Prelude to Terror

by Helen Macinnes

  So they were three men—a diplomat, an Intelligence-officer, and a non-American—who shared a common problem in Vienna. “I’m listening.”

  “Prescott Taylor is an attaché, and one of his jobs is dealing with defectors. He sorts them out, as it were, and if he thinks they are the real thing, not just KGB-trained infiltrators, he will steer them into the right department in Washington, where—after examination and further testing—their information can be put to use.”

  Grant waited. She had paused, perhaps for breath, more probably for a careful selection of her next words.

  “Frank,” she went on, “deals with refugees. Vienna is a gathering-place for them these days—just look at a map and see how it’s situated. He helps them after they get across the frontiers; sometimes before that, too.”

  “Is he an Israeli?” The Jewish refugees from Russia made Vienna their first stop.

  She side-stepped a direct answer, said tactfully, “Several countries are interested in the refugees. After all, some of them are fakes trying to take up residence in the free world.”

  “Time-bombs?”

  “If they slipped past—yes.”

  “So we have a man who deals with defectors, and another with refugees. Pretty similar interests. Where does Renwick fit in?”

  “There’s quite a difference in interests,” she corrected him, postponing the subject of Renwick himself. “Defectors slip into an embassy or consulate and ask for asylum and secrecy. A matter of safety: they’ve been Communists, often in important or sensitive posts. They bring hard information as a guarantee that they are authentic. But refugees are quite another problem. Usually they are anti-Communist, private people, not connected with their government. All they have to bring is their possessions—usually only a suitcase. However, there are others, too, who have managed to hide their valuables and want to smuggle them out. It’s too dangerous to risk carrying them. So they are sent by other ways—by a friendly foreigner, for instance, with special diplomatic privileges, or by some businessman who travels regularly—before their owners cross the frontier.”

  “A pleasanter arrival than most.”

  She glanced at him sharply.

  “No, no. They’ve got my sympathy. But these refugees have money to live on. In that case, they don’t need help from Frank. Do they?”

  “Not if they can travel openly, with all their papers in order. There are some who aren’t so fortunate: they have no exit permits; they must make secret border-crossings. These are the desperate ones. Yes, I’d say that men like Frank are much needed.”

  Another world, he thought as he stared at a mass of Tropicana roses blazing red in the afternoon sun. “And Renwick?” he persisted. “What’s his particular field?”

  “Terrorists.”

  “Good God.” Terrorists. How did they connect with refugees or defectors? “Are you expecting another attack like that on the OPEC offices?” Two years ago, five oil ministers who were meeting in Vienna had been kidnapped, and one of their staff murdered.

  “We don’t deal with the Middle East,” she said, a touch on the defensive.

  “Renwick concentrates on Europe?”

  “From a particular angle.”

  He waited, resisting another question. He’d learn more, and more quickly too, if he kept his mouth shut.

  “Bob is stationed mainly in Brussels with a counter-terrorism unit. Not,” she added, as she noticed the speculative look on Grant’s face, “an action squad. The West relies, so far, on police or regular army to deal with any confrontation. But NATO was worried enough by the spread of terrorism to establish this unit. Its operation depends on brains, not brawn. Bob’s particular assignment is the money angle. Who is subsidising the terrorists, and how?”

  “I can think of several governments who’d enjoy seeing the West plagued by terrorists, home-grown or imported. Yet—subsidies to all these groups?” Hundreds and hundreds of them around the world. The Russians’ General Accounting Office would have a permanent headache. Besides, the Soviets didn’t like spending their own money, or, for that matter, their own men.

  “Not to all of them. Many are small, disjointed, irrational. They flare up, make their protests with hi-jackings or scattered bombings; and then they disintegrate—or get arrested. There are others, however—the real menace. Their aim? Dissension, terror, havoc, and always against the West. They have been well trained. Now, they are well directed. In some cases, they have been linked together. The threat is there. And increasing. Because of the money behind them.”

