The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  He saw a man with black hair and the stubble of a beard sitting at a corner table with a woman with long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. “Sirini,” the man was saying drunkenly. “I am to a camera what Michelangelo was to a paintbrush,” he said, thumping his chest. “You’ve heard of Michelangelo?”

  “Every Italian thinks he’s someone important,” the woman said wearily.

  “Sirini is an artist,” he repeated vehemently.

  When Frash walked beyond the table he saw that Sirini was trying to wedge his hand between the woman’s legs, but that she had clamped her knees together. There was a camera bag under his chair. Frash acted drunk and lurched into the Italian, breaking his hold below the table. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he lay across the drunk and watched the woman scramble into the safety of the crowd. When she was gone, he delivered a crisp blow to the Sirini’s throat and got to his feet as the man began to gag. A bouncer in a black leather coat came over and stood beside Frash as Sirini partially recovered his wind and vomited. “Your friend?” the bouncer asked.

  “Never saw him before,” Frash said.

  The man helped Sirini to his feet and led him outside. Frash followed with the camera bag and handed it to the unsteady Italian. “Can’t go to Vienna without that,” the drunk said out loud to himself and started down the street. Frash followed and saw him stop at a Fiat, get a suitcase from the trunk, cross a small square and enter a hotel.

  Frash returned to the tavern and saw the blond woman at the edge of the dance floor. She had luxuriant hair, a square build with rounded shoulders and a face that seemed to be off-center. She was one of those women, he decided, whose sum was inexplicably greater than her parts. When she saw that he was looking at her she gave him an encouraging smile and made her way toward him. “My rescuer,” she said. “I think I should thank you.”

  “It’s not necessary. He was drunk.”

  “What prompted you to rescue me?” Her voice was firm yet inviting, perhaps open to possibilities.

  “I didn’t think your legs would hold out.”

  Even in the poor light he could see her blush. “Italian men,” she said disgustedly. “They refuse to accept no for an answer. I’m in your debt.”

  “He was really going on about his photography. Is he famous?”

  “He’s nobody. He’s going to Vienna to work with some woman on the Russian-American summit. I’ve heard of her. She reports dirt—I’m sure you know the kind.”

  “Yes.” Every country had them: professional shit-stirrers.

  “The Italian says she hired him because nobody in her circle will work with her anymore.”

  “Why him?”

  “He’s been a Vatican watcher for years. She saw some of his shots of the Pope mingling with his flock this past Easter and thought his work was good. He also told me that this woman was man-crazy and probably had heard what an accomplished lover he is.”

  “Whereupon he invited you to sample his wares before he bestowed them on his new employer in Vienna?”

  She smiled. “Something like that, but more crudely put. Can I buy you a drink to show my gratitude? There aren’t many men these days who will rescue a lady in distress.”

  He pretended to weigh her offer. “Just coffee,” he said finally.

  They found a table in the shadows near the entrance, nursed their coffees and said little. “You don’t drink?” she asked after a while.

  “Only when I intend to get drunk, and then only in private. Public drinking invites trouble.”

  She nodded. “Forgive me. I didn’t take you for the cautious type.”

  He smiled. “You believe in types?”

  “Of course. It’s a matter of intuition.”

  “What do these intuitions tell you about me?”

  She wiggled her forefinger at him. “One can feel intuitions, but it’s bad luck to explain them. One drinks coffee at this hour only to sober up or to remain awake. You obviously haven’t been partaking, so why do you want to stay awake while the rest of the world sleeps?”

  He laughed. “Maybe not everyone here intends to sleep tonight.”

  Her chin lifted defiantly. “An Italian uses drink to help him build his courage to overpower women, whereas you use your sobriety as a weapon. Doesn’t that make you alike?” Her voice was playful, not scolding.

  “I never impose.”

  She looked at the dance floor and waved her hand like an auctioneer awaiting an opening bid. “Many options are close at hand. Who will it be?”

  He studied the dancers, then turned back to her. “You.”

  Her smile was unwavering. After a long pause she said, “I live ten minutes from here. I’ll leave first and get my car. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Are you trying to fool a husband or a boyfriend?”

  “Neither, but why let people know what you’re doing when it’s none of their business?”

  “And if I come out and find that you’ve flown away?”

  She touched his cheek softly. “It’s the unknown that puts a little spice in our lives.” She rose and slid past him.

  He heard the Jaguar before he saw it. It was white and low and looked ghostlike in the mist.

  “A lot of machine for mountain roads,” he said as he got in.

  She shifted into first and accelerated sharply. “Risk is relative,” she said as they quickly wound their way up the mountain. “If it’s clear in the morning there’ll be a wonderful view of the river.”

  The house was built on stilts against a sheer rock wall; the rooms inside were paneled. She turned on a floor lamp, then draped her raincoat over a chair. One wall was covered with small watercolors and the floors were shiny with varnish.

  “You live here?”

  “Visiting. My brother owns it, but it’s mine whenever I want it.”

  “He’s a generous man.”

