“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.
“Good 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 this place. Not by a long shot.
In another five minutes, they were settled into their accommodations. Brian came wandering into his brother’s room. “God damn, the Residence Level at the White House isn’t this good.”
“Think so?” Dominic asked.
“Dude, I know so. Been there, done that. Uncle Jack had me up after I got my commission—no, actually it was after I came through the Basic School. Shit, this place is something. I wonder what it costs?”
“What the hell, it’s on my card, and our friend is nearby at the Bristol. Kinda interesting to hunt rich bastards, isn’t it?” That brought them back to business. Dominic pulled his laptop out of his bag. The Imperial was used to guests with computers, and the setup for it was very efficient indeed. For the moment, he opened the most recent file. He’d only scanned it before. Now he took his time with every single word.
GRANGER WAS thinking it through. Gerry wanted somebody to baby-sit the twins, and it seemed as though his mind was fixed on it. There were a lot of good people in the intelligence department under Rick Bell, but as former intelligence officers at CIA and elsewhere, they were all too old to be proper companions for the twins, young as the Caruso kids were. It wouldn’t look right to have people in their late twenties chumming around Europe with somebody in his middle fifties. So, better somebody younger. There weren’t many of those, but there was one . . .
He picked up his phone.
FA’AD WAS only two blocks away on the third floor of the Bristol Hotel, a famous and very upper-crust accommodation known particularly for its superior dining room and its nearness to the State Opera, which sat just across the street, consecrated to the memory of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had been the court musician for the House of Hapsburg before dying an early death, right here in Vienna. But Fa’ad wasn’t the least bit interested in such history. Current events were his obsession. Watching Anas Ali Atef die right before his eyes had shaken him badly. That had not been the death of infidels, something you could watch on TV and smile quietly about. He’d been standing there, watching the life drain invisibly from his friend’s body, watching the German paramedics fight vainly for his life—evidently doing their very best even for a person they must have despised. That was a surprise. And, yes, they were Germans just doing their job, but they’d done that job with obstinate determination, then they’d raced his comrade to the nearest hospital, where the German doctors had probably done the same, only to fail. A doctor had come to him in the waiting room and sadly told him the news, saying unnecessarily that they’d done everything that could have been done, and that it had looked like a massive heart attack, and that further laboratory work would be done to make certain that this indeed had been the cause of death, and finally asking for information on his family, if any, and who would see about the body after they were done picking it apart. Strange thing about the Germans, how precise they always were about everything. Fa’ad had made what arrangements he could, and then boarded a train for Vienna, sitting alone in a first-class seat and trying to come to terms with the dreadful event.
He was making his report to the organization. Mohammed Hassan al-Din was his gateway for that. He was probably in Rome at the moment, though Fa’ad Rahman Yasin was not quite sure. He didn’t have to be sure. The Internet was a good enough address, formless as it was. It was just so very sad for a young and vigorous and valuable comrade to fall down dead on the street. If it served any purpose at all, only Allah Himself knew what it might be—but Allah had His Plan for everything, and it was not always something for men to know. Fa’ad took a minibottle of cognac from his minibar and drank it right out of the glass container instead of pouring it into one of the snifters on top of the cabinet. Sinful or not, it helped steady his nerves, and anyway he never did it in public. Damn such bad luck! He took another look at the minibar. Two more cognacs remained, and after that, several miniatures of Scotch whisky, the favorite drink of Saudi Arabia, Shar’ia or not.
“GOT YOUR passport?” Granger asked as soon as he’d sat down.
“Well, sure. Why?” Ryan asked.
“You’re going to Austria. Plane leaves tonight from Dulles. Here’s your ticket.” The director of operations tossed the folder across the desk.
“What for?”
“You’re booked into the Imperial Hotel. There you will link up with Dominic and Brian Caruso to keep them advised of intelligence developments. You can use your regular e-mail account, and your laptop is equipped with the proper encryption technology.”
What the hell? Jack wondered. “Excuse me, Mr. Granger. Can we go back a couple of steps? Exactly what’s going on here?”
“Your father asked that question once or twice, I bet.” Granger managed a smile that would chill the ice in a highball. “Gerry thinks the twins need backup on the intelligence side. So, you are detailed to provide that backup, kind of a consultant to them while they’re in the field. This does not mean that you’ll actually be doing anything but keeping an eye on intel developments through the virtual office. You’ve done some pretty good work on that. You have a good nose for tracking things on the ’Net—damned sight better than Dom and Brian. Getting your eyes in the field might be useful. That’s why. You can decline the job, but in your place, I’d take it. Okay?”
“When’s the flight?”
“It’s on your ticket folder.”
Jack looked. “Damn, I’ll have to hustle.”