  Yes, that could be one hell of a problem. But subsidies?

  “Look,” she said, as if she sensed his scepticism, “they earn no regular pay-cheques, they have no careers except violence. Yet they can afford rent and food and cars and lawyers. They don’t wear rags either, nowadays. They have the right clothes to let them circulate among us, arouse no suspicions about their actual missions. They have been taught how to attack and kill; they have the weapons and supplies to do the job. And they travel by air, sometimes thousands of miles. That’s expensive. Why, I couldn’t afford on my salary to take a return trip to Hanoi, or North Korea; or Japan or Latin America; or Africa. But they do. So where is the money coming from?”

  “They’ve robbed and stolen, both guns and money.”

  “And have the police on their trail. The ones who concern Bob are those who can get large sums of money without the danger of being arrested for a criminal act.”

  “Surely,” he insisted, “subsidies like that can be traced to their origin.”

  “Eventually, yes. That is why the Communist countries now find it more discreet to use indirect means.”

  “Laundering the cash?” he suggested.

  “It’s more complicated, and much deadlier than that—for the victims.”

  “I don’t follow you.” He was perturbed.

  “Bob can give you more details—”

  “Damn him. What about you, right here and now? Don’t you think I need to know?” he asked, his worry flaring into anger.

  She hesitated, then nodded agreement. “In the last three years, there have been several refugees from Communist countries who sent out their valuables ahead of them. These were sold privately if the buyers were the type to ask no questions. If a prospective buyer was an honest man who’d baulk at secret deals, the valuable property was put up for auction. Everything open and legal.”

  Grant looked at her sharply.

  “Whatever money was paid, here in Vienna, whether by private transaction or through public auction, went into a bank account in Geneva. We’ve had reliable information on that. But we have still to find out the name of the man who owns that bank account.”

  “The auctioneer would certainly know who got paid—”

  “He doesn’t see the purchase cheque. His fee is paid separately by special arrangement, it seems. As for the property he has sold—he has been told that discretion is necessary: for the original owner’s safety, he should keep silent. He thinks he understands; he has sympathy for those who live behind barbed-wire frontiers, he doesn’t want to endanger any refugee’s escape. That’s his story. Or perhaps he is just another smart operator. He is certainly not completely unaware of what’s going on. Not like the man who bid at the auction last year, and got some magnificent jewellery—a million-dollar price for a complete parure of diamonds and emeralds, smuggled into Vienna from Prague. Original owner? Disappeared in transit.” She paused, drew a long slow breath. “The new owner, of course, knew nothing at all about that disappearance. He was totally innocent. Like several others, whose payments all ended in Geneva. Of course, we didn’t know about the Geneva bank account then. It was only six weeks ago that we got the first hint of it.”

  “This man you say was innocent—he signed a cheque. To whom was it made out? He could have told you that.”

  “Yes—if he had attended the auction himself and signed a cheque. He didn’t. He couldn’t be in Vienna—probably lives abroad. So he engage
d a reputable agent to bid for him, supplied him with an open letter of credit—that’s the usual procedure, including the fact that the agent wouldn’t divulge the identity of his employer.”

  “Why the secrecy? Some problem with his tax collector?” Trust the multi-millionaires to know all the dodges, Grant thought with amusement.

  “Either that, or he wanted to avoid publicity. It isn’t safe to draw attention to great wealth nowadays. Fear of robberies, kidnapping—” She shook her head.

  “Well,” Grant tried, “if you don’t know his identity, why don’t you approach the Geneva bank? Put on some official pressure. Surely a documented report from NATO must carry some weight.”

  “We can do that when we know the name of the bank. That’s what we are searching for.”

  He could see the difficulties. At present, Renwick would have to persuade all the banks in Geneva to divulge their private records for certain possible dates. Would they? He, too, shook his head and then made another try. “Couldn’t you persuade the agent to give you the name of his employer?”

