At Sword's Point (11 page)

"Well, John, what do you think?" It was obvious from Eberle's tone of voice that the red '63 Stingray was his absolute pride and joy.

"Markus, I cannot tell a lie. The car looks super."

Drummond looked across at the jukebox-styled dash of the Corvette and realized for the first time just how cohesive a design the Stingray was. It was as aggressively American as a John Wayne movie, and only a perverted sense of Euro-snobbery would cause anyone to suggest that the car wasn't in the same league as one of the so-called European "super cars."

Eberle grinned as he twisted the ignition key and the Chevy V-8 roared into life.

"I have a lot of fun with it," Eberle said, putting in the clutch and shifting into first gear. "I've got nearly three-fifty horsepower under the hood, which makes me quicker than most Ferraris."

As he eased out the clutch, the car pulled docilely away from the baroque splendors of the Palais Schwarzenberg and moved off into the traffic of nighttime Vienna. Eberle gave a casual running commentary as they went, clearly enjoying the opportunity to show off both his car and his city to an appreciative audience. Sliding smoothly through the traffic, he guided the Corvette effortlessly through a maze of picturesque streets, moving away from the neon-lit inner ring and into a suburban neighborhood of high walls and carefully trimmed hedges.

Finally turning into a cul-de-sac, he pulled the car up to the curb and then, with a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, managed to place it exactly between two large granite gate posts. Crunching along a gravel drive, Eberle hugged close to a hedge until at last he turned and brought the car up in front of his house.

"This is home," he said as they got out.

The pale yellow house with green shutters and green slate mansard roof would not have been out of place on one of the fashionable streets of Paris. On either side of the double doors a pair of bronze Turks stood in a position of submission, holding aloft gilded lanterns that softly flickered in imitation of the gaslights of a century ago. As they reached the top step, the doors were opened by a dowdy woman in her mid-fifties in the black dress and white apron of a maid.

"
Guten Abend
, Herr Inspektor," she said, curtsying slightly as Drummond followed Eberle into the house.

Once inside, the maid took both of their coats and then vanished down a dimly lit corridor.

"This way to the bar, gentleman," Eberle said in a comical English accent. Leading Drummond through a sliding double door, they entered a small sitting room.

Gemütlichkeit
is the Austrian word for cozy, and at once Drummond understood the subtle nuance of the word. The room was furnished with comfortable chesterfields and well-padded club chairs pulled up close to the hearth of a carved oak fireplace. Thick blue Persian carpets muffled the sound of their footsteps, and the dark, almost plum-colored walls were nearly covered with a veritable mosaic of prints and small paintings, their gilded frames sparkling in the reflected light of an ornate giltwood chandelier.

"Please, make yourself comfortable," Eberle said, pointing Drummond toward one of the club chairs near the hearth. "What would you like to drink?"

"Scotch, if you can manage it," Drummond said from somewhere deep in his chair.

"Blended or malt, neat or with something added?" Eberle asked.

"Malt, please, if it's not too peaty. With just a splash of water," Drummond answered.

Eberle poured The Macallan into a pair of crystal tumblers and then added just the right amount of water. Handing Drummond his drink, he settled into the club chair opposite and raised his glass in a toast.

"Cheers!"

Drummond raised his glass in response. The rich amber liquid danced with pinpoints of light as it reflected the glow of the tiny flame-shaped bulbs perched on the tips of the faux-chandelles on the arms of the chandelier.

"
Slainte
," he said, savoring the heady aroma of Eberle's rare old Scotch whiskey.

As he sipped at his drink, Drummond's eyes were drawn to a pair of small paintings above a satinwood side table. Against a bright blue sky, horses with sausage-shaped bodies cavorted with their feet off the ground.

"Those are interesting paintings, Markus," Drummond remarked.

"Ah, you have the eye of a connoisseur," Eberle said with mock gravity. "Those are paintings of Lipizzaners done by Georg von Hamilton in the 1720s. They are actually part of a set of eight, six of which are now in England." Eberle sipped his whiskey. "My grandfather was very fond of them, and after the First War had them sent to Switzerland, along with the family silver and a lot of other stuff."

