David Stone

by Micah Dalton 04 - The Skorpion Directive (v5)

  .” “So I can assume these people don’t work for us?” “Yes. For now. But let me see what else I can find out. Can you tell me why you’re in Vienna? Maybe it’s relevant?” “I’m seeing an old friend.” “Dear God. Not that Cora Vasari creature? I thought her family stashed her away in a castle in Crete and barred you from the gates?” “It’s a villa in Anacapri, as far as I know. And yes, they have. But Cora’s no ‘creature.’ ” “I know. I know. Mandy Pownall told me all about her. Mandy loathes her, root and branch, mainly because Mandy has plans for you herself. Anyway, I’m just heating you up. You haven’t said why you’re in Vienna. Or who you’re there to meet.” “I don’t like to say it in the clear.” “You’re not in the clear. This line is shielded.” “Well, keep it to yourself, but I’m meeting Issadore Galan. Galan’s got a problem, a nasty one. I need to meet him, take care of it.” “Okay. No need to get more specific. Good luck with him. In the meantime, I don’t think whoever is on you is any friend of ours. So you be careful. Lots of people don’t like you very much. Especially those Cagey Bees. They’re all over Vienna too, horrible nasty little bugs. And you can’t trust the Austrians either. Hitler was an Austrian. So was Henry Kissinger.” “Hitler was a Bavarian, but I hear you. Bye, Sally.” He rung off, set the machine down, thought it over for a moment, and then picked it up again, hit BROWSER, and pulled up a restricted CIA search engine. Cesar, polishing his silver and looking in the mirror behind the bar, studied the young American’s rocky face for a time and then put his head down and went back to his work. ALTHOUGH

  Rolf Jägermeier was indeed a Pfennigfuchseres Arschloch

  , he was also a seasoned street operator, and it had been his bitter experience to lose more than one target inside a hotel. A sallow, boneless man with a wide dish-shaped face made morose by years spent disapproving of everything placed in front of it, he had sat slumped down behind the wheel of the gray Audi, fretting and biting his nails for two hours, while the target—who was really

  beginning to grind on Jagermeir’s nerves—sat at the long bar inside the Regina Hotel, quietly drinking serial scotches and, as far as his watchers could tell from their occasional furtive sashays through the lobby, playing games on his dämliches

  BlackBerry. In the meantime, Jägermeier had multiple agents out and about in the streets, cooling their heels, wandering aimlessly around the Ring District or sitting in cafés buying themselves Löwenbräus and Weiner Schnitzels on his ticket, and all of this dead-end farrago at double time and a half for excessive overtime. And then there was Veronika Miklas, the aristocratic little bitch, who had gotten herself so completely burned at the intersection of Währinger Strasse and Rooseveltplatz—she lit his verfluchte

  Zigarette

  , can you believe it?—

  so there was no point paying her overtime to hang about the perimeter with nothing useful to do. At least he could do something about her

  , which was to cut her loose and send her home. And he was really looking forward to doing it. He’d get that stiff-necked little Kokain-Kopf

  under his heel and grind her into a stain. When he got through with her, she’d be in a mobile unit on her way back to her artsy little flat in Heiligenstadt, sniveling into a hankie, with her tiny ears pinned back and burning cherry bright. So something to savor, at least. But how was he supposed to justify all of this killer overtime to necrotizing fasciitis, his Spitzname

  for Nenia Faschi, their section chief? Reluctantly, after some more nail biting and fretting, Jägermeier decided to confirm Dalton’s status again, this time sending in Jürgen Stodt, the tall, bald kid Dalton had observed necking with a girl at the intersection of Rooseveltplatz and Währinger Strasse. Stodt now wore a shapeless cloth shooting cap—backward, of course—and a very nice Burberry overcoat to hide his baggy jeans. Dalton would have recognized him anyway—the cow-pie boots alone would have been enough—and he tried hard not to laugh out loud as the kid moonwalked slowly by the entrance to the bar, trailing his ragged laces, looking maniacally interested in a rack of tourist magazines. Stodt sent Jägermeier a couple of clicks on his wrist mike to confirm that the target was still there and then continued his lace-dragging, boot-schlumping progress through the lobby and out the exit that led onto the grounds of the Votivkirche. As soon as Stodt had pushed through the heavy glass doors, Dalton got up from the bar, laying down a fat sheaf of euros. He smiled at the old Hussar, who gave him a sharp salute, his long, sad face cracking into a sideways grin for just a moment. “Sie haben ihn eingeschläfert, glaube ich, mein Herr.” Dalton considered the old man for a long, taut moment. “You think I have put whom

  to sleep, Cesar?” Cesar looked down at the velvet cloth in his hands, moved it in a small circle to clear away a nonexistent speck, and then looked back at Dalton, his face suddenly quite stern. “Die Überwachungs-Dienst.

