The Proxy Assassin

by John Knoerle

  “This, in Bucharest, this was something to do with Frank Wisner? How would I know such a thing? Frank Wisner would tell me?”

  She had a point.

  “The Blue Caps, they use me as whore,” she said, her lower lip trembling, “to take secrets from important men.”

  “Okay, sorry I brought it up,” I said. But she wasn’t done.

  “You are stupid man. Do you not see where I am living? The men they send to me are all român, all Comuniştii!’

  I wound my way up the mountain, feeling dumb as dirt. What she’d said made sense. The Soviets deployed much more secret police manpower keeping their satellite countries in line than they did worrying about us stumblebum Yanks.

  We made the long journey to the town of Secaria without incident, and in stony silence.

  -----

  There had been no checkpoints on the mountain roads and precious little traffic. But at some point Dmitri or Ilinca would come to and sound the alarm from the radio room. The GAZ-61’s distinctive profile would be easy to spot, even now. Come daylight we would draw stares.

  So I was puzzled at PS’s insistence that we pull off the main road and onto a lightly-wooded country lane. “Why are we stopping?”

  “I am need to sleep.” And with that Stela curled up like a cat inside her fur-lined greatcoat and dropped off.

  I fought off the tug of slumber for the better part of an hour by keeping an eye out for traffic on the main road and listening to the howls of a distant wolf pack and the hoot of a nearby owl. Every once in a while the gleaming eyes of a nocturnal beast would flit my way. I hated not having a gun.

  Stela stirred just before dawn. She opened the passenger’s side door and tumbled out. Apparently even princesses needed to pee first thing in the morning. But that’s not what she did. She retched, heaving violently three times, then coughed and spit to clear her throat.

  She climbed back in the car, took off her woolen cap and shook out her hair.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Now I am fine.”

  She told me to return to the main road and turn right toward the village. I did that, the GAZ drawing a stare from a peasant woman emptying a chamber pot into the culvert below the road.

  All of the houses in the tidy village of Secaria were crowded up against the road, offering no inconspicuous place to park. But Stela directed me off the main road and up a big hill. Captain Dragomir’s brick one-story commanded the high ground.

  I turned off the headlights for stealth as we approached, as if that would do any good. The GAZ-61 sounded like a twenty-ton bulldozer grinding up that hill.

  I parked. A light went on inside the house. An electric light.

  The good Captain is not in residence.

  So said the sleepy gray-haired housekeeper to Princess Stela when we knocked at the door. Or so I gathered from the housekeeper’s head shakes and hand gestures. The answer was much the same when Stela demanded to know where Sorin Dragomir had gone. Or so I gathered.

  I wasn’t any use in this fandango so I slipped past the housekeeper and cased the joint. It was sparsely furnished with bare walls, more like a safe house than a home. There were scant clothes in the bedroom closet and bureau but I scoured the place on the off chance the Captain had left my J/E transceiver behind.

  No such luck. I did spy something that Stela would find interesting. In the far corner of a back bedroom stood a hand-hewed bed suitable for a small child. The bed had been stripped and there were no stuffed animals or toys in the room.

  But I kept at it. The bureau drawers were empty, ditto a knotty pine toy chest. I got down on all fours and looked underneath it. A small, brightly-painted wooden soldier, his hand raised in salute, looked back at me.

  Had the kid done this on purpose, to leave a marker?

  Sure he had, Schroeder, kid’s a three-year-old superspy. I snatched up the wooden soldier and went to show Princess Stela what I’d found.

  She thanked me with a quick squeeze of her hand and shoved the wooden soldier at the housekeeper with a torrent of angry words. The housekeeper responded with Romania’s national gesture. She shrugged.

  My job description didn’t include browbeating elderly housekeepers but it was obvious that Princess Stela had not cowed this obstinate woman. I looked over to Stela but she was out the door.