“So, hustle. There’ll be a car to take you to Dulles. Get going.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack replied, coming to his feet. Just as well he had a car service heading his way. He didn’t like the idea of leaving his Hummer in the Dulles parking lot. Thieves had fallen in love with the things. “Oh, who is cleared to know this?”
“Rick Bell will let Wills know. Aside from that, nobody, I repeat, nobody. Clear?”
“Clear, sir. Okay, I’m out of here.” He looked in the ticket folder to find an American Express black card. At least the trip was on the company dime. How many of these things did The Campus have sitting around in its f
ile drawers? he wondered. But for damned sure it was all he needed for this day.
“WHAT’S THIS?” Dominic asked his computer. “Aldo, we’ve got company coming over tomorrow morning.”
“Who?” Brian asked.
“Doesn’t say. It says to take no action until he links up with us, though.”
“Jesus, who do they think we are, Louis the Fish? It’s not our fault the last guy jumped right into our lap. Why fuck around?”
“These are government types. If you get too efficient, they get scared,” Dominic thought aloud. “What about dinner, bro?”
“Fine, we can check their version of Vitello Milanese. You suppose they have any decent wines here?”
“Only one way to find out, Aldo.” Dominic picked a tie out of his suitcase. The hotel dining room looked about as formal as Uncle Jack’s old house.
CHAPTER 21
STREETCAR NAME DESIRED
IT WAS a new adventure for Jack in two different ways. He’d never been to Austria before. He’d damned sure never gone into the field as a spook to join up with an assassination team, and while the idea of terminating the lives of people who liked killing Americans seemed quite a good thing at a desk in West Odenton, Maryland—in seat 3A of an Airbus 330, thirty-four thousand feet over the Atlantic Ocean, it was suddenly a dicey state of affairs. Well, Granger had told him he wouldn’t really have to do anything. And that was fine with Jack. He still knew how to shoot a pistol—he regularly went shooting at the Secret Service’s range in downtown D.C., or sometimes at their academy at Beltsville, Maryland, if Mike Brennan was around. But Brian and Dom weren’t shooting people, were they? Not according to the MI5 report that had come to his computer. Heart attack—how the hell did you fake a heart attack well enough that a pathologist took the bait? He’d have to ask them about that. Presumably, he was cleared for it.
In any case, the food was better than average for airline slop, and even an airline can’t ruin the booze when it is still in the bottle. With enough alcohol in him, sleep came fairly easily, and the first-class seat was the old-fashioned kind instead of the new gollywog with a hundred moving parts, none of which were comfortable. As usual, about half the people up front watched movies all night. Every person had his own way of dealing with travel shock, as his father invariably called it. Jack’s was to sleep through it.
THE WIENER schnitzel was excellent, as were the local wines.
“Whoever does this needs to talk to Granddad,” Dominic said, after the last bite. “He may know something that Pop-Pop can learn from.”
“He’s probably Italian, bro, or at least somewhere along the line.” Brian finished off his glass of the excellent local white the waiter had recommended. About fifteen seconds later, the waiter took note of it and refilled the glass before vanishing again. “Damn, a man could get used to this eatery. Beats the hell out of MREs.”
“With luck, you may never have to eat that crap again.”
“Sure, if we just continue this line of work,” Aldo responded dubiously. They were essentially alone in a corner booth. “So, what do we know about the new subject?”
“Courier, supposedly. He carries messages in his head—the ones they don’t send via the ’Net. Would have been useful to pick his brain some, but that’s not the mission. We have a physical description, but no photo this time. That’s a little worrisome. He doesn’t sound all that important. That’s worrisome, too.”
“Yeah, I hear you. He must have pissed the wrong people off. Tough luck.” His pangs of conscience were a thing of the past, but he really wanted to bag one closer to the top of the food chain. The absence of a photo for ID was indeed worrisome. They’d have to be careful. You didn’t want to hit the wrong guy.
“Well, he didn’t get on the list by singing too loud at church, y’know?”
“And he ain’t the Pope’s nephew.” Brian completed the litany. “I hear you, man.” He checked his watch. “Time to hit the rack, bro. We have to see who’s coming tomorrow. How are we supposed to meet him?”
“Message said he’d come to us. Hell, maybe he’s going to stay here, too.”
“The Campus has funny ideas about security, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s not like the movies.” Dominic had himself a quiet laugh. He waved for the check. They’d pass on dessert. In a place like this, it could be lethal. Five more minutes and they were in their beds.
“THINK YOU’RE clever, eh?” Hendley asked Granger over the secure phones in both their homes.
“Gerry, you told me to send an intel weenie, right? Who else can we spare out of Rick’s shop? Everybody’s been telling me how sharp the kid is. Okay, let him prove it at the sharp end.”
