“Here? Now that’s really surprising. Is that what this is about?”
“That’s what this is about.”
“We don’t have much,” Cronley said, “but we’re clutching at all straws. This straw is that Otto remembered that when he knew von Dietelburg here he had a girlfriend—”
“You were in the SS with von Dietelburg?” Wangermann interrupted.
“I was a Wehrmacht officer assigned to Abwehr Ost.”
“Under Reinhard Gehlen?”
Niedermeyer nodded.
“I knew him. Good man. I was pleased when he didn’t show up at Flossenbürg with Admiral Canaris.”
“What were you doing at Flossenbürg?”
“The SS decided I wasn’t doing enough to round up the Jews they were looking for. Fortunately, they didn’t know I was working with Gehlen, so I didn’t wind up hanging from the gallows beside Canaris. I was surprised when I got a list from Wasserman of the people you’ve got in Nuremberg, that Gehlen and his deputy—Mannberg? Yeah, Ludwig Mannberg, another nice guy—weren’t on it.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Niedermeyer said. “General Gehlen and Ludwig Mannberg are alive and well, running the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.”
“So Abwehr Ost by another name is alive and well? And you still work for it?”
“I used to. General Gehlen sent me to Argentina to work with the OSS. When DCI came along, I was asked to join, and I did.”
“Wasserman, you sonofabitch, you never told me anything about this.”
“You didn’t have what we Americans call ‘the Need to Know.’”
“And now I do?”
“Now you do.”
“If you expect me to say Danke schön, don’t hold your breath,” Wangermann said, and then turned to Cronley. “Okay, so Niedermeyer knew von Dietelburg had a girlfriend. Pick it up from there.”
“Otto couldn’t remember her name, but he remembered the villa where von Dietelburg stashed his ballerina. Not the address, just somewhere on Cobenzlgasse.”
“So you came here on the strength of that?”
“We’re clutching at straws.”
“Her name was Olga Reithoffer, and von Dietelburg had her set up at 71 Cobenzlgasse,” Niedermeyer said.
“I would call that a straw,” Wangermann said.
He raised his hand above his head and snapped his fingers.
The bodyguard at the table jumped to his feet and hurried to Wangermann.
Pointing at the telephone, Wangermann ordered, “Plug this in somewhere else. Then get on it and tell them, one, I want everything we have on 71 Cobenzlgasse and a woman who may still live there named Olga Reithoffer. Two, get Bruno Holzknecht up here ten minutes ago.”
The bodyguard nodded acceptance of his orders and reached for the telephone plug.
“Holzknecht is my surveillance man,” Wangermann said. “Good man. We were in Flossenbürg together. Lucky for him the SS didn’t find out he’s a Jew. So am I going to have to do this myself, or are you going to help?”
“Tell me what you want me to do,” Wasserman said.
“What pops into my mind is that we pair one of your men—with his radio—with one of mine.”
“Done.”
“Did you notice if one of those closed-for-the-winter Heurigen is anywhere near 71 Cobenzlgasse?”
“There’s one right across the street,” Cronley said.
“Very nice,” Wangermann said. “And now, while we’re waiting for Holzknecht, I think I’ll have the lunch Wasserman offered to pay for.”
—
Bruno Holzknecht, a very ordinary-looking man in his late forties, came into the restaurant thirty minutes later.
“Should we find someplace private, Herr Chief Inspector? Or are your companions privy to what’s going on?”
“Wie geht’s, Bruno?” Wasserman said.
“This one I know is particularly untrustworthy,” Holzknecht said, nodding toward Wasserman.
“You can speak freely, Bruno. You ever hear of the DCI?”
“The replacement for the OSS?”
“Say hello to Otto Niedermeyer, Cezar Zieliński, and James Cronley of the DCI.”
The men shook hands.
“This one I remember from the bad old days,” Holzknecht said. “He was a major about to be an Oberstleutnant.”
“Your memory is better than mine. I don’t remember you.”
“You ran around with an SS sonofabitch named von Dietelburg. You had a good-looking Hungarian girl. He had a ballerina.”
