Prague, Czech Republic
“I’M SORRY, BUT the hard disk from the computer at the cybercafé is a dead end,” announced Stefan Zurn to his brothers Raimond and Udo, as they walked into the hotel room carrying sandwiches. “Public computers in cybercafés are notorious for being infected with keystroke-logging spyware—a phenomenon I had hoped to exploit. But in this case, the computer had an updated security suite installed. Also, cookies were disabled in the browser, and there was nothing useful cached in virtual memory. I found no clues to help lead us to Foster.”
“It’s okay. I know where he is,” Raimond replied, clapping his hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.
“How?”
“It appears the American made a fatal mistake—he trusted a woman,” Raimond said. Udo laughed loudly at the comment, too loudly, and it annoyed him. “As I was saying, Foster contacted a woman who lives in Wien and asked her for help. She’s also an American; her name is Julie Ponte.”
“And your source is?”
“Our employer, Frau Morley, she phoned me personally with the good news five minutes ago.”
“Even the coldest of bitches eventually warm to your charms, brother. How do you do it?”
Raimond laughed. “After you hacked her VoIP account, I called her directly in her office and blackmailed her. She’s been most cooperative ever since. The hack was a nice piece of work, by the way.”
“Danke. It was nothing. A child could have done it,” Stefan said and then added, “Blackmail is terribly underrated in my opinion; it has been working so well for us all these years.”
Raimond tapped the top of Stefan’s laptop computer screen and said, “Let’s find out where Julie Ponte lives, shall we? Ponte is spelled “P-O-N-T-E.”
Stefan opened a browser window and performed an Internet search. “Hmm,” he mumbled as his eyes scanned the list. “I find only one woman in Wien named Julie Ponte. I’ll SMS the address to your phone.”
Raimond’s phone chimed and the text message with Julie’s address appeared on the screen. Their job had become so much simpler with the advent of the Internet and mobile phones. Finding people had once been a tedious and painstaking endeavor, now it was as simple as a click of button.
“What now?” asked Udo.
“We pack the van and drive to Wien. It’s time to collect our fee.”
“Tell me something, Raimond. Why is this American, Will Foster, so important?” Stefan asked.
“They don’t tell me why, and I don’t ask. Remember, we are like garbage men; we get paid to clean up other people’s messes. They don’t want to see us. They don’t want to talk to us. And most of all, they don’t want to know what we do with the trash.”