“I’m not going to let that happen again,” Sauer said.
“What happen again?” Court asked.
“That truck nearly got away from us in the fog in Munich. I’m getting a directional beeper unit and I’m sticking it into the cargo. See what I’m saying? From now on that goddamn cargo is going to bleat like a lamb wherever it goes.”
“How you going to plant it?”
“I’ll figure a way.”
“Sounds like you’re belling the cat.”
“You’ll see.” Sauer made a phone call. “’Kay,” he said to Court. “The unit will be delivered here late tomorrow.”
“What if they move the cargo before then?” Court asked.
“Then we’ll have to do without it.”
Court said nothing for a moment. He sniffed. Then he asked, “How are you going to put it in the cargo?”
“When we get it, we’re going to take it over to the depot and put it in one of the cartons. ’Kay?”
“Sure.” Court sniffed, then clicked his tongue again. “You’re the boss.”
At two-thirty in the afternoon Court lowered his binoculars. “They’re moving it,” he said to Sauer. “The whole load.”
Sauer stepped from the bed to the window and looked out.
“Looks like local talent,” Court said.
“Yeah,” Sauer said with a sigh. “They’re going to repaper it again. Hot damn.”
They followed the truck at a safe distance through the outskirts of Salzburg to a side road. The truck drove into a large old brick barn and shut the doors. Sauer and Court, familiar with the procedure, waited.
“What do you think they’ll paper it as this time?” Sauer asked. “Cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest?”
“Computerized skis,” Court said.
Sauer folded his arms and slumped in his seat. “Wake me up when spring comes,” he said.
The truck emerged from the garage, drove back to the terminal, and offloaded the cargo once more.
“That beeper better get here soon,” Court said. “We don’t know any of the new waybill numbers, manifests, or whatnot. We’ll never be able to impound that stuff without them.”
Sauer scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “Where the hell can that beeper be?” he asked.
Court paced. Then he picked up a photograph of a baby beside Sauer’s wallet.
“What’s her name again?”
“Who?”
“Your granddaughter. I forgot her name.”
“Rosemary.”
“Oh yeah. Rosemary.”
“I gave her that name.”
“You told me,” Court said.
“This is one Christmas I don’t want to miss.”
“You’ll miss more than Christmas if you get caught with that beeper inside that terminal,” Court said.
The package arrived by special messenger after four, when it was almost dark. They sat in the car while Sauer fiddled with the reception unit, turning the dial, adjusting the earphones, and attaching the outside antenna to the right rear window then cranking it shut. He worried about getting a draft on the back of his neck.
“Looks great,” Court said impatiently.
“There’s still a gap between the window and the top. Air can get through there.”
“We’ll seal it with masking tape,” Court said. “Let’s get this over with.”
Sauer studied the transmitting unit thoughtfully. It looked like a long nail.
“So,” Court said. “Belling the cat. Now how?”
“We push this into a carton then we cover the head with masking tape.
“We?” Court asked.
“Okay,” Sauer said. “Me.”
They walked over to the depot. Court, whose German was excellent, went in to engage the nightman in a discussion of freight rates to Paris. Through the windows he watched Sauer pass along the loading platform to the cargo area and disappear inside.
The nightman stood before his thick volumes of freight rates, the pages crinkled and bent and darkly marked with thumbprints. Then, laboriously with a freshly sharpened pencil, he calculated the freight rate through two different routings and noted them down on a pad. Sauer was still not back. Court asked for rates from Salzburg to Nice. The nightman patiently worked it out. Sauer still was not back.
Abruptly the freight office was filled with light from headlamps as a truck pulled up. When the driver came in, Court stood with the papers the nightman had given him, pretending to study the rates thoughtfully. Where was Sauer?
The nightman and the driver, talking in loud voices, walked into the cargo area. As Court stood there, Sauer appeared from the other side of the building and tapped on the window. Court met him outside.
“Where the hell were you?” Court asked.
