Rolgo parked his vintage Volkswagen Golf in a reserved stall at the Musikverein. It was 5:45 pm.
"Any questions?" he asked Sanguineus. "It's unfortunate that we haven't been able to trace Dolina. You are quite sure it was her speaking to you through the headphones?"
Sanguineus rolled down the passenger side window. "Of course, I can't be certain," he said, lighting a Sultan, "but if it wasn't her it was someone parroting her distinctive accent, someone who knew that Dolina had been in Aufgarten Park, and had seen me. But why an impersonation, unless Dolina was taken out of the way, her stand-in attempting to get me off my guard for Cornwallis? She almost succeeded. Came damn close. I'm inclined to think it was Dolina."
Rolgo patted the steering wheel. "How is your arm?" he inquired.
"It didn't adversely effect my 'little talk' with Monica. It's just a graze. So, Murray found out that the police received an anonymous tip about Roger Cornwallis. I'll say one thing for Murray, he's a good snoop."
"And you know what it means if Cornwallis was gunning for you," Rolgo remarked. "It means that the sniper in the Hotel Wien was probably Harrison Welles."
Sanguineus flicked ash out the window. He saw that the orchestra members were arriving at the staff entrance, and that there were some young children with them.
"Welles blaming us for his son's death is not very sensible," he said, taking note of a lovely violinist who was ruffling the bangs of a pigtailed girl, sedate joy on their faces, cheeks burnished by the wind. "He should know that it was either Sorgensen's crowd, or the Firm, that hired the masseuse. And she was snuffed by Bear Claus."
He frowned at his colleague. "I can't figure this. It must be that Harrison is deep into a quirk that we don't know about. And what was the motive behind that anonymous tip? Who's helping who?"
He let smoke out of his nostrils and watched the last of the string section enter through the backstage door. "There's going to be some interference at the hit site tonight," he continued, "either on the roof, or the mezzanine, or both. And by God I'll shoot first and ask questions later."
"Well, on the positive side," Rolgo said in a lowered voice, leaning toward him, "our contact at the marine storage facility is confident that he can have the 6-man submersible at the river bank, off Treppelweg, when required. Some trees there for cover, a cement boat ramp. There's a big bonus for him if he makes it there on time, and another bonus when he surfaces at Muckendorf. That's expected to be about an hour's voyage, depending on the river traffic. The Donau Hotel has a room waiting for a Mr and Mrs Steenbarten. Your papers are in order?"
"They will be. The two engineers are not coming on the sub?"
"They've chosen not to," said Rolgo. "Worked out their own escape route. Intel okay'd it. But if things get too hot and they change their mind, there's room enough for them on the submersible."
"Or they can swim."
"Remember, Ricklen... I'm sure you will, but... if the engineers are wounded and can not flee the hit site..." Rolgo shrugged. "We can't risk them getting apprehended. We can't risk them talking. But with luck things will go as planned and the interference will be some wandering tourist, and not the chief of security sticking his nose into things."
"Fred, relax. I'll take care of it."
Rolgo gave a dry laugh. "Opening night jitters," he said. "Do you know, we're spending eight and a half million dollars on the escape, can you believe it? All the palms we had to grease, the purchase of the sub for about two hours of operation..." Rolgo, bemused, shook his head. "We'll never have funds like this again, not ever."
He stiffened. "There's Sorgensen, with, I think, the chorale master."
The man in the long-tailed tux, top hat, and umbrella cane, walked arm-in-arm with a plump middle-aged woman carrying a dressing bag. They went past the doorman, who stood tapping a foot while the brass section filed in after them.
"It's time I claimed my seat," Sanguineus said. "The transmission should be coming over the hertz ghetto band by nine-thirty, if I can sneak the tooth on Sorgensen's tux. But it might be closer to ten."
"I'll be back here by eight-forty-five," said Rolgo. "Break a leg."
Monica Paladin chose a seat in the second of two rows in the balcony box, the one furthest back from the stage, on the left-hand side.
There were eight seats, seven of them empty. Monica noticed that the other boxes were fully occupied. She supposed that the philanthropist would have an entourage with him that would take up the remaining seats in her box. What a pain! She was not inclined to pretend an interest in symphonies, or in anything that did not involve sex and risk.
