flanks? But no, he only rose and continued on his way, leaving the picture without once turning his head.
“Shit!”
I scrambled down the hallway toward the back stairs, footsteps echoing in the empty building, then tripped an alarm as I shoved through a fire door at ground level. With 50 meters to go before I reached the Burggarten, and another 250 to cross the park, I peered into the gloom for any sign of movement, just in time to see someone in a long coat climbing into a idling sedan on Goethegasse, on the far side of the park. The door slammed, and the car accelerated smoothly toward the Opernring, where it turned left and disappeared.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
The only noise now apart from the traffic was the clanging of the alarm.
“Well, that was professionally done!”
It was Litzi, hustling up in my wake. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the National Library.
“Did you at least get a good look at him?”
“Didn’t even get the make of the car, much less the tags.”
“So much for your handler being too low-tech for his own good!”
“I better get the cam from the bench.”
“Scheise!” Litzi exclaimed.
“What?”
“The laptop. We have to get it. Security will be all over the place by now.”
“Should I come with you, take the blame?”
She shook her head.
“That would only make it more complicated. Fortunately I know the night supervisor. I’ll think of something. Wait here.”
I walked sheepishly back to the statue, untaped the cam, and stuffed it into my coat pocket, feeling like a chump. My pulse rate was finally beginning to slow down about the time the alarm shut off. I hoped Litzi wasn’t in trouble, and I again questioned the wisdom of getting her involved. She approached a few minutes later, carrying the laptop. There was a puzzled look on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything went fine. I made up something about hearing someone in the stairwell and trying to follow them outside. Let’s just hope you don’t show up on their cameras. But there’s something new on the laptop.”
“Probably me, from when I took down the camera.”
“No. Before then. The prompt said two more videos had been saved.”
We sat on a bench and I powered up. The most recent video showed my ghostly face looming right up into the camera, then the screen went blank. I clicked on the other video, which had been shot a few minutes earlier. A man moved into faint view from the right. He stopped in front of the statue and bent down by the rock with his back to the camera. Then he suddenly looked up, as if startled by a noise-probably either my running footsteps or the slamming door of the getaway car. His face came into profile. The poor lighting blurred his features, but the slouching wool hat was unmistakable, and when he stood I saw the cane in his right hand.
“I don’t believe it. Lothar Heinemann.”
He turned and went back in the direction he’d come from, vanishing from the screen.
The video stopped.
“You said he’s a book scout?”
“That’s what Dad called him. But from the look of things he knows more about my handler’s movements than I do.”
“This hunt is getting crowded. Maybe we should all meet for drinks at Gasthaus Brinkmann.”
“Yes,” I said, wondering if everyone was after the same thing.
“This only makes you want to find out more, doesn’t it?”
I nodded. And it wasn’t just the thrill of the chase, or even the frission of danger. Danger is overrated, and I could do without it completely. The deeper appeal, I think, was that I felt as if I had fallen through a trapdoor and landed four decades in the past, and was now moving among the very figures that had once populated my Cold War dreams. Manning Coles was right. Spying was addictive.
Then I looked at Litzi, and sensed without saying a word that she was reading my every emotion. She shook her head.
“I’d like that drink now,” she said.
16
Neither of us had the energy or inclination to deal with a maitre d’, a waiter, or even a menu, nor were we thrilled by the idea of sitting among strangers in a crowded restaurant, exposed and vulnerable.
“Why don’t I make us an omelet?” Litzi said. “We’ve got wine, thanks to you.”
“I thought you needed something stronger?”
“Wine’s enough as long as we’re under my roof, with all the doors locked.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her how useless a lock was with this crowd, but I did see the value of being somewhere without a camera watching our every move. And that thought in turn gave me a new idea.
“Lead the way,” I said. “But I need to make a detour.”
“Nothing to do with ‘the best defense is a good offense,’ I hope.”
“Shouldn’t we use this webcam for something? It will only take a second.”
She shook her head but didn’t resist until a few blocks later, when she realized we were heading for the Gasthaus Brinkmann.
“The old KGB man? He’s the one you want to spy on?”
“I need to see what he looks like, so we’ll be able to spot him if he’s following us.”
“Oh, smart idea. Baiting the bear on his doorstep.”
“Not his doorstep. The inn’s. I’ll mount the cam outside the Gasthaus, then check the videos in the morning.”
“Where will you put the laptop?”
I pointed up the block.
“There’s a hotel across the street. I’ll rent a room with a clear line of sight. Then I’ll come by in the morning to see what turned up.”
She again shook her head, but kept going. It was a quiet street, and there was a trash bin next to a sign for a bus stop only a few feet from the gasthaus entrance, which provided a perfect vantage point. I taped the camera into place within seconds without anyone observing us, and there was a front room available on the third floor of the hotel across the street, which I paid for with the Ealing Wharton Amex. Thanks, Marty.
“What happens when the trash man collects the webcam, or the chambermaid takes the laptop?”
“Maybe I’ll beat them back here. Either way, nothing ventured, nothing gained. C’mon, I’m hungry.”
Litzi’s apartment looked pretty much how I’d imagined it. Tasteful, comfortable furniture with clean lines and vibrant colors. And books, of course. Loads of them-on shelves, in cabinets, stacked on end tables. The walls were hung with photos rather than paintings-not iconic scenes of Vienna, but out-of-the-way places I couldn’t easily identify. In one, a much younger Litzi posed among friends at a political demonstration.
“Where was this demo?” I asked, while she whisked eggs in a glass bowl. “Do I know any of these people?”
“Oh, that old thing.” She looked back toward the skillet. “Just some election rally.”
Maybe her former husband was in it, because she was quiet for the next few minutes. It made me a little gloomy for us. We’d come through the years psychologically intact, yet we were still fending for ourselves. It made me think of my father, another sole survivor.
“I’d better text Dad, tell him I’ll be late.”
Pulling out my phone, I paused and watched the movement of Litzi’s hips as she swirled the eggs in the pan.
“How late will I be, do you think?”
