by Dick Rosano
Ebert stood and leaned on the Resolute Desk.
“I’ve prepared some talking points for you,” he told the President. “It opens a dialogue on the subject but draws an outline of where we’d like to go.”
“Where you’d like to go,” said Pendleton, emphasizing the pronoun.
Ebert shrugged off the comment.
“We need to do something, Mike. And I need you to take the initiative here.”
Pendleton took the papers from the Senator who then left the room by the secretary’s door.
Chapter Eighteen
April 17
Le Cru Wine Bar
“Get in,” I heard over my shoulder.
I was walking on the street near St. Peter’s Church when I heard her. Looking up, I saw Simone on the seat of a horse-drawn carriage. She was heading in the same direction as I and had overtaken me on the pavement.
The driver brought the carriage to a halt at her command and I climbed in beside her.
“I’m on my way to Le Cru Wine Bar. Saw you on the street and thought we should get to know each other better. Want to share a bottle of Krug champagne with me?”
I had to consider her motives and noted that she curled her hand through my arm and snuggled closer as she said it. I had amusing memories of her flirtations at the wine tasting but didn’t find her approach very attractive. Still, I let her hand remain resting on my forearm and accepted the invitation. The ambassador might know some things about banks in Austria that I could learn from.
The carriage pulled up to the door of the wine bar and we climbed down. Simone didn’t pay the driver which suggested either that she was a regular customer or someone else was paying her tab.
Le Cru’s interior was quite small, with only a few small tables around the perimeter and a bar-height table in the middle of the room, large enough for about eight stools. The back wall was lined with a broad range of Champagne and sparkling wine, all befitting the moniker for the establishment. We chose one of the tables by the window and the woman came from behind the bar to serve us.
“Guten abend. I’m Nicole. Want to see a menu of the wines?”
“No,” replied Simone quickly. “Thank you. How about a bottle of Krug?”
“Sure,” came the response, and Nicole spun around to return to the wine cooler behind the bar.
“You’re making waves, Darren.”
That came suddenly.
“How so? All I’m doing is tasting wine and writing up my results. The restaurants can’t be that disappointed.”
Simone cast a disappointed look in my direction. She obviously didn’t like my deflection and didn’t intend to let it stand.
“You’re snooping around at DFR-Wien, aren’t you?”
“Well, no, in fact, I’m not ‘snooping around.’ I’m trying to help some investors interested in the firm and how it can help.”
“DFR-Wien is a reputable company, and the suggestions you’re making are defamatory,” she countered.
“I’m not making any suggestions, I’m…”
“Cut the crap, Darren. You’re not that cute, nor that innocent. You knew it would get back to me, didn’t you?”
“Why should it?” I asked. “You’re the U.S. Ambassador. What do you have to do with DFR?”
I was surprised that Simone had slipped up and mentioned the bank by name, or any relationship she might have with the institution. But something about DFR got her hair up. She paused briefly before replying, and I concluded that she accepted my counter as a challenge.
“I’ve been in Vienna for a while and I’ve made lots of friends,” she said in carefully measured words. “Folks at DFR are friends of mine and, yes, I have investments there. When they were asked to consider investments from your firm, they were nonplussed. But when hints of the possible illegality of these investments were made, they began to question the source. You. So, naturally, they appealed to me about the character of this American who was in their offices.”
“They?” I asked. “Or do you mean Gerhardt Eichner?”
We sat in silence for a moment as another carriage clacked by outside the window. It was a cool April evening and the lights in the surrounding buildings were just switching on. I wondered why Simone would risk a conversation such as this in the presence of strangers at the other tables. Not very discreet? Or hiding in plain sight?
She avoided my question about Eichner and changed the topic to social things while Nicole opened the bottle and poured two flutes for us. The barkeep then set the Krug down on a felt coaster in the middle of our table and went away.
“I’m not involved in anything illegal,” I continued. “As I said, I’m here on wine business and just thought I’d take advantage of being near the bank to help some friends.”
“Help them? In what way?”
“They’re investors. DFR-Wien is known for its successful portfolio. They’re back in the States and I’m here. They asked me to check it out for them.”
“How did you get a meeting with Eichner so easily?”
“I’d like to chalk that up to his dedication to customer service. Perhaps also to my affability,” I added with a smile.
“Like I said, Darren, you’re not that cute.”
“Aw, darn, Simone. I thought you liked me.”
“I do,” she said, leaning in intimately. “But I wouldn’t invest in you.”
“Good, because I have no interest in any long-term investment either.”
Simone smiled at the double meaning and rested her hand on my leg.
“Okay, then. We shall see.”
We turned our attention back to the slowly emptying bottle of Krug. It always surprises me how two people can so easily polish off an entire bottle of champagne. Nicole brought some breadsticks that were flavored with herbs and cheese, a perfect match for the wine, and Simone smiled and allowed the alcohol to lighten her mood and lower her inhibitions.
“So, how’s Alana?” she asked.
