The Valhalla Testament by Jon Land

Author:Jon Land [Land, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

CHIMERA STOOD ON Vienna’s Kartner Street, opposite the famed Opera House. Another tour of the building would be commencing in a few minutes, and she steadied herself before moving to gain the access she so sorely required.

Kirby Nestler had helped her get out of Australia and eventually here after a maddening trek across continents and time zones. INTERPOL had pinned down the Palais Schwarzenberg as the locale of the number dialed from Australia. Located in a fashionable hotel by the same name, it was one of Vienna’s most exclusive restaurants, owned and operated by a man named Leopold Fuchs, a longtime control for The Outsiders.

Like Stein, Fuchs fit the profile of an Outsider conduit perfectly. They were men of exorbitant tastes, men who formed their covers around their own indulgences. Chimera had worked for Fuchs several times when the portly little man had gone by another name in Venice. Fuchs had a taste for incredibly expensive wines and young boys. The latter had created quite a mess in Venice, and The Outsiders had resettled him here. Now, two face-lifts and a tummy tuck later, Fuchs was still operating as a top man in the network.

His well-earned reputation as a dandy made him a character wherever he settled, and Chimera was surprised that The Outsiders permitted Leopold Fuchs his eccentricities. Then again, that was the point, she supposed. Operatives like Chimera were bound to them by the fact that they had no one and nothing else. Higher-ups like Fuchs were bound to the organization because it alone knew how to keep them happy and out of trouble at the same time. All this aside, he must also have been the conduit who had handled the routing of the crates Crane had obtained from Pine Gap. Right now he was Chimera’s only hope of tracking down the dozen canisters which included four antimatter containment shells.

A new production of Don Carlo was premiering that very night, and Chimera knew Leopold wouldn’t be able to resist attending. That was where she would get him. All the materials she required for her work were contained in a cheap-looking burlap shoulder bag. Chimera had dressed herself as a student, a disguise that still came easy for her and invariably seemed to dispel suspicion.

The explosives held in her bag were crude at best. The circumstances made it impossible for her to contact dealers on the chance they had been warned to expect her presence. So she had purchased several items at a drug store and small market upon arriving and spent the night fashioning what she needed. A mini travel clock would serve as timer, crude as well, but effective.

The work had been painstaking, and the lack of sleep these past few days was beginning to tell on her. Years before, she had learned how to cram eight hours of sleep into two, but had planned to deny herself even these until she began to nod out at the most crucial—and dangerous—stage of her construction. Two

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