“I married the Hungarian girl,” Niedermeyer said.
“And went on to be an Oberst in Abwehr Ost,” Wasserman said. “Which, in case you haven’t heard, is alive and well as the . . . what’s it called, Otto?”
“The Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.”
“I always wondered how Gehlen managed to keep out of the cells at Nuremberg,” Holzknecht said. “So he’s working for the Americans? That explains it.”
“The reason he’s not locked up waiting to be hung,” Niedermeyer said, “is that he’s not a war criminal. Quite the opposite. He was involved in the bomb plot that failed to take out Hitler. And other failed schemes to get rid of Der Führer. The SS didn’t learn that until the war was almost over. If the SS had found him then, he would have been on the Flossenbürg gallows with Admiral Canaris.”
“I knew the Russians really wanted him, but I didn’t know about the SS,” Holzknecht said. “I’m glad to hear it. I always professionally admired, and personally liked, Reinhard Gehlen. The next time you see him, please give him my regards.”
“I will.”
“Now what’s your interest in 71 Cobenzlgasse?” Holzknecht asked.
“We’re trying to find von Dietelburg,” Wasserman said.
“And you think he might be there?”
“It’s unlikely but possible,” Cronley said.
“What would that sonofabitch be doing in Grinzing?”
“The Reithoffer woman lives there.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“She was von Dietelburg’s Schatzi.”
“You’re kidding? Olga Reithoffer was von Dietelburg’s ballerina?”
“She was,” Niedermeyer said.
“How the hell did I miss that?” Holzknecht said.
“You’ve been looking at her?” Wangermann asked.
“For the past three weeks I’ve had my people in that closed-for-the-winter Heuriger taking pictures of 71 Cobenzlgasse and Fraülein Reithoffer.”
“Why?”
“Because of her relationship with Colonel Gus Genetti.”
“Who the hell is he?” Cronley asked.
“He’s the U.S. Forces Austria troop information officer.”
“I don’t understand,” Cronley said. “She’s his Schatzi?”
“Maybe more than that. Give me a minute. Von Dietelburg and Odessa having a connection never entered my mind before just now.”
“While you’re thinking, throw Castle Wewelsburg and Himmler’s new religion into the mix,” Cronley said. “Von Dietelburg is a high priest in that.”
“I already knew that,” Holzknecht said. “But I am impressed that you do, Captain Strasbourger. Let me finish my thinking.”
That took him just over a minute.
“Okay. Starting with basics. During the war, there was the Axis. Germany, Italy, and Japan. Forget the Nipponese. Here it was Germany—which then included Austria—and Italy. The Italians surrendered during the war. The Allies said Italy was liberated. After Germany surrendered, Austria again became more or less a free country, in which the Allies—Russia, England, France, and the U.S.—stationed troops. But we—Austria—were also declared liberated. I never understood that,
but that’s the way it is.”
“Where are you going with this, Bruno?” Wasserman asked.
“There is also Trieste,” Holzknecht went on. “For centuries it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Then Mussolini grabbed it. At the end of the war, Tito and the Yugoslavs moved in. The Germans refused to surrender to anybody but the Allies because the Yugoslavs habitually shot POWs. So the Allies sent in New Zealanders, to whom the Germans surrendered as promised. The New Zealanders promptly turned over Trieste to Tito and company, who promptly began to shoot anyone they suspected might not be a Communist. This offended the Americans. The British said they didn’t want the problem all to themselves, the Americans had to be involved. Result: Trieste is now occupied by the Brits and the Americans. The Americans sent in a reinforced infantry regiment and named it Trieste United States Troops, acronym TRUST.”
“Fascinating, but so what?” Wangermann asked.
“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.”
“Carl, this colonel is up to something dirty.”
“Like what, for example?”
“For a long time, ever since I started looking at him, I knew he was dirty. Since I had no idea what, I put my people in that closed-for-the-winter Heuriger across the street from 71 and started them out by having them take pictures of everybody who goes in or out.”
“And?”
