The Third Woman

by Mark Burnell

  'I can imagine. Tell me about Peltor.'

  'Ellroy. He's always been Paul Ellroy to me.'

  She hadn't even threatened him and he'd surrendered his bravado without a whimper. Stephanie wasn't surprised. Everywhere Petra had ever been there had always been men like Rudi Littbarski. Small men trying to punch above their weight.

  'He's in town,' Littbarski said. 'They're all in town.'

  'All?'

  'The oil conference. Some big thing out at the Austria Center. The whole city's jammed.'

  'How would you know?'

  'Are you serious? An event like this is a payday for me. OPEC, the UN, this thing, whatever. Right now, you can't find a room at any of the best hotels. The Americans are here, the Iraqis, the Saudis. You know what they do, the Saudis? They bring an entourage. They book six or seven rooms at a place like the Sacher or the Imperial. Just for the family and staff. Then they book two or three more rooms on a different floor for their whores. They have their favourites flown in specially from London or Paris or Los Angeles. But if they want something local, or something exotic, they send somebody to see me.'

  'Something exotic?'

  Littbarski looked pained. 'These days nobody is content with regular girls. They always want something special. Something … baroque. Under-age immigrants, amputees, dwarves. All kinds of shit. You know Clara Bazoli?'

  Stephanie had heard the name but couldn't place it. 'Remind me.'

  'The EU transport commissioner. Last week she ordered a Russian from me. For her husband!'

  Stephanie shrugged. 'That does seem a strange present to give your husband. But what's so weird about a Russian?'

  'Not a Russian. A Russian.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'A Russian is when a girl gives you a blow-job while a man fucks you in the ass. Signora Bazoli wanted to watch her husband having a Russian in their suite at the Inter-Continental. Can you believe it?'

  'If I was Russian I think I'd find it rather offensive.'

  Littbarski sniggered. 'It could be worse. You could be Algerian. Ever heard of Algierfranzosich? That's when a girl licks your asshole.'

  Stephanie tried to control her fraying temper. 'And this is what you deal in, is it, Rudi?'

  Littbarski mimicked offence. 'Don't take that tone with me, princess. I'm no different to a baker selling bread. I'm just providing a service.'

  'Like the heroin dealer at the school-gate.'

  'Fuck you.'

  'Spare me the sweet talk, Rudi. Tell me why Paul Ellroy needed Julia.'

  'For a home movie.'

  'I know that. But why her? Why me?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Been to Paris recently?'

  'What?'

  'By train, perhaps? Gare du Nord?'

  He looked truly perplexed. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  She decided to change direction. Based on what Julia had said Stephanie made an educated guess: 'You organized her surgery at the Verbinski clinic – right?'

  Littbarski assumed the question was rhetorical. 'Right.'

  'You saw the photos, then?'

  'Of you with the tattooed freak-show? Sure. We all had a laugh.'

  'Do you know where the photos came from?'

  'Ellroy.'

  'Do you know where he got them?'

  'Sure. He was given them.'

  'Given? Not sold?'

  'He said was given them.'

  'By?'

  'You should know. You're in them.'

  Stephanie's grip tightened on the gun. 'By?'

  'Someone you used to work for.'

  The roof of her mouth felt dry. 'You're sure?'

  'Of course I'm sure. That was why we were laughing. Ellroy was saying how you used to work for this old guy, and we could see the kind of work you do, so …'

  'Wait. When was this?'

  'Autumn, maybe. October or November.'

  'Last year?'

  Littbarski nodded.

  Stephanie felt bewildered. He had to be talking about Alexander. But Alexander had been dead for more than two years.

  'Did you meet him yourself?'

  'Yes.'

  'Where?'

  'Here. In Vienna. He came specially from London.'

  By the time Gordon Wiley walked into the Café Imperial for a late breakfast meeting he'd been awake for more than four hours. It was nine-twenty-five. John Peltor was already there. Sitting at a window banquette he was silhouetted by daylight and framed by heavy, gathered curtains. A waitress was placing a plate of fried eggs before him.

