The Vienna Connection

by Dick Rosano

  Ebert’s head was still tilted toward the bowl of ice cream, but he looked up at Claire.

  “What about her?”

  “Mike. He dated her right?”

  Pendleton didn’t understand why his wife was so interested in his high school exploits that night.

  “Uh, yeah, I think so. Why?” Ebert replied.

  Claire smiled.

  “And he slept with her, right?” she asked.

  Ebert looked at the President, who dropped his spoon unceremoniously into the ice cream bowl.

  “Claire. Listen,” Pendleton said. “What’s this about? Yes, I dated girls before I knew you. I wasn’t a saint, or a hermit. Where are we going with this?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she responded. “I just get tickled thinking about your bad boy years.”

  “It was only high school,” Pendleton said. “I didn’t have time for very many bad boy years.”

  “Oh, that’s not what I heard,” was her retort.

  All the while, Ebert ate his ice cream and watched his friend and his friend’s wife debate past behavior. He knew a lot more than Claire did, but he was not about to rat his friend out. In fact, he came to his defense.

  “Look, Claire,” Ebert began. “We were all a bit crazy back in those years…”

  “I wasn’t,” she said with conviction.

  “Well, maybe not, but a lot of guys were,” continued Ebert. “We didn’t do anything wrong…”

  “You mean like getting into girls’ pants?” she asked.

  Ebert flinched at the clarity of the challenge.

  “Like dating, drinking, and maybe having fun.”

  Claire looked at him sideways and smiled at Ebert’s attempt to minimize their past.

  “Things were different back then,” he stated. “Guys did things, hoped for things. It was the way it was.”

  “And my Mike did those things too, right?”

  Neither the President nor the Senator replied to that. After a moment, Ebert restarted the conversation.

  “Mike’s college experience and the years that he has spent since that time in the service of our country speak volumes. I think that matters more than whether, as high schoolers, we – let’s say – experimented with…things.”

  At that, Ebert rose and excused himself. He knew that Mike would still have a bit more explaining to do, but he preferred to not be present for that.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  April 18

  1516 Brewing Company

  “Aggie, what did you do?” I asked as I slid onto the barstool next to my friend. He was holding the same spot at 1516 Brewing Company that he had two nights earlier, as if he hadn’t left.

  “What did you do?” I repeated.

  “About what, my friend? What do you mean?”

  I waved my hand at Toby, the bartender, and asked for a Czech lager, then turned slightly toward Aggie.

  “You blew my cover. Why?”

  It was commonplace for someone who protects a secret identity to have a confidante, some person chosen carefully, but capable of sharing information that otherwise must remain private. Keeping secrets was easy; keeping every secret was not. “No secret is known to only one person,” Sergeant Randal had told us, acknowledging that those of us in Operation Best Guess would need that outlet, too. And he knew that we couldn’t use each other in that role; we had to seek our companions outside of the Operation. After the war, just as at the end of every operation of this type, the unit was expected to split up and never reconnect. Which could be more dangerous than opening up about long-held secrets.

  I had fallen on the trust I held in Aggie Darwin, a similarly broken soul in search of peace at Tall Cedars commune. I told him about Best Guess and revealed my true identity, Armando Listrani, and he held it carefully for all these years. Aggie was unshakeable, but something had shaken him. It’s possible that now Dryden knew who I was, and Aggie was the only one in Vienna who could have tipped him off.

  I glanced over at my friend and saw a tear had welled up in the corner of his eye. He brushed it away and lifted the beer to his lips.

  “Too much pain, Darren,” was all he said at first, then he resumed drinking his beer.

  Aggie had been captured by the enemy in Afghanistan, an odd and twisted event since most drone pilots operated from afar. He had insisted on going “to ground” so that he could meet the locals. It nearly cost him his life.

  He couldn’t claim to be a prisoner of war, since war had not really been declared. And although most returning soldiers were entitled to the services given to veterans, his wounds were too deep to fix with bandages and therapy. He told me of the pain he suffered during several of our meetings at Tall Cedars, and it sounded like physical pain, but his description went beyond the atrocities visited to arms and legs and chest.

  “Too much pain,” he repeated. “He knew about my fear,” and my mind went directly to what Aggie had told me long ago. He was terrified of small, closed spaces. The terrorists knew it and locked him into a coffin-sized box for days at a time. No water, no food, no light. And, Aggie thought, no air. The “he” that Aggie referred to now was not in Afghanistan but someone else, and I imagined that it was Dryden.

  We didn’t talk much more, just sipped our beers, but I knew that Aggie was powerless in those situations. I still trusted him, even though he had given up my identity, and I even felt guilty that he had been drawn into this business.

  Without re-engaging the conversation, I threw a fifty Euro note on the bar, told Toby to use it to pay for Aggie’s tab too, and rested my hand on my friend’s back. I searched my mind for something to say, and I could tell from the tension in Aggie’s shoulder muscles that he awaited the same thing. But I had no words for our situation.

