by Dick Rosano
“Could he be a guest?” I asked.
“Oh, but of course, Mr. Priest. We have many guests. That would be very difficult to pin down, sir.”
I made a note to return the following morning hoping to find a guest who fit the hazy memory I had. But in the meantime I wanted to return to the reason why I was in Vienna.
After returning to my room, I pulled Inspector Weber’s business card from my wallet and dialed the number.
“Anything?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” she said curtly.
“Okay,” I replied with resignation. It was a natural impulse to want to follow up on my loss, so I didn’t worry about Weber reading anything into my call. I also felt that showing interest in the computer and not trying to avoid contact could have a positive impact on my relationship with the police. On the other hand, I realized that showing too much worry about the missing files might generate renewed curiosity on their part.
I returned to Stadtpark as the sun was dipping toward the roofs of the buildings. This was a popular public park, just across the Parkring from the Marriott, and dozens of people still walked down the paths or were sitting on the lawn. I thought perhaps I could talk to someone who might have seen something earlier in the day, something that might jog my memory. Wandering throughout the area where I had been a few hours before, I found a couple of young women sharing a blanket, and I was quite certain they had been there earlier. I approached and introduced myself.
“Excuse me. I am looking for something. My name is Darren Priest and I was here this afternoon.”
One of the women giggled at that, telling me that she remembered me sleeping, and being awakened by the police.
“Yes, I know,” said the other woman. They were sitting up but leaning closely together in an intimate embrace.
“Did you see anyone with me?” I asked.
“You mean, other than the polizei?” she asked amused.
“Yes.”
“No, no one,” her partner replied.
“How about before the police officer arrived?” I persisted.
They both shook their heads.
I thanked them and moved on, keeping my eyes on the ground for any clues but also surveying the area to see if I recognized anyone else. No luck. Realizing that it was getting on six o’clock, I left the park by the winding sidewalk on which I had entered the area, crossed the busy divided street of Parkring, and re-entered the glittering lobby of the Marriott.
The doorman nodded a pleasant “Gutentag” as I passed by. He was helping new arrivals at the check-in desk. I swiped my keycard and pressed “8” for the concierge level. The evening snacks and wine would be served by this hour and I thought I’d get a glass of the local Zweigelt to sip in my room while I dressed for dinner.
The wine tasting that served as the cover for my visit was scheduled for the next evening, so I would spend tonight at Cantinetta Antinori, a restaurant owned by the Antinori wine family. After discovering the establishment on my first visit to the city a few years back, I had become a regular customer, so much so that I knew the layout and selection of dishes, and the staff knew me. Not only were the wines excellent – as would be expected from Piero Antinori and his wine empire – but the menu was truly Italian and unfailingly exceptional.
Back in my room, I changed from my short-sleeved shirt and jeans into a button-down dress shirt – sans tie – and slacks. The Zweigelt was a very pleasurable wine, not in a style that one would expect from Italy, France, or Spain, but true to the grape and one of Austria’s flagship wines. I sipped at the glass and listened to the short bursts of news on CNN as I roamed around my suite getting ready for dinner.
I let my mind wander to the wine tasting that I would attend the next evening, allowing myself to be distracted from thoughts of the lost laptop. I am a columnist for The Wine Review, a wine magazine in the U.S. that had gained enough respect internationally that its ratings could decide the fate of new wine releases around the world. My columns focused on European wines although I maintained a strong interest in the wines of America’s west coast too.
Tomorrow’s tasting was part trade event and part celebration, but all Italian. The writers would be allowed in first to sample the wines and make their notes, catching short conversations with the winemakers in attendance, then to be followed by a small and select audience of consumers. This would not be the usual cattle rush that occurred so often in the States, where a purchased ticket would be all that was necessary for the wine-thirsty curious to gain entrance. This small, chosen group of consumers would no doubt include local luminaries and politicos – not to mention people with deep pockets. Special in their way, but not of much interest to me. I planned to attend the trade part, get my notes, enjoy the wines, and talk to the industry reps. I would excuse myself then, before the doors opened to the deep-pocketed buyers.
But that was still another day off. Jetlag had never been much of an issue for me, but I wanted my senses to be fully functioning to cover the event for The Wine Review, so another day would be a welcome respite. Downing the last sip of Zweigelt, I made a quick survey of everything on the table and nightstand to memorize their positions. The clock on the nightstand was perched at a forty-five degree angle with respect to the bed, my small pile of note papers were left in practiced disarray, the pen straddling the edge of the pile, and the wine glass was placed just three inches from the edge of the counter. I swung the door next to the minibar open to reach the room safe inside, then set the unlocked door ajar at exactly one inch.
This penchant for placement was necessary in my life. Whenever I traveled, I was careful about my private space and wanted to be sure to notice if anything had been disturbed. Satisfied with the mental pictures I had of anything that might be moved in my absence, I turned toward the door and hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the handle before heading down the hallway.
