Authors: Michael Genelin
J
ana met Peter in front of the National Theatre steps. She had pushed her meeting with Sofia to the back of her mind and returned home in time to put her evening clothes on, a black pantsuit with a velvet collar and cuffs. The trousers were flared enough so she could carry a small pistol in an ankle holster. Not that she would need it, but in case she was called out of the performance to handle a police emergency, she would be armed.
Her first sight of Peter made her weak in the knees. He was gorgeous, his eyes as beautiful as she remembered from yesterday, and his black suit and matching tie making him look even more masculine. They joked about their being dressed to match, twins of the mind and spirit.
Their seats were in the center balcony. The opera house, a remnant of the old empire, still looked every inch a part of its old Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg past, with all its gilt and ornamentation echoed by the operagoers dressed in their finest. The orchestra members entered the pit, tuned up, and, as the lights dimmed, the overture began . . . and Peter leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, taking her hand and holding it for the rest of the opera.
Jana did not remember much of the opera after Peter kissed her; she registered very little when they drove back to her house together after the performance. Her senses only returned full-blast when they walked into the house. Peter turned her to face him and kissed her. He kissed her again, and again, and somehow their clothes disappeared as they went from kiss to kiss into the bedroom, and made love. Then made love again.
When they lay there afterward, spent, she realized that this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She hoped he felt the same way.
Kamin could wait until tomorrow, or the tomorrow after that, or maybe next year.
But of course, as things turned out, he wouldn’t wait.
V
ienna is the city of many people’s dreams. Their dreams are varied. Some of them want the monarchy back, with its capes and carriages, when men still fought duels and women made a spectacle of public mourning if their lover was killed. For others, it is still the Vienna of Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven, when the grand gesture in music and the great musical soloists of the
Konzert Kulture
thrilled the world. For a few, it is Freud and the ferment of the fin de siècle when great intellectual leaps forward made it the capital of the intellectual world. For Jana, none of this was the case. She admired its palace architecture and liked its pretzels. Otherwise, she found Vienna an uneasy city to be in. It was the Austrian temperament, so law-abiding that it suppressed everything spontaneous or unusual. Jana was always cautious, even down to very carefully obeying the traffic lights, when she visited the Austrian capital.
Today she was with Trokan and a Slovak customs official named Halco, walking up Neustiftgasse toward the Ringstrasse, the circle of streets that surrounded the inner city, the old town that was the center of Vienna. They had been sent to Vienna to attend an international customs meeting.
Trokan never went to Austria if he could help it; he would send Jana or some volunteer who wanted to spend time in the Austrian capital and could afford its exorbitant prices. Halco was a Slovak bureaucrat, an expert on policy issues. The three of them were told to listen and, after the Austrians got through, to do a little complaining of their own. The Austrians were being difficult about Slovaks crossing the border into Austria and taking Austrian jobs away from Austrians. In their turn, the Slovaks, through Trokan, were to complain about the illegal laundering of Slovak gray money with the complicity of Austrian banks.
Trokan had been a last-minute replacement, and because Jana had recently investigated a murder that had involved Slovak money deposited in Austrian banks, he had ordered her to accompany him to explain the practical aspects of the problems. Of the three, only Halco was enjoying himself. He had married an Austrian woman and was looking forward to meeting her and his Austrian in-laws for dinner at the posh Sacher Hotel, since his father-in-law would pick up the check. He went on and on about it, as both Trokan and Jana tried to ignore him.
Trokan and Jana were in civilian clothes. Jana was snacking on a huge salted pretzel she had just bought from a kiosk that advertised thirteen types of pretzels, trying not to pay attention to the other pedestrians who gave her critical stares for munching as she walked their pristine streets. The three had just crossed the Ringstrasse when Jana saw Kamin. He was striding along next to a woman who easily kept pace with him, a woman who had that mixture of Asian and European features that made passing men take second and third looks at her.
Jana touched Trokan on the arm, indicating Kamin. Trokan took a few seconds to recognize him. Then his face reflected his anger.
“There goes the man who has been responsible for half of the major criminal acts in Slovakia. No,” he corrected himself. “Judas Iscariot is dead, so more than half.”
“He was never caught.”
“‘Never’ might not include today.” Trokan quickly decided that he could dispense with Jana’s presence at the meeting. “Follow him. See where he’s going.”
