Chapter Ten

One advantage to the reign of Putin, Jake figures. The Cold War is buried in time, but the rise of Russia’s imperial ambitions makes it still America’s primary international threat, as far as he’s concerned. Not China.

And another enemy of the world order is also within European nations like Austria. Immigration has been a divisive issue, spawning a new generation of far right and neo-Nazi groups. With its WWII history and the fact that it was the birthplace of Hitler, Austria is now one of the breeding grounds for the new nationalism infecting western democracies.

So, with these twin threats, Vienna Station is still up and running, and old cold warrior Toby Moody, who served with Jake in the 1980s, is now chief of station. Name you can’t forget, the yin and yang of it. The ebullience and uplift of Toby balanced against the pinched-face suggestion of Moody. Sounds like a vaudeville act, not a spook, which is an advantage.

For Jake and Moody, it’s not exactly mutual admiration; more like mutual toleration. But generally, a straight shooter, so Moody immediately rebuffs Jake’s attempts at an official visit.

“I’m not saying toxic,” Moody tells him over the phone. “Just not a welcome face for the Austrians. We don’t really want them making you upon entrance to our little compound.”

“Yeah, I’ve already been welcomed by the Interior Ministry,” Jake tells him. “That’s why the call first. I told them I was a simple tourist, so maybe I could play the vacationer at Zum Weidling. Can’t get much more touristy than that. We could talk about old times.”

“Jesus, Jake, you’re not going nostalgic on us, are you? What the hell really brings you back to Vienna?”

“Why don’t we talk about it over a viertel of new wine? I think you’ll be interested.”

Moody makes a scoffing sound. “I got plenty on my desk to be interested in, Jake. But, yeah, sure. Old friends and all. When?”

“Sooner the better. Tonight?”

“I’ll have to clear it with the wife. She still likes to arrange surprise cultural evenings. After all these years and after all those times she’s had to elbow me awake in the middle of a Mozart opera. But a tentative okay. I use this as a call-back number?”

“Sure. Let’s say eight at Zum Weidling?”

“Let’s say seven. I get hungry early. You don’t hear back from me, it’s on.”

“Thanks, Toby. Appreciate it. See you then.”

Jake makes a reservation for seven o’clock, and with no call back from Moody, he and Vosenko take an Uber to Grinzing and stall around the main square a bit to give his old colleague a chance to arrive first and settle in at the wine house. Jake’s not sure how Moody’s going to react to seeing Vosenko; doesn’t want to give him the chance to just turn around at the door and leave.

The wine house is gemütlich personified, wooden tables and beams overhead. Antler trophies on the white-washed walls, the wait staff in dirndls and lederhosen. ‘Sound of Music’ time. Not the sort of place he frequented when he lived in Vienna, but it most definitely fits his cover story as a simple tourist. And if he’s being watched, Moody could be explained away as another old comrade reminiscing about the Cold War.

Moody’s at the table already, nursing a glass of wine, and seeing Vosenko, he gets to his feet.

“What the hell is this, Jake?” His face has gone red as he nods at Vosenko. “I don’t like being ambushed.”

“I could leave,” Vosenko offers.

“No,” Jake says. “Stay. Toby needs to see this. Just a couple minutes of your time. You don’t like what you see, you’re gone. Never been here. Just give me a couple minutes, okay?”

Moody clearly doesn’t like it, but he sits again. Jake and Vosenko join him.

Jake has brought his laptop with him, assumes the place has wifi. “Have you heard about Reckoning?”

“What the hell you mean? Like that book by Grisham? The wife loves him.”

Jake shakes his head. “So, no contact with Armitage or Sandy, maybe?”

“Jesus, Jake, what the hell you getting at? That asshole Armitage is the last guy I’d expect to hear from.”

The CIA, hard at work, Jake thinks.

“It’s a website. Reckoning. One of those revenge sites. This one’s looking for vengeance for what went down here in 1988.”

“Whacko internet,” Moody says.

“Not so whacko,” Vosenko tells him. “Men are dying.”

This catches Moody’s attention. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nope,” Jake says as he opens his laptop. “Driscoll, Sandy,” he says as he keys in the name of the site. “Armitage is on the list as well as your two dinner guests.”

Vosenko nods at this as Jake hits enter.

“Shit,” Jake says.