“But he’s a rookie,” Hendley protested.
“And the twins aren’t?” Granger asked in reply. Gotcha. From now on, you’ll let me run my shop my way, he thought just as loudly as he could. “Gerry, he’s not going to get his hands wet, and this will probably make him a better analyst. He’s related to them. They know him. He knows them. They will trust and believe what he has to say, and Tony Wills says he’s the brightest young analyst he’s seen since he left Langley. So, he’s perfect for the assignment, isn’t he?”
“He’s too junior.” But Hendley knew he was losing this one.
“Who isn’t, Gerry? If we had any guys available with experience in this line of work, we would have put ’em on the payroll.”
“If this blows up—”
“Then I go up in smoke. I know that. Can I watch some TV now?”
“See you tomorrow,” Hendley said.
“’Night, buddy.”
HONEYBEAR WAS surfing the ’Net, chatting with somebody named Elsa K 69, who said she was twenty-three years old, 160 centimeters in height, and fifty-four kilograms in weight, with decent but not exceptional measurements, brown hair, blue eyes, and a nasty, inventive mind. She also had good typing skills. In fact, though Fa’ad had no way of knowing it, it was a man, fifty years old, half drunk and rather lonely. They chatted in English. The “girl” on the other end said “she” was a secretary in London. It was a city the Austrian accountant knew well.
“She” was real enough for Fa’ad, who soon got deeply into the perverse fantasy. It wasn’t as good as a real woman by a long shot, but Fa’ad was careful about indulging his passions in Europe. You never knew if the woman you rented might be someone from the Mossad, who’d be just as happy to cut it off as to take it inside. He didn’t fear death much, but like all men he did fear pain. In any case, the fantasy lasted almost half an hour, which left him sated enough to take note of the “handle” in case “she” showed up again. He could not know that the Tyrolean accountant made a similar notation in his Buddy File before retiring to a cold and lonely bed.
WHEN JACK woke up, the window blinds were raised to reveal the purple-gray of mountains about twenty thousand feet below. His watch showed that he’d been aboard about eight hours, and had probably slept for six of them. Not too bad. He had a mild headache from the wine, but the wake-up coffee was good, as was the pastry, which combined to get him semi-awake as Flight 94 cruised in for landing.
The airport was hardly a large one, considering it was the flagship port of entry for a sovereign country, but Austria had about the same population as New York City, which had three airports. The aircraft thumped down, and the captain welcomed them all to his homeland, telling them that the local time was 9:05 A.M. So, he’d have one day of heavy jet lag to deal with, but with luck maybe he’d be approximately okay tomorrow.
He cleared immigration easily—the flight had only been about half full—recovered his bags and headed outside for a cab.
“Hotel Imperial, please.”
“Where?” the driver asked.
“Hotel Imperial,” Ryan repeated.
The driver thought for a moment. “Ach so, Hotel Imperial , ja?”
“Das ist richtig,” Junior assured him, and sat back to enjoy the ride. He had a hundred Euros, and assumed tha
t would be enough, unless this guy had attended the New York City school of taxi driving. In any case, there’d be ATM machines on the street.
The drive took half an hour, fighting the rush-hour traffic. A block or two from the hotel, he passed a Ferrari dealership, which was something new for him—he’d seen Ferraris only on TV before, and wondered, as all young men wonder, what it might be like to drive one.
The hotel staff greeted him like an arriving prince, and delivered him to a fourth-floor suite whose bed looked very inviting indeed. He immediately ordered breakfast and unpacked. Then he remembered why he was here, and picked up the phone, asking for a connection with Dominic Caruso’s room.
“HELLO?” It was Brian. Dom was in the gold-encrusted shower.
“Hey, cuz, it’s Jack,” he heard.
“Jack who—wait a minute, Jack?”
“I’m upstairs, Marine. Just flew in an hour ago. Come on up, so we can talk.”
“Right. Give me ten minutes,” Brian said, and headed into the bathroom. “Enzo, you ain’t gonna believe who’s upstairs.”
“Who?” Dominic asked, toweling himself off.
“Let it be a surprise, man.” Brian went back to the sitting room, not sure whether to laugh or barf as he read the International Herald Tribune.
“YOU GOTTA be fucking kidding,” Dominic breathed as the door opened.
“You ought to see it from my side, Enzo,” Jack answered. “Come on in.”
“Food’s good in Motel 6, isn’t it?” Brian observed, following his brother.
“Actually, I prefer Holiday Inn Express. I need to pick up a Ph.D. for my curriculum vitae, y’know?” Jack laughed and waved them to the chairs. “I got extra coffee.”
the Teeth Of the Tiger (2003) Page 42