Black Ops

and announced the U.S. embassy would have no comment.

Mr. Demidov’s body was still sitting erect in the taxicab when this reporter arrived at the scene shortly before officials of the Russian embassy then arrived and, claiming diplomatic privilege, had the body removed to an undisclosed location by ambulance.

Vienna police officials said that the taxicab had been stolen from its garage earlier last evening, and that the police had been looking for it. They also reported that there had been a “metal noose” around Mr. Demidov’s body, with which he had apparently been strangled.

It is known that Mr. Demidov had earlier been at the Kunsthistorisches Museum at ceremonies marking the closing of the exhibit of the Bartolomeo Rastrelli’s wax statue of Russian Tsar Peter the First, which had been on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

STORY OPEN MORE TO FOLLOW

“Let me make a wild guess, Dmitri,” Castillo said. “Demidov was the Vienna rezident?”

Berezovsky nodded.

“Who sent us this? Darby?” Castillo asked.

“Otto Gorner,” Davidson said.

“Well, then let’s see what else Otto knows. For all we know, Edgar may be as pure as the driven snow in this. Demidov may have been done in by his homosexual lover; there’s been a lot of that going on.”

Davidson laughed.

Castillo went to the radio. “C .G. Castillo. Otto Gorner. Encryption Level One.”

“Hold one, Colonel. I will attempt to make the connection.”

“Sweaty, she sounds a lot like you. Ever notice?” Davidson asked. “I’ve started to think of her as ‘Sexy Susan.’ ”

Svetlana gave him the finger.

“Well, Karl,” Otto Gorner’s voice came over the speakerphone, “what are you doing up in the middle of the night?”

“Reading the newspaper. What else have you got?”

“I just got off the phone with Willi Dusse. Two little tidbits that probably don’t mean anything ”

“What, Otto?”

“An unnamed source in the Vienna police, whose name Willi always spells correctly, with two s’s, said that while they were waiting for the police heavyweights and the Russians to show up, he happened to notice that the victim’s face was not contorted and blue, as is common in strangulations, and that what he described as the ‘metal noose’ was not embedded in the victim’s neck, but just sort of hanging there. He did notice, however, that there was a mark on the neck, below the ear, that could perhaps have been made with a needle.

“Willi thinks it’s possible the victim did not die of strangulation, but of some other cause. But we’ll never know, as any autopsy will be conducted in Moscow.”

“That’s interesting. They have any idea who did this to Mr. Demidov?”

“Not according to Willi. Willi was told, however, that the taxi was wiped clean; no fingerprints. Suggesting, possibly, that this terrible act was done by someone who knew what he was doing.”

“That’s all? What’s the second little tidbit?”

“Well, one little thing, which probably means absolutely nothing. As the police wrecker was hauling the taxicab away, Willi’s friend noticed a calling card at the curbside. It could have simply been dropped there prior to all this, but it also could have been in the taxi and dislodged when the police initially examined the cadaver.”

“What was the name on the calling card?”

“It was an American diplomat’s, a woman named Eleanor Dillworth. She’s the consul.”

“Oh, I do love a man who can really hold a grudge,” Davidson said.

“Goddamn it,” Castillo said.

“That mean something to you, Karl?” Gorner asked.

Castillo avoided the question. “Otto, please send me whatever else your man Dusse comes up with, will you?”

“Of course, Karl.”

“Does Darby know about this?”

“I showed it to him when it came in. He’s just about finished here, he said, and is moving to Budapest.”

“Is he there now?”

“No. Alex said he was going to his hotel to pack.”

“If you see him, have him call me, please.”

“I suppose if you knew anything about those two Russian defectors, you’d tell me, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“You don’t suppose somebody stuck needles in their necks, do you? Or hung a garrote around their necks and they just haven’t found the bodies yet? That’s a story I’d love to write myself. And give to Friedler’s widow.”

“I’m going back to bed, Otto,” Castillo said. “End transmission.”

Berezovsky then said, “Carlos, you seem to be genuinely surprised by this.”

’“And you’re not?”

Berezovsky didn’t immediately reply.

“You knew about this?” Castillo asked, then thought: Of course you did! “You knew Edgar was going to whack this guy and you didn’t tell me?”

“Why do you think he did this?” Berezovsky asked.

Castillo said: “He wants to go out in style, be remembered when the other dinosaurs gather as the dinosaur who whacked the Vienna rezident the week before he retired.”

Berezovsky shook his head.

“No?” Castillo snapped. “Then, damn you, why?”

“We talked—” Berezovsky began.

Castillo saw Svetlana nodding in agreement.

“We being who?” Castillo interrupted. “You, Delchamps, and who else? You, Svet?”

“Yes, my Carlos. Me, too,” she said.

“Anybody else?” Castillo flared. “Lester, maybe? Aloysius?”

Davidson raised his hand.

“Oh, Jesus H. Christ!” Castillo exclaimed.

“Don’t blaspheme,” Svetlana said.

“You’re pissed because I am ‘taking the Lord’s name in vain,’ but it’s all right for you and everybody else to sit around planning to whack people? Jesus H. Christ in spades!”

Berezovsky calmly went on: “What we talked about—Darby, too—Carlos, was how to stop the killing.”

Castillo could not believe what he was hearing. “You mean, by whacking this guy in Vienna, then leaving the CIA station chief’s calling card? I’ll bet when that Marine opened the cab door, that calling card was pinned to Demidov’s lapel with a rose.”

“We didn’t get into how anything was to be done, Charley,” Davidson said. “Just agreed that it had to be done.”

“Et tu, Brutus? Jesus Christ, Jack. Nobody was interested in what I might have to say?”

“I told them what you would say, Charley. ‘No.’ Was I right?”

“You know fucking well that’s what I would have said.”

“But Dmitri and Edgar and Sweaty were right, too,” Davidson said.

“How the hell do you figure that?”