  She returned a minute later holding a drawstring jeweler’s bag. She reached in and removed a folded sheet of muslin. She unfolded it slowly as the housekeeper and I watched with rapt attention.

  What Princess Stela revealed to us was a small cross, not much larger than a rosary crucifix but considerably thicker, heavier. It looked like silver but it was badly tarnished and old, very old. Not sure how I knew that exactly. The dark green pits in the metal maybe. The uneven edges indicating it was forged before die casts were mass produced.

  The housekeeper took a long look at the silver cross that Stela Varadja held in the palm of her hand – the cross bar was inlayed with elaborate curlicues of mother of pearl – and fell to one knee, her head bowed. The housekeeper spoke briefly.

  She must have told Stela what she wanted to know because PS turned on her heel and, with a tug at my elbow, marched back to the car.

  I got behind the wheel. Stela took her seat. “He is in Sibiu. With my son.”

  “How far is that?”

  “As far as it takes.”

  This was not a helpful answer. We were low on gas after the long trek and stopping at a petrol station would just give the locals time to stare and ask questions.

  But wait, the house had electric lights. I climbed out and looked around for power poles. Not a one. Captain Dragomir had himself a gas-powered generator.

  I found it in a tool shed behind the house, complete with a five gallon can of petrol which I promptly added to our tank. Then I fired up the GAZ and rolled down the hill toward the main road.

  “What is that?” I said, pointing to the ancient crucifix she still clutched.

  Princess Stela declined to answer. I stopped the car at the main road. “The crossbar’s engraved with a strange design,” I said, putting the car in neutral, waiting, wasting precious fuel.

  Stela sighed. “Wings of dracul, to protect the cross.”

  I kept my yap shut and waited for more.

  “Vlad Tepes Draculea died fighting Ottoman Turks. They take his head as trophy.” She rubbed her thumb gently along the edge of the silver cross. “This cross, from his breastplate, this was all that was left…”

  “To identify his body?”

  “Da”

  Nice touch that, the trailing off, leaving me to complete the thought. I found it hard to swallow all this historical humbuggery of course, but Princess Stela did sell her part convincingly.

  And you can’t ask a spy to do any more than that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My few days in Romania had given me the impression the entire country was a backwater and driving through the outskirts of Sibiu confirmed that view. Stores made of concrete block huddled next to crumbling gray stucco houses with broken windows.

  My impression changed when we reached the center of the ancient walled citadel with its cobblestone streets, broad plazas and brightly-painted buildings with foot-thick walls. Some of the tile roofs had ventilation outlets that looked like oversized eyeballs keeping watch on the bustling crowds below.

  Central Sibiu was alive. Gypsy girls in long cotton dresses stood on street corners selling flowers and cakes. Men sold live chickens in cages hung from yokes across their shoulders. A hand-painted banner proclaimed Recolta de Struguri Fest which, Stela explained, was the annual grape harvest festival.

  It was unlikely that Captain Dragomir had traveled all the way to Sibiu for fun and frolic. More likely he had something planned for the festival crowd.

  I asked Stela a dumb question. “Captain Dragomir is a capable leader, and a patriot. Would you consider remaining in Romania to work with him?”

  “No. Sorin Dragomir i
s wanting to make Regent, guardian of my son and ruler of Romania. This I cannot be. Poporul român will not accept a female sovereign. But, in time, they will accept my son. I seek for him proper education at fine university.”

  A lovely sentiment. But Frank Wisner would not be reassured to learn that the boy king would send the Reds packing in about twenty years. Still, I wasn’t going to stand between a mother and her kidnapped son.

  “Follow my lead when we confront Dragomir. I will see to it that you are reunited with your boy.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Schroeder.”

  “Hal.”

  “Hal.”

  “And what is your son’s name?”

  “Vlad.”

  Of course it was.

  I followed PS’s directions to the address the housekeeper had given us, treading lightly on the gas pedal. The GAZ-61 wheezed, sputtered and died as I parked it on the street.