Vosenko looks at him. “What?”

“It’s not fucking there. Someone took the site down.”

“No,” Vosenko says. “Maybe you keyed it wrong.”

Moody looks from Jake to Vosenko. “A joke, right? Funny stuff between old friends and enemies.”

“No way,” Jake says, keying it in again, and getting nada.

Their attention suddenly switches to a commotion at the entrance. Three state police officers burst into the wine house, weapons drawn, headed directly for their table.

“Do not make a move, Herr Jacobs,” the tall one in front commands

Jake freezes, keeps his hands in plain sight on the table.

“Gentlemen,” Moody interjects. “This is highly irregular. Mr. Jacobs here is an old colleague of mine. You have no right…”

“We have every right,” the lead cop says. “Now stand up, Herr Jacobs. You are under arrest.”

“For what?” Moody all but shouts.

“Homicide. The murder of Renate Huber. Now please to stand.”

Jake does so, shaking his head as they cuff him.

“We have been waiting many years for you to return, Herr Jacobs,” the officer says with a sneer. “Patience is rewarded.”

Jake’s last vision as he is rushed out of the wine house is of Vosenko’s eyes, big as silver dollars.

“I’ll call the embassy,” Moody shouts as Jake is dragged through the door and shoved into the back of a waiting police van.

Well, a new experience, Jake thinks as he sits on the edge of the narrow bed, arms on knees. Never been in a jail cell before.

They’ve taken him to the Josefstadt jail just in back of the regional court. The ‘Liesl’ in popular parlance. Shake of the head. His old haunting grounds. Had a flat just up the Josefstädterstrasse from here. Little Anne’s first home.

He was looking forward to an early night, a deep sleep in the soft beds of the Intercontinental after the three days of non-stop travel from Ireland. He puts a hand on the mattress. Hard and cold. There’s a grey wool blanket folded at the foot of the bed, a toilet in one corner with no seat. Go figure with that, like a toilet seat could turn into a deadly weapon. Boomerang, maybe.

Trying to keep a brave face on it. Bullshit charge, he figures. Nuisance arrest. Some kind of fucked up got-you-last for his years of spying in the city of Mozart. Bad for the tourist trade. I’ll be out by morning, he tells himself. Though there is that niggle of doubt.

Why the murder charge? What the hell evidence do they have on me?

Vosenko stops at the Intercontinental bar before going up to his room. A vodka, just one. Settle the nerves.

Sees his reflection in the mirror. A damn prizrak, a ghost, stares back at him.

Moody was quick to leave the wine house after Jake’s arrest. Stuck Vosenko with the bill for his wine. All eyes on him. And quickly averted when he glared back at them. He saluted those other customers as he stalked out of the place.

There’s a woman on her own at the other end of the bar, gives him a smile in the mirror. Working girl. High class, but working girl. He shakes his head and her smile turns to a scowl. He keeps his eyes focused now on the pyramid of liquor bottles in the backbar.

Assessment time. With Jake in jail, no help from the CIA. And he can hardly go to the local FSB Rezident. His memoir has made him persona non grata with the Russian intelligence community.

On his own now, so think, he orders himself.

He’s taken Jake’s laptop with him from the wine house. But realizes now it doesn’t matter if the Reckoning site’s been taken down. He thought ahead when packing his bag in Ireland. Stuck the screenshot of the site in the bottom of the bag. But still, what to do with it? Jake is the one who put the trace on the server. Vosenko has no idea of its location.

What’s left for him to do on his own? Focus, you Lithuanian idiot.

He and Jake have been over this ground before, but now he sweeps the same soil, like a good, thorough peasant. Looking for that bit of overlooked grain.

If this really is a vengeance plot, then who would be seeking revenge? Savage stuff, the killing of Sanderson. Jacobs figured it was purposeful torture, perhaps to get the name of the fifth man in 1988, Driscoll.

Bloody stuff, Sanderson’s death. But could it be less purposeful? Could it be the distorted passion of a blood feud, a family vendetta even.

And it all appears to be in revenge for Reni’s death.

So, what the hell does he even know about Reni? Vosenko now wonders. He was her lover for more than a year. Did she have family? Everybody does, but she never mentioned hers, only the village she was from in Styria, Kragossen. And Vosenko thinks sadly of his own large family in Lithuania with whom he long ago cut ties; of a nuclear family that he never had, too busy with his work, too confused after Reni’s death.

