Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"Read it," Castillo said, "then give me the benefit of your thinking, please."

Berezovsky took one of the copies of the translation, and his eyes fell to it.

TAGES ZEITUNG VIENNA

0900 12 Jan

Immediate

For All Tages Zeitung Newspapers

TAG: RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT FOUND

MURDERED OUTSIDE U.S. EMBASSY

By Wilhelm Dusse

Staff Writer/Tages Zeitung Vienna

The body of Kirill Demidov, cultural attache of the Russian embassy, was found early this morning in the passenger seat of a taxicab near the United States of America embassy at Boltzmanngasse 16. He apparently had been strangled to death.

Mr. Demidov's body was found by a U.S. Marine guard as he walked to the embassy to begin his duty day.

"I thought it was funny for somebody to be sitting in the back of a cab with no driver, so I took a look, and when I'd seen what it was I went inside the embassy and called the cops," Staff Sergeant James L. Hanrahan told this reporter before the interview was interrupted by an officer of the embassy, who took Sergeant Hanrahan away and announced the U.S. embassy would have no comment.

Mr. Demidov's body was still sitting erect in the taxicab when this reporter arrived at the scene shortly before officials of the Russian embassy then arrived and, claiming diplomatic privilege, had the body removed to an undisclosed location by ambulance.

Vienna police officials said that the taxicab had been stolen from its garage earlier last evening, and that the police had been looking for it. They also reported that there had been a "metal noose" around Mr. Demidov's body, with which he had apparently been strangled.

It is known that Mr. Demidov had earlier been at the Kunsthistorisches Museum at ceremonies marking the closing of the exhibit of the Bartolomeo Rastrelli's wax statue of Russian Tsar Peter the First, which had been on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

STORY OPEN MORE TO FOLLOW

"Let me make a wild guess, Dmitri," Castillo said. "Demidov was the Vienna rezident?"

Berezovsky nodded.

"Who sent us this? Darby?" Castillo asked.

"Otto Gorner," Davidson said.

"Well, then let's see what else Otto knows. For all we know, Edgar may be as pure as the driven snow in this. Demidov may have been done in by his homosexual lover; there's been a lot of that going on."

Davidson laughed.

Castillo went to the radio. "C .G. Castillo. Otto Gorner. Encryption Level One."

"Hold one, Colonel. I will attempt to make the connection."

"Sweaty, she sounds a lot like you. Ever notice?" Davidson asked. "I've started to think of her as 'Sexy Susan.' "

Svetlana gave him the finger.

"Well, Karl," Otto Gorner's voice came over the speakerphone, "what are you doing up in the middle of the night?"

"Reading the newspaper. What else have you got?"

"I just got off the phone with Willi Dusse. Two little tidbits that probably don't mean anything "