  Wiley had always been impressed and intimidated by Peltor's physique. It wasn't just the volume of the man, it was his condition. As vast as he was, there was no fat on him. He looked as though he was made out of tanned marble.

  The waitress poured coffee for both of them. When she'd gone, Wiley said, 'I spent an hour on the phone with John Cabrini earlier. He has no idea where she is. Alsace was a mess. All his leads have come to nothing. He's sitting there in that pod – that multi-million-dollar pod – listening to God-knows-what falling from the satellites and she's gone.'

  The dining-room was quiet, the breakfast rush hour in descent. Wiley liked the place. Large and airy, ochre and dark brown, traditional. In truth, it was a little worn but it had character. It felt as peaceful as a library. A woman in a sombre grey suit began tending the large vases of flowers.

  Peltor nodded sympathetically. 'So where does that leave you, sir?'

  'Us. Where does that leave us? In a hole. That's where.'

  'There's still time.'

  'No there isn't. I'm meeting Hussein Sayed and Azzam Fahad later today.'

  'What time?'

  'Midday.'

  Peltor knew better than to try to turn two and a half hours into something it couldn't be. Instead, he said, 'Worst-case scenario?'

  'They call the whole thing off.'

  'Best case?'

  'They agree to a postponement.'

  'How long do you think they could wait?'

  'Twenty-four hours. Maybe thirty-six.'

  'Not longer?'

  'I doubt it. And that's if they wait at all. What's on your mind?'

  'There is another possibility. But it's a tough call.'

  'Just tell me what it is.'

  'You've seen the Brand disk, right?'

  'No. But I know about it.'

  'The girl.'

  'What about her?'

  Peltor looked around and then leaned towards him, dropping his voice to a murmur. 'She passed for Reuter once. She could pass for Reuter again.'

  It took Wiley several moments to understand. 'I thought she vanished weeks ago. I thought that's why we paid her a hundred grand. To make sure she vanished.'

  Retaining the second tranche of fifty thousand euros had been Peltor's decision. Made for entirely personal reasons, no one else knew.

  He said, 'That's true. But I can find her.'

  'How long would it take you?'

  Peltor strung out the moment. 'It's not that simple.'

  'Why not?'

  'Once it's done, she'd need to be discovered. Then the news would need to leak out. It would have to look right.'

  Wiley conceded the point. 'How long?'

  'To make it convincing? Forty-eight hours.'

  'What about the real Reuter?'

  'We'd still need her. But this buys us some time.'

  Wiley found one appetite enhanced, the other suppressed.

  At ten, the time Kleist had suggested the previous day, Stephanie and Newman turned into Dorotheergasse. The shop was closed, the lights off. Stephanie rang the bell. They waited in the rain, then tried again. Eventually, she caught sight of him refracted through glass. They stepped inside and shook the wetness from their shoulders. Kleist locked the door and led them to the small kitchen at the rear of the premises where be began to prepare hot chocolate with cinnamon. This was a process Stephanie remembered. It was part of Kleist's professional calling-card; it came w
ith the information.

  He poured milk into a small, battered steel pan then held it over a gas flame. He made a play of concentrating on the task as he got straight to the point. 'Were you aware that Otto Heilmann was on the Amsterdam Group payroll?'

  Stephanie felt winded, only managing a whisper. 'Heilmann.'

  'You raised his name yesterday.'

  That was true. But only in relation to Kleist himself; he and Heilmann had been colleagues in the Stasi. It had never occurred to Stephanie that Heilmann might be connected to Amsterdam.

  Kleist seemed to read her mind. 'You asked about Butterfly. I made some enquiries. The Amsterdam Group was mentioned. I knew that Otto had worked for DeMille, one of their subsidiaries.'

  Yet she hadn't known. Asking about Butterfly and then mentioning Heilmann had been entirely coincidental.

  'What did he do for them?'

  'He was a consultant.'

  'In what capacity?'

  'Arms, mostly.'

  Naturally; Stephanie thought of the Ukraine hypermarket.

  Kleist said, 'Otto had strong contacts in the Middle East. When we worked together he spent much of his time in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. But particularly in Syria. He knew Assad personally.'

