LACKING VIRTUES (42 page)

“Thank you, William. You will have your evidence tomorrow night when you or one of your agents accompanies my colleague to a meeting of the conspirators. I promise your efforts will yield the sort of proof you need. These men’s identities will shock you as they did me. One is a member of the governing coalition.”

“Is that so? I’m afraid, Ms. Marx, that I must disappoint you yet again. We don’t simply go around spying on the politicians of our allies, even if they’re French. To do something like that, I’d have to submit a request to Langley. It would have to be approved at the highest levels of government.

“Furthermore, a request to assign an agent to this . . . caper would have to include proof that we were following more than an outsider’s hunch. Hearsay won’t do, Ms. Marx. I would need a detailed summary of how you came upon this information in the first place. My account would have to include at a very minimum such things as the name of your colleague, the names of the suspects, the address of the meeting and so on. This is even more the case here, Ms. Marx, because your dramatic scenario strikes me as highly unlikely.”

“History, William, is a compilation of highly unlikely events. Don’t let history pass you by.”

“I need more information. Names, places . . . “

”Sorry, William, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow night. What I tell you now is merely hearsay, and you’ve left no doubt as to how you feel about hearsay.”

“Langley would  –  ”

“Forget Langley. There’s not time to consult Langley. You’ll have to act on your own.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m going to leave you my telephone number. As I said, the agent who accompanies my colleague could be you. And, William, you are not going to get caught. You’ll do your snooping from a basement that has already been prepared, secured and tested in action. Your superiors don’t have to know what you’re doing – until you submit your incriminating tape.”

“Is that it, Ms. Marx?”

“That’s it.”

“Then I guess we’re finished.”

They both stood. Before either moved, their eyes locked in fierce mental combat.

Sophie was angry. Being polite hadn’t gotten her to first base with this obtuse bastard. It was time to try the bludgeon.

She said, “I’d hate to be in your shoes, William. Imagine how you’ll feel when the rest of the world learns that you sat on your duff stirring coffee with a plastic stick while amateurs did your job for you.”

“Ms. Marx, I resent  –  ”

“Resent it all you want, William. In the meantime I suggest you try growing a set of balls. I don’t want to hear about rules and regulations. A man can still act like a man from time to time. Your father did, which is the reason Eisenhower died a natural death. My present colleague did, which is why I am now in a position to keep you, the Agency and the country from committing a drastic error. So give me a call if you feel a new weight rattling around in those Brooks Brothers trousers. Now, William, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run. Things are happening – everywhere but here.”

She left her card and stormed out, not bothering to look back.

***

Again in her office after the distastrous meeting at the embassy, Sophie glanced at her watch. Eleven a.m., still only five in D.C. It was too early to call Frank Warner at his office, and she hadn’t been able to con the operator or anyone else into giving her his unlisted numbers at home. It had not been a good morning. She hoped she wasn’t losing her touch. Well, no time to worry about that now.

She booted her computer, sent Monique out for pastries and began a search for information on Walter Claussen.

There were seven Walter Claussens in the U.S. data base. Of these, three had immigrated from Germany after the war, four had been born in America. She limited her search to obituaries to see who was still around.

The
Kansas City Star
of October 23, 1980, reported the death of Walter F. Claussen of Kansas City, Kansas, who had spent his career in agricultural fertilizers.

Walter H. Claussen of Dubuque, Iowa, the
Register
reported, had died after a long battle with lung cancer on June 12, 1987. His survivors were suing a pesticide manufacturer.

And Walter J. Claussen of Schenectady, N.Y., had passed away on Christmas Eve, 1989, in the home in which he had lived since coming to the States in 1947.

The other Walter Claussens, those born in this country, were too young to be the man they were looking for.

Sophie sat back in her chair and sighed. There were a lot of combinations of initials to search, perhaps as many as a hundred. And search them she would. She only wished she wasn’t so tired – and the software wasn’t so picky.

In the anteroom, she could hear the first salvos of a verbal artillery duel. She went out and surprised Steven and Monique, who were battling over a plump chocolate pastry Monique had brought back from the
pâtisserie
.

Sophie claimed the prize for herself, then sent Monique, who was in an even worse mood than usual, out for more.

“You look terrific, darling,” Sophie told Steven when they were alone. “Feeling okay?”

“Not bad, just hungry. Why don’t you fire that bitch?”

“Now, now, not everyone can be as charming as Nicole. Come in here. We’ll share this monument to sugar and cholesterol and your friend will never know.”

“Friend, my ass. I’d like to set her up with Michelet.”

“A pleasant thought. Did you drop by your place?”