It was too early for dinner so after riding the elevator to the lobby, I descended the sweeping staircase, crossed the wide expanse, and settled onto a barstool in Champions, the sports bar that fronted the street. There was a soccer game on the television, pitting teams in the UEFA Champions League, which I thought might serve as a distraction from thoughts about my assignment and my lost computer.
The distraction didn’t work. My mind kept mulling over the events of the morning – at least as far as I could remember them before being kicked awake by Inspector Weber. Not a bad vision to wake up to but the loss of my computer raised the hair on my neck. I was here in Vienna with a single purpose and I had to keep my purpose concealed. Maintaining a low profile and keeping off the authorities’ radar would help too. Losing track of an essential tool like the laptop or becoming too well known to the local authorities could expose me to danger and interfere with my mission.
Still, I wondered whether the loss of the computer was something other than a random theft. Perhaps my movements had already attracted unwanted attention and I had been drugged and then victimized in retaliation. It wasn’t what I was expecting but it couldn’t be completely discounted either.
Thinking through the events of the last two days, my biological fitness in the morning, and other facts convinced me that I had been drugged, probably via the espresso at breakfast. I knew that even if I found the waitress, she would not be able to tell me anything and I doubted that she was part of the plot. She had been taken advantage of by the man with the salt-and-pepper hair, and I had been his victim.
“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.
“A Stiegl,” I replied, indicating the local beer I had come to appreciate on my visits to Austria. He pulled a cold glass from the freezer below the bar, tipped it at an angle below the dispenser, and pulled the long, white handle to fill the glass with what they called the “Salzburg beer.”
While I sipped from the tall frosty glass, I recounted what I knew and what I remembered. In my line of work, discrete movements and constant awareness of surroundings were like life insurance. Att
ention to detail, especially about your surroundings could be the difference between surviving and dying. I would not have fallen asleep in a public place like the Stadtpark without being induced. But my attention to detail had failed me at the breakfast table. If my memory could recall the man interfering in the service of the espresso, why hadn’t my internal alarm gone off? I knew that I couldn’t resolve that glitch in my training but made a note to consider it at another time.
A roar from the soccer match’s spectators rose from the speakers on the sides of the television and drew my attention away from my thoughts. FC Zurich had just slipped the ball past a sprawling goalie on the Bayern side, chalking a one-nil score in the early minutes of the match.
My cover should still be intact, I thought. But if I was singled out for drugging and theft, how could it not be related somehow to my mission, and possibly to my dual identities?
The beer went down well, though I sipped it slowly.
“Another?” the bartender asked after I finished the glass.
“No. Thanks. Gotta go. Check?”
I planned to have wine at dinner and – knowing the lengthy repast that I planned at the Cantinetta – there would be wine, so I didn’t want to overindulge with beer beforehand.
The bartender handed me the little paper slip from the empty mug on the bar and I folded out a few Euros to pay for the drink and leave a tip. I couldn’t completely drop my American training, so I probably left a bigger tip than was necessary here in Europe. But, then again, he didn’t seem to mind.
Slipping off the barstool, I left Champions through the street-side door, turned right, and headed off on a familiar path on Weihburggasse toward the main part of town.
Chapter Three
Five Weeks Earlier
Washington, D.C.
“Sit down,” he said.
According to the sign on the office door, “he” was Dr. Matthew Bordrick, but I knew nothing about him and still couldn’t piece together why I was called here for the interview. We were in a nondescript office building in Washington, on a block just steps from the Old Executive Office Building.
“Darren Priest, right?” Bordrick began.
I nodded.
“May I call you Armando?” he said as he closed the door to the office. I thought it might be pointless to argue that I was actually Darren Priest, but I remained silent.
Bordrick circled back around his desk and lowered himself into the chair slowly. He opened a folder and leaned in to read from it.
“Armando Listrani. Born July 25, 1985. Parents Bernardo Listrani and Alice Kraft Listrani.” He paused and looked up at me, then returned to the folder.
“Served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer from 2008 to 2012 with tours of duty in Syria, Afghanistan, and…” and he paused to peer at me over his reading glasses, “…and ‘other assignments not on the official record.’ What does that mean Armando? Not on the official record?”
It seemed like the best answer was just to shrug, but I did so without looking away from Bordrick.
“’Not on the official record,’” Bordrick repeated. “But this is your Top Secret folder. What could not be on this official record?”
Bordrick reached below the top sheet of paper to retrieve another sheet from the bottom of the stack.
“Operation Best Guess,” he said with careful enunciation. “Code Word project with the most limited access of any operation I have ever seen. What does Best Guess mean, Mr. Listrani? Or Priest, if you prefer.”
If he was reading from a paper that contained the name of the mission Best Guess, he already knew about my military service and my personal life before it. But he didn’t really know what we did, what we could do. Only the squad and Sergeant Randal knew. Very possibly some others at very high levels. But until this moment, I had not seen my own secret file and didn’t know how much it contained – or who else might have read it.