  “Possibly—if the agent were still alive. He had a fatal heart attack.” Just a few days, she reminded herself, after our Hungarian defector started talking. About auctions in Vienna. About a Geneva bank account.

  “How many auctions dealing with refugees’ smuggled-out property?”

  “We know of fourteen. The buyers were absent.”

  “There could be other agents, then. Fourteen?”

  “No. There were three agents, all told, qualified to handle everything.”

  “Three? That leaves two—”

  “They have also died.” All three of them within one week, she thought.

  He was aghast. “Two more heart attacks?”

  “No. Two accidents: one in Munich, the other in Zürich.”

  “Well,” he said, “well—” He tried to find a reason for three sudden deaths. “Are you sure,” he asked slowly, “that they knew nothing about the real purpose of these auctions?”

  “Nothing. As little as the man who is about to bid for a painting.” In fact, much less—now that I’ve dropped this warning she thought as she watched Grant’s face.

  Tight-lipped, he asked, “Do you have proof of this conspiracy?” For conspiracy it was, an ugly word to cover an ugly deed.

  “Proof, six weeks ago, from a defector who was in the KGB, and drew our attention to Geneva as one of the places where funds for terrorists were available. Proof, from Frank, who has lost several refugees—all men and women with valuables sent ahead of them. Proof, from our defector, of their secret arrests—his list of names coincided with our record of missing refugees. Proof, from Frank’s source in Budapest, of the execution last month of a one-time art collector.” She hesitated, glanced at Grant, saw he was more than half-way to the truth. “The man who owned the painting that Mr. Victor Basset wants—Ferenc Ady.”

  “Dead?” He was incredulous, but she had meant what she said, every word of it. Dead...executed last month... “In June?”

  “June twenty-ninth, to be exact.”

  Eight, nine days before Lois Westerbrook had met him. His mind went numb.

  Avril said gently, “Frank can tell you where and how. He has an eye-witness account.”

  There was a long silence. “Does Basset know?” he asked at last.

  “Not yet. We are trying to contact him—judiciously: persuade him to keep the information to himself for the time being. He could be just the type to lose his temper and confront the people who got him into this mess. And there would go our investigation, months of preliminary work in Brussels, six weeks here in Vienna, and all to begin over again.”

  “What about the Ruysdael?”

  “Oh, Basset will get it. You’ll be attending the auction on Friday.”

  “This Friday?”

  “It’s early,” she agreed, misinterpreting his astonishment. “This auction is way ahead of the usual season—that begins in September. But the Klars have been holding pre-season auctions for the last three years—to accommodate their foreign clients, they say.”

  “Hold on, hold on! The Klars?”

  “Klar’s Auction Rooms is where the auction is. This Friday. Eleven o’clock. Didn’t you know?”

  “Not yet. They said they’d let me hear as soon as the auction was scheduled.”

  “It has been arranged for the last three weeks—on July eighth, actually.” And that, she thought, was the day after he had met Lois Westerbrook and Gene Marck. She didn’t press the point: superfluous, judging from his face.

  The series of shocks subsided. His voice became matter-of-fact, almost cold. “Are either Westerbrook or Marck, or both of them, connected with this plot to divert money to Geneva?”

  Avril hesitated. “We’ve no evidence of that. We do know that last December, and again in March, Lois Westerbrook came to Vienna and bought two Impressionists for Basset’s collection: a Monet and a Degas. There was nothing complicated about those auctions. She appeared, quite openly, as Basset’s representative. He wasn’t a friend of the owners of those paintings, so he didn’t insist on secrecy to protect their safety.”

  “How were the payments made?”

  “By cheque. Through his Vienna firm. The man there, who was authorised to sign the cheques, is close-lipped. He doesn’t disclose any of his boss’s financial business. Admirable, of course. But—for us—infuriating. We enlisted a less stalwart employee, who tried to find the cancelled cheques. They weren’t on file. Destroyed, perhaps.” She sighed, smiled ruefully. “Tantalising, really. Basset is the sole buyer at those auctions whose name we actually know, yet we couldn’t risk approaching him with mere suspicions and deductions. That might have blown our investigation before it was completed. Bob Renwick is thinking of an indirect way to reach Basset, make him listen, but only when the timing is right. You see?”