Reni was fresh from the countryside in Styria. Together they made several visits to her village nestled at the foot of the Alps. Hiked those mountains. Made love in mountain huts. Talked of a life together, even though he knew then it was all a game. But he continued to play it. Closest he ever came to making his own family.

His little farmgirl, he would tease her. But there is something that has stuck in his mind all these years. How, late one night, she told him she needed to go, that Danichen, little Dani, was unwell. He asked about this Dani, but Reni said, “Well, you know it’s my best friend’s child.”

Reni had a tell when she was lying. Always started out with, “Well, you know…” But he let it go. Let her go.

So why the lie? Dani Huber. A girl? Or was it Daniel Huber, her little boy all grown up now thirty-some years later?

Daniel feels out of place in the city. Decadent and full of women who dress little better than whores. Men who look as if they have never set their soft hands to an honest day’s labor. He only feels at home in the mountains now.

Since being kicked out of the Jagdkommando and the army in 2008, he has eked out a living as a mountain guide to the fat tourists from Vienna, Germany, and Italy on holiday. The soft sort who come to the mountains to prove themselves. To make believe that they are really alive. Zombies, he calls them.

But every once in a while, a real hunter comes his way. A former soldier or sportsman who appreciates a skilled guide, who knows how dangerous the mountains can be. Last year, one such. Japanese, and with a true samurai spirit. He could go for hours without a break, carried his own pack and weapon—a Ruger .44 carbine. A classic rifle and almost impossible to find now. Taro, was his name. Just Taro. No Mr. this or that. And it was an honor to work with him. Took a chamois down at a hundred meters. And they brought that animal all the way back to the village. Left nothing behind. Taro was not out for trophies. Had the animal butchered and the meat given to the villagers. They took turns carrying the chamois, and it drooped over Taro’s shoulders at his turn, blood dripping onto his shirt and pants. The chamois was almost as big as he was, but he did not shirk his turn.

But hunters like Taro were the exceptions. The others. Jesus, Mary—he wanted to leave them up on the alm. See if they could even find their way down again. Had to resist killing on two occasions. Easy enough—fake their deaths on a narrow mountain trail. Accidents happen. But he could not afford a bad reputation as a mountain guide. Instead, he plotted mentally, imagining their bloody deaths.

And then the first communication from Carlo six months ago. A grace note in his life. Family, finally.

He won’t be in Vienna long. Soon back in his beloved mountains. A job to do first, though. Carlo’s email loud and clear, supplying the name of the hotel. He looks forward to killing the pig who forced his mother into concubinage. He will make it slow. Painful.

Jake awakens to the raking of a metal baton across the bars of his cell.

“Aufwachen,” the guard announces. “Wake up. A visitor, Herr Jacob.”

Jake stretches in the narrow concrete slab of a bed; his feet hang over the bottom of the foam mattress. He doesn’t like to think how many others have slept on this foam; tries to avert his mind from matters of hygiene. He blinks at the sliding barred door, and there stands Moody, shuffling impatiently from foot to foot in back of a short and far too-buffed-for-his-height guard who sports a handlebar moustache. Wyatt Earp time.

“Well, if it isn’t my dear friend Herr Moody. Please enter my castle.”

“No enter,” the guard says, shaking his head.

“If you feel that way…”

“Fucking shut up, Jake,” Moody says. “No cute shit today. You’ve already cost me a near sleepless night.”

“Then you’ve got more shut-eye than I did. You can’t come in? They’re afraid you’re going to pass me a file in a Sacher Torte?”

“Alright.” Moody throws his arms in the air. “Enough. I’m out of here.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jake says, sitting up now, then hops down to the concrete floor. “Back’s killing me.”

“You ready to talk, then?”

“Okay, Toby. Sorry. Just keeping the old spirits up.”

“Do so on your own time, then, will you? So, here’s the lay of the land.”

The short guard is standing in place, not giving an inch.

“Bitte,” Moody says to him. “Ein bisschen Privatsphäre.” Waving him off like a pesky gnat.

The guy moves back ten paces and crosses his thick arms across his chest. This far and no further.

Moody comes close to the bars and motions for Jake to do the same. “They’ve got your coat,” he whispers.