I demurred but smiled.
“Inspector Weber is fine,” I said after a moment. “Why do you ask?”
“She seems to show quite an interest in you.”
“Because she dragged me into the police station, confiscated my laptop, and grilled me for a couple hours? Yeah, I guess that’s showing some interest.”
“And, possibly,” Simone added, “because she continues to have surveillance of you.”
I knew that, although I had to credit the polizei for keeping their presence professionally concealed.
“Yeah, possibly that, too,” I allowed.
Simone lifted her flute of Krug, allowing the lights above to sparkle in the liquid contents. Her smile returned and her eyes crinkled ever so slightly.
“She’s pretty.” Simone showed the briefest hint of jealousy. Or was it just the spirit of competition?
“Uh-huh,” I replied.
Peering over the rim of the flute, Simone eyes flashed once again.
“But you’re here with me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Think she’ll mind?”
“I doubt she thinks about that,” I said.
When the bottle was depleted, Simone suggested that I join her for dinner at Fabio’s, Vienna’s newest “meet place” and considered the sexiest place in the city.
“No, thanks,” I said. “Not my style.”
“My loss,” she replied, pulling her hand slowly from my leg.
Chapter Nineteen
April 17
Champions Bar
A barstool in Champions Bar seemed like a safer way to end my evening. I was only an elevator ride away from my room in the Marriott and far enough from Simone that I didn’t have to worry about her next move.
My phone was silenced while I listened to the soccer match on the television, but I heard the buzz as it vibrated from an incoming call. The number was blocked, which left open lots of possibilities. I might have simply swept the call away but as my trip to Vienna had become more complicated, I thoug
ht perhaps it was an important call.
It was Alana.
“Mr. Priest,” she began, and with the formality my hopes for détente were quickly dashed.
“We have opened another file on your computer. It is a video, looks like one taken with a body cam.”
“Okay. What’s on it?”
“A robbery.”
That didn’t sound good. Whoever had tampered with my laptop was leaving land mines that kept exploding.
“Where?”
“It is a hotel cashier’s office. No one in the room, but the camera captures a pair of hands manipulating the keypad of the hotel safe.”
“What did you see on the hands?” I asked, my thoughts going back to tattoos.
“They were covered with white gloves. Why do you ask?”
I was reluctant to tell Weber what I suspected. Usually, when a target of an investigation quickly begins throwing off distractions and accusations, he becomes a suspect.
“Just asking. Typical gumshoe work.”
“We don’t wear gumshoes around here, Mr. Priest.” There was a subtle lilt in her voice, suggesting that Weber’s impression of me might be improving.
“Why didn’t you bring me in again?” I asked.
“We ran your file again,” she replied. “Through Interpol. And some contacts in the United States. Obviously, there’s a lot we don’t know about you at this point, but I think maybe you’re right.”
“About what?”
“About being framed.”
That was a comforting thought. Incriminating evidence keeps turning up on my computer and sinking me deeper into a hole, so any reprieve from Weber and the Austrian polizei was welcome.
“I need to go back to something, though. Why did you ask about the hands in the video?” she said. “Is there something that you’ve found out in your – let’s see, what did you say –,” as I heard her noisily flipping pages of her notebook, “in your audit of banking investments?”
Weber wanted to remind me of what I told them, and with her theatrics she intended to convey to me that she knew it was a lie. Her impression of me might be improving but lying to the police was not good, and she was sure to remind me that it wouldn’t be tolerated.
“Yes, and no,” I said. “I was only interested in knowing if the person in the video had any identifiable marks.”
“Do you, Mr. Priest?”
“Come on, Inspector. Darren, please.”
There was a long pause.
“Okay. Darren. Do you have any identifiable marks on your hands?”
“No,” I answered confidently, but still didn’t want to bring up the fact that I had no fingerprints.
“Besides,” I added, “if those were my hands on the video, why would I be asking you about them?”
Weber’s silence assured me that she saw my point.
“Where are you?” she asked.
It seemed like a strange question, but I replied.
“In Champions, in the Marriott.”
“Do you drink beer too, Mr…uh, Darren?”
“Of course. A Steigl at the moment, to be specific.”
“Hmmm. I prefer martinis, but beer is good.”
She was dropping hints that weren’t hard to decipher.
“There’s an empty stool next to me. Should I save it for you, umm, Alana?”
I had to test the name game, to see if she would relax a bit.
“Yes,” she responded. “But I have to make some arrangements first. Be there in about half an hour.”
The soccer match was late in the second half with a two-nil score and not much offense. Since Alana was on her way, I would have to order another beer and wait for her. Too bad the game offered little entertainment.
She was an interesting character, this inspector. Young, smart as a whip, and attractive. I googled the police organization in Austria and looked up her one-starred epaulet. Her proper title was Federal Police Officer and her rank was Inspector. Zero stars on the shoulder meant “Aspirant,” two stars meant “Revierinspektor” or Senior Constable, and three stars meant “Gruppeninspektor” or Sergeant. A little more digging revealed that Weber reported directly to the three-star Gruppeninspektor, but I found no information about her personal life.