  Stephanie was still reeling. Kleist spooned chocolate into the pan of warm milk, added cinnamon, then resumed the slow stir away from the flame. When it was ready, he poured into three enamel mugs. They moved through to his cramped office. A small square window looked on to a dark courtyard.

  'Stern,' Kleist said, leaning against a desk under siege from paperwork. 'I think you should make contact.'

  'Why?'

  'Two reasons. Firstly, you were set up but so was Stern. At least, that's what he says.'

  'Well he would, wouldn't he?'

  'You have to admit it's a possibility.'

  'Do you think it's a possibility?'

  'Sadly, yes.'

  'Sadly?'

  'I'm not as retired as I might have led you to believe yesterday. And with Stern out of the way, who knows where you might have turned to for your information.'

  Stephanie shook her head in mock reproach. 'I have to say this: I keep thinking of you as some monstrous Cold War relic – I mean, poisoning Josef Kanek? – but every time we meet you do something to undermine the image.'

  'I'm not going to apologize for that but I'll tell you something about Kanek, Petra. Everyone thinks of him as a dissident. A great scientific martyr of some sort. But that was never true. Josef Kanek never did anything to further scientific enquiry. He was a trader in stolen nuclear material. Now everybody does it. But he was among the first. That's the reason he was killed. Nothing else.'

  'But poisoning? Wasn't that a little … macabre?'

  'Radiation poisoning, Petra. He lived by it, so he died by it.'

  'I had no idea the Stasi was so theatrical.'

  'It was intended as a warning to others. And in that respect, it was effective.'

  Kleist leaned over and picked up a rusty tin from beside the telephone. He flipped the lid and took out a Sobranie cigarette. Stephanie watched him light it and said, 'The whore's brand.'

  Kleist inclined his head a little. 'Of course. What else would I smoke?'

  'There's more to you than meets the eye, Bruno.'

  'That should always be true for a good information broker. Stern, perhaps, takes it to extremes. Then again, he is Russian.'

  Stephanie felt her heart stutter. 'Is he?'

  Kleist looked amazed. 'You didn't know?'

  Stephanie shook her head. 'What else?'

  'That's all. Just that one thing.' He took a long blissful drag from the Sobranie. 'I can't tell you what a cheap thrill that was.'

  'Does Stern know who set him up?'

  'Probably. But he wasn't about to tell me. He wants you to make contact directly. I can't say I blame him. In his position, I would do the same.'

  Stephanie drank some more hot chocolate then set her mug on the desk. 'One more thing. Grumann Bank – you're familiar with it?'

  'Naturally. It's located here in Vienna. On Singerstrasse.'

  'Do you know Gerhard Lander?'

  Kleist's chuckle contained more menace than humour. 'I know Lander, yes. Not personally. But by reputation.'

  'That sounds ominous.'

  'It depends on the business you're in. Look at me. You might think a Stasi past would be a handicap in a post-GDR environment. Not true. I would say that my professional reputation has been enhanced by it.'

  'What about Grumann?'

  'Its clients value privacy over interest rates. In other words, it caters for people like you, Petra.'

  ‘I’m already well catered for.'

  'I don't doubt it. But if you ever feel the need for a change I'm sure they'd welcome you with open arms. Saddam used to have money there. I hear that Suharto was once a favoured accountholder. Others have included Yemen's Ali Abdallah Saleh, Vladislav Ardzinba, the president of Abkhazia, and my own personal favourite, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir.'

  'Quite a list.'

  'Forget Prague or Budapest,' Kleist said. 'Or even Istanbul. Vienna is where East meets West. I'm not talking about some cheap tourist slogan but an amoral reality. And Grumann Bank takes full advantage of that.'

  'What do you know about Lander?'

  'A senior director. In his mid-fifties, I would guess. As far as I know, he's been there all his working life. His grandfather, a fervent Nazi, was a co-founder. Needless to say the bank prospered through the Thirties and early Forties.'

  'What about later? Were there no recriminations?'

  'Fewer than you might imagine. A bank like Grumann will always adapt to the needs of its clientele and to the prevailing climate. Although, in truth, it hasn't had to do much.'

  'No?'

