The Dragon With One Ruby Eye

by Paul Moomaw

  As soon as the seaplane had left, Draper had tried to call his CIA control, partly, he supposed, from some patriotic impulse, and partly in the hopes of another bit of cash. It had sounded like the sort of thing they would want to know about. The CIA man, whose cover was a position in the Seattle FBI office, hadn’t been there. Draper had left a message, one he hoped would be cryptic enough to confuse the bona fide FBI agent who took it, but not too confusing for his control. He had broken another rule there—had identified himself to the FBI agent.

  Then he had left, facing a midnight deadline for his arrival at Skipjack, and not wanting to be late. He had a feeling that the people he was dealing with might be a little rigid about things like that.

  He took another drag from the cigar and tossed it into the water. Then he pulled a small pipe from his pocket and loaded it with hash—good Lebanese stuff, dark, with little golden specks in it. Some people claimed the new breed of marijuana was just as good as hash, but Draper was a purist.

  He had managed two hits when Hades raised his head and whimpered softly. Draper tucked the pipe away and got to his feet. He saw and heard nothing, but he trusted the dog’s ears.

  Hades stepped to the low railing of the ketch and whimpered again, wagging his stub of a tail.

  Out of the darkness a shape emerged, faintly at first, then coalescing into the outline of a large motor launch, also running without lights, except for a faint blue glow from the wheel house.

  “Some class. That fucker must be a hundred feet long,” Draper said, scratching Hades heavy neck. Reflexively, he patted the gun in his jacket pocket. He had never had to use it, but it gave him a sense of security.

  The motor launch drew closer, its brass fittings glinting faintly in the moonlight.

  “Who are you?” The voice, deep and guttural, bounced across the water from the launch.

  “The Roxene.”

  “Do you have bumpers?”

  “Yes.

  The launch engines fell silent, and a line whistled out of the dark and slapped across the Roxene’s deck. “Make yourself fast to us,” the voice said.

  Draper pulled the line in. As the ketch drifted closer to the larger craft, another line dropped across her stern.

  A man, tall and heavy, jumped from the motor launch to the deck of the Roxene. He picked up the second line and started hauling. As the boats bumped softly together, two more men leaped to the deck of the ketch.

  “Where is the cargo?” the tall man asked.

  Draper pointed to the center hatch. “There,” he said.

  The men from the launch lifted the hatch and quickly transferred the bags to the larger boat’s deck.

  “Now, where’s my return cargo?” Draper asked.

  The tall man looked at him. “Come aboard. We have it for you there.”

  Draper shrugged and clambered to the deck of the motor launch. The tall man from the launch watched him go. Draper turned back to him.

  “You coming?”

  The tall man leaned against the mast of the ketch and stared across the water at Skipjack Island, as if he hadn’t heard.

  Aboard the motor launch, Draper followed a dimly lit passageway below decks. A stocky, dark-skinned crewman pointed silently to the entrance of a small cabin. Draper entered, and the door shut behind him with a click. He turned. The crewman who had pointed him into the cabin now stood inside, a gun in his hand.

  “A little privacy is frequently desirable, isn’t that so?”

  The speaker, a slender, middle-aged Eurasian, lounged on a bunk in the cabin. He wore a lavender knit shirt, sharply creased white trousers, lavender socks, and white deck shoes that looked as if they had never touched a deck.

  “Please sit down,” he said, and waved toward a small table and two swivel chairs bolted to the deck.

  “I’ll just take the stuff and go, thanks.”

  “There is no hurry.” The man on the bunk turned to the crewman. “I believe he is armed,” he said. “See to it, please.”

  The crewman stepped toward Draper. “You will face the bulkhead and place your hands high on it, please.” Draper did as he was told. The crewman frisked him and retrieved the pistol.

  “Thank you,” the crewman said, shoving the pistol into his own belt and stepping back toward the door.

  “Now sit down, Mr. Draper,” the man on the bunk said. “We must discuss your payment.”

  “One kilo of good grade heroin,” Draper replied. “That was the agreement. I’m not particular about how it’s wrapped.”