Halfway through my next Stiegl, Alana appeared beside me and slid onto the barstool. She smiled at me first, then turned her attention to the bartender and asked for a draft of the same beer.
“What’s the score?” she asked.
“Two-nil. Boring match.”
“Do you know anything about soccer, Darren? Most Americans fail to appreciate the subtleties of the game.”
“Yes, I do know the game of futbol. I played it in high school and college.”
“Oh,” she said, raising her eyebrows to show surprise. Sipping the foam off the top of the beer, she continued. “This is why I prefer martinis,” she added, wiping the foam from her upper lip.
“Really? I thought it was because they were stronger drinks?”
“Okay, yeah. Maybe that, too.”
After some light evening conversation, we turned back to the subject of my laptop and how she concluded that it was mine.
“That wasn’t hard, Darren. You lost your laptop, said it was a Galaxy, and seemed to recognize it when we showed it to you in the police station.”
“And the fingerprints?” I asked.
“Yes, and the fingerprints.”
“Where did you get the match for the prints?” I asked.
“We work closely with Interpol,” she said. Of course, I thought, but there had to be more.
I knew immediately that either someone in the States – Bordrick, perhaps? – had inserted the information as an insurance policy against me, or someone else had infiltrated the Interpol system. By now I had to consider Simone Frontiere, Dryden, even Bao Chinh.
“Your system has been hacked,” I said to her. It was a pretty bold move, but I had decided that with her growing trust in me, now was the time to expose the charade.
“Do you mean Interpol, or the Austrian system?” she asked.
“Either, or possibly both.”
“How do you know we’ve been hacked?” she asked.
“Simple. You said you lifted fingerprints from the laptop, submitted them to Interpol, and got a match with me.”
“Right,” she said with a confident laugh. “How does that prove that our system has been hacked?”
“I don’t have fingerprints,” I told her.
By then, the bartender who had overheard our earlier conversation delivered a martini to Alana without her asking. She smiled and thanked him, then turned back toward me.
“Everyone has fingerprints,” she insisted, although I could detect a hint of doubt in her voice.
“Everyone is born with fingerprints,” I corrected, although I quickly checked my memory of medical science to wonder whether that was true.
“Then,” she continued, turning from her drink to look at me, “what are you saying?”
“It’s a long story.”
Nodding to her martini, she said, “It’s a long drink. I have time.”
I explained how during the war, some of us were asked to volunteer for a new experiment, the use of a certain chemical to either remove fingerprints or disrupt the pattern of loops and whorls on the pads of the last joint of the fingers to interfere with their capture and interpretation. I had volunteered for the experiment and the result was that I fell into the latter group, those individuals whose fingerprints were so distorted by the process that whatever was left behind couldn’t be recorded or interpreted.
“Huh,” she said between careful sips of the vodka. Without asking for permission, she reached out and lifted my right hand by the palm. The warmth of her touch felt good. She then turned my hand over, palm up, and ran the fingers of her other hand over the tips of my fingers. Of course, she couldn’t tell the pattern of prints just with her hand, especially not in this light, and I had to wonder whether – k
nowing this – she had another, more intimate reason for practicing this ploy.
“Huh,” Alana repeated, then unceremoniously let go of my hand and returned to her martini.
“Let me see if I understand,” she continued. “They erased your fingerprints back in the, what…Army?”
I knew she had that answer if she already knew so much else about me. Even though I was now Darren Priest, those who fabricated new identities were smart enough to insert some of the real person’s past into the biography. Made it easier to remember. So, Darren Priest – like Armando Listrani – would have been in the Army. But I nodded anyway, smiling.
“And because of that, you don’t leave evidence behind that you were there, at a place, wherever,” she continued.
“Not exactly,” I clarified. “It’s almost like a smudged print. A smart inspector can see that there is a print, but they can’t classify it, so the image can’t be compared to a database of prints.”
“But that means you can’t be fingerprinted for the files, right?” she added.
“Right.”
“So, there can’t be a print in the file with your name associated?”
“Right again.”
“But we got clean prints from the laptop. Whose are they?”
“Beats me. Did you run them through the Interpol system again? Look for another match?”
“No. Once we hit on your name, we stopped the search.”
“I suggest you run it again,” I said, sipping from the Steigl before me.
For a few moments, we both attended to our drinks. Alana seemed intensely focused on hers, or was it on what I had told her?
“Okay, one more thing,” she said finally. “Why were your fingerprints removed?”
“I told you. It was for an experiment. While I was in the Army.”
“Why you?”
I knew too much to tell her.
“Why did they pick you for this experiment? Was it because – if it was successful – it would allow you to roam around and not be tracked?”
I didn’t give any indication of a reply.
“Was it because you were expected to enter places and not be traced?”