The Proxy Assassin (12 page)

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 is 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 news 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!”

“You fled the city! The next day!”

“I had no choice!”

Dragomir showed his palms and lowered his voice. “Princess Stela, I beg of you, stay. Together we can inspire a glorious revolt against the invaders. Some dare call you a fellow traveler but I know you to be a true patriot.”

The Captain turned quickly to me. “When the first German officers arrived in Bucharest the aristocracy feted them with lavish parties, toasting the handsome new conquerors of the
world.” Dragomir gestured to PS. “But Princess Stela refused all invitations and stayed at home.”

Nice touch. But I was dead on my feet and not interested in refereeing a ten rounder.

“Here's how it's going to be, Captain. If Frank Wisner authorizes a flight to deliver supplies to your airstrip, I intend to be on that plane when it takes off. And I won't back support for your operation unless you allow the Princess and her son to go with me.”

“Princess Stela can choose to join you of course. But her son's place is here, with his subjects.”

I expected this answer but I made a show of arguing with him while I shot Stela a quick look.

She understood. She waited for the proper moment to hang her head and say, resignedly, “It is all right,
Monsieur
Schroeder, we will stay.”

Great, fine, well done and executed.

Now all I had to do was contact Frank Wisner from the middle of nowhere, convince him to mount an expensive, big deal supply operation in enemy territory then find a way to smuggle the Princess and her son aboard a supply plane at a secret, heavily-guarded airstrip.

A ludicrous mission, yet one that had to succeed. That was made clear a short time later when I witnessed the regally cool Stela Varadja, eyes abrim, tenderly stroking the head of her long lost son, Prince Vlad.

That
night one of Dragomir's men, Lucian, drove me to their secret landing strip in a narrow valley about twenty miles north of Sibiu. Only it wasn't. It was a plowed-under ag field with a stand of tall trees at the far end.

I asked Lucian to explain.

“I will show to you.”

He drove his small hay truck toward the far end of the field, wallowing through the furrows in low gear. This was a job for the four-wheel GAZ but we'd decided to garage it. Too conspicuous.

The truck got stuck in the furrows so we climbed out onto the half-frozen sod and started to walk. “Lucian, here's an idea. Why not just tell me what we are going to see?”

Lucian waved me on happily. “Come, come!”

I slogged along behind, grumpy as a socialite at the Loyal Order of the Moose Friday Night Smoker. Lucian led the way with his flashlight as we wandered into the tall trees and down a crude road covered in pine needles. He pointed excitedly to a small clearing, to a massive hulk covered with a tarp. Lucian ran to it and lifted up its skirt, revealing the rusted front drum of a very big and very old steam roller.

So. We didn't have a landing strip. What we did have, given enough time, good weather and an enormous supply of coal or logs to stoke the boiler, was a potential landing strip.

“Este bun
, yes?” beamed Lucian.

“It's better than
bun
, Lucian. It's what we Yanks call
tarfu
!”

“
Tarfu
?” said Lucian. “Da!”

Lucian's smiling face reminded me of those beardless youths at Andrews AFB who wanted me to take a few practice
jumps from a C-45 at five hundred feet. I didn't tell him that
tarfu
is Army shorthand for ‘things are really fucked up.'