Prelude to Terror (13 page)

“The auction itself may be conducted by Kurt Klar—age forty-nine, fat and bald, glasses. His father, Werner Klar, supervises from the background. Kurt’s wife, Gudrun, much younger than he, a blonde, well-stacked, is usually bookkeeping in the accounting office near the storage and shipping departments. These lie at the rear of the building—it stretches far back, to Cathedral Lane, where there’s the delivery entrance.

“After the auction you’ll be taken to the Klars’ private office—it’s adjacent to Gudrun’s counting-house. Herr Doktor Mittendorf will sign the cheque—he’s treasurer at Allied Electronics—always takes charge of Basset’s expenditures in Vienna. You can expect Gene Marck to be standing by, introducing you to the others, everything duly authenticated.

“Got all that? I’m giving you the general layout, so you’ll know where you are. As for the rest of the staff, don’t worry about them. They’re okay. It’s the top boys who have to be the question-marks—the ones who’ll gather in the private office for the final transactions. Note who takes the cheque from Mittendorf, ostensibly to forward it to the previous owner. Above all, note the name on that cheque. Then relax: the Ruysdael will be all yours.

“You could ask for it to be carefully wrapped between cardboard sheets by the packing department. Of course you’ll accompany it, won’t leave it out of your sight. The foreman there is a reliable character. He’ll wait near you while the packing is completed, and he will have the delivery entrance open too. You’ll slip out into Cathedral Lane, where I don’t think they’ll be expecting you—so no tail, I hope. But we’ll be there—the same car as yesterday afternoon. It should be a smooth getaway. All understood?”

“I think so.” Front entrance, cloakroom, exhibition room, auction hall, two adjacent offices, and then the packing department and rear exit. “Except for the smooth getaway. Why?”

“Necessary. Believe me. Frank can explain. He is ready to pick you up as soon as you leave the bookstore. Nice to disappoint the man outside, who has been waiting patiently across the street. Guess he’s shy about coming in, doesn’t want to be noticed by you. Frank’s driving a rented Fiat, by the way—dark blue this time. He wants to talk with you about the Two Crowns Hotel. He knows it well. Anything else?”

“You forgot to remind me about one thing.”

“What’s that?” asked Renwick, his voice sharpening.

“Not to take a coat, umbrella or briefcase to Klar’s Auction Rooms.”

Renwick laughed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain. Good luck.”

* * *

Renwick put down the ’phone thoughtfully, didn’t speak for a few moments. Then he said to Avril Hoffman, who had been sitting quietly all through his briefing of Grant, “I begin to think he’ll do. Actually, he may do very well.”

Avril refrained from saying, “Didn’t I tell you so?” Instead, she studied her hands. “One thing disturbs me.”

“Out with it.”

“He doesn’t know what he is really getting into.”

“He was already in it—before we even made contact with him. In fact, Avril, our intervention may damn well save his life.”

“I know.” She was remembering the strange series of three apparently innocent deaths. And all because, six weeks ago, a man named Gyorgy Korda had walked into Prescott Taylor’s office and asked for asylum. The defector’s credentials were high. Trained by the KGB, he worked in Budapest for the Operations Executive Section of the Hungarian secret police. And the information he had brought with him was startling: lists of valuable items smuggled out of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, of owners arrested, of quiet sales in Vienna, to buyers who had been carefully selected. Avid collectors of great wealth in far-off places, who would employ agents and letters of credit; no cheques easily traced. If the Vienna venture was a success, there were plans for extending the operation to Berlin and Paris, where hidden treasures from Poland and East Germany would appear for sale. Yes, six weeks ago was when the alarm must have been sounded: Gyorgy Korda had defected and knew too much; he would talk, and he couldn’t be silenced. But others could be—those who were the agents, the direct lead to their employers who would surely know the name of a bank account in Geneva. When you paid out a vast sum, you were hardly likely to forget. “Bob—do you really believe that the deaths were calculated?”

“One, no. But three? All close together?”

“There’s one cheque-signer, and he’s still alive—Herr Pompous Closed-Lips Mittendorf. Oh, I know he doesn’t need to go through all the rigmarole of letters of credit. He can pay out money direct from Basset’s Allied Electronics. Still—it’s odd. Isn’t it? Why hasn’t he been silenced? Or is he one of theirs? Ultra-correct, super-respectable Herr Doktor Mittendorf?”

