Agents of Treachery by Otto Penzler

Author:Otto Penzler [Penzler, Otto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307477521
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2010-06-01T04:30:00+00:00

MAX IS CALLING

Gayle Lynds

VIENNA WAS COLD that spring, and dreary. The sixteenth-and seventeenth-century buildings of the Innere Stadt stood like sentinels against time, cloaked in a chilly mist. Dressed in rain gear, businesspeople and students, hausfrauen and doktoren hurried through pools of yellow lamplight, umbrellas bobbing. Only the cafés and pubs could be counted upon for gaiety. The last refuge, they were bustling of course. The rich aromas of coffee and beer scented the gray air.

Watching carefully all around, two men in dark trench coats moved quickly past St. Stephen’s Cathedral, its Romanesque entrance alight. The old city of Strauss and Mahler, Freud and Klimt felt like a dream, an exciting dream to one of the pair—Bayard Stockton. But then he was with Jacob “Cowboy” Crandell, a Langley undercover legend, in a city storied for its espionage.

As Bay had learned, the Viennese were a melancholy lot, relentlessly self-absorbed with their glorious past of the Hapsburg empire. Flamboyant fatalism, some called it. But then they had survived the Nazis and the Cold War to become the political ground zero of east and west, north and south. Some seventeen thousand diplomats operated in the city, a full one percent of the population—and about half had links to intelligence services.

They worked at embassies and global agencies such as OPEC, the IAEA, and the UN. From business to government, Langley wanted to know what they were thinking, who was on the take, who was in line to get the next contract, and the peccadilloes, peculiarities, and vulnerabilities of all players and potentials. Naturally, Vienna was awash with foreign agents. The freewheeling ones occasionally murdered in broad daylight, while the authorities, who often knew them, looked the other way. As it had historically, Vienna handled everything diplomatically, especially when a political connection existed.

Bay loved it. Fresh from Langley’s grueling training courses, he had been there two exhilarating months. He was young for the business, only twenty-five, a wiry man not quite six feet tall. His collar was up against the frigid damp, and a black beret covered his head, wavy red hair showing beneath. There was nothing unusual about his smooth face, his blue eyes, or his shaved chin, which was just the way he liked it. In his pocket was an unmarked envelope containing 5,000 euros—about $6,250—which made anonymity even more important tonight.

“Stop walking like an athlete,” Cowboy rumbled under his breath. “Dammit, boy, you should’ve learned that in CIA 101. Rolling off your feet shows the strength of your muscles and your training. The Viennese are always looking around, which means they’re going to check you out. Don’t give them a reason to remember you. What were you—a runner? The one hundred?”

Bay blinked. In his enthusiasm for being with Cowboy and his mission tonight he had forgotten himself. “Yeah, the hundred.” And free weights, of course. But he did not mention that. He flattened his feet, tightened his joints.

Cowboy’s cool blue eyes appraised him. Then he dipped his big head in a short nod.

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