  Patting him gently as if in consolation, I turned and left the bar.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  April 19

  DFR - Wien

  It was time to return to DFR-Wien. My encounter with Dryden made me want to speed this up, especially once I saw that snuff film on my laptop with what I was assuming were Dryden’s hands at the rope.

  Another concern I had was timing. It was Friday, which my friend back home recommended was the best time to initiate a float. With her help, I had secured a number of stock purchases on a short sale and I could now float the fifty million Euros to deposit in DFR.

  Eichner was talking to Chinh in the lobby when I entered. Both of them looked in my direction and, when the bank manager turned toward me, Chinh remained several steps away.

  “Mr. Priest,” Eichner said while reaching for my hand. “How are you?” This last was said while he pulled me toward his private office on the mezzanine level to the right.

  I saw Chi-Chi follow along at a distance. He kept out of Eichner’s line of sight but close enough to listen in.

  “I am prepared to make the initial deposit,” I replied.

  “Initial?” said Eichner. There was a touch of disappointment in his voice, but he cheerily went on. “Oh, sure. I understand. Let’s talk about it in my office,” he concluded as he guided me up the seven steps into his enclave.

  Chi-Chi remained behind but occasionally glanced up at the window to Eichner’s office. He probably knew what the bank manager had on the side, or at least a strong hint of it, and Chi-Chi may now have assumed that I had weaseled my way into the business too. I caught his glance at one point and wondered whether his distrust of Americans would get in my way. I doubted that he would rat me out to Eichner, since he didn’t like him at all, but he might contact the police. If he did, my newly warm relationship with Alana Weber might not be enough to keep me out of trouble.

  “So, Mr. Priest, how will you make the deposit?”

  “The transfer, you mean,” I replied.

  Eichner leaned back in his chair.

  “Yes, well, that is the customary way of doing things these days, but I have found that it is harder to secure my commission when funds are wired. It’s much easier to simpl
y remove my commission from the money that is being deposited and make it fulfill its pledge at a later time.”

  Clearly, I wasn’t going to carry five million euros around with me to hand over to Eichner. But I understood his point and hadn’t considered it.

  “Tell you what, you don’t want the official records to show the entire deposit, in this case five million euros. How about if I transfer four million euros to set up the account, then transfer your commission of four hundred thousand euros over the weekend, when it can be separated from the first and funneled through you?”

  Eichner may be a bank manager and may have been skimming lots of money over the years, but he apparently had never dealt with such sums before, and his excitement overcame his doubts.

  “Yes, that seems like it would work.”

  I reached into my pocket and withdrew a small envelope that held two flash drives.

  “I also want to begin another part of our relationship. I need a safe place to put these,” I added, holding the envelope at eye level. “They are very important, and very sensitive, and I understand you have just such a place to deposit them.”

  Eichner grinned.

  “For our best customers, we have extra security. Would you like to set this up now? I can take you to the vault myself.”

  “Yes, let’s do that.”

  We exited Eichner’s office and headed down the steps to the lobby. Chinh was still there, greeting customers and pretending to be uninterested in us. However, I saw that he watched us pass through the lobby and down the steps into the lower level where the vault was.

  Eichner withdrew a key from his pocket to open the outer door, then another key to open the iron gate that stretched across the foyer in front of the massive vault door. Once inside the gate, he pulled it shut behind us and locked it again. But instead of going to the vault, Eichner veered left toward an unmarked door and produced another set of keys. This time there were three, which he used to manipulate separate locks on the door. When he swung it open, there was another door, this one protected by a high-security X10 lock that I recognized from my days in classified work. After turning the dial back and forth, Eichner spun the knob and I heard the telltale click allowing him to swing the door open.

  He went through the door first and invited me in.

  Arranged along the side wall were four rows of bank drawers, each secured with a key lock and a combination lock. I counted quickly and found that there were forty in all and wondered how I would be able to get into each one to inspect the contents and find what I was looking for. There were no markings on the drawers so it would be hit or miss. And I had no idea if I would be left alone long enough to do it.

  “Each of these locks will open the drawer,” he said pointing first to the key lock and then to the combination dial. “The customer keeps the key and, with it, he can access the drawer alone once I have let him into this room.”

  “And the combination lock?”

  “That’s for me. That lock will open any drawer and allows me to access the contents also.”

  “I’m not sure I like that, though. I thought I’d have total security, including – I may add – from you.”

  “I have to have some security, too, don’t you think?” he replied.

  I would have to accept the arrangement for now but hoped that he wouldn’t pry too soon.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Eichner studied the wall as if he was looking for something. Without labels or drawer markings, I assumed that he had memorized the placement of contents and knew which drawers would be available. After a moment, he chose one in the second tier toward the right. He walked toward it, spun the dial, and opened it, withdrawing a long safe deposit box from the opening.

  Without any conversation, I placed the envelope with the flash drives into the box and returned it to the wall. Eichner gave me a key, closed the door, and locked it. He then invited me to test my key, which I did. It worked.