Jake shrugs. “What the hell coat you mean?”

“Your goddamn Loden coat. You covered Reni with it.”

It’s like electricity stuns him. “Fuck me.” He has a mental image of floating the coat down over the ruined body of Reni on the steps to the church.

But then he gets past the shock, thinks, remembers. “There’s no way to tie that to me. You think I’d carry any ID on an operation?”

“Not on purpose, no. But they dug out a crumpled AmEx receipt from one of the front pockets. Did a trace back to you.”

Again the racing heart, the half moment of panic. But once more a deep breath and thinking, not just reacting.

“Well good luck to them. Someone stole that coat a week before Reni was killed.”

Moody brightens at this. “You can prove that?”

“Wrong question. Can they disprove that? All witnesses from that night are dead.”

“Yeah, okay. I get it. Anyway, the embassy finally intervened. You’re free for now, on your own recognizance.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say so to begin with?” To the guard now: “Herr Ober. Die Tür öffnen, bitte.”

“You’re not going to make any friends calling him a waiter,” Moody warns. “And you’ve got to forfeit your passport. There’s a hearing in a week’s time.”

Fine, Jake thinks. He’s got more passports if needed.

He gets his shoelaces and ID back from the front desk, feels a mess.

“You got a few minutes?” he asks Moody.

“Very few.”

“Wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee and a slivowitz chaser.”

“One chaser,” Moody says. “And sit in the back seat. You fucking smell.”

As Moody drives him to the Intercontinental, Jakes obliges by sitting in the back seat of the Merc. Doesn’t want to test the bonds of friendship.

At the hotel he orders coffee and a bottle of plum brandy for room 1032.

Then to Moody: “Come on up. Vosenko won’t bite, I promise.”

“One chaser, asshole.”

“Ahh, time was, Toby. We’d bugger off for a nice morning snorter to set you up for the rest of the day saving democracy.”

“We were younger then, Jake,” he says as they take the elevator. “Gotten smarter since then. Or some of us have.”

Jake gives him a smile. “Okay. Sorry I haven’t already said it, but thanks. Really.”

“You’re welcome, not really. Just don’t make any more waves while you’re here, okay?”

“Of course not. Wouldn’t think of it.” But waves are exactly what I’ve come to Vienna to make, he thinks.

“Jake. Please. Think of my damn retirement.”

The elevator dings to a stop on the tenth floor. Quite literally saved by the bell.

Vosenko is up and looking worried. “It’s good to see you,” he says strong hands gripping Jake by both shoulders.

“I’ve missed you too, darling.”

Which brings a chuckle from Moody.

Coffee and slivowitz are not far behind, and soon they are having a good session on the events of last night and this morning.

One chaser stretches to two and finally Jake says, “About that server…”

Moody looks confused. “What server?”

“The one tied to our site.”

“You’re still going on about that?” Moody says.

Vosenko gets up, excited. “One moment, good sirs.” Hoofs it to his bedroom and returns in a second, sheet of paper in hand. He sets the screenshot of the Reckoning page on the coffee table in front of Moody.

“Server for that site,” Vosenko says.

Moody whistles as he looks at the screenshot. “Son of a bitch. What the hell?”

“Well done, friend,” Jake says to Vosenko.

“Spasibo. I have my uses.”

“This is crazy,” Moody says. “The black X’s—those guys are dead?”

“Very,” Jake says. “Armitage is hunkered down with a bodyguard and me and Vosenko here have decided to declare a truce to the Cold War and hunt the hunter. Server was traced to Vienna. Would be good to get a name.”

“Can I take this?” Moody asks.

“Let’s get a copy made first in the business services downstairs. Anything you can come up with, Toby. Be much appreciated. This isn’t some fake bang and burn. No disinformation. Looks like the real deal. Too much so.”

“I thought you’d done another disappearing act,” Tania says when he enters the bookshop, setting off the tingling bell. “You were going to call.”

A hot shower and Slivowitz have brought Jake back to life. He’s decided not to let this second chance with Tania slip away, but finds his mind racing to fabricate a good story.

No, he tells himself. Not this time. The truth.

“Somebody’s trying to kill me. I’d like to do him before he does me. Zero sum game.”

“This is the plot of the book you’re writing?”