  “I am aware that was the agreement.”

  “So where’s the stuff?” Draper tried to sound unimpressed, but he was more frightened than he had been since Vietnam, and he could feel that his skin had grown clammy.

  The man on the bunk shook his head and smiled.

  “I am afraid you were lied to,” he said.

  A low grumbling filled the cabin as the motor launch engines kicked into life.

  “What the shit?” Draper started to rise. The crewman at the door motioned sharply with his gun, and Draper sat down again.

  “You must be worried about your little ketch,” the man on the bunk said. “Don’t be. We have it safely in tow.”

  “What are you doing?” Draper looked around frantically. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach.

  “What are you doing?” he repeated.

  The man on the bunk smiled and said nothing.

  Chapter 9

  The Klemper brothers were not twins, but one could be forgiven for assuming that they were. They shared the same unruly, dark hair that sprouted from the tops of their heads, as well as from ears and nostrils. They had identical, snubbed noses, flat cheekbones, and heavy brows. And their wiry, knobby bodies moved with the same rolling gait—almost a sailor’s gait, although neither had ever come closer to the ocean than a cruise on a Danube River excursion boat.

  Hannes was, in fact, four years older than Peter. They differed greatly in temperament, as well. Friends referred to Hannes as der Eber, and to Peter as der Hase—the boar and the hare—for the different ways they displayed a shared impulsivity; Hannes always quick to attack, and Peter equally prone to run for a bolt hole.

  Any hole would have looked better to Peter than the door of the Heuriger, the neighborhood wine shop, that they approached in Neuwaldegg, on the edge of the Vienna Woods, Hannes with restless eagerness in his walk, Peter scuffing his feet. It was a gray, raw day—an October Vienna special—and all but one of the tavern’s few customers sat inside, clustered together in scattered knots around the main room as if for extra warmth. The sole exception sat at a metal table in the rear garden, a pork pie hat on his head, and the collar of his heavy, gray overcoat pulled up to his ears.

  Hannes led the way through the tavern and out the rear door. The man in the gray coat watched their approach without expression. Despite the chill, he had a glass of white wine from which he took careful sips.

  “This is Herr Delon,” Hannes said, pulling out a chair and seating himself.

  “Delon? What kind of name is that supposed to be?” Peter lowered himself reluctantly into the chair next to his brother.

  “It’s a French name; and I am a French person,” Delon replied in accented German.

  “I knew he didn’t look like an Austrian,” Peter said to his brother.

  Delon smiled. “What does an Austrian look like, then?”

  Peter returned his gaze to the Frenchman. “Not like you. And anyway, Austrians are sensible. They stay inside on a day like this.”

  “I wished privacy, do you know?” Delon cocked his head to one side and extended a hand in Peter’s direction, then waved it toward the trees. “And besides, I find this countryside very pleasant, even when the weather turns.”

  “This is nothing. The Vorarlberg, that’s a place worth being, not like this boring tabletop with bumps.”

  “Ah, yes, you and Hannes are from the Vorarlberg, aren’t you. I suppose that makes a difference. Me, I grew up nea
r Metz, and I like it better where the land isn’t tilted on edge.” Delon turned gray eyes that matched the day to Hannes. “Have you mentioned our little business to your brother?”

  Hannes shook his head. “It’s all right. He’ll go along.”

  “Go along with what?” Peter asked.

  “Herr Delon has made a business proposition.”

  “What kind of business proposition?”

  “I am in the market for information,” Delon said.

  “We don’t have any information,” Peter said.

  “On the contrary, I think you are in a position to supply me with information that would interest me very much.”

  Peter looked at the Frenchman out of the corner of his eye. “Such as what?”

  “I represent certain interests who have considered doing business with your employer, but they have concerns about him.”

  “About Herr Meissner?” Peter pushed his chair back and started to rise.

  Hannes restrained him with a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t be hasty,” he murmured.

  Peter settled back into the chair, but his jaw jutted defiantly.