“There were six of you,” he continued, reading from the paper. “You interrogated prisoners. Sometimes interrogated our own guys,” he said, occasionally referring to the notes on the page. “Three remain, including yourself, Pelman, and Kramer. Talkin, Brothers, and Ramon are gone.” Then he unceremoniously dropped the folder on the desk, looked at me and said, “All three suicides.”
With a slight sneer, he asked, “Best Guess, Armando. Does that mean you were famous for making guesses?”
“We didn’t guess,” I responded, my voice a mix of pride in my work and contempt for this doctor, whatever his specialty was. “We were chosen because we could glean the truth from what the target was telling us.”
“You mean you knew what he was thinking? That’s ridiculous. You can’t read minds.”
“We didn’t read minds.” I crossed my right leg over my left without breaking eye contact with Bordrick. “I said we could tell when they were lying.”
“And how did you do that?”
After all this time it was still hard for me to distill all the factors that went into the Best Guess team’s conclusions. Body language, facial expression, a subtle rise in temperature of the target that caused his skin color to take on a tinge of pink. The faintest movement of his eyeball, the tightening of certain muscles around his eyes, nose, or mouth. The cadence of the target’s words was easy to interpret; the muscular twitches of his exposed forearms were more complicated and elusive.
Sergeant Randal drilled us not to think. He raged at us when we tried to understand what was happening instead of unconsciously reacting to the signals.
“If you think about it,” he bellowed, “you’ll lose it. It’s got to be below your skin, outside your mind, unthinking reaction to a host of non-verbal signals. Signals that our early human ancestors were experts at reading because they had to interpret every signal in their environment, signals they got from other animals competing for the environment’s limited resources. Even signals from members of other human tribes.”
Randal recited this history with a strong sense of pride in what early hominids were capable of, as if he identified more closely with them than he did with his contemporaries. And he often ended with a disappointing conclusion about where we had turned away from the path.
“But Homo sapiens lost the ability to read such things,” he said, “when we thought we had developed a better brain.”
Randal always scoffed at this last point. He was brilliant and had, as far as I could tell, an encyclopedic memory of his favorite hobbies – ontogenesis and phylogenesis – how from the earliest stages of embryonic development – ontogenesis – the human body nearly mirrored the developmental stages of human evolution – phylogenesis.
“We are more animal and more instinctual than we think,” he often said. His disdain for H. sapiens’ belief in our own exceptionalism was the metaphorical knotted cord he used to beat us with, pushing us to ignore our thoughts and rely on our instincts.
I turned my attention back to Bordrick.
“Best Guess was about understanding what the target was thinking,” I began, “or what he was trying not to think, even if he didn’t fully understand it himself. If we could get past the surface and decode the intent of his actions, we could steer him toward revealing more to us than he would to people who tortured him with rubber hoses and electric prods.”
Bordrick stared at me without blinking. I could sense his doubt, his not wanting to believe what I had told him and not wanting to accept the premise of Operation Best Guess.
He flipped the cover of the folder closed and then looked up at me.
“I don’t believe you, and I don’t believe you have any special talent, but he does.”
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“The man I work for.” Bordrick quickly shifted the conversation before I could ask who that was.
“And this ‘Darren Priest.’ Is that your other name?” he asked me.
I shrugged. I had adopted the name when I left the Army. I was not ashamed of my earlier work, but the sensitivity of our operations – a
nd the people that I had interacted with – convinced me and Sergeant Randal that it would be best to erase Armando from the present tense. So, now, I lived mostly under Darren Priest and shed references to my past as Armando Listrani. Both monikers appeared in this file, though. Still, I wasn’t going to make it easier for Bordrick until I knew more about him.
“You said something about the man you work for,” I said as I tried to reverse the direction of the conversation. “Who is that?”
When I was called by my point of contact at the Defense Department and told to report to Bordrick’s office, she said she couldn’t tell me the purpose of the meeting. “Just show up,” was all she said. I had served through my period of active duty and through the statutory period of inactive reserves afterward. But I also knew that certain careers lingered longer, like the muse who sits on your shoulder and might, at any time, whisper “come back.”
My career was like that.
I pressed the woman at DoD for more information, reminding her that I was living a comfortable existence as a wine and food writer now, and she let out a little laugh.
“Sorry,” she said, and I could almost see her shoulders shrug through the cell phone connection. “Some things you don’t get to unvolunteer for.”
It was a well understood reminder, a code phrase in my work that allowed no dispute.
I clicked off the call and assumed that I would be meeting this Bordrick guy and then, maybe, I would find out.
“Where did you get the name?” Bordrick’s question brought me back to the present. I didn’t have an answer for him. It had just come to me when I was rewriting my personal history to erase Armando Listrani from the public record. So, I shrugged my shoulders, still unwilling to give him much until he started to reveal more to me.
“And you write for The Wine Review,” he continued, glancing at the page in the file. “Are they any good? Are you any good?”