“I had a hell of a time finding the cargo. It had all new papers on it.”
“That truck is here to pick up a lot of cargo, including our load,” Court said. “He’s leaving first thing in the morning.”
“We’re ready,” Sauer said. “This time we sleep in our clothes, with our bags in the car, ready to go at a moment’s notice. See what I’m saying?”
The truck left the terminal at six A.M. the next morning. Sauer listened to the beeping with his earphones.
“Perfect,” he said. “Loud and clear.”
“How long does that beeper send a signal?”
“Couple of days. Until the battery runs down.” He pitched the earphones onto the backseat. “Don’t ask, Court.”
“What?”
“You’re going to ask me what we do when the batteries run down.”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Court said.
The truck took the road north and drove to the town of Neumarkt. And there it pulled into a truck terminal and drove around the back. Sauer and Court waited in their car out on the roadway.
“Maybe it’s unloading the stuff,” Court said.
“Nah,” Sauer said. “Here it comes again. It didn’t have time.”
The truck pulled out on the roadway and headed south. Sauer checked the license-plate number. “That’s it,” he said. Court waited a few moments then turned and followed the truck.
They drove a few miles when Court said, “Shouldn’t you check the beeper?”
“What for?” Sauer said. “That’s the right truck.”
Court made a face at him.
“Come on, Court, loosen up.” Irritably, Sauer reached into the backseat and picked up the earphones. “Humh,” he said, twisting the dial. He turned and looked at the antenna outside the back window. “What the hell’s wrong with this damned thing?” He tried it again, fiddling with the dial, checking the connection through the cigarette lighter.
“Quick!” he said. “Turn around. They pulled a switch on us. Turn around, I said!”
Court slowed down. “You’re the boss.”
Sauer twisted the dials and checked his connections and the antenna again. “Hot damn! Now what? Now what? Oh, those dirty bastards.”
“What are you going to do now?” Court demanded.
“I don’t know!” He turned and looked through the back window. Distantly he could just see the truck follow a curve and disappear. “If we screwed this up, we’ve lost everything.”
“We,” Court murmured to himself. He sped back up the road to Neumarkt to the terminal.
“Drive around the back,” Sauer said.
There were no trucks behind the terminal building.
“Drive back out,” Sauer said. “And head for the autobahn to Vienna. ’Kay?”
Court drove fast along the road to the autobahn while Sauer turned the dial on the beeper unit. It was silent.
“I can’t believe it,” Sauer said. “They slipped us a mickey and we fell for it.”
Court shrugged and said nothing. The beeper remained silent. Sauer sat with his fists clenched and head bowed.
“Maybe we ought to go back and catch up with the truck,” Court said. “Maybe the beeper’
s busted.”
They drove another mile.
“What do you want to do?” Court asked.
“Shit. I don’t know,” Sauer answered. “We’ve blown it now.”
“We,” Court said in a low voice again.
The beeper emitted a faint whistle for less than a second. Sauer listened and turned the dial. There was nothing.
“Court,” he said. “Go back to that crossroads we just passed.”
Court made a U-turn and drove back. The beeper made no sound.
“Take that right-hand road there,” Sauer ordered.
Court turned right and sped down the road. They came upon a string of slow-moving cars. Court blew his horn and passed them on a curve.
“Jesus God on the cross,” Sauer said.
“Sorry about that,” Court replied.
The beeper whistled briefly once.
“Faster,” Sauer said. Court picked up speed. The beeper whistled once more, a little stronger signal. Then the beeper emitted a longer signal.
“Dead ahead,” Sauer said. The signal grew stronger. “We’re getting closer.”
“You picked it up?” Court asked.
“Yes. It’s ahead of us.”
“Hallelujah,” Court said. Ahead of them now they could see the truck.
“It’s a twin to the other truck,” Sauer said.
“Be damned,” Court said. “No one can be as lucky as you are, Sauer.”