God this is going to be a dreadful bore, she thought, activating her smartphone. She signed in to the texting app 'GetFu*ked,' under her username Winsome.
A string quartet was playing a Hayden number as the hall continued to fill. Between texts Monica would rise from her plush seat just a little and glance around at the audience below, looking for Sanguineus. When he came down the central isle in his Brooks Brothers suit of dark grey she smiled at the sight of women turning their heads to watch him pass. He sat in the third row from the front, on the right-hand side, the programme held neglectfully in his lap.
Monica thought he was as bored with this classical stuff as she, unaware that he was an aficionado of certain styles of classical music, particularly piano concertos.
Fifteen minutes later, while the MC was introducing the orchestra and guest maestro, the philanthropist entered the box.
It was a woman with a beehive grey hairdo and a black pantsuit with a red neckscarf tied in a bow. She was tall, about five-nine, broad shouldered and hefty. Her makeup was somewhat caked and her lipstick a gaudy crimson. The long fake eyelashes added to the slightly bizarre effect.
She was unaccompanied. With a polite nod to Monica and a gravelly "Guten abend," she sat two seats over on Monica's left. The stiff leather purse was placed on the fat knees and the gloved hands folded on top of it.
Monica thought, Oh God, and paid the woman no further attention.
Phillipe Sorgensen gave a brief speech. He spoke of the rich history of the Vienna Philharmonic, of Austria's reputation as a patron of the musical arts, and of Beethoven's contributions to it. Then without further ado the orchestra tuned itself to the plinking of Middle A, the maestro smoothing out his score book on the podium, his back to the quietly whispering audience.
Monica sighed. The texting app traffic was only slightly more appealing than the Ninth Symphony. She considered going out for a smoke. The minutes dragged on as waves of sound assaulted her.
For awhile she amused herself watching the fidgeting of the chorus, the expressions on the singers' faces so similar to those of people being tortured that she fell into a reverie filled with screams and the splattering of blood. But the memories didn't hold out much relief from her boredom.
Exaggerating her nicotine fit, Monica put her phone in her chic belt pouch and stood up, turning toward the door.
She had her hand on the polished brass knob when a knee struck the small of her back and iron fingers clasped her neck.
The door was framed by red and gold velvet curtains. Monica, momentarily shocked and breathless, was thrown down behind the curtain at the right of the door, a heavy weight coming upon her awkward position: on her side with one leg bent under her.
She struck the woman in the throat with an elbow, managing to turn over on her back. She intended to pull the woman off her by yanking fiercely on the beehive hairdo. Instead the wig came off and the hideous face became that of a man in drag.
No wonder the 'woman' had such unexpected strength. Monica instinctively switched to vulnerable parts of the human body for her defense, and just in time to distract the man from following through with his knife attack.
She gouged out his left eye, butting his nose with her forehead, and pulling sideways on his right ear she bumped upward with her left hip, rolling him off her, then driving her righthand's middle knuckles into his throat.
He was gasping and kicking, his demonstrations of fear and agony drowned out by the soaring sopranos of the chorus. Monica applied a steady pressure on the carotid artery, her other hand clamped over the man's mouth and broken nose. In less than a minute he was unconscious. Ten seconds later his switchblade was embedded in his heart.
Monica rose to her knees, fumbled out her phone, and tapped a contact icon. She was breathing heavy and felt dizzy. But the music was her ally now, wrapping her in a cocoon of positive vibrations, brushing away the ghost of a nightmare and replacing it with the heroism of D minor's surge into D major.
"Goddamn you don't tell me you weren't trying to salt my ass, fucker! I'm coming after you just as soon as I finish up here and I won't be coming at you alone either, shithead! I'm throwing Red Rum down your throat, bitch!"
Monica, swearing under her breath, tapped another contact icon, waited anxiously, and said, "A man dressed like an old woman is now taking a nap on the floor of my box and I think he won't wake up no matter how loud the orchestra plays."
The voice of Sanguineus said, "Meet me in the lobby."
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