  The house was a show horse amidst nags. It sat on the corner of a narrow side street lined with nondescript stucco boxes, their windows shuttered against the cold. Its black-tiled roof had upturned edges that made it look like an ivy-covered pagoda. In my research Romania was often referred to a ‘the furthest outpost of the Orient.’ This was the first I’d seen of it.

  I turned to Stela. “I need to talk to Dragomir alone, before you start in with the flying cookware.”

  A blank look.

  “Frying pans, plates…never mind. We need to discuss strategy, the Captain and me,” I said. “Anything I need to know that I don’t already?”

  Another blank look.

  “For instance, how did Dragomir and Frank Wisner get along?”

  PS fielded this one without difficulty. “Sorin was always, how you say.…?” She puckered up her lips.

  “Kissing Frank’s ass.”

  Stela’s smile flickered and was gone. She soothed her brow with her palm, pushing her shiny black hair back then lowering her head to let it fall forward. And again.

  “Anything else you’d care to tell me?”

  She worried her lips before she spoke, testing words. “Frank Wisner, our.…romance. It was cause of my divorce. And humiliation.”

  “That’s a pity,” I said, without sufficient concern apparently because her face curled into a sneer.

  “Go!” she said. “Take yourself to your meeting!”

  I was eager to do that but it seemed obvious that Princess Stela had another shoe to drop. I waited patiently but she declined to co-operate. I asked the question.

  “Your romance with Frank Wisner led to your divorce and humiliation. Why is that important for me to know?”

  “Perhaps it is not.”

  “Then why did you mention it?”

  Her fluted sigh indicated that the Princess was disappointed in me. Well, take a number honey. And spill it already.

  She said what I should have guessed. “Frank Wisner is the father of my son.”

  -----

  A pretty young maid escorted me into the study lined with leather bound books where Captain Dragomir was seated at a heavy desk, writing furiously with a fountain pen.

  “I knew you would come, I knew it!” he said, bolting to his feet.

  I found this a surprising statement given that I’d been rotting in a barn stall two days ago thanks to one of Dragomir’s most trusted men.

  “How in the hell did you know that?”

  The Captain crossed the floor to greet me. “I knew that Princess Stela had rescued you. I have spies among the Magyars!”

  “And they return the favor,” I replied, acidly. “How’d you know I’d bust out and come here?”

  Dragomir holstered his outstretched hand, his smile fading. “It was the logical conclusion.”

  Logical, that was a good one. If the good Captain wanted me to come find him he would have instructed his housekeeper in Secaria to fork over his address without hesitation. Yet he seemed genuinely pleased to see me.

  As a smartass youth I believed that life was something like a long column of numbers. While it would be difficult and time consuming, once you toted up that long column you’d arrive at a perfect sum. I have since come to understand that life and mathematics differ in one important way. Life makes no sense.

  I didn’t ask the Captain about the fancy digs, didn’t ask him if he was the kidnapper of Stela’s boy. I asked Dragomir if he had used his back channel to Frank Wisner to inform him that I’d been captured.

  “I did not. It’s a cumbersome process, fraught with peril.”

  He could speak the King’s English, this guy. But here’s what he was really saying: I weren’t gonna deliver no bad news to my butter’n’egg man. I planned to hang fire and hope the Vampire Princess would work her magic.

  “Well, I need you to use your back channel now, Captain, to arrange my return flight.”

  “You can’t leave us now, we’re just about to get underway!”

  I let my mug do the talking.

  “Your face is a ruin,” said Dragomir after a time.

  I liked the way he said it. Straight up, without sympathy.

  “And yours is a vision of loveliness.”

  We laughed.

  “When the time comes to arrange your departure, Domnule Schroeder, why not use your radio?”

  “You have it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great, glad to hear it. But the J/E has a limited range and the Air Force is expecting me to contact them from my original drop point.”

  “That’s quite a distance.”