  Kleist shook his head. 'We're very polite in Vienna. We don't ask awkward questions. Especially if we're not sure that we want to hear the answers.'

  'What about Butterfly?'

  'That's the second reason for you to contact Stern.'

  We're at the Künstlerhaus cinema on Akademiestrasse. There are computer terminals in the foyer. A couple of students are hunched over screens, stretching coffee from breakfast to lunch. Robert and I pick the most isolated terminal we can find. I leave a message on Hotmail.

  > Hello Oscar. Let's talk.

  Otto Heilmann. Is he the reason I'm here? I took him as a favour to Albert Eichner at Guderian Maier. A rather loaded favour, certainly, since Guderian Maier's interests govern my own to some extent, but a favour nonetheless. I had no idea that Heilmann was a consultant to DeMille. How could I? A week ago I'd never heard of DeMille. I didn't know what the Amsterdam Group was.

  > Petra. Where have you been?

  I look at my watch. It's taken less than five minutes.

  > Take a wild guess, Oscar.

  > All over the place?

  > That's one way of putting it.

  > How do I know it's you?

  Robert sees the question. 'He's got some balls, I'll give him that.'

  > Pick a contract and I'll give you the 1-2-3.

  > Yusuf Aziz Khan.

  > Peshawar, two rounds from a SIG-Sauer P226, US$1,250,000.

  Robert's eyebrows rise. 'Something you did?'

  I nod, still looking at the screen. 'About a year ago.'

  'Who was he?'

  'The Director-General of ISI – Inter Services Intelligence – the Pakistani security service. ISI actively supported the Taliban in Afghanistan. Yusuf Aziz Khan was a promoter of that policy. Not something that was greatly appreciated in the wider world.'

  'Is that how it works? Someone out there gets an itch, calls are made, money gets paid, then you appear out of nowhere to scratch it?'

  'More or less. It's a service industry, after all.'

  > I apologize, Petra. For the Lancaster. For everything.

  > That doesn't quite cut it. You sent me to the Lancaster. I only just made it out, no thanks to you.

&nb
sp; > I'm not in the habit of betraying my most lucrative clients.

  > Give me a name and we'll see who set us up.

  > John Peltor.

  'Christ, not again,' I mutter. 'I should have guessed.'

  > How?

  > He used an alias.

  > Alan Stonehouse?

  > Paul Ellroy.

  I try to put the sequence together. The Sentier bomb goes off I turn to Stern for help. Stern turns to a source. Stern's source steers me towards the Lancaster knowing full well what will happen because Stern's source is John Peltor, operating under one of his known aliases, Paul Ellroy.

  My head is spinning so I ask the only simple question left.

  > Why?

  > Butterfly.

  > What is Butterfly?

  > It's a contract.

  > Between?

  > The Amsterdam Group and the governments of Israel, Iraq and Jordan. It's due to be signed today. The Israelis will not be present. All parties have agreed to this.

  > Where will it be signed?

  > Vienna. The Hotel Imperial. Gordon Wiley, CEO of the Amsterdam Group, is staying there. The signing will take place at six o'clock in his suite.

  The Imperial. Where John Peltor was staying. Why not? Sometimes there was safety in numbers. Rudi Littbarski had told them that the hotel was full of Petrotech visitors. What could appear more natural?

  > What kind of contract is it?

  > Two-tiered. Construction and security. The contract is for an oil pipeline running from Mosul, in the north of Iraq, to the Israeli port of Haifa via Jordan. Allowing for some detours, the proposed route covers a distance, more or less, of 1050 kilometres.

  Robert reads Stern's outline and says, 'There used to be a line between Mosul and Haifa. It fell into disuse and was then cannibalized for parts. The idea of a new pipeline has been discussed from time to time but it's always been rejected.'

  'Why?'

  'Too expensive. Economically and politically.'

  > The proposed construction budget is thought to be $4 billion. The contract will also include additional elements such as the construction of a new oil terminal at Haifa and state-of-the-art installations at Mosul.

  > And the second tier?

  > That covers maintenance and security for the pipeline during its construction and for the first ten years of operation.

  Robert whistles softly.