Chapter 1

Greg was glad to be back in Vienna. The Imperial Capital was his favorite city: it held fond memories for him, but he also relished its vibrant and changing present. For one, this was where he had met and fallen in love with his beautiful wife, Anne, who was now sitting beside him in the cab from the airport, checking her emails after the two-hour morning flight from London where they had been visiting Anne’s brother after a three day stay with her parents in Cornwall.

Vienna was where he had first become entangled in the international intrigue that he had, after that--surprisingly to him--come to thrive on, and now, with his quiet academic life in Vermont, sorely missed. This was all in large part thanks to Anne, who had been working for Interpol at the time. But there were painful memories mixed in: the suspicion of, and disillusionment with his erstwhile best friend, Adam Kallay, had started here. Yes, the messy first attempt by some Russian arms merchants to steal some nuclear material from Mayak--the former secret city where Stalin and Beria had developed the Soviet atomic bomb--that his friend had drawn him into. And that had ‘resulted’ in Adam’s death: Greg had never really told anyone how he had pulled the trigger of the pistol killing his friend as he was taunting him, ready to get away with enough highly enriched uranium for half a bomb.

On the positive side, yes, it was because of Adam that he had met Anne, who had been Kallay’s contact at Interpol. And also Julia Saparova, the beautiful physicist who had taken Adam’s job at the International Atomic Energy Agency, in charge of monitoring security at the former Soviet nuclear sites. In fact, Anne and he were really looking forward to spending some time with her over the weekend. She was flying back to give a report to the IAEA’s top brass, and when she had heard that they would be in Vienna, had made arrangements to stay in town. Although she had said on the phone that she normally liked to get back to Ozersk to spend her free days with her sick mother when work took her there.

Another positive: Vienna had been the source--directly or indirectly--of so much of the material for Greg’s writing ever since. In fact, his three most recent successes were all somehow linked to his times in Vienna. First had come the bestseller biography cum memoir about his Hungarian grandparents, András and Lily. Then Twisted Reasons, the story of the ‘Adam affair’, his second highly acclaimed ‘novel’ after Wintertime, the one he had written straight out of college. And most recently, Katerina, Beria’s Slave, the true story of Julia’s aunt, picked up by a major New York house. Just before leaving on this trip, he had finally finished and sent off to his publisher, Twisted Traffick, the next novel in the ‘Twisted’ trilogy: the story of human trafficking and the second heist attempt by those merchants of evil that he and Anne had helped foil.

Twisted Fates would be the third book in the series, all of which were basically thrillers based on real life.

Thinking about the past--and really, the reason that he was back in the Imperial Capital this time--brought back another Viennese memory. One that had been unpleasant and nerve-racking then, but with time, had acquired a somewhat humorous patina. It was of that embarrassing moment at the meeting of the Austrian Literary Society, where he had been exposed in the act of impersonating a more famous author with a very similar name, Gareth Martens. And by none other than Billy Crawford, an old acquaintance from summer camp days, who--as he had found out during the ‘Kallay Affair’--was now an internationally sought-after terrorist. But that was all now well behind him, and, justifiably, he was proud of the fact that based on his newly acquired renown as a writer, he had been invited back by the Austrian Literary Society to give another lecture. This time, though, since he had written in both genres, he was asked to talk on the continuum between memoir and fiction in modern literature, which he knew he would have no problems with since it had been the topic of many articles he had written. However, this time it was not that busybody imbecile, Crabbe, who had sent Greg the all-expenses-paid invitation, but the newly elected head of the Society, the dowager Frau von Hitzinger whom he vaguely remembered meeting way back then.

Greg returned to the present from his musings about the past just as the taxi pulled up outside the Sacher. He loved to stay in this beautiful hotel, and it helped that, as before, the Society’s meeting was to be held here the very next day, Friday. The Hotel Sacher was right across from the Staatsoper, and, as he got out of the cab, Greg resolved to ask the receptionist to get them two tickets to whatever was being performed at the world’s most famous opera house. He was an avid lover of the genre, having grown up with it as a child in Cleveland, where, at the insistence of his Hungarian grandmother, Omi, there had always been classical music playing in their home. Fortunately, Anne too, was a keen opera buff, although her tastes were not as eclectic as Greg’s and tended toward the more often played romantic pieces.

“Tonight at the Staatsoper, Mr. Martens,” the receptionist answered Greg’s question, “let me see...there is a new production of Siegfried, you know, the third opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. A great production. Wonderful, I have seen it myself. With Jonas Kauffman and Svetlana Kokova. Tickets are hard to get, but I am sure we can manage. And tomorrow, there is a performance of...let’s see...Dmitry Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. As another possibility, there is also The Merry Widow at the Volksoper today and tomorrow. Perhaps that is more to your liking, Mr. Martens?”

Greg glanced over at Anne, who was standing several meters away with the bags, busy looking through a pamphlet on what to do in Vienna that week, then back at the receptionist, and on an impulse, said, “No, please, see if you can get us two tickets for the Wagner for tonight. That would be terrific.” He loved the German composer, and although he knew that the Ring wasn’t exactly Anne’s ‘cup of tea’, she would certainly prefer it to the Shostakovich. Although he remembered that she had adored Julian Barnes’ wonderful little novel about the composer where the opera had been mentioned. He himself had never seen it performed but had always been intrigued by the work, especially since it had caused Shostakovich so many problems with Stalin and his regime. In fact, an article attributed to Stalin himself had dubbed it ‘Muddle Instead of Music’, he remembered from the book. Also, the complicated story of adultery, scheming and murder spoke to him as an author. He was sorely tempted, but no, Wagner was definitely a better choice, Greg decided. In any case, he knew his wife would be pleased just to go out in their favorite city and make a romantic evening of it, especially with dinner at Julius Meinl after the opera, as on their very first date. Yes, it was indeed something to look forward to. He would break the news to her when they got up to the room.

Why not--maybe that would result in a little loving before we wander out to see the sights, Greg thought, liking his plan very much.