“Either that, or he can be blackmailed into total silence. Doctor of what, anyway?”

“Mathematics, I suppose,” Avril suggested with a smile. “A graduate in juggling of accounts?”

“That could blackmail him nicely. Seal up Old Closed-Lips permanently.” At least, thought Renwick, I’ve stopped her worrying about Colin Grant.

But he hadn’t. She was saying, “Colin, of course, won’t be writing the cheque for the Ruysdael. Still, he’s there when the cheque is signed, and we’ve asked him to find out the name on it. Comes to almost the same thing, doesn’t it?” She rose, moved restlessly around the small and simple office. “I’m really unhappy about this, Bob. Truly. Surely there is some other way.”

“Which could take weeks—months—of investigation. We need the information now. Ferenc Ady won’t be the last victim unless we smash this conspiracy.”

“Will we? Geneva isn’t the only place where they bank. Didn’t Korda say that London is probably the depository for the Berlin and Paris auctions?”

“If the Geneva operation becomes a total loss, they’ll write it off. An experiment that failed. And became a danger, too: we are learning the pattern—we’ll know what to look for in London, or Paris or Berlin. Will they risk another failure? Exposure? Publicised in a NATO report? I think not.”

She seemed persuaded, but something was still troubling her.

He said, “If it’s Grant you are bothered about, then forget it. We’ll have him protected all the way.”

“We haven’t much to protect him with.” You and me, and two agents who may be good at surveillance but don’t even carry a revolver.

“Don’t forget Frank. I’ve asked him for help.”

She brightened visibly. “Then we’re not alone.” Frank Krimmer must control a network of Israeli agents: the information he could supply was phenomenal. There were hints, too, that some of his men could terrorise even the terrorists. “How did you manage to convince him?” Intelligence agencies did not usually share their secrets, even with friends.

“No convincing needed. He has as big an interest as we have in this investigation. Certainly more personal: he knew three of the refugees who’ve gone missing.”

“Frank is with Colin now?”

“They should be driving up to the Schotten Ring district by this time.” Smiling, he added, “What’s with all this Colin business? A bit soon for Miss Hoffman of London, isn’t it?” Damn it all, she took three weeks before she dropped Mr. Renwick for Bob.

She covered her embarrassment with a small laugh. “I had better get down to Prescott’s office. He needs help with some translation. Korda has started talking again, and Prescott has the tapes. Perhaps there is something in them for us.”

“I hope Prescott managed to fill out that strange gap in Korda’s information.” The man had been trying to impress Taylor and Renwick, had let slip one single name and then clammed up abruptly. All they had been able to learn was that the name, a pseudonym of course, was of the highest importance in this current operation of sell-and-buy. But you couldn’t blame Korda: he didn’t feel secure, detained here in Vienna.

“Korda’s trump card, perhaps,” Avril said.

“I can hear him right now: Get me to America, give me a new identity. Then I will feel safe enough to tell you about Jack.” And who the hell was this Jack? Korda knew and wouldn’t expand on it. Not yet. “Yes,” Renwick said, “he will stall until he’s certain of a passport to the United States. Tell Prescott to dangle one in front of his eyes. We need the info here—not next month in Washington.”

“I’ll tell him,” Avril said, and left. Bob, she was thinking, might have placed too much emphasis on the defector’s sudden silence. Perhaps Korda only knew a name that was of the highest importance, and that was all.

Renwick took a folder out of the safe (with a desk and three hard chairs, that was all the furniture in his cubicle-size office) and opened it. Inside, there were two sheets of flimsy paper with the details that had been gathered about the life and interests of Herr Doktor Heinrich Mittendorf, trusted treasurer of Allied Electronics. He began reading them, spurred on by Avril’s comment about the only man who had written a cheque, and hadn’t met with an accident, either. Bright girl, Avril, bless her big brown eyes.

Yes, here was something strange... Ridiculous, perhaps. But worth some thought. Worth a hell of a lot, in fact, and some searching, too. Where did he start? With the biggest bookstores in town, and work down to the second-hand places. Mittendorf a poet when he was nineteen? Incredible. But forty-three years ago he had been published in Paris, and praised by the lesser Communist press for his “revolutionary ardour”. His pen-name, under which two of his poems had been issued, was Jacques.