“We now have more pictures for our files of heavy-duty money guys and black marketeers. Plus two or three of Fraülein Reithoffer’s brother Alois, who is a used-car dealer in Braunau am Inn, Upper Austria. I checked him out. He has the usual sterling reputation of used-car dealers, but otherwise he’s clean. He buys cars there and sells them here in Vienna.”
“So you’ve got nothing,” Wangermann said.
“Until just now, I didn’t have. But now . . .”
“What?” Zieliński asked. “Now what?”
Holzknecht didn’t reply directly, instead continuing: “We know that Odessa has money. But they have to have been spending it like it’s on fire, so most of what they started out with—I’m talking about currency, English pounds, Swiss francs, and U.S. dollars—is probably gone. We also know they have gold. But gold is not the same thing as money. You can’t sit down at a vingt-et-un table and lay a gold bar on the table.
“So you have to convert gold to currency. And you don’t want to buy reichsmarks, as they’re just about useless. So is the Austrian schilling. You want either Swiss francs or U.S. dollars. The Swiss don’t want to buy any gold that might come from Nazis. Not that they’ve got anything against either Nazis or gold, but because—according to Wasserman—they don’t want to piss off Uncle Sam.”
“There’s about two hundred FBI and Secret Service agents in Switzerland looking for Nazi gold and hanky-panky by Swiss bankers,” Wasserman said.
“So where could Odessa be swapping their gold for currency?” Holzknecht asked rhetorically. “Three places pop into my mind. Leghorn, Naples, and Trieste. All seaports where the U.S. Army has bases and the port is full of ships of all sizes doing business with places like Saudi Arabia and Persia. The Saudis and the Persians have trunks full of U.S. hundred-dollar bills they got from the Americans in exchange for their oil. And what have the Persians and Arabs been putting away for a rainy day for centuries? Gold.”
“I still don’t know where you’re going with this,” Wasserman said.
“Let me guess,” Cronley said. “Odessa is sending gold to one or all of three places on Stars and Stripes trucks, and then bringing stacks of dollars back on the return trip.”
“And can you guess, my new young Ami friend, w
ho drives to all three places in his Buick automobile on a regular basis? To keep an eye on the radio station, to make sure the Stars and Stripes is being delivered daily? And of course to make sure your soldiers are properly indoctrinated?”
“I didn’t know Colonel Wasserman has a Buick,” Cronley said.
“I think I’ll have a chat with Colonel Genetti,” Wasserman said. “When he realizes he’s looking at ten to twenty years in Leavenworth, I suspect he’ll sing like a canary.”
“No,” Cronley said. “That’s the last thing we want to do.”
“Why?” Zieliński asked.
“Because I don’t give a damn about this slimy colonel. I’m looking for von Dietelburg, and through him, Odessa. And I don’t think von Dietelburg or anyone in Odessa is going to take the risk of dealing directly with an American colonel.”
“Point taken,” Wasserman said.
“I don’t think he’s personally taking gold to Italy and bringing dollars back. He’s just checking to make sure things are going smoothly. And I don’t think he knows Odessa is involved. If he even knows what Odessa is. He thinks he’s dealing with the clever characters around the blackjack table to make a quick buck. The questions in my mind center around Fraülein Reithoffer. Has she just latched onto an Ami colonel with a Buick and lots of money? Or did she just happen to introduce him to somebody who could make him a lot of money? Or did sleazy characters introduce him to her, so she could keep an eye on him?”
“So how do you suggest we proceed?”
“We’ve got to move up the food chain,” Cronley replied. “First, find out if he’s dealing with one of the sleazy characters. If he is, then who is the sleazy character dealing with? Find out who Fraülein Reithoffer sees when he’s not around. Eventually, we’ll find a connection to von Dietelburg. Or somebody who has a connection with von Dietelburg.”
“This will take a lot of manpower,” Holzknecht said. “But I think it’s worth it. I really would like to get that bastard.”
“Whatever you need, Bruno,” Wasserman said.
“I’d really like to get someone in the Viktoria Palast,” Holzknecht said. “As a player.”
“That’s the vingt-et-un place?” Cronley asked.
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