  The bloody OSE.” “Really,” said Dalton, showing his teeth in a sideways smile. “And why do you say that?” Cesar shrugged, raised a shaggy white brow. “Die gottverdamten Sozialisten

  . They are always in and out of here. They use the washrooms, pissing all over the walls, fucking Bolsheviks. They never pay the attendant. They hang around in the lobby, scratching their arses and picking their noses, and bringing down the tone. Their street boss is a penny-pinching arsehole named Rolf Jägermeier. Squats at my

  bar, taking up two stools. Drinks kaltes Wasser

  and stuffs gesalzene Nüsse

  down his face. Never the smile, never the tip bigger than Stalin’s pizzle. You are amerikanischer Soldat

  ?” Dalton considered lying but decided against it. “What gave me away?” Cesar touched the Warsaw Cavalry pin on his lapel. “You knew this. What it means. Did not have to ask. And you carry yourself like a soldier. May I ask what unit you are with?” “I started out with the Fifth Special Forces at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Since then I have . . . diversified.” That got a broad smile, with more than a little of the Cossack in it. “Why are the Socialists interested in you? Are you spy?” Dalton smiled, this time more convincingly. “If I were spy, I would deny it.” “And if you were not . . .” “I would of course deny it.” Cesar’s seamed face cracked into a predatory grin. “Ja

  . I would deny it too. I do not wish to be . . . unverschämt

  ? Impertinent?” “Please. Be my guest.” “On your honor as a soldier, do you mean to bring harm to any civilians here in Wien? To do any violence or damage to innocents?” “In no way. I’m here to meet a friend. And then quietly go.” Cesar said nothing for a full minute. Dalton felt his appraisal. It was not unlike standing in front of an open furnace. “Gut. Ich glaube Ihnen

  . I believe you. Do you wish to shake off these Socialist Welpen

  ?” “It would be . . . useful.” Cesar nodded, his face hardening. “There is a subcellar hallway that leads to the Votivkirche—” “There is? Why?” Cesar shrugged, turned his palms upward. “This is an old hotel. In the time of Der Kalte Krieg

  —even before—in Wein there are always tunnels. In the old days, for lovers and thieves and Hungarians. Later, for the Bolshies and the Nazis and the black market. Wein is a raddled old whore, but she still keeps her secrets. Do you love your very expensive coat?” Dalton turned around, looked down at his long blue overcoat. “I have sincerely enjoyed having it.” “You will have to leave it.” “Done. I thank you. Is there anything I can do . . . ?” Cesar stiffened, his cheeks darkening. “Are you offering me money

  ?” MIDNIGHT,

  and the tiny pink ears that were burning cherry bright did not belong to Veronika Miklas. Jägermeier had suffered through a very disagreeable confrontation with Veronika, who had set him down hard when, after making a couple of snide references to her previous relationship with “recreational chemistry”—a sore point—he started to criticize her professional

  skills, she finally reminding him, at the end of a short, sharp encounter conducted on her part with the kind of subzero ferocity that her class had once used to put
the peasantry in its place, that her great-grandfather, Wilhelm Miklas, had been the President Doctor of Austria, and had, on March 11, 1938, single-handedly faced down Seyss-Inquart and all his Hitlerite flunkies, thank you very much, you nasty little Schneckengewinde

  . The interview ended in his complete rout—she had called him a nasty little worm, and he had actually apologized to her—and now, perhaps as an indirect result, Jägermeier found that he really—no, really

  —had to pee. He decided to do a press check on the target, while he was at it, dragging his numb butt and aching back out of the miasmic funk of his own methane-rich atmospherics. The Audi was also his personal service car, and he spent more time in it than he did at home in his lonely bed. Jägermeier hauled himself across the steps of the Votivkirche and into the lobby of the Regina, slouching, if not toward Bethlehem, then toward the men’s washroom hidden behind a row of fake linden trees. As he passed the entrance to the bar, he glanced sideways just long enough to see that the target was still there—the lazy son of a bitch—sitting with his back to the door now, hunched over what Jägermeier presumed was that damned BlackBerry, his girly-man blond hair splayed out across the collar of his coat and glowing in the downlight. What a

  tanzender Junge he is

  , thought Jägermeier, with a curl of his thick red lips. Krokodil! Hah! The only people who have to fear this