“Yep. Showered and dressed in there. No sign of trouble.”

“That’s good.”

Steven followed her into her sanctum sanctorum.

He wiped his mouth and stared wide-eyed at the computer screen. “Hey, there he is! Walter J. Claussen! How did you find him?”

She sat on her piano bench, the seat she used when she was at the computer. “Unfortunately, Steven, the name you are looking at belongs to a person of no relevance to us. Either the software missed our man, which is improbable, or his official first name is not Walter. This new search program is what my geeks call ‘first name specific.’  If we simply search Claussen, we come up with thousands of entries, pickles included. Of course, the most likely possibility is that he went by another name altogether while he was in the States.”

Steven leaned close to the screen, careful not to disturb the faxes that curled like bleached tropical leaves around the monitor. “Did you look for Mrs. Claussen?”

“No, I did not.”

“Well, we should give it a try while you’re doing the obituary search. I know he married an American woman. I heard Haussmann ask if she could present a danger. Delors said, ‘No, because she’s dead, died just before he moved back to Germany.’”

“You didn’t tell me that, Steven.”

“I didn’t?”

“Don’t worry about it. No harm done. You’ve had a thing or two on your mind. Think hard. Did Delors mentioned the woman by name?” 

“Just Claussen’s wife.”

“What about the year of her death?”

“Sort of.  He said it was around the time of reunification.  Do you know when that was?”

“Yes, Steven, and so should you. We’ll check 1990 for a dead Mrs. Claussen who stands out in some weird way. Maybe we’ll get lucky –
if
he called himself Claussen and
if
she took his name.”

She started the search.

“What can I do?” Steven asked.

“I think I heard Monique come in. You can hone your already impressive skills by persuading her to prepare us some coffee. If that fails dispose of her any way you wish and make the coffee yourself. I had the most dreadful brew at the embassy.”

“You’ve been to the embassy already? Jesus, Sophie, I thought you’d gone back to bed.”

“I might as well have. I’ll tell you about that fiasco later.”

He just stood there staring at her.

“Steven – ”

”Yes?”

“I know you’re tired too, but if you don’t bring me coffee soon, my brain will to fall into an eternal slumber.”

When he went out, Sophie broadened her obituary search to include all women by the name of Claussen who died in 1989, 1990 or 1991.

Ingeborg Claussen, Ute Claussen, Käte Claussen . . . Germans, Germans. The wife was supposed to be American. Alice, Jane, Pam, where were all those nice middle-American names she had never been able to escape – until now?

Well, thought Sophie, maybe this phantom wife did not have a middle-American name. Maybe Claussen had married a German-American. She was going to have to read hundreds of obituaries in search of a clue.

The computer dug tirelessly while the decibel level of the battle in the anteroom swelled to a crescendo, then gradually began to abate.

Sophie’s eyes burned with fatigue as she scoured the list of deceased female Claussens.

Number 37 caught her attention.

Her name was Rose Claussen.

Did she want to read all published obituaries of Rose Claussen?

Damn right she did. The name had a promising cross-cultural ring to it.

Steven came back into the room just as the text from the
Denver Post
obituary, dated October 17, 1990, appeared on the screen. Sophie could feel him behind her looking for a place to put down the pastries and coffee. She shoved the remaining mass of papers off the piano bench. He deposited the tray and read over her shoulder.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed as they reached the end. “This time you’ve done it! ‘ . . . survived by her husband, a respected aerospace consultant!’ That’s got to be him, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t
have
to be, but it could be.” Sophie fed the computer fresh commands; Steven fed her coffee and pastries while she worked.

“What are you doing?” he asked when she stopped chewing and sipping for a moment.

“I am looking for a much more detailed account of the automobile accident in which she died. Perhaps Mr. Rose Claussen is mentioned by name. Come sit beside me. You need to preserve your energy for tomorrow. I’ll check out the
Rocky Mountain News
.”

“Thanks.”

He was starting to relax when he felt her body tense. “What do you make of this, Steven? ‘Rose Claussen is thought to have died instantly when the car her husband was driving careened out of control and struck a bridge abutment on I-25 just south of the mousetrap. Hans-Walter Claussen emerged from the accident shaken but unhurt. He was released from University Medical Center this morning. The couple’s 1985 Mercedes was equipped with a driver’s side air bag, which the police credit with saving Claussen’s life.’”

Steven whistled. “Hans-Walter Claussen. I’ll be damned. He killed her before he went home, didn’t he? He just aimed that big Kraut panzer with a driver’s side air bag at a bridge abutment and said, ‘
Aufwiedersehen
, honey?’”

“But is he our man? Let me run the new name.”

“Good idea.”