“No, this is the real reason I came back to Vienna. It’s all about 1988.”

“Christ, Jake. You’re not kidding, are you?”

“No. And no more lies with you.”

He tells her of Reckoning with its server in Vienna. Of the deaths of two of his former colleagues. Of how he and Vosenko have teamed up to get to the bottom of things, find the killer before the killer finds them.

“And I spent last night in jail. That’s why I didn’t call like I promised.”

She takes it all in, calmly. No questions.

“They’re accusing me of killing Reni. I covered her with my coat. An automatic response. She looked so cold there. So alone. They found a credit card receipt that links back to me. I’m out for now, but I’m not going to let it stop me. Not going to let them stop me. I can’t. I won’t.”

She puts the back of her hand to his cheek, a soft touch as his mother would when feeling for a temperature.

The door opens. Bell announces another customer, intellectual looking guy, Jake notes. Round tortoise-shell glasses, hair swept back unfashionably, well-used tweed suit.

“Tag, Herr Donegger,” Tania greets him.

He nods in return, heads for the philosophy aisle.

“Maybe we should go in the office,” she says.

It’s another world in the office from the old curiosity bookshop. Here it’s all high-tech with several computers, printers, scanners. No rolltop desk here; an IKEA pine table-top on black sawhorse legs. A pair of high-back, mesh ergonomic chairs.

She notices his surprise. “You need to connect to compete,” she says. “But go on. You sure this is all about Reni?”

“Seems like it.”

She sits in one of the mesh chairs; he in the other, across the desk from her.

“So, nothing to do with your book?” she asks. “Or is there really a book in the works?”

“Yes, there really is a book in the works. At least there’s months of research on it.”

“And that’s got nothing to do with this website?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t think so. It looks pretty clear-cut revenge.”

“But who? Who would go to all that planning?”

“Someone who doesn’t like me very much. I was in part responsible for Reni’s death. Or maybe somebody who thinks I know too much.”

“Too much about what?”

He lets the question slide, shrugging. The CIA was made of secrets.

A long pause. The printer suddenly clicks on, automatically updating.

Finally, Tania says, “She had a son. You know about that, right?”

“Reni?”

She nods. “Little Daniel. All grown up by now, I guess.”

News to Jake. He makes a note of the name: Daniel Huber.

He looks across the expanse of desk and can no longer hold himself back. “I want you.”

“How romantic.”

“I got no time to woo. I love you, that’s all. I want to be with you. I want to be inside of you.” Saying it gives him a jolt in his groin.

“Well damn well not here,” she says. “My place.” She gathers her purse and jacket.

“Es tut mir leid, Herr Donegger,” she calls down the philosophy aisle as they leave the office. “Ich muss schliessen.” Key in hand, she mimics locking the door.

Herr Donegger says nothing, simply walks to the door, casting Jake a baleful glance.

They wait for him to leave.

“Didn’t seem too happy,” Jake says.

She shrugs. “He’s a regular. But I get the feeling he’s looking for more than books.”

“Well, I guess I’ve made another enemy, then. But really, is this okay? Closing early?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I mean the owners. It’s okay with them?

Which brings that lilting laugh from Tania. She puts her hand out to shake. “Meet the owner,” she says.

“Wow. I mean, that’s great.”

“Yes, I was surprised, too,” she says. “The Novaks became more than just employers over the years. They died rather tragically in an accident about ten years ago. On their way to a bookfair in Salzburg when a tanker truck lost its breaks and crushed their car. So sad, and no one was more amazed than me when their wills were read and this shop was left to me. No children.”

They walk hand in hand down the narrow streets. Here in the inner districts, the buildings are low, four, five stories at most. Wonderful thing about Vienna, Jake always thought. You can still see the sky from the city streets. Not just glimpses here and there, but great, wide swaths of it. Even see the green of the Vienna Woods from the slow rise to the Josefstadt where he once lived. And today, as they walk hand in hand through the First District like young lovers, he can see low clouds gather overhead.

It’s raining by the time they get to her flat on Biebergasse, and she barely gets the door locked in back of them before they are in each other’s arms, a long, slow kiss. Then, moving back from one another, there is nothing slow about their frantic undressing, still in the entryway, a pile of wet clothing left behind as she takes him by the hand to her bedroom.

No embroidered pillows to toss.