“Lucky! Me! Court, you have to be kidding. I’m the king of bad luck.”
“What do you call this?”
“Instinct.”
They got within five cars of the truck, the beeper so loud that Sauer had to turn the volume down. The cargo they had followed from Kansas City was bleating like a lamb in the trailer ahead of them.
Chapter 4
Court cleared his voice. “I think it’s time to stop crapping around, Sauer. They almost got away from us this time. If I hadn’t told you to check the beeper, we’d still be following that other truck to God knows where. Let’s impound the whole load now before we lose everything.”
Sauer squirmed uncomfortably. “Damn,” he said. Then he sighed. “Listen, Court, what you say makes sense. ’Kay? We probably should shut these people down, but then we end up right where we were before Kansas City. All these weeks, all this effort, and we go back to the pickle factory with an empty net. That’s not for me. I have to come back a winner. I have to start putting some big points on the board or it’s all over for me. See what I’m saying? I’ll be just another spear carrier in Aida. This is my last chance. See what I’m saying? So if you want, I’ll get the desk to put you on a plane home and I’ll take it from here. ’Kay?”
Court shrugged. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” he said. “I’ll see the hand out.”
“’Kay”
“One thing, though,” Court said. “How about making a counterfeit load? We can pack the cartons with rocks and send the sensitive stuff back to the States in a special jet. Just recovering the stuff will make us look good.”
“How?” Sauer demanded. “How are we going to get the stuff without them knowing it? They’re watching that load like hawks.”
“Then if they see us, we at least get the stuff back and we can chase them next time. They end up with the bloody nose, not us. All those weeks, all that effort, all the money they laid out for the stuff, all those freight costs, all that labor lost. We can say we won this round, and nobody will disagree.”
“No. I want to go home a real winner. I want to bring their scalps back on my belt. They’re not invincible. We outfoxed them with the beeper. If I’d kept the damned phones on my head, it would have been as easy as shit through a goose.” Sauer looked at Court. “Sooner or later they’re going to make a mistake. We’re getting closer to Vienna every minute now, and they’re running out of maneuvering room. With each mile, we’re pushing them further into the corner. If I were them, I’d abandon the whole load somewhere. Tell me the truth, Court—in this cat and mouse game since Kansas City, who would you rather be, us or them?”
“The truth?” Court asked.
“The truth,” Sauer replied.
“Them.”
The truck drove east toward Vienna. It stopped at the freight depot in the city of Linz, behind the main post office, by the railroad station. And there in a small railway hotel the driver took a room for the night.
“Show’s over for today,” Sauer said.
That night at eleven-thirty the driver received a phone call in his hotel.
“Well,” the voice said. “I have just learned that they didn’t follow Muller’s truck as we expected. It isn’t possible that they followed you, is it?”
“They did,” Wolf said. “All the way.”
“Ah!” There was a long silence. “Tell you what,” the voice said at last. “There’s a place in Linz that sells all kinds of electronic equipment.”
“It’S late. Everything is closed.”
“I know. I will make some phone calls. I want the proprietor to go over your cargo. There must be some sort of radio transmitter in there somewhere. After he’s through, you are to drive on to Vienna.”
“What if he finds a transmitter?”
“I don’t know yet. Just leave it in place and drive on to Vienna tomorrow.”
The truck left Linz the next morning shortly after eight o’clock and headed east on the autobahn toward Vienna. By nine a wet snow was falling and traffic had slowed. Court and Sauer looked out at the snow-filled world through flogging windshield wipers and patiently crawled through the miles into Vienna a short distance behind the truck. Sauer sat, arms folded, with the reassuring beep in his ears.
“Did you really sleep all night with those earphones on?” Court asked.
“I don’t care if it makes me deaf,” he said. “I’ll never take the phones off again. Trouble is, the signal is getting weaker.”
“Great. We’re back to square one,” Court said. “If we lose him now, we’re really lost.”