Jana broke away from Trokan and Halco, crossed the street, and increased her pace to catch up with Kamin and his companion, then slowed her stride to match theirs. Kamin and the woman appeared not in the least interested in conversing with each other, nor concerned with the stores, buildings, or people they passed. They entered a cozy-looking café that blended in with the other storefronts lining the
Strasse.
Jana waited to let them get settled and involved in selection from the menu, then casually walked in, peering around for a table. The café was small enough that any table she took would give her a good view of her quarry. Jana quickly chose one at the rear. The waitress came over, setting a small plastic holder with the specials of the day in front of Jana, who picked it up to study, while looking over the top at Kamin and the woman. Then she ordered a
Kaffee mit Schlag.
They had been joined by a bullet-headed, pig-featured man with a scruffy blond goatee that was more a flag of challenge than an asset. They were arguing with him. Kamin was gesturing angrily. His voice did not carry, but she saw him snarl. The newcomer leaned forward, threateningly, and knocked Kamin’s hand off the table, then shoved Kamin back in his chair and stood, towering over him.
Kamin did not appear fazed. He stared up at the man intently. The bullet-headed man, as a last defiant gesture, took his own chair and tossed it across the floor. The few customers in the restaurant got to their feet at this disturbance of the fabled Viennese
Gemütlichkeit.
The manager scurried over to pick up the chair, but was afraid to bring it back to the table.
The bullet-headed man mouthed a curse and stalked out of the restaurant. Almost immediately, the woman rose to her feet and followed him. Kamin remaining seated. Jana’s instinct urged her to follow the woman. She had a quick sip of the coffee the waitress had set in front of her, then dropped a bill on the table in payment. As casually as possible, she got to her feet and went after the woman.
Outside, she saw the woman catch up to the bullet-headed man. He heard her coming and swiveled around to face her. As soon as he turned, another man came up behind him and smashed him across the back of his neck with what looked like a pipe, hit him again, this time on the head, and continued to beat him as he lay on the sidewalk.
As soon as the fight started, the pedestrians began to flee, interfering with Jana’s view. She ran forward, only to stop short when she saw the woman turn to face her and point a gun directly at her. She gestured with it for Jana to retreat; Jana backed up without taking her eyes off the woman and her partner. He went to the driver’s seat of a car that had been parked at the curb. The woman casually approached the passenger side of the vehicle. They drove off.
Jana went to the man on the sidewalk. His skull had been fractured and he had been beaten to death. Nothing could be done for him, so Jana raced back to the café. The waitress told Jana that Kamin had left through the rear door.
Jana ran out the back door. As she had expected, Kamin was gone.
It is hard for a police officer to witness a murder and not be able to do anything about it. It’s even worse to have an opportunity to apprehend the man responsible, and miss that opportunity as well. The Austrian police said they could take no action against Kamin. How could they prove he had sent the man and woman to do the killing? Kamin was not a resident of Austria as far as they knew. As for the man and woman, who were they?
No arrests.
No charges.
Jana liked Vienna even less after that.
She had to go to Vienna on police business on a regular basis. Austria and a number of other countries shared a border, so a regional liaison group had been established to deal with the prevention and suppression of cross-border crime. There were other meetings, higher-level meetings than the one Jana was now going to attend, that dealt with matters of policy, working agreements, treaties on mutual cross-border needs in criminal prosecutions, and the like. Jana only participated in those events as a briefer, an expert behind the scenes. The meeting today involved a fairly convivial group, professionals in law enforcement who generally believed in what they did. Jana had been struck by how their national characteristics were reflected in the way the individuals interacted. The Swiss seldom talked; the Hungarians always seemed to be talking; the French punctuated most of their communicating with facial expressions and extravagant gestures. The Germans were always suspicious of police representatives from the other countries; they might themselves be involved in criminal activity. The others knew how the Germans felt, but, for the sake of appearances, tolerated them. Despite all their differences, they managed a substantial degree of cooperation and assisted each other when the need arose.
Today the group discussed communications, methodology of selected crimes, and trends in cross-border crime. Of course, like cops everywhere, they always discussed the cases they were personally involved in after the agenda was covered. After the official business was over, the troop converged on a local beer hall to swap stories, drink a glass of pilsner, briefly mention their families, and then return to their own home country. That meant catching the last train to Bratislava, which was only sixty-four kilometers from Vienna, for the Slovaks. Today, the group had selected Grosslik’s, an old beer hall and eatery whose menu boasted that Hitler used to enjoy its wonderful breakfasts. By unspoken agreement, they studiously avoided commenting on this fact to the Germans. They settled in with their mugs of beer, enjoying the others’ old war stories and telling a few of their own.