  Krokodil are in the Vienna Boys Choir. SADLY

  for Rolf Jagermeir’s career prospects, the tanzender Junge—

  the dancing boy—was actually slightly more than two miles north-northwest of the Regina Hotel, sitting on a bench in a small park at the intersection of Heiligenstadter Strasse and Barawitzkag, watching the main entrance to a dreary, slab-sided concrete block of Bolshevik Bauhaus called, appropriately, the Wohnungen Arbeitnehmer Hafen—Workers’ Haven Apartments. The blond-haired person currently sitting at the long bar back at the Regina, wearing Dalton’s Zegna topcoat, secretly enjoying Dalton’s scent—a mix of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes and some sort of spicy lemon-scented cologne—and idly fingering the pockets, which were stuffed with euros, was the old Hussar’s niece, Steffi, who had been dragooned into service in exchange for a pocketful of ready cash and the grim admiration of her terrifying grand-uncle Cesar. Dalton had already done a series of routine checks to see if there was still any kind of surveillance on him. He was reasonably certain there was not, and that there was no security guard in the building. He had only been there for little over an hour, and he was prepared to spend the night, but a few minutes later a familiar rat-brown Opel pulled up at the curb outside the entrance to the Workers’ Haven. There was some sort of brief exchange of hugs with the driver, who, his face caught in a shaft of dim light, looked to be the round fat man with the umbrella he had last seen in Sigmund Freud Park. In a moment the passenger door popped open, and the Girl With the Silver Lighter got out onto the sidewalk, looking weary and wrung out as she waved the Opel off, and then turned to trudge up the walkway to the entrance doors. Dalton, moving soundlessly across the lawn, reached her just as she put her hand on the chrome bar, saying, as softly and as nonthreateningly as he could, “Vorzüglich, Fräulein.” Her response was immediate—a lithe twist of her body, the leading edge of her left hand bladed and taut, a white blur striking at the front of Dalton’s throat. Had she got this very professional strike home, it could have, very likely would have, crushed his larynx, and his short but memorable career would have ended with his slowly choking to death on the scruffy lawn of a workers’ housing project in the suburbs of Vienna. However, she did not get it home. Dalton caught the blow in his left hand, turning the palm strike into a rolling armlock and pressing her up against the glass door, doing as little harm as he could manage, saying, in English, “Please, Miss Miklas, I’m not here to hurt you. Please.” She struggled a moment longer—in her mind, all she could hear was a single word repeating: Krokodil! Krokodil! Krokodil!—

  but he was immensely strong, and she forced herself to be still. Her moment would come, now or later. “But you are

  hurting me, Mr. Dalton.” Dalton held her a moment, doing a quick and only mildly indecent weapons check and finding a pager, a cell phone—both of which he turned off—and a small Heckler & Koch P7 in a leather holster tucked into the small of her back. He pulled it free and stepped back, holding the weapon muzzle down, trying—and failing—to look as harmless as possible. Veronika Miklas straightened her clothes, her face a little pink, pushed her hair back with both hands, and stood facing him. The fear was there, but so was the iron. She stared at him in silence for a moment. “The bloody damned lighter, I suppose?” Dalton nodded, his face creasing in a commiserating smile. “Yes. I was surprised they really were your

  initials.” Miklas sighed, and a tremor ran through her body. When she reached up to touch the side of her cheek—she bruised easily—Dalton could see that her fingers were vibrating. “A gift from my mother. Initials alone are not enough.” “No. It was a place to start. It narrowed the range. I have access to an Agency database that lists all the civil servants in Austria, along with their parent agencies, except for the OSE. I searched for those initials in the tax lists for civil employees. Your name stood out—” “Because of my great-grandfather?” “Yes. A famous name. There’s a website, and your picture is there, as one of the authors of a paper about the Anschluss.” Her face lost some of its hardness. “A brave man, a terrible time for Austria. And so, here you are. What the hell do you want?” Dalton looked around the street and then back at her. “A few minutes of your time. Some answers.” She shivered again but rode it down. “Listen, Blondie. I am not going anywhere

  with you. And you

  are not coming inside with me. You may use my pistol if you wish, but here I stay. So just shoot me, and that is the end of it.” “I understand that. And you’re right. Never let anybody move you or get you into a car or box you up in a flat. I wouldn’t either. The thing is, I have no intention of harming you in any way. Look, Miss Miklas, it’s not a bad night. It’s stopped raining. There’s a little park across the street, a little bench. Have a cigarette with me.” She hesitated, and Dalton thought she might break and run, but she did not. Instead, she gave him a sardonic sideways smile. “One of your Regenbogen Zigaretten

