The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [179]
"The hills are alive with the sound of myoosikkkk," Dominic sang, horribly.
"If you sing like that in church, God'll strike your ass dead," Brian warned, pulling out the city maps for the approach to Wien, as Vienna was known to its citizens.
And the city streets were a rat warren. The capital of Austria-Osterreich-predated the Roman legions, with no street straight for a longer distance than would be needed by a legion to parade past its tri bunus militaris on the emperor's birthday. The map showed inner and outer ring roads, which probably marked the former site of medieval walls-the Turks had come here more than once hoping to add Austria to their empire, but that trinket of military history had not been part of the official Marine Corps reading list. A largely Catholic country, because the ruling House of Hapsburg had been so, it had not kept the Austrians from exterminating its prominent and prosperous Jewish minority after Hitler had subsumed Osterreich into the Greater German Reich. That had been after the Anschluss plebiscite of 1938. Hitler had been born here, not in Germany as widely believed, and the Austrians had repaid that loyalty with some of their own, becoming more Nazified than Hitler himself, or so objective history reported, not necessarily the Austrians' now. It was the one country in the world where The Sound of Music had fallen flat at the box office, maybe because the movie had been uncomplimentary toward the Nazi party.
For all that, Vienna looked like what it was, a former imperial city with wide, tree-lined boulevards and classical architecture, and remarkably well-turned-out citizens. Brian navigated them to the Hotel Imperial on Kartner Ring, a building that looked to be an adjunct to the well-known Schonbrunn Palace.
"You have to admit they put us up in nice places, Aldo," Dominic observed.
It was even more impressive inside, with gilt plaster and lacquered woodwork, every segment of which appeared to have been installed by master craftsmen imported from Renaissance Florence. The lobby was not spacious, but the reception desk was impossible to miss, manned as it was by people wearing clothing that marked them as hotel staff as surely as a Marine in dress blues.
"Goad day," the concierge said in greeting. "Your name is Caruso?"
"Correct," Dominic said, surprised at the concierge's ESP. "You should have a reservation for my brother and myself?"
"Yes, sir," the concierge replied with enthusiastic subordination. His English might have been learned at Harvard. "Two connecting rooms, overlooking the street."
"Excellent." Dominic fished out his American Express black card and handed it across.
"Thank you."
"Any messages for us?" Dominic asked.
"No, sir," the concierge assured him.
"Can you have the valet attend to our car? It's rented. We're not sure if we'll be keeping it or not."
"Of course, sir."
"Thank you. Can we see our rooms?"
"Yes. You are on the first floor-excuse me, the second floor, as you say in America. Franz," he called.
The bellman's English was just as good. "This way, if you please, gentlemen." No elevator, but rather a walk up a flight of red-carpeted steps directly toward a full-length portrait of somebody who looked very important indeed, in his white military uniform and beautifully combed-out chin whiskers.
"Who might that be?" Dominic asked the bellman.
"The Emperor Franz Josef, sir. He visited the hotel upon its opening in the nineteenth century."
"Ah." It explained the attitude of the staff here, but you couldn't knock the style of