Program for a Puppet (5 page)

“She would have preferred to have seen you personally. That's why I'm here—on her behalf.”

“I want money, before I tell you anything,” Kruntz said.

Graham casually slid his right hand underneath his coat and pulled out an envelope which exposed a wad of money. “You'll get paid when I get the information.”

“What do you want to know?”

“First, why you wanted publicity.”

“I thought some newspaper reports about certain things could force my debtors to pay up.”

Graham was confused. “You'd better explain that.”

Kruntz's eyes flashed feeling for the first time. “As long as the source is not revealed,” he said nervously.

Graham gave him a reassuring nod. “Who has not been paying you?”

“Znorel Electronics.”

“An Austrian company?”

“No, German. Stuttgart-based.”

“You have a trucking contract with it from Vienna?”

“I did have,” Kruntz said bitterly, “but they would not pay. So I stopped working for them.”

“What goods were you trucking?”

“Foodstuffs, chemicals, farm machinery, and other things.”

Graham decided to take a chance. “Jane Ryder said you have trucked computers.”

The big man hesitated. “I may have,” he grunted. “Not any more.”

“For this Stuttgart company, Znorel?”

Kruntz did not reply immediately. He leaned back in his chair and cracked each knuckle in his hands. Then smiling slyly, he said, “You are interested in computers?”

“Yes.”

“You will write something about them?”

“Possibly.”

Kruntz looked annoyed. “Computers gave me the biggest trouble.”

“In what way?”

“Well, sometimes we did not get paid at all. It was usually because of the Russians.”

“These computers were shipped from Vienna to the Soviet Union?”

“Ja.”

“And the Russians would not pay?”

“They pay in cars.”

“They don't use foreign exchange?”

Kruntz curled his lip. “They say they have none.”

“Cars for computers … a sort of barter arrangement?”

“Ja,”
he said disgustedly. “This is the problem. A buyer has to be found for the cars, so people like myself can be paid.”

“Who finds the buyer?”

“Znorel.”

“Is it difficult?”

“
Ja
. Russian cars are bad. Buyers complain. This happened with Nigeria which received a hundred thousand cars. About ten percent were not good. The Nigerians were not happy. I don't think they have paid for any of the cars yet.”

“Where did you pick up these computers?”

“Znorel leases a warehouse just south of Vienna at Stölenburg.”

“When did you make deliveries?”

“Usually at night.”

“Where did you deliver the machines?”

“The Czech border.”

“Would you know when the next shipment is?”

“No.”

“Could you find out?”

“Perhaps.”

Two men a few tables away got up to leave. Kruntz watched them and seemed edgy. “I have said enough. I want payment now.”

“Just a few more questions,” Graham said.

Kruntz looked around. “No!”

Graham nodded reluctantly and pulled out the envelope containing the money. “If you could just find out when that next trucking consignment is …” he said, handing it to him.

Kruntz quickly pocketed it. “Call me tomorrow morning.” He finished his wine in one swig, stood up and walked out.

Graham took his time finishing his wine, paid the bill and walked out to the Mercedes.

He considered the meeting a useful start, if Kruntz was telling the truth. Graham felt he was a shifty type who would sell his own mother for a dollar. Whoever employed such a person, the Australian thought apprehensively, was unlikely to be any better.

Clifford Brogan, Sr., was in a foul mood as his private jet roared on its way from New York to Washington. Despite the huge PR efforts and legal moves behind the scenes, all was not running smoothly for the corporation in its court battle with the Justice
Department. In recent months, inexplicably to the Old Man, the corporation's position was beginning to look shaky as the end of the case drew near.

Brogan Junior, seated on a velvet couch in the main section of the flying penthouse's lounge, was reading newspaper accounts of the case. Standing a few feet away and looking a little anxious over a Teletype print-out carrying the latest stock prices, was Henry Strasburg, the trim, balding fifty-five-year-old former attorney general of the United States, and, for the last ten years, Lasercomp's chief legal counsel. He was the man in charge of fifteen hundred attorneys fighting Lasercomp's legal battles.