  “Not by choice. Our parents left us well off, but I got the investment portfolio and he got the property. From time to time I serve as his private banker, so he has to be nice to me.”

  “What else do you do?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Is that open-ended?”

  “I was thinking of work.”

  “Hydrologist,” she said as she went into the kitchen, opened a bottle of beer and held it out to him. When he shook his head she took a long pull. “Not exactly the most romantic work. I work with a small private institution that is studying the effect of industrial operations on groundwater. Pretty boring, when you think about it. And you?”

  “Professionally?”

  “It’s your call.”

  “Assassin,” he said and watched her carefully for a reaction.

  She cocked her eyebrow and smiled. “Am I to be your next victim?”

  He looked around and smiled. “There seems to be no alternative.”

  She finished the beer, set the bottle on a table, slipped her arm around his waist and guided him through a door.

  “What’s this?”

  “The killing ground,” she said as she led him toward a canopied bed.

  Later Frash sat in a high-back chair beside the bed and studied the body. There had been no reason to kill her and he’d had no intention to do so, but now she was on her back on the wooden floor, her left eye gone and her nose shattered where the heel of his hand had driven cartilage into her brain. He doubted she would have caused a problem for him, but he had to be sure, which signed her death warrant. Her legs were spread and bent, and her arms were up as if she were poised to jump to her feet. For a moment the dead woman reminded him of his mother, but it was a fleeting image soon forgotten. Although she had lived in Cologne, she was Swiss, not German, here on leave to write a scientific paper. With luck it would be weeks before she was discovered; she had told her brother that she would stay until the end of June, and had made it clear to Frash that she and her brother stayed away from each other as much as possible.

  He left the body in the cellar by a wall nearest the cliff, figuring that i
t would be coolest there, set open boxes of baking soda around the body like votives and sealed the only door with masking tape, everything designed to retard the odors that would soon be emitted by the decaying corpse. Before departing, he ransacked the areas of the house that might be the targets of a professional burglar and emptied her purse.

  It took twenty minutes to get back to Sirini’s automobile. The mist had turned to rain but the temperature seemed to be rising. He opened the hood, disconnected the wires to the distributor cap and sought refuge under a balcony in a nearby alley. Sirini came out of the hotel at 7:00 A.M., went straight to the Fiat and tried to start it. When he failed he rested his head on the top of the steering wheel.

  Frash rapped his knuckles on the driver’s window. “Looks like you’ve got trouble. Want me to take a look?”

  Sirini nodded without looking up. Frash reconnected the wires and told the Italian to try again. This time the engine came to life and Sirini looked relieved. “Can I pay you?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “East. I have to be in Vienna tomorrow.”

  “I’m going there too. Mind if I ride along?”

  Sirini smiled. “Not at all. If this piece of junk gives me trouble again, maybe you can be useful.”

  Not as useful as you, Frash thought as he got in.

  153TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1961, 5:15 P.M.Vienna

  The Alitalia turboprop floated momentarily, then dropped hard on the runway and lurched as the pilot stood on the brakes. Several passengers grumbled about the rough landing, but Lejla Llarja sat impassively with her hands folded in her lap. Kasi was two rows back and she could feel his eyes watching her.

  How long had it been? A week? The Sigurimi brought the men in one at a time and made them sit; an executioner stepped behind them, placed the barrel of his revolver against the back of their heads and squeezed off a single round. The first victim pitched forward. The second one’s head snapped backward and his left arm flew up as he tumbled off to his right, his last sound an audible grunt when he hit. No sentence had been read and no statements were made. They had simply brought in the condemned men and shot them, informally, Russian style, without fanfare. No pulses were checked afterward and no pronouncements of death made. The fifteen observers included Shehu and Kasi. The two men had been tried for treason, convicted of spying for the Soviets, their capital crimes consisting of telling several Russians at a reception in Moscow that conditions were poor in Albania.

  After the executions, Kasi had made Lejla scrub the floor and pick up pieces of hair, bone and brain with her bare hands. When she was finished she was taken to her father, who was in the same building. He was thin and gaunt, his eyes listless; when she embraced him there was little response. “I heard shots,” he whispered.

  “It’s your imagination,” Lejla lied.

  “I smelled gunpowder,” he said with a thin smile. “You can’t save me,” he whispered as she pulled him close. There were tears in his eyes.

  She had to try.

  154TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1961, 5:20 P.M.Going, Austria

  Benedetto Sirini was a compulsive talker, but despite a nasty bruise on his cheek he had no memory of the previous night’s adventure. Within thirty minutes Frash had heard the Italian’s abbreviated life story and future plans. The photographer was going to Vienna to meet a woman called Mignonne Mock; with her connections and reputation his pictures of the coming summit would be seen around the world, and afterwards he would be showered with offers.

  “Perhaps your employer will send you packing whan she gets a look at that face,” Frash said. Reporters would have more access to the summit than the general public.

  Sirini craned his neck to see himself in the rearview mirror. “She’s never seen me. She’ll think this is normal.”

  “You’ve never met her?”