  “If you want information about Herr Meissner, you must ask Herr Meissner,” he said.

  Delon glanced at Hannes. “I wish you had explained things to him,” he said. He sighed noisily, turned back to Peter. “There is a small problem of trust, Herr Klemper.”

  “Herr Delon is a member of the NFE, the European National Fascists,” Hannes said. “He has come here all the way from Paris to see us. And it’s the entire leadership of the New European Order he speaks for.”

  “So?” Peter leaned back and crossed his arms. “Herr Meissner is a good Nazi, too. Better than some Frenchman, is what I think.”

  “Unfortunately,” Delon said, “Not everyone feels that way about your employer. The people I represent aren’t willing to do business with him unless they can keep an eye on him, so to speak. They’ve tried electronic surveillance, but the results were spotty.” He laughed. “I told them that high tech stuff would be a waste of time. When you want knowledge, I told them, you have to turn to a good man, not to some imbecile machine.”

  “And that’s us,” Hannes said. “Good men.”

  Peter shook his head. “It isn’t right to spy on Herr Meissner. He trusts us.”

  “He doesn’t trust anybody.” Hannes slapped the table. “Remember when that little jade pendant disappeared? Did he trust you then? When he was making you take one of those lie detector tests? When he had your room searched? Mine, too, for that matter.” He sat back.

  Peter wrapped his arms around himself and rocked from side to side. “Still, it doesn’t seem right.”

  Delon leaned forward and tipped the brim of his hat back. His gray eyes bored into Peter. “You’re not doing him any harm, you know. It’s a matter of creating confidence. We merely need to be sure we can trust him, keep an eye on him, stay on top of his deals, so we know he isn’t doing us the dirt.”

  “Herr Meissner doesn’t do anybody dirt,” Peter said.

  “I’m sure you’re right, but the people I represent aren’t. What are they to think, when he plays footsies with the American Central Intelligence Agency.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Peter said.

  “It’s true,” Delon insisted. “He maintains contact with the CIA case officer in Vienna through that Hungarian woman of his.”

  “She is not his woman!” Peter found himself practically shouting. “She is only a friend. A family friend.”

  Delon leered. “Women like that are never just friends.”

  Hannes stood up and stamped his feet. “I’m cold,” he said. “Let’s go inside and have a drink where we can be warm.”

  Peter rose abruptly and walked toward the rear entrance of the tavern. Hannes and Delon lagged behind.

  “I thought you said he wouldn’t give any trouble,” Delon hissed through clenched teeth.

  Hannes gripped the Frenchman hard enough on the shoulder to make him wince. “Don’t worry. He’ll go along. I always make the decisions, and he always does what I say, in the end.”

  * * *

  The brothers made the drive back from Vienna to the Meissner estate in St. Gilgens without exchanging more than three words. Hannes concentrated on navigating the high road as fast as he could, muttering vague imprecations at drivers who slowed him down. Peter stared out the side window, his lips moving, forming silent sentences now and then. Not until they pulled into the gravel drive in front of the brick garage that also housed, upstairs, the apartment the Klempers shared, did the older brother bring the subject up again.

  “Are you going to fight me on this, Bruderl?” he asked, as he turned off the headlights and ignition of the beat up Audi sedan. The two brothers had bought it as a reward for themselves shortly after they got work with Meissner.

  “I just don’t think it’s right, that’s all. Herr Meissner has been good to us.

  Hannes grinned at his brother. “We’re not going to cause any harm. Believe me when I say that. If anything, we’ll be helping him. We’ll be able to show those guys he can be trusted. That’ll be good for his business, and what’s good for his business is good for us, true?”

  Peter rolled his head slowly from side to side and hissed through his clenched teeth, like a slow-witted lizard when you prod it from a sunny rock.

  “What’s more,” Hannes went on, as if he sensed imminent victory, “There’s good money in it. Delon will pay us a thousand schillings a week for as long as he continues to need us. Think of that. Every week, a thousand schillings closer to going home for good.”