The pipe-smoking Strasburg had an air of superiority about him—from his fine-cut suit to his manicured nails. He was the classic example of how lawyers had come to penetrate the higher echelons of the corporation over the last decade. They had become an indispensable part of the Lasercomp defense against the state and other corporations as it expanded and gained more power.

If anyone could get Lasercomp off the hook in the increasingly difficult situation with the Justice Department, it was Strasburg. He knew a lot of important judges who sat in the most influential federal courts in the land. He had recommended many of them for appointment when he was attorney general. One such judge was Peter K. Shaw, currently presiding in the Justice Department case. Strasburg and he sponsored the same charitable cause and belonged to the same clubs in New York and Washington.

The gloomy silence was broken by a snarl from Brogan Senior.

“What did the stock do?”

“Down ten,” the lawyer replied. “That's twenty points we've lost this week.”

“What about the other blue chips?”

“They're down a bit too.”

Brogan looked up at the lawyer and stared at him for a moment through his thick-lensed spectacles which somewhat hideously distorted the shape of his eyes. “Henry, I want to know what's going wrong with the case,” he said with quiet menace. “After six years, I find it hard to believe we may be in trouble….”

Reverently Strasburg sat down opposite the Old Man. “C.B., I wouldn't worry about what the press is saying. You know a lot of journalists would like to see us carved up,” he said, trying
to sound confidently reassuring. “Besides, just because a little bit of pep is coming into the prosection's case now, remember we've been on top for most of the time….”

“But I thought you had Sagittarius,” the Old Man said sardonically. “What was it you said? ‘Don't worry, Sagittarius's computer bank has every piece of documentation connected with the case … it has optical scanners which can read information into our law team's office…

Strasburg wanted to say something but the Old Man went on rapidly, his anger rising: “‘Don't worry, the computer can instantly compare a day's trial testimony with everything in Sagittarius … it can pinpoint discrepancies between testimony and submitted evidence … don't worry, it can tell our lawyers how to win!'” The Old Man gesticulated wildly and yelled, “Well, I am worrying and you had better start doing something about it!”

“Look, C.B.,” Brogan Junior said, coming to Strasburg's aid, “there is nothing wrong with Sagittarius. It's a successful part of the master program … the prosecution will cause it only temporary problems.”

“Maybe, but they're still problems! No one can tell me why we have them!” Brogan paused, frowned, and then added introspectively, “I think it's because of that ungrateful bastard running the prosecution. He must have gathered detailed information in those years with us and just waited for the chance to stab us in the back!”

“But he was a computer engineer with us. Not a lawyer,” Brogan Junior said defensively.

“So what goddamn difference does that make? He had big ears and eyes, didn't he? I told you both to stop him from being allowed onto the prosecution team! I told you he spelled trouble!”

“C.B.,” Strasburg said, pleased for the support from Brogan Junior, “I feel the press is largely to blame. They're whipping up hysterical opinion against us by billing the case as man versus machine. Some journalists want us to lose to prove the computer is fallible. Others want us beaten because we're big.”

Brogan Senior sat seething as his son added, “We have a few months to go yet. Henry will make the case a sure thing.”

“He'd better!” the Old Man said fiercely, “or I'll start taking action. I'll get people that can handle goddamn upstart governments or anything else!” He struggled out of his seat belt and
stood up, keeping his balance as the plane banked slightly. “We've been slipping in the courts since you two have taken over the legal department,” he said, waving his hands wildly at both of them. “Why? Because you're too damned weak! You won't show muscle or money. Every man can be had by either. This pathetic situation never arose years ago. We'd tell companies that if they tried to take us to court we'd put 'em out of business in a month. And we did! Now every fifth-rate little shit organization thinks it can milk us.” He clenched his teeth, his rasping voice dropping to a hiss. “And governments … I've had presidents eating out of my hand … because without us they knew the system would collapse. We would keep reminding them…”

The Old Man slid back into his couch, breathing heavily as the other two looked on silently, Strasburg frightened to say another word, and Brogan Junior knowing it was best to stay cool when the tyrant rose in his father. The Old Man deliberately turned off his hearing aid. The ranting was over.