  “Not altogether,” he admitted. He’d see better if she’d tell him more. “What about Gene Marck—Basset’s adviser on purchases?”

  “He visits Europe half a dozen times a year. Partly on business for Basset, partly for his own pleasure. He’s a convivial type—lots of acquaintances in Vienna.”

  Convivial was not exactly the way Grant would have described Marck. Of course, he told himself, he had only seen Marck twice: the first time, silent and respectful; the second time, capable and brusque. There were men who kicked up their heels when they went abroad, the old who’s-to-see-me syndrome—a release, perhaps, from too tight a routine at home. Disciplined would be his word for Marck. And Lois Westerbrook? “I can’t see Westerbrook betraying Basset’s trust. She is just another innocent who—”

  “Are you sure?”

  That brought him up short. “I’m not sure of anything,” he admitted unhappily. But he did remember her face when she had told him about a man who was trying to reach freedom. “Ady... Was that his name?”

  “Ferenc Ady.”

  Was all this really true? Uncertain, baffled, his anxiety increased. So did his distrust. He watched her face, so frank and innocent, wondering if eyes that were so deeply warm and sympathetic could be deceivers. “Why did you tell me so much?” he asked bluntly.

  “Because you needed to know. Because we have a need to know, too.”

  “I’ve a feeling you already have most of my story.”

  “We guessed it, and then verified what we could.”

  “Don’t you want a play-by-play description?” he asked bitterly.

  “Not necessary.” She smiled. “You aren’t under suspicion, Mr. Grant.”

  So I’m in the clear, he thought with a surge of relief. “What do you want from me?”

  “The name of the man who owns the bank account in Geneva.”

  “And how do I get that?” Fantastic, he thought, totally impossible.

  “The treasurer of Allied Electronics—”

  “The guy with the closed lips?”

  She almost smiled. “He will write the cheque when you take possession of Ruysd
ael’s View of Utrecht. Notice the name on the cheque. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” It seemed simple enough.

  “But please be careful. Don’t draw attention to the fact that you are interested. Please!”

  There were a lot of pleases around there, he thought. Was she worried about his safety, or the success of this little mission?

  “Something is still puzzling you,” she said.

  “You left one thing out.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “How did Renwick become interested in me in the first place?” Did I blow it? Yet I followed Marck’s instructions. I believed in them, damn it. Secrecy, security, no contact with Basset, complete discretion. All to save a man’s life, a man who was already dead.

  “Through Lois Westerbrook. She’s been under surveillance ever since she bought those pictures in Vienna. It made us curious when she turned up in New York as Jane Smith and hired a detective to have you followed. That was on the day of the Dali exhibition. She was making sure that she’d meet you at the Schofeld Gallery. Unobtrusively.” Avril was smiling.

  He said stiffly, “There were reasons for that.” Shock upon shock, he thought: followed, by God... “Don’t tell me you own a detective agency in New York.”

  “Of course not. The man who runs it was curious about Miss Jane Smith, who paid his fee in cash by special messenger—all two hundred and fifty dollars of it. Obviously, her bank account was in some other name. He made a few inquiries, and—” She shrugged her shoulders. “Well—you know how inquiries spread.”

  “No, but I can make a guess. Your next step was to check me out?”

  “We were interested in her contacts,” she admitted.

  “Just making sure I hadn’t been attending auctions in Vienna for the last three years.” He had to smile. In a way, this was comic. “I visited Basset in Arizona. Didn’t that seem suspicious?”

  She shook her head. “Victor Basset and you were just—” She stopped short, searching for a kinder word than “used”.

  “A couple of ignorant fools?” How do you like that, Basset? And it’s the goddamned truth.