Renwick cancelled his idea about sifting through the bookstores. He would leave that until he had talked with the researcher who had uncovered this little item about Mittendorf’s youth. If it had come to light, there must be a copy of the book available somewhere. And the researcher—Ella Jameson, he saw by the initials at the foot of her neat notes—must know where to find it. She had actually read the poems, judging by her comments.

In ten minutes, Mrs. Jameson had left her cataloguing in the reference library and was entering his room.

He greeted her with so much enthusiasm that her natural reserve melted away. So few people ever gave her any credit for her meticulous research: she often wondered, in fact, if her painstaking notes were even read with any attention. She began answering Mr. Renwick’s questions. They veered around several of her little discoveries about Mittendorf—she couldn’t be sure which of the points Mr. Renwick raised was of most interest to him. Yes, she spent most Saturdays in small second-hand bookstores—her hobby, as it were. She had now quite a collection of curiosities, volumes long out of print. The name Mittendorf had caught her eye as she was examining a shelf of
belles-lettres
. It had been misplaced, of course: years ago, judging by the heavy coating of dust on that row of neglected books. Naturally she had bought it: wasn’t she working on the subject of Mittendorf? It was a first edition—the only edition, actually—published in 1934. Three hundred and fifty copies had been printed. It really was a rare find: she had checked the catalogues of several libraries, and they didn’t even mention it. She got a bargain for the three schillings it had cost her.

“Indeed you did.” Less than nineteen cents for, perhaps, the last extant copy of Mittendorf’s youthful poems. “I’d like to have a look at it some time.” If he had gauged her correctly, it would be lying on his desk tomorrow. “Whereabouts did you find it?”

Mrs. Jameson’s smile widened in her delight. “In the most unlikely place—a small street just off the Mariahilferstrasse. I was searching for Haydn’s birthplace and—” She stopped. “Sorry. I’m afraid my enthusiasm runs away with me.”

“Well,” he said as he rose to his feet, ending their little talk, “it doesn’t seem to interfere with your work. It’s first-rate, Mrs. Jameson,” and he opened the door for her. “We’ll keep this strictly between ourselves. Later—well, I’ll mention your efficiency and dedication in my report.” He would too, but scarcely in such high-falutin’ words. That pleased her, sent her back happily to her reference library. People like Jameson don’t get credit enough, he thought.

He hadn’t brought up the name Jacques. It would only have emphasised his interest in Mittendorf. If Mrs. Jameson had recorded it, then it did exist. Tomorrow morning he’d see it, anyway.

Remember, he warned himself, like Mrs. Jameson and her enthusiasm his imagination could run away with him, take off at a flying gallop. “So control it!” he said aloud. “You may have nothing here at all.” Nothing but an interesting footnote on a lost poet.

He closed the folder and locked it safely away.

It had been easy. Grant had stepped out of the bookstore’s doorway, avoided looking either across or along Mahlerstrasse, and halted at the window as if its display had again caught his attention. Behind him, a car stopped. He turned, saw a dark blue Fiat with its door already opened. Four steps and he was inside, and Frank was driving off. Within moments, they were swerving down the nearest side street and heading for the Ring. From Frank, there was no explanation as to where they were travelling. He merely nodded as Grant closed the car door and settled beside him. No comment, no talk whatsoever; this was a different kind of Frank, in both manner and dress. Yesterday morning, he had been the neatly tailored chauffeur of a Mercedes-Benz: now he was dressed in a leather jacket and open-necked shirt, his hair no longer brushed neatly back, his features now firmer and more pronounced. The jaw was set, the nose aggressive, the lips uncompromising.

Either, thought Grant, he didn’t want this job, or he has just left a sharp argument, which he seems to have lost. Grant broke the silence with an innocuous, “Where are we heading? Or are we driving around?”

“We’ll do that first.”

“After that?”

Frank’s lips tightened. “It depends.”

“Have we been followed?”

“No.”

“Was there actually somebody waiting to tail me?” Grant asked, his irritation showing.

“Didn’t you see him?” If not. I’ve got a fool on my hands, Frank’s eyes seemed to say as they glanced at the American.

“Didn’t risk looking curious.” Damn it, thought Grant, does he think I’m an idiot? “What did you want to see me about?”

“We’re driving in its direction now.”