Graham started early on his second day in Vienna with a four-mile run around the city's narrow winding streets. He liked strenuous exercise at least once a day. It had become a habit, especially when he was on assignment, living out of a suitcase. By 7:30
A.M
. he had showered, dressed casually and taken a breakfast of orange juice, eggs and bacon in his room, in preparation for a full day.

He began by making several calls.

One was to Joachim Kruntz, who told him that the next Znorel trucking assignment would leave at about one
A.M
. the next day from a warehouse at the village of Stölenburg.

Another call to a local journalist Graham knew heightened his interest in contacting IOSWOP. The journalist said that like some other obscure organizations in Vienna, it was probably a front for something, although he didn't know what. He added that there were always Russians coming and going. One in particular was the IOSWOP's chairman, a Professor Letovsky, who was possibly worth an interview. Graham knew of him. He was a leading trade ambassador for the Kremlin.

Graham decided to give it a try. He phoned IOSWOP and was put through to its PR man, a German named Hart. Graham was quizzed for several minutes and had to bluff his way by claiming
to be writing articles for several papers and magazines in England, Europe, America and Australia which would be about Vienna's several prestigious international organizations, like OPEC and IOSWOP. Finally convinced, Hart invited Graham to visit IOSWOP's office at the Opernring in the heart of Vienna. A special IOSWOP bus would take him to Stölenburg at 11:30
A.M
.

Graham arrived with his usual gear for an interview—a 35-mm. Minolta, a tape recorder, and an 8-mm. movie camera. He liked to record an important interview in as many ways as possible, and had a good working knowledge of all kinds of cameras and tape equipment.

He found the IOSWOP office, and was greeted unsmilingly by a tall, leggy girl who asked him to wait with several other men and women. He had time to unload his gear and smoke a cigarette before the girl ushered them out to a Volkswagen bus.

Two guards rode in the front seat with the driver, and Graham noticed they were wearing hip holsters.

The bus rattled on its way for about twenty miles to the Stölenburg village and palace, which dated back to 1388.

Once a summer residence of successive Hapsburg emperors, the sleepy surroundings were conducive to much wine in the warmth of the afternoon or the cool of the evening, and the Empress Maria Theresa blamed many of her sixteen children on this. It fell into disrepair after 1917. In 1970 the Austrian Government offered to renovate the palace for IOSWOP in an effort to persuade another institution to make its home in Vienna. Shortly thereafter, IOSWOP was in the palace's red court.

Originally the brainchild of heads of the American and Soviet foreign ministries in the 1960s, IOSWOP was hailed as contributing to scientific détente. Scientists of nations East and West could work together to find solutions to the world's most pressing problems of pollution, energy conservation, medicine, food supply and population control, using advanced computer techniques.

A clock struck noon just as the bus pulled up to iron gates at the front of the palace, a mighty gray and yellow edifice. Ten huge pillars supported the portico entrance, and on a balcony above, two guards watched as the occupants of the bus filed out.
Another two guards swung the gates open as German shepherd dogs barked a fierce disapproval.

Graham was greeted by a squat, heavy-featured man with a pockmarked face.

After a limp handshake and a gutteral, “I'm Hans Hart,” the grubbily dressed PR man proceeded to show Graham around the palace, stressing that no photographs were to be taken. They walked up a marble stairway to the second floor, where there was an excellent view of the palace grounds, of about twenty acres, which were as plush and smooth as a green pool table. The grounds were dotted with small “pleasure pavilions.” One had a tennis court, another a swimming pool. About a dozen people dozed under canopies. Several German shepherds were chained to a barbed-wire-protected high wall, beyond which a thick forest unrolled to the horizon.