Facelift
Page 15
Chapter 15
You can’t buy Vienna Sausages in Vienna, but you can buy Spam.
I was “escorted” into a limousine and sandwiched between the two MIBs. It was all too cliché: men in black wearing black sunglasses running around kidnapping people and carrying them off in a black limousine. Too bad I was the one being kidnapped. To my surprise, the big guy had a gentle voice, he reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger on Xanax. He even asked me if I were enjoying my trip to Vienna. “Yeah, just like going to Disneyland.” I responded in a cynical tone. The big guy liked that, the little guy stared razor blades at me....
We drove for what seemed like hours, but in reality it had probably been only a few minutes when the big guy said, “Ve are goink to haf to blindfolt you now.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk hood (black naturally), and placed it over my head. Now everything was black. I chuckled to myself, it was all just too cliché. The little guy finally spoke in a menacing tone, “Vat is so funny?”
“Nothing really. I just realized that you can’t buy Vienna Sausages in Vienna, but you can buy Spam.”
I thought I was cracking up, joking at a time like this. But, then again, there isn’t much difference between laughing and crying. Better laugh than cry. The big guy started to laugh. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn I was listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I started to laugh. From the sound of things you would have thought I was among friends. In the back of my mind, I could hear Kathy’s cheerful voice, “With enemies like this, who needs friends.” She can always find something pithy to say, no matter the situation. As we drove along the teeming streets, I remember a time when Kathy and I had been driving around Sacramento and passed a wedding party having their photos taken. Kathy leaned out the window and yelled, “Don’t do it, he lied.” Kathy would have had these guys paralyzed by laughter. Had she been here, we could have walked right out of there. Laughter is not only good medicine it’s mightier than the sword. Forget the pen--give me a good joke any day.
Eventually, the limo stopped and I was guided into a room. The hood was removed and I was surprised to see a striking blond woman leaning over the desk that separated me from her. The big guy and the mean guy were no where to be seen, but I knew they weren’t far away. My hostess was a blonde version of Lisa Marie. I rolled my eyes and looked at the ceiling, “Another lioness, just what I need.” The blonde narrowed her eyes, and said with a slight Russian accent, “I beg your pardon.”
“I’m sorry, just babbling. I’ve had a bad day.”
“Yes, I suppose you have. I am sorry for the secrecy, but we have brought you to a secret Interpol installation. It is as much for your protection as ours. You are being detained by the Austrian National Central Intelligence Bureau, the principal enforcement arm of Interpol in Austria.” She picked up a manila file folder, and thumbed through a sheaf of papers. “I see you are a professor. What do you teach?”
“I’ll bet you’re like a good lawyer, you never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to.”
She smiled, “You are a biological scientist with interests in naturally occurring toxins. You did your Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. You are a full professor at Capital State University, Sacramento. You are in Vienna to attend a conference on the social, military and industrial applications of environmental estrogens. You have considerable interest in Chinese culture. You have studied Mandarin and taught in China. Many of your friends are Chinese, and as of late you have demonstrated a rather intimate relationship with a known member of the Song Ye Triad.”
“Wow, all that and a bag of chips.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Just an expression. I don’t mean to seem impertinent, but I have no idea as to what is going on. I’m just a simple man who decided to travel to Europe instead of having a facelift. May I go home now?”
“That all depends upon you. Cooperate and you can leave whenever you want.” She leaned toward me, showing just a hint of cleavage leaving me to wonder if she had had the same surgeon as the lioness. “Tell me all you know about a Mei Ling Kong.”
“That’s easy, nothing. I don’t know a Mei Ling Kong.”
“Perhaps you know her as Lisa Marie Chin.”
“Oh, that Mei Ling Kong. Well, I don’t really know much about her at all. We met on the flight over, and went to dinner. And, then I started having bad days.”
“Miss Kong is a courier for a Triad chief known as Xiao Dai. Surely, you must have known that, though, Dr. Oldenberger.”
“Call me CB and the answer is no. I didn’t know that.”
This wasn’t going well. I decided to take the direct approach, the Kathy approach, “Let’s cut to the chase, what will get me home?”
The blonde lioness smiled, no, make that smirked at my response. “So, you will cooperate.”
“Absolutely, just point me in the right direction and tell me where the dish soap is.”
“Another expression?”
“Not really, I just felt like saying that. I really have had a bad day.”
“It is very simple Dr. Oldenberger, we have photos of you with Mei Ling Kong, we have a photo of you giving her an envelope; we know that you have numerous contacts with the PRC, we know that you work in a laboratory that has government contracts. How long have you been passing information to the woman you call Lisa Marie Chin? Tell us what you know and we will let you go, otherwise, we turn you over to American authorities.”
“You think I’m a spy, that’s what you think. You people watch too much television!" I was starting to sound like Kathy.
The blonde smiled graciously and opened a door, “Perhaps, if you freshen up you will feel friendlier toward us.”
I was escorted to what appeared to be a sparsely furnished guestroom. There was no television, no radio, no phone, and no window. I was in a Motel 6 but Tom Bodette hadn’t left the light on. At least I could shower, shave and maybe rest. I looked in the wardrobe, surprise, surprise, there were my clothes from the conference hotel. Things were getting curiouser, and curiouser.
I slipped out of my clothes and slipped into the shower. The hot water felt good, but it didn’t wash away the anxiety that filled my gut. I wrapped a towel around my waist and sat down on the edge of the bed. There had to be a way out of this.