They were well into their second beer as Andras, the Hungarian, held forth on his personal brilliance in breaking up a criminal ring.
“Two groups were involved, both Hungarian, and they met a third group’s representative, a Slovak. It was set up by another Slovak, a man they called Midi.” Andras inclined his head to Jana in acknowledgment of her countrymen’s participation. “They met in an up-market chocolate shop. When we finally broke in, they didn’t understand how we could have overheard them. They must have felt like idiots when they found out we were listening in on their conversations via a mike concealed in an elephant made of bittersweet chocolate.” He laughed. “I took a photograph of the elephant and showed it to my children.”
They laughed at his story. After that, there was a moment of silence. Most of them used this opportunity to finish the last of their beer and stood, ready to call it a day. Jana gestured at Andras to stay as the others said their good-byes. She ordered another round of beer for the two of them. Something Andras had said earlier had engaged her interest.
“You mentioned the man who set the scheme up, a man called Midi. That doesn’t sound Hungarian or Slovak. Italian, perhaps?”
“We never found out.”
The waiter set two beers down; Andras sipped his. “A very clever man, Midi. He put up the money for the venture, planned it, but stayed away from meetings, using the Slovak we caught at the chocolate place as his representative. The Slovak gave us Midi’s name.”
“What else did he say about this Midi?
“Not much. Our Slovak was afraid of him. We had to drag the facts out of him, which means you always miss something. He said this Midi helped him get out of prison early but didn’t know why he was selected. Perhaps it was because he had been sent to prison for smuggling and Midi wanted a professional in that line.”
“How did Midi arrange to get the smuggler get out of prison early?”
Andras held his hand up and rubbed his thumb against his first two fingers. “Remarkable what people can do with dollars, euros, pounds, Swiss francs, or whatever. Greed is universal.”
Jana smiled. “Did they speak English together? Hungarian? Maybe even Slovak? What language were they comfortable in?”
“Midi spoke good Slovak. But the smuggler said that Midi also knew English, a little Hungarian, and, on at least one occasion, spoke German.”
Jana mulled it over: four languages, but one thing seemed important. “English and German are in common use all over Europe. The smuggler said Midi spoke a little Hungarian, but he spoke Slovak well. There are only five or six million Slovaks. And Slovak is not spoken by the rest of Europe. Which means to me that Midi was probably Slovak.”
“So?” Andras asked.
“It puts this man called Midi in my jurisdiction, someone for me to watch out for.” She continued, “You said your bad guys made a number of trips into Slovakia?”
“And into Austria, and back to Hungary, and the Balkans, even to France. They delivered goods to others in France and Italy, which they thought were destined for Canada and the U.S. They said one shipment went to Mexico on a Spanish ship. They were delivering packages all over the fucking place.”
“Not so hard to understand. It’s easy when there are no border controls. But what were they shipping out of the Euro area?”
“When the group was first set up, one condition was laid down: the goods were prepackaged, waiting at a pickup point. The instructions were explicit: nobody was to open a package. If a package was opened on the job, no matter who tampered with it, they would be held responsible.”
“Being thieves, I’m surprised they didn’t look anyway.”
“One of the teams may have. Our Slovak smuggler told us that two of the original group were found floating in Lake Como early in the game.”
“Italy?”
“Yes. Everyone believed that Midi had arranged their deaths because the team had fiddled with the contents of one of the packages.”
“What was in the packages?”
“Nobody knew. After the killings, they never asked. They were paid very well, and they left it at that.”
“Were the packages all the same size?”
“No. Some were very small, some not so small. The wrappings were not alike, so there was no clue there. And the addresses for the pickup and delivery were varied.”
“So what did you arrest them for, if you didn’t even know what they were carrying?”
“You said it yourself: thieves will be thieves. They couldn’t just transport the goods they were scheduled to carry. They got into the transportation of narcotics to make a little extra money. There are too many informants in the narcotics trade. That’s what led us to them.”
“And Midi’s description?”
“Your Slovak was all over the place in his description of the man. The most trustworthy part of the picture that he painted was that there was nothing really outstanding about the man, except for his eyes. He said the man had cold eyes, eyes the color of wet ashes.”
The description jolted Jana. “Wet ashes.” She probed her memory, remembering. “I once knew a man like that: a Slovak.” A picture popped into Jana’s mind. “Did he have a scar through one of his eyebrows?”