  “We played tag on the telephone but never made contact. The whole thing was arranged by telegram. Can you imagine?”

  “Odd.” Possibilities were mounting quickly.

  “Determined is a better word. That’s how she’s made her reputation. She manages to get stories others can’t.”

  Frash smiled. “Sounds like you’ll make a great team.”

  “I have no doubts,” Sirini crowed.

  When the Italian turned east at Wörgl onto a road that would cut across a small piece of Germany, Frash guessed that the border was less than eighty kilometers away, which meant that it was time to take control. They were about the same size. “I need a piss.”

  “Hang it out the window,” Sirini suggested with a laugh.

  “I’m serious.”

  “All right,” the photographer grumbled as he downshifted, steered to the side of the narrow road and slowed.

  “Not here,” Frash said. “Look for a side road. I need a little privacy.” The Italian shook his head and accelerated. A few miles on he swerved onto a dirt road and raced up a steep hill trailing a low plume of dust. The countryside was rocky, with no houses or farms. “Here is good,” Frash said.

  “Be quick,” Sirini said as he looked at his watch and stopped.

  Frash drove the heel of his hand into Sirini’s windpipe, and as the man clutched at his throat his passenger got out, walked around the vehicle, opened the driver’s door, pulled him out by the hair, locked his arms around his head and neck, and twisted hard to snap it. “Is that quick enough?” he asked as he dragged the body into the rocks.

  155WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1961, 5:50 A.M.Durrës, Albania

  For Methat Dishnica freedom was only a word in the dictionary. Every aspect of his life was constrained by obligations, which were often conflicting and required him to move cautiously. At thirty-five he was a lieutenant colonel in the Sigurimi, Albania’s secret police, but the higher he climbed, the greater his obligations seemed to be and the less his power. His people had a saying: The higher the stone, the greater the fall. At his current rank he was now among the elite, which meant that the dangers were greater and increasingly difficult to see. This came as no surprise, of course; he had known from the outset how the game was played, and throughout his career he had kept alert for insurance. Now an unexpected obligation required him to do something he had never expected.

  Dishnica squatted in the gray dunes and stared at the silhouette of the fortresslike house built into the rocks above the Adriatic. Haxi Kasi’s stronghold reflected his personality: strong, self-sufficient, resilient, unfeeling as stone. Yet Dishnica had heard that in recent weeks Kasi had been seen several times with the same woman. He had tried to get details, but most of his colleagues in the Sigurimi had been closemouthed. Kasi and his patron Shehu didn’t tolerate loose talk among the secret police, and harshly enforced their rules. Even so, some people were careless and shared what they knew, so that he had been able to piece together a picture from a variety of shards. The woman had been taken to visit a political prisoner named Llarja, who was said to be one of the cabal that had engineered last year’s plot against Hoxha. A cousin added another tidbit: the woman had faced dogs in the mountains, a test usually reserved for Shehu’s assassins. Several contacts reported that she spoke English, and a fisherman had seen her several times outside Kasi’s place, once in the nude. In fact, she had been seen here more often than anywhere else, and always with Kasi. Now there was a rumor that she and Kasi had left the country, and he sensed that this was the opportunity he needed. Dishnica doubted that there was a romantic connection between the two of them; Kasi didn’t seem to need that. If she was under his wing it was purely business, something special in the offing. The answer might be his safe passage out of Albania.

  When the false dawn began he approached the house and concentrated on the object at hand, blocking the mixed emotions that bedeviled him. If any guards were here, they would be groggy from sleep; even the best sentries lost their concentration at this hour, which made it the ideal time to break into a place where you didn’t belong.

  156WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1961, 4:00 P.M.Washington, D. C.

>   In more than three decades of intelligence work Arizona had made few errors either in the selection of people or in evaluating events and their implications. What counted most was instinct, the fiery ball in your stomach that was not 100 percent accurate, but nevertheless was more reliable than cold logic, which was bound by assumptions built on prejudice. The heart of intelligence was collecting people, not information, and in this belief, which was fast becoming a minority view in the CIA, he was more like a Russian than an American. The emphasis in the U.S. intelligence community was shifting to the electronic collection of information, ELINT and SIGINT which was like pressing your ear to a keyhole five thousand miles away. The new view sanctified free-standing information, while the Russian paradigm was Let us know the man who gives us information; then we’ll know the information. The Russians wanted another meeting on Friday. Did they know something about Frash? The missing agent was a mistake he intended to rectify, and though the outlook was bleak at the moment, everything in life was transient. A break would come.

  Because of the impending summit, the Austrians had issued a special bulletin to all border units. Any unusual events, however minor, were to be reported directly and immediately to a security liaison unit in Vienna. Ever mindful of their national reputation for thoroughness and precision, the Austrians did not intend to have their reputation sullied by an accident, especially one growing out of carelessness.

  The body of a young woman had been discovered by German hikers on Saturday afternoon. When they reached the border village of Nauders, they dutifully reported the find to the local police chief, then led him back to the site. He had notified Vienna on Sunday.