A Rolls Royce Silver Ghost purred luxuriously up to the valet parking area of the Crown Hotel and slowed sedately to a stop.
The chauffeur in red and white livery stepped out and opened the back seat passenger door. A short man with a massive build, dressed in an ill-fitting grey herringbone suit and a black bowler hat, wrestled himself out of the car and looked at the soaring sleekness of the Millennium Tower. It made him think of a futuristic rocket on a launch pad in the late night darkness, for he was a fan of science fiction whose architectural projects celebrated fantastic possibilities.
His expression was a mix of curiosity and a fierce determination.
"Mr Knoughtly," said a very thin masculine-looking woman. "I am Ms Olsen, your hostess for the evening." She made an impatient gesture at the young pimply valet, who immediately hurried up to the chauffeur.
Ms Olsen smiled in a cool professional manner at the billionaire. Half turning to the back entrance, she said to him in a flat tone, "All has been readied to your specifications. If you have no objections, you may follow me, please."
Orel Knoughtly walked up to her with a face congested into a furious knot of pulsing veins and shiny red skin. "Let this be understood. I follow no one. Whoever briefed you about me shall be getting a round of discipline. Go about your other duties. If I require your questionable services I shall send someone to fetch you."
Ms Olsen arched a brow. "Understood, Mr Knoughtly."
A nervous Eurasian gentleman stopped his pacing in the Executive Suite and faced the door to the sitting room, with its white furniture and white carpet contradicting the figure of Knoughtly that stormed in with the words, "You have failed me TWICE, and that is once too often, Yatshing." He flung the door shut.
"Let me just explain that our main objective has been reached," said Yatshing, his hands together at his chin, as if in prayer.
Knoughtly went straight to the drink cabinet. His anger had settled into a mirthless sarcasm. "A great achievement, to have flushed out the master assassin, as if he would have preferred something less interesting, less profitable. But his death can wait until Sorgensen bites it. And that's another thing, this CIA twat who you assured me was James Bond's big sister."
Knoughtly turned with a tinkling drink in his hand, a cynical smile on his slab-of-beef face. "Well, she did manage to foil the hit on what's-his-name, this hotshot."
"Sanguineus."
"What a name. Right up there with Hiawatha. But don't get smug with me about Annie Oakley. She fucked up her chance to rid decent society of that double agent, and what the bitch is up to now, the devil knows."
Yatshing parted his hands in an apologetic gesture. "We suspect she is hiding in a safe house here in Vienna," he said in his soft voice. "We only know that her director is the assistant to the Irish finance minister. Her reports to him have not yielded any information that could help us in this case. We suspect also that she assumes we are intercepting her messages, and, as a consequence, she has been putting misleading analyses in her reports, to confuse us."
"Just kill the bitch, then!"
"It must look accidental, and that requires... providential circumstances."
"It requires imagination and courage, dunce! If I'm to take control of Magna for the benefit of your spy masters, I need them to live up to their popular image and DO WHAT NEEDS DOING! Here we are counting on a private sector gunslinger to liquidate Sorgensen and on 'providential circumstances' to shake and bake his tootsie. That's not good enough, Yatshing. I've got five hundred million wooden dentures riding on this Octopussy scheme and by God I want some productive action!"
Sanguineus lowered his night binoculars. He walked back through the trees that bordered that stretch of the east bank of the Danube, to the Volvo where Rolgo stood looking in at Monica. She was smoking in the back seat.
"That was him alright," Sanguineus said.
Rolgo nodded pensively. He opened the back door of the car and said to Monica, "Ricklen wants a word."
"I know what he wants," she said, making an aggravated face. "I don't trust him. I'm staying right where I am."
"You don't have the option," said Rolgo. "We haven't time to argue. Step out."
"Fine." She got out and stood holding her cigarette by her right cheek, her right elbow on her crossed left wrist. "I've really nothing more to confess, except that I prefer sex in the morning rather than at night."
"Where's Dolina?" asked Sanguineus. He spoke calmly but the timbre of his voice was a dangerous one.
"I don't know anybody named Dolina, and if that was my name I wouldn't tell a fucking priest, let alone the general public."
Sanguineus said: "You've been phoning and texting someone who you believe has tried to kill you. How is it that you have this person's number? In some way you're affiliated with her."
Monica flicked ash angrily. "That's bullshit."
Rolgo looked at Sanguineus and smiled. "So, the old trick still works."
"Fuck that," said Monica with a harsh laugh, "I didn't mean..."
"Give me a name," Sanguineus said, "and it better be convincing. That won't be easy coming from a pathological liar."
"You mean actress, don't you? That's all we do, say a bunch of made-up shit. Look, I told you that I was recruited by Knoughtly, through some oriental person calling himself Chang, or Wang, or something. Well, surprised? I'm in tight with Phillipe, for the money and perks, of course, and Knoughtly knew I'd... I made my big confession to you tonight, and all you had to---" She laughed, the cig between her lips. "And all you had to do was grab my phone and read all the shit on it. I could have denied your interpretation of it and you know what? I have a perfectly good explanation for it but I just thought, fuck it. I'm sick and tired of trying to guess who's going to try killing me next, this Fu Manchu cocksucker, or you."
"You mean 'Chang'?" asked Rolgo.
Monica sighed, dropping her cig stub and watching it glow redly in the dark grass. "He's the one I've been in touch with," she said to the grass. "They want Phillipe killed but they haven't told me why. Just that Orel Knoughtly figures to gain by it, and whoever else is involved."
Rolgo turned to Sanguineus, a dawning look on his face. "The person with ICS who supposedly investigated the 9-11 attack for our client, Knoughtly, and who we believe leaked the contract information to the CIA... This Chang Wang person? It shouldn't be difficult finding out his identity through our moles in ICS. They should know any Asians listed with them."
"True," said Sanguineus. "The joker in the pack is Welles, and his gun buddy, Cornwallis. If it was Dolina last night who warned me about the sniper... I'm a goddamn fool."
He went up to Monica. She was leaning a hip against the left back fender, arms crossed, staring back at him. He said to himself, 'She doesn't know about the escape route.' To her he said: "Either you or Dolina have me in the crosshairs. Either you or Dolina will try to save Sorgensen from his just desserts, by snuffing me. I have to trust you, and you have to trust me. It wasn't Knoughtly or Wang Chang who made love to you this morning. I, or one of those two bastards, will want you dead, whatever the outcome tonight. Your best bet is to put your trust in me."
Monica considered.
"No one gets out of this life alive," she said. She stood away from the car, her eyes bright with excitement. "Okay then. You pretend to trust me, and I'll pretend to trust you. And we'll see whose trust was justified."
"Well," said Rolgo, taking out his car keys, "that was diplomatic enough. Let's get Monica back to the Fluss Sprite. You," he said to her, "will contact Sorgensen and tell him whatever will get him to see that movie with you. What is it, Blue is the Prettiest Color?"
Monica smirked. "The warmest color," she said.
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