  ?” Dalton smiled back, fighting his strong desire to fall down where he stood and sleep for two days. “Yes. My rainbow cigarettes. As many as you want.” She gave it some thought. Finally, the curiosity of the confident young woman won out over professional caution. On the other hand, if Dalton had been a squat toadlike homunculus, she’d have given him the back of her hand, thirty seconds of the Full Jägermeier, and, if the opening was offered, a quick knee to the nuptials. “Okay. Sure. Why not?” They walked across the deserted street, she some distance away and with her hands at her sides, he reflexively scanning the roofs and darkened windows, the overarching trees and the parked cars that lined the street. They reached a wrought-iron bench, sheltered by a stand of oaks and lindens. She sat at one end and he as far away from her as he could manage at the other. In the uneasy silence he offered her a choice from his Sobranie Cocktails. She took a blue one. She lit it with the heavy silver lighter. And then, after staring down at it for a while and going inside herself, she leaned over to light his cigarette, studying his face in the glow of the flame. “You have a scar on your right cheekbone. It looks like a dueling scar. It is recent. How did you get it?” Dalton reached up, touched it briefly, seeing the muzzle flash in the shadow of the boat, hearing the sound of it bouncing off the old stone walls that loomed over the icy little canal in Venice. “Shaving accident.” She smiled then, retracting her claws a bit. “Liar. Such a liar. They are calling you Krokodil—

  the crocodile—at the office. How can you smoke such silly little cigarettes if you are this terrible Krokodil

  ?” Dalton inhaled, leaning back into the bench, crossing one leg over the other. He was cold and missed his Zegna. He hoped Cesar’s niece was enjoying it, wh
ich of course she was. “A good friend of mine used to smoke them. His name was Porter Naumann. He would have liked you. He admired steel. “Would

  have liked me? He is dead?” “Yes. He was killed in Cortona, almost a year ago.” “A shaving accident?” she said, teasing him a little. Dalton smiled, shook his head, said nothing, took another pull at his cigarette. So did she. And they sat there for a while in what was turning into a strangely companionable moment of calm and stillness. The clouds had passed over hours ago. The Viennese night was calm and clear, the glow of the city touching the tops of the higher trees and the steeple of a little church a block north. Where they were was cool, quiet, sheltered. “You are odd kind of spy,” she said finally, exhaling a cloud of smoke and watching it turning in a tiny shaft from the streetlamp, cutting through the leaves. “I’m not really a spy,” he said, smiling into the dark. “At the Agency, they call people like us Cleaners. Basically, I’m a fixer. I don’t run any agents, don’t recruit. Let’s just say that when things go wrong on the operational side, I come in and try to fix them.” She laughed at that—a short sharp bark and a puff of smoke. “In your files they say that last year, in Montenegro, you ‘fixed’ a Serbian Mafia boss named Branco Gospic, after you also ‘fixed’ two Serbs who tried to mug you in Venice. Then last winter, again in Venice, you ‘fixed’ another Serbian mafioso named Mirko Belajic, along with four of his men, one of whom you are said to have killed by snapping his neck with your bare hands. I know these gangster Serbs. They are the most dangerous men in Eastern Europe. And then in Istanbul, not so long ago, you ‘fixed’ several KGB officers, and chased the rest of them all the way across the Black Sea to Kerch. That’s a lot of ‘fixing’ for one man.” “You’re pretty well informed on the subject.” “Yes. We have good relations with the British. You are known to them, especially in London. So you are just hired killer, then?” Dalton stubbed out the cigarette on the arm of the bench and put the gold-tipped butt in the pocket of his trousers. He took out another—blue and gold. Veronika lit it for him, watching the glow of the flame reflected in his eyes, seeing the haggard look on his rough-cut face. “No. I do what is needed. The OSE does the same.” There was nothing to say to that. This was Vienna, after all, and there was no city in Europe with a murkier history in the covert world. “I know you want to get some rest, Miss Miklas—” “You’ve had your hands all over me. I think you can call me Veronika. I will call you Micah.” “Thank you, Veronika. I’m hoping you can help me with something.” She turned and looked directly at him for a while, considering his gaunt face and his obvious exhaustion, feeling a conflict in her heart between official reserve and what she had to admit was a strong sensual pull. With his long blond hair, his pale blue eyes, his scarred and weathered Viking face, he appealed to the Old Norse in her blood. He radiated a blend of latent menace, weary intelligence, even a very dry sense of humor, but underneath that . . . sadness. Perhaps even a deep grief. She found that she wanted to know how he came to be the way he was. In spite of the apparent glamour of her work with the Überwachungs-Dienst