Pity. His wife and daughter are bereft.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said.

  Col. John Norwood was Berlin Bureau Chief for MI6. He was also a double-dealing rat I foolishly allowed to flee to the South Seas. I turned to go but the young-old man stuck out his hand.

  “Guy Burgess, Second Secretary, British Embassy,” he intoned, snootily. His breath was hundred proof.

  We exchanged a handshake. His hand suited him. Hot and greasy.