“Oh, we get stuff,” he said, a little defensively. “It just takes
years.”
“Great,” she said. “Thanks.”
In a small room on the fifth floor of the Sicherheitsburo, at Vienna
police headquarters on Rossauer Lande, a young man sat before a computer
screen, wearing headphones. From time to time he snubbed out a
cigarette in a large gold ashtray that sat on the gray Formica table
next to a No Smoking sign.
In a small box on the top left of the screen was the telephone number he
was monitoring, along with the date, the start time, duration of call
measured in a tenth of a second, the telephone number called. Elsewhere
on the screen was a list of telephone numbers, representing each call
made from this number. All you had to do was to move the cursor to any
of the numbers and double-click, and the digitally recorded conversation
would start playing, either on the headphones or through the external
speakers. Little red bars would dance as the volume fluctuated. You
could adjust not only the volume but even the speed of playback.
Every telephone call the woman had made from her hotel room was recorded
onto this computer’s hard disk. The technology was most impressive; it
had been provided to the Vienna police by the Israelis.
The door to the little room opened and in came Detective Sergeant Walter
Heisler across the institutional green linoleum floor. He, too, was
smoking. He gave a little jerk of his head by way of greeting. The tech
removed his headphones, put out his cigarette, looked up.
“Anything interesting?” the detective asked.
“Most of the calls have been to Washington.”
“Strictly speaking, we’re supposed to inform Interpol when we record any
international calls.” There was a twinkle in the detective’s eye.
The tech raised his eyebrows in silent complicity.
Heisler pulled up a chair. “Mind if I join you?”
California
The young billionaire computer mogul Arnold Carr took the call on his
cellular phone while he was strolling through a redwood forest in
Northern California with his old friend and mentor the investment whiz
Ross Cameron.
The two were spending a weekend in the company of some of America’s
richest and most powerful men at the exclusive retreat known as the
Bohemian Grove. There was some sort of idiotic game called paint ball
going on back at the encampment, presided over by the chief executive of
Bank America and the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James.
But Carr, the founder of a vastly successful software company, rarely
had the chance to hang out with his billionaire buddy Ross Cameron, the
so-called sage of Sante Fe. So they had spent a lot of time hiking
through the woods talking about money and business, philanthropy and art
collecting, their kids, and the extraordinary, highly secret project
they had both been invited to join.
Carr pulled the tiny, burring phone out of the pocket of his Pendleton
plaid shirt with visible annoyance. Hardly anyone had this number, and
the few employees who’d dare call had been instructed not to bother him
for any reason during his retreat weekend.
“Yeah,” Carr said.
“Mr. Carr, I’m so sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning,” the voice
purred. “This is Mr. Holland. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Carr recognized the voice instantly. “Oh, no way,” he said, suddenly
cordial. “I’ve been up for hours. What’s up?”
When “Mr. Holland” had finished, Carr said, “Let me see what I can do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
Ben arrived at his hotel around nine o’clock at night, hungry but unable
to eat, jittery from too much caffeine. He’d taken a cab from police
headquarters, since driving the Opel Vectra was out of the question. Two
of its windows had been shattered in the shootout, the leather seats
covered with rounded shards of glass.
The lobby was quiet, the hotel guests either out at dinner or returned
to their rooms. Several Oriental rugs overlapped one another; here and
there patches of highly polished marble floor gleamed.
The concierge, a too-slick middle-aged man with alert eyes behind
steel-rimmed glasses, handed him the room key before Ben said a word.
“Thanks,” Ben said. “Any messages for me?” Perhaps the private
detective.
The concierge tapped at his computer keyboard. “No, sir, just the one
you already retrieved.”
“Which one was that?” What? he thought, alarmed. / haven’t gotten a
single message since I got to Vienna.
“I don’t know, sir. You called in a few hours ago.” More tapping. “At
six-twenty this evening you got a message from the hotel operator.”
“Could you give it to me again?” This was either a mistake or… “I’m
sorry, sir, once the guest retrieves a message, it’s deleted from the
system.” He gave Ben a feral smile. “We can’t keep all messages
forever, you know.”
Ben took the small brass-cage elevator to the fourth floor, nervously
fingering the large brass sphere that dangled from the room key. He
couldn’t put it past Agent Navarro to have had some male colleague call
the hotel to get his messages, see whom he was in touch with.
But who had left a message? Besides Agent Navarro, only the private
detective knew his whereabouts. It was surely too late to call the
detective, Hans Hoffman; he wouldn’t be in his office this late at
night.
Navarro was suspicious about his motives, yet she couldn’t seriously
think he had killed Rossignol. Could she? She had to know she wasn’t
dealing with a serial murderer. After all, she’d mentioned she had
expertise in homicide; she had to know who fit the profile and who
didn’t.
So what was she really after?
Was it possible she was actually working for the CIA or some grayhaired
contingent thereof, mopping up, helping cover up their involvement by
shifting suspicion to him?
And the fact remained: Gaston Rossignol, a founder of this mysterious
corporation that might or might not have had CIA involvement, had just
been murdered. As had Peter, whose single error, it seemed, was to have
dug up a list of directors of this very same corporation. Had the same
people killed both of them? It certainly seemed likely.
But American killers? CIA?
It was difficult to fathom. Jimmy Cavanaugh was an American … Yet
couldn’t he have been working for foreigners?
And then there was Max’s baffling disappearance.
Why had he vanished? Godwin had shed no light on that mystery. Why had
Max called Godwin just before leaving?
Was his father dead now, too?
It was time to place another call to Bedford.
He walked down the long corridor, struggled with the room key for a
moment, and then the door came open. He froze.
The lights were off.
Yet he had left all the lights in the room on when he’d left. Had
someone turned them off?
Oh, come on, he told himself. Surely the chambermaid had turned them
off. The Austrians prided themselves on being environmentally
conscientious.
Was he over thinking this? Was he being ridiculously paranoid? Was
this what the last few days had done to him?
Still… Quietly, without entering, he closed the door, turned the key
to lock it again, and went back down the hall in search of a porter or
bell captain. None was anywhere to be seen. He circled back and took
the stairs down to the third floor. There, at the end of another long
hall, he spotted a porter coming out of a room.
“Excuse me,” Ben said, accelerating his stride. “Can you help me?”
The young porter turned. “Sir?”
“Listen,” Ben said, “I locked myself out of my room. Can you let me
in?” He palmed the porter a fifty-shilling note, about eight dollars,
and added sheepishly, “This is the second time I’ve done it. I don’t
want to have to go back to the concierge. It’s up one flight.
Four-sixteen.”
“Oh yes, certainly, sir. Ah, moment please.” He searched through a
ring of keys on his belt. “Yes, sir, please.”
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor. The porter opened the
door to 416. Feeling a little foolish, Ben stood behind him and off to
one side, so that he could see into the room at an oblique angle,
without being seen.
He noticed a shape, a silhouette! The figure of a man outlined against
backlight from the open bathroom door. The man was crouching down,
pointing a long-barreled gun toward the door!
The man turned, and his face became visible. It was the assassin who’d
tried to kill him a few hours ago in front of Jurgen Lenz’s villa! The
assassin in the Swiss auberge.
The man who killed his brother.
The porter screamed, “No!” and ran away down the hall.
For a moment the killer was confused he’d expected Ben, not a uniformed
hotel employee. The hesitation was long enough for Ben to take off.
Behind him came a series of muted spits, then the much louder explosions