  Peter’s head had stopped rocking, and lay cocked to one side. The two brothers had shared a single dream since childhood—to own the Berg am Rosen, a small but solidly built inn that dominated the main street of their home village, high in the Vorarlberg. He sighed.

  “But nothing to hurt, right?”

  Hannes nodded vigorously and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “Just business, that’s all. Strictly a business deal.”

  Peter nodded heavily and got out of the car.

  “I’ll be up in a bit,” he said. “I’d better take Herr Meissner his toddy. It’s time, and he’ll be expecting it if he heard us drive up.” He marched across the drive, gravel crunching under his shoes, and entered the main house.

  Meissner was waiting, as Peter had predicted, for his toddy. He sat on the edge of a large, bed—old and ornate, with four tall carved bed posts from which the visages of Peter, Paul, Luke and John looked down benignly—wearing a purple silk brocade bathrobe and smelling of freshly applied lavender Kolnwasser. He took the drink with a smile, and patted the side of the bed next to him. Peter slouched onto the bed and sat, hands on his knees, staring at the oriental rug under his feet.

  “How was your little trip to the city?” Meissner asked.

  Peter shrugged heavily. “Oh, it was okay.” He continued to look at the rug.

  “You seem a little distracted.”

  “Maybe just tired, I guess. You know how Hannes is—never a moment’s relaxation.”

  “How good, then, that you can relax now.” Meissner brushed the side of Peter’s face lightly with his hand, then let the hand rest on the younger man’s shoulder. Peter stretched his head over and rubbed his cheek against the hand.

  With his other hand, Meissner clasped Peter’s wrist gently and pulled it toward his groin. He groaned a little as Peter’s hand slid under the robe and closed around his penis, which jerked and moved in the younger man’s grasp.

  “Take your clothes off,” Meissner said.

  Peter rose and undressed, his eyes never moving from the floor. Finally, naked, he turned and looked at Meissner. The older man had removed his robe and lay on the bed, rubbing his testicles. He smiled and held out his arms as Peter approached the bed.

  Chapter 10

  “How does she do that?”

  Larry Biven pointed through the restaurant window. Pray foll
owed Biven’s finger to the small bridge that arched over the exit to the marina at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. A young woman with long, blond hair tossed her head back and posed, spraddle-legged, against the bridge railing. A few feet away a man positioned himself with a camera. The man wore slacks and a pile jacket with the collar pulled up against the icy wind that stirred the lake into a mass of small whitecaps. The woman wore a bikini and a smile.

  “She probably counts her bonus money,” Pray said, wondering if goose bumps showed in photos. He looked around for a waitress to replenish his brandy and soda. Down the row of tables which stretched along the windows of the long, narrow room, he saw a man looking back at him—a tall, heavily built man who, unlike almost everyone else in the place, wore a suit. The cut of the jacket looked European. Pray looked down at his hands briefly, then glanced up again. The man still stared at him.

  Pray touched Biven’s arm.

  “Do you know who that is?” He nodded toward the man, who pivoted and walked quickly away as Biven turned to look.

  “Who do you mean?”

  “Never mind. He’s gone. But he seemed very interested in us.”

  Biven shrugged and settled back into his chair. “It’s just your marvelous blue eyes, Adam.”

  “I don’t think he was the type, somehow.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Big. Probably taller than I am, and heavy set. But he didn’t look fat.”

  “Who knows?” Biven waved the puzzle away. He picked up his empty glass and gazed over Pray’s shoulder with a smile. A waiter materialized instantly, took his and Pray’s glasses, and disappeared.

  “It’s wonderful how you do that, Larry. I practically have to grab someone by the tits to get any attention. You cock an eyebrow, look a little thirsty, and presto, a fresh drink.”

  Pray had marveled for years at Biven’s ability to seem at ease in every situation. Biven conveyed that sense of absolute entitlement one usually finds only among people who have been raised rich, by parents and grandparents who were raised rich. Yet Pray knew that Biven had been dirt poor as a child—the grandson of a Welsh miner who had fled to America to avoid a shotgun wedding—and had struggled through college on brains and hard work.