“Stay close to him, Court,” Sauer said. “I think the showdown is coming up. In Vienna.”
“I think we need to pull the Austrian authorities in on this one,” Court volunteered.
“Never,” Sauer said. “We do this alone.”
“Maybe you ought to think about it first,” Court said.
Vienna shivered.
It was late December, and the Tyrolean Alps of western Austria were reporting excellent pre-Christmas skiing conditions on a snow base of more than two feet. Skiers from all over Europe in their designer ski outfits and equipment had thronged to Innsbruck and Salzburg; the serious skiers skived down the slopes of Arlberg, even in the lower mountains of Kitzbühel and Kammergut. Rooms throughout the Tyrol were going at premium rates, and there were lines at most restaurants.
Innkeepers smiled at the weather forecast: another six inches of powdered snow expected during the night.
But in Vienna, at the eastern end of Austria, the cold brought no pleasure. A wandering wind crept down the abandoned promenade of Karntner Strasse, past the stacked sidewalk chairs and tables of summer, whining at the wooden cathedral doors of Stephansdom and driving Christmas shoppers indoors. Occasionally, under grim gray skies, a rogue snowflake sailed across the promenade.
In the coffeehouses the Viennese sipped warming coffee with their tortes, chafed their hands, and read their newspapers. Some, drawing close to the fireplace, talked of spring.
In spite of the cold, the cleaning staff in the Staatsoper Opera House on Opern Ring Road busily buffed brass handrails and glass door panes in preparation for the night’s opera performance of Die Fledermaus, while not far away, the Vienna Boys Choir was making final arrangements for its Christmas season performances at the Chapel of the Hofburg; and nearby, in the Spanish Riding School in the Hofburg Palace, the tack and trappings of the Lippizaner horses were being polished to a high gleam for an evening of equestrian perfection.
Gogol arrived in Vienna on the f
light from Zurich in the afternoon and immediately went to the café on Karntner Strasse.
Arnoski was patiently waiting for him, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. He watched Gogol approach and felt the familiar anger rise in his throat. Such ostentation—diamond rings, gold watches, that expensively-fed figure, deliberately corpulent—as though he were trying to occupy more space—expensive custom-made clothing, even the beard. And those arrogant blue eyes. Gogol had made greed into an art.
“Well?” Arnoski asked expectantly.
“We still have some problems,” Gogol said. “Two American agents.”
“The same ones?”
“Yes,” Gogol said. “The same.”
“Then it’s an impasse,” Arnoski said.
“It’s a standoff,” Gogol said. “We didn’t elude them, but they didn’t impound the merchandise.”
“Of course they didn’t impound it,” Arnoski said. “They want to follow it to you.”
“I think they came close to impounding it several times,” Gogol said. He made a show of pulling a cigar from a leather cigar case, then with a gold trimmer cut the cigar end off. He put the snippet of wrapper leaf on Arnoski’s saucer. “If we had split it up in Germany as you wished, I’m sure they would have moved.” He puffed a cloud of cigar smoke. “Will you smoke a cigar? No? They’re the finest in the world.”
“Those two men are exceedingly dangerous,” Arnoski said. “They can break up our smuggling network.”
“My smuggling network, Arnoski. Mine. Not ours.”
Arnoski gave an irritated little shrug. “They want to break it up,” he said.
Gogol studied the tip of his cigar thoughtfully. “It took me months of planning and coordination to assemble that matériel.”
“Well, where is it now, I would like to know?”
“A few kilometers from here,” Gogol said.
“Here? In Vienna?”
“Yes,” Gogol answered. “Just across the canal. In the public warehouse.” Gogol watched Arnoski’s face. “Surrounded by American and Austrian authorities.”
“Austrian!” Arnoski collapsed his newspaper angrily. “They summoned the Austrians?”
“Yes. Much to my surprise. I never thought they would do it. Now it’s around-the-clock surveillance.”
Triple Trap Page 3