  “Please arrange the transfers, Mr. Priest,” he said while guiding me out of the area. “I’d like to know that you are kept secure,” he added this while throwing a look over his shoulder at the inner vault.

  When we had returned to the bank lobby, I saw Dryden across the room. I also saw Chi-Chi at the other corner, taking it all in. Then, Chi-Chi walked toward a bank teller near where I stood and announced rather loudly that he was going for coffee. He avoided looking at me, but I took that as a hint that I should catch up to him. I was going to guess at Julius Meinl.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  April 19

  Julius Meinl and DFR-Wien

  I let some time pass and walked aimlessly around the block to give some separation between me and Chinh. By the time I got to Julius Meinl, he was sitting on the bench outside the store sipping his coffee.

  “Hello, Mr. Chinh. How’s the coffee?”

  “Terrific, as usual.”

  “I was just going inside,” I said, “Can I get you another cup?”

  “Yes, that would be kind of you. Black. I prefer the Genuss blend. It’s aromatic and bold, not like the watery coffee in the States.”

  “Sure. Be right out.” I decided not to argue with his assessment of American coffee; besides, he was right.

  I went into the store and headed for the coffee bar. The aromas were much like those in some American coffee establishments, but I had already sampled the Julius Meinl product and found it to be much better than the Starbucks that people flocked to in the States.

  Securing a cup of Genuss for me and another one for Chinh, I went back outside. He was leaning back on the bench with his eyes closed, absorbing the warm spring sun of mid-afternoon.

  “Here you go,” I said, handing the cup to him, and bringing Chinh back to the moment.

  “Thanks.”

  We let a few moments pass without saying much, small talk about events in Vienna and the flavors of coffee. Then Chinh switched to another topic.

  “You already know about the safe deposit boxes at DFR, I assume.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I do.”

  “I mean the real ones, not the ones that Eichner shows off to people that are in the vault.”

  I hadn’t thought about the vault since I didn’t visit it, but I assumed that a bank such as DFR would provide the normal services, so I nodded “yes” to the question.

  “Eichner puts some of his customers in the usual vault, but he reserves the best paying customers for his special room.”

  I nodded again and let him go on.

  “For reasons that I don’t quite understand, he took you to that secure room right away. There are only four Americans in that room. You said you were looking into an American, right?”

  I didn’t tell Chinh that, and so I denied it. I had only used those words in my early encounter with Weber and wondered how he knew it or guessed it.

  “As Aggie once told me,” he continued, and I had to wonder at how we knew the same people, “no secret is known only to one person.” Aggie was close enough to my circle that I could imagine him repeating the phrase. I had to smile at Chi-Chi’s wily abilities to tie things together.

  “Well, anyway,” he said, “there are only four Americans in there. Now five, with you.”

  Chi-Chi produced an envelope and handed it to me. I slipped it into my pocket without exploring its contents, but it was something hard.

  “There are four keys in that envelope. Guard them carefully.”

  “What are they to?” I asked, but Chi-Chi’s smile left no doubt in my mind. I just hoped they were the keys to the other four Americans’ boxes, and that I had to figure out some way to get into them.

  I would normally wait a day or two after getting the keys to return to try them out. But time was of the essence, so after Chi-Chi cleared my line of vision I stood and turned in the direction of the Marriott. I needed to sort out how to pull this off. Instead of just asking Eichner for entrance to the room, I developed a story that I wanted to place some papers relating t
o the transfer of money into my own drawer. I hoped that the thought of the transfer taking place would allay Eichner’s concerns and he would be pleased to escort me back to the room.

  But first, I had to come up with some papers, papers that he might well retrieve and read after I was gone, papers that would have a way of not raising doubts in his mind.

  I had learned a trick that could make typed paragraphs on a page illegible. It would appear as though the words were hidden in some chemically-treated ink, making it hard for someone – for example of Eichner’s limited tradecraft abilities – to decipher. He would, instead, conclude that there was a hidden narrative on the page, while leaving him with the conviction that these were in fact important papers.

  I walked back to the Marriott and went straight for the business center on the eighth floor. There, inside the lobby of the concierge lounge, I inserted a new flash drive and pulled up a document that had no particular meaning. The one important thing was that it had my name at the top. I printed this out and returned to my room.

  Toilet articles and hotel room chemicals are wonderful things. If combined in the right mix, you can create a wide range of useful concoctions, some dry and some wet. I needed the wet kind. From the bathroom shelf, I pulled some of my own toiletries – including a mixing agent that I always carried disguised as a hand cream – then I found the cleaning supplies that I had lifted from the maid’s cart two days earlier. Wiping the inside of one of the glasses from the minibar, I began to combine the ingredients. It smelled like cleaning fluids but had an added virtue: When dipped in a pan of this blend, standard printer ink lifted off the page and curled away in little black trails.

  When the blend was completed, I stoppered the sink and poured the mix into the bowl. Handling my printed paper by the two upper corners, I lowered it into the sink, keeping the top line with my name on it out of the mix, and watched as the ink dissolved into the broth.