  “That’s okay, Captain, we have a car.”

  “We?”

  “She’s outside in the car, waiting to talk to you.”

  “Excellent!” grinned Dragomir after a freighted pause. “I am sure Princess Stela will enjoy hearing of our plans.”

  Sure she will, Captain. You can run down the details while she’s slamming your head against the wall.

  “Why don’t you run them by me first.”

  Dragomir did that. He was scheduled to make a standard patriotic speech Saturday night, at the end of the week-long harvest festival. He would use the opportunity to incite the crowd against the hated invaders, then conclude by presenting the boy king to the cheering throng. He and his men would then lead the mob to storm the office of the Mayor.

  “He is a toady, a collaborator of the vilest sort.”

  “You intend to kill him?”

  “No, no. He would not be in his office on that night. This will be a symbolic act, to stir the blood of the people.”

  Dragomir went on to say that this symbolic act would be followed by a more serious late-night attack on a nearby Romanian Army garrison.

  “I have men inside. The troops are conscripts, they will not resist once their officers are seized. We will commandeer their trucks and weapons and ambush the Red Army outside Sighisoara as they roll tanks to quell the revolt.”

  “Why not make your stand here in Sibiu? I saw lots of old towers and ramparts you could use for cover.”

  Captain Dragomir drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. “That would be a strategic, and a symbolic, mistake.”

  I was tempted to laugh at his pomposity but his fierce gaze shut my yap. It made me realize the chasm between us. Captain Dragomir’s campaign to reclaim his homeland was essentially an abstraction to me, a small part of a much larger game. To him it was life and death.

  I used to hate the big brass way back when. The Generals pushing toy tanks across a table map as poor slobs like me froze, starved and died. Now, five years later, you could make a case that I had crossed over. How in the world had that happened?

  “There is a narrow gorge the Red Army must pass through, where Prince Vlad massacred the Turks,” said the Captain. “That is where we will make our stand. And where your help would be most welcome. We need anti-tank weapons, and gold to pave the way. Sighisoara is Magyar territory but they have no great love for Russians. They can be bought.”

  This was all ne
ws to me. I asked Dragomir how much he would need in gold.

  He paused, he fidgeted. “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  My half-lidded reply drew a nervous laugh. “Those are some high-priced Magyars you got there, Captain.”

  I told Dragomir that $25,000 might be feasible provided I had a way to ask for it in a timely manner.

  “We have an airstrip nearby, which is known to Frank Wisner. It is where your return flight was meant to land.”

  He gave me a look that said ‘you see what I’m saying?’

  I hate that look.

  “If the Air Force cannot receive your transmission from the spot of your original drop, they would, it seems to me, attempt to monitor your landing strip.”

  Oh. Yeah. I might be able to get a message to Frank Wisner after all.

  “We will need something else from your government,” said Dragomir.

  I was about to call him a greedy bastard when he said, “Announcements on Radio Free Europe about the success of our operation. The Red Army is stretched thin, holding the Balkans with sixty thousand troops. What they most fear are simultaneous uprisings. There are small but powerful resistance movements in Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria. If they hear of our success they will be inspired to act!”

  My goodness, a worked-out plan. Just the sort of indigenous anti-Soviet resistance that Wisner wanted to encourage and support.

  A flurry of angry shouts interrupted our powwow. Stela had grown tired of waiting. She burst into the study a moment later, trailing the frantic young maid who had tears in her eyes and one bright red cheek. Princess Stela fixed her gaze on Captain Dragomir who, for once, looked unsure of himself.

  “Where is my son?” she demanded.

  “He is here. In good hands, well taken care of.”

  “Where?!”

  The Captain looked to the maid, who was hovering behind Stela.

  “He is upstairs, taking his afternoon nap,” she said.

  Stela turned to go upstairs as the Captain put his foot in his mouth.

  “You should thank me. I took the boy only to save him from the Red Army.”

  “You did not tell me!”