She slowed and stopped at a red light. “That’s right. But, as you know, there were those two murders in Bratislava.” Reaching into an outer pocket, she handed Jake a piece of paper folded into quarters.
Jake reluctantly opened the paper and saw an artist’s rendering of him and Albrecht, although not the best of depictions. And Jake had been right, the two Bratislava cops had described both of them as between 180 to 200 centimeters, or between six feet and six-five.
The light changed and Anna went through the gears and got into third.
“Looks like a couple of bad guys,” Jake said. “Ripped off a polizei car. Must have been crazy drug dealers.”
She snatched the paper from Jake’s hand, peered at it a moment, and shoved it into her pocket. “It’s you and Albrecht,” she said confidently.
“I’m nowhere near two hundred centimeters,” Jake said. “Not even a hundred eighty.”
“As I’m sure you know, even polizei officers are poor witnesses. And you did embarrass him, from what I understand.”
“I’ve been in Vienna all day.”
“And Albrecht?”
“What about him?”
She explained what she knew about both the Donau Bar shooting and the murder of two priests in Bratislava. She had Jake and Albrecht at the scene of the parish priest’s murder also, but Jake could tell she had no hard evidence. Maybe he had made a few tactical mistakes at both places, but he knew there was no way they could trace the shell casings at the Donau Bar back to him, or the slugs, without taking his gun and testing it. He loaded his CZ-75 with latex gloves and used over-the-counter bullets purchased at various locations around Europe. Never the same store. Also, he had five different CZ-75s with similar spring tensions on the firing pin, adjusted that way personally. Sure he had the gun under his arm now, but he would soon swap it out for another stashed at his car and get rid of the one he carried now. It was time to buy a new gun anyway.
It was obvious to Jake that she knew almost as much as him. And he knew he would probably know more once he got a chance to read the papers from Albrecht’s warehouse.
“So, Martini sent you my way,” he said again.
Anna turned onto Mariahilfer Strasse. The narrow lane with trendy shops was lit up for the Christmas season, highlighted by the constant flow of fluffy snow.
“I don’t work for Martini,” she said, somewhat disturbed. “As I’m sure you know, Interpol works independently of Austrian State Police. We do coordinate our efforts with them, but they don’t know all we know until we want them to know it.”
“Sounds like our law enforcement agencies in America,” Jake said. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. There was something about a beautiful woman with an accent. Glancing toward the road ahead for a moment, he realized Anna had driven to an area familiar to Jake.
She pulled into an open spot on the curb. There were many free spots. During business hours Mariahilfer Strasse was almost impossible to traverse, with no parking at all. After hours, and probably because of the weather, there were almost no cars on the streets. She kept the car running and the wipers cleared the windshield.
Her eyes drifted toward his midsection. She said, “Are you going to tell me what you found at the Teutonic Order warehouse?”
“That’s what this is about?” Jake asked.
“What else could there be?”
A true professional. He liked that. What he didn’t like was the fact that she had parked across the street from the ramp where he had left his car earlier in the day. How in the hell had she known that? He was really slipping. “Right,” he said, his right hand on the door handle. “Everyone seems to want something, yet I have no idea what that might be.” Glancing outside, he remembered the hotel on the corner less than a block away. As good a place as any to stay the night.
“You’re thinking of staying at the Requiem Hotel,” she said. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Bugs, from what I hear. Do you have friends in Vienna? Perhaps you could stay with them.”
He laughed. “You just picked me up at an old friend’s house.”
“Toni Contardo? You were lovers once, yes?”
He was feeling at a distinct disadvantage, and he hated when that happened. “Anything you don’t know?”
“There are lots of things I don’t know,” Anna said. “But not for long. My apartment is three kilometers away. You could stay on the sofa. You like cats? I have just one.”
He thought for a long while, not really wanting to find a hotel, lumpy bed, or bugs. Yet, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to go with this woman. What kind of woman offered her couch to a complete stranger? What the hell. He liked a good mystery. Besides, he needed to find out how much more this woman might know.
“I have a gun,” she said, a broad smile. “I’m sure you will be a gentleman.”
How could he refuse? “Let’s go.”
“Super,” she said, the S sounding like a Z.
9
Anna Schult lived in a one bedroom apartment on the western outskirts of Vienna, where the forest met the town, a little more than a kilometer from the Ottaring U-Bahn stop.
Jake took off his leather coat and sat on her sofa, his bed for the night. He set the day planner he had gotten from Albrecht’s warehouse under his coat.
Anna came back from the kitchen, a bottle of schnapps and two small glasses in her hands. Once she had taken off her bulky wool coat, he could see she was well proportioned, a sinewy physique like that of a long distance runner, or, more likely, a cross country skier. Her breasts were not large, but her tight cotton shirt highlighted them and he saw her 9mm automatic prominently displayed on her right hip.
Once she poured both glasses of schnapps, she set the bottle on the coffee table, handed one to Jake, and took the other for herself. “Prosit!” she said, taping the glass against Jake’s.
He said the same and then downed his glass, the schnapps warming him from head to toe. “Wow,” he said. “Haven’t had this in a while.”
She took a seat across from him and Jake couldn’t help think about doing the same thing in Toni’s apartment about an hour ago.
“You like the Glock,” Jake said.
Touching her hand on her gun, she said, “A good Austrian gun. I hear you like the Czech CZ-75.”
His over-the-shoulder holster was visible, but only the butt of the black handle in view. She had some good sources. “Yeah, I started using it when I worked in Germany years ago. As you know, once you get used to a weapon it’s hard to change.”
“You want everything to be second nature,” Anna said. “I understand. They all put their clip releases and safeties in different places.” She ran her hand through her blonde hair.
She was quite striking, Jake thought. “You have a partner?”
“A lover?”
Jake laughed. “No, I meant in Interpol. You have a partner there?”
She smiled at him. “Yes, I do. But he broke his leg skiing in Kitzbuhel last week. They brought him to a hospital in Salzburg. He’ll be there in traction for a while.”
“So, you’re on your own. Have you visited him?”
“I couldn’t get away,” she said. “Besides, he has his wife there with him.”
“Have you always lived in Vienna?”
She poured two more glasses of schnapps. “No.”
“Would you like to elaborate? You seem to know everything about me,” he reminded her.
“All right. I grew up in Zell am See. Spent most of my youth skiing Kaprun. My father was a concierge at a hotel there and my mother was a school teacher. When I was in high school I decided I liked cross country skiing, the serenity of it and the pure beauty of gliding across fresh snow in the mountains and forests of Austria. I chose tranquility over speed. College in Salzburg and then the Army.”