"Why was that?" Drummond asked.

"Well, after the king abdicated in 1919, there were riots in Vienna, and he was afraid that the Bolsheviks might seize power." Eberle grinned at Drummond. "You see, I come from a long line of anti-Communists.

"Anyhow, things settled down, and in 1921 my grandparents bought this house and had everything shipped back from Switzerland, where they originally came from. During the next war, my grandparents went back to Switzerland, and the paintings and the silver went with them.

"When the war was over, they decided to stay in Switzerland but sent the silver and other valuables back to my father. They kept the paintings, though. When my grandparents died, I inherited the paintings and brought them back home."

The maid interrupted Eberle's discourse on his paintings to announce that dinner was served, and the two men finished their drinks and went into the dining room.

Sitting at a small table in the room's bay window, Eberle poured a rich red claret into gold-rimmed crystal goblets etched with a coat of arms. They had started with a Moselle, to go with an appetizer of Brussels pati. The claret accompanied a hearty wienerschnitzel. Drummond looked at the shield on the goblet and could make out an arm holding a ring.

"Is this your coat of arms?" he asked.

"No, not hardly." Eberle laughed, slicing into his wienerschnitzel. "The Eberles are Swiss. Our arms are three blue boars' heads with a red chevron in the center." He sipped at his claret.

"No, at the end of the war, my father—how shall I say it?—'borrowed' those from his commanding officer." Eberle chuckled at the joke. "Those were Hermann Göring's before my father took a fancy to them."

"Your father was on Göring's staff?" Drummond asked, a little shocked.

"No, no. My father was a physician, and when he went into the military he was assigned to the Luftwaffe. He spent the entire war in Wels, in upper Austria. The day before Germany capitulated, a plane loaded with Göring's personal effects landed at my father's airbase to refuel. The only problem was that there wasn't any fuel left at the base.

"The next day the war ended, and everybody just sat around waiting for the Allies to arrive. My father went over to Göring's plane and started poking around for souvenirs. He came away with these glasses, some silver trays, and Göring's
Reichsmarshall's
dagger.

"But enough of ancient history," Eberle said between mouthfuls. "What do you think of my theory that Stucke's murder is related to the three bodies found in the wood near Schloss Dielstein?"

Drummond set down his knife and fork. "I think you're right. In fact, I know it."

"How so?" Eberle asked.

"I told you on the phone that the Mossad paid a call to my office in Los Angeles. What I haven't told you yet is why I'm
really
here." Drummond smiled almost apologetically at Eberle. "I hope you won't take offense at what I'm about to say. The Mossad agents accused me of being involved with a group of neo-Nazis trying to cover the tracks of a war criminal named Kluge."

"Go on," Eberle said, as he finished his last forkful of wienerschnitzel.

"They contended that Stucke recognized Kluge here in Vienna, and that Kluge had him killed after he went to the police. They implied that Sacher was in on it, and that's why he jumped to the suicide theory."

"Sacher. Well." Eberle shrugged and wiped his fingers on a starched linen napkin. "Let me tell you a bit about Sacher. There are two reasons that Sacher thought he was dealing with a suicide. One," he held up his thick index finger, "Vienna has the highest suicide rate of any city in Western Europe, so cops see a lot of suicides. And two," Eberle made a "V" sign with his right hand, "Sacher is a piss-poor detective. He couldn't find shit in a cesspit, much less handle a homicide. Hell, eight years ago he was assigned a simple murder case out in the twentieth district, and he turned in a report that said the victims may have been killed by a vampire…"

Drummond felt as if an electric shock had passed through his body.

"They were, Markus. You can bet on it."

"Come on, no jokes, okay?" Eberle said.

"No jokes, but I'll tell you pretty much what Sacher found," Drummond said. "A dead body, maybe several, all drained of their blood." Drummond could tell by the look on Eberle's face that he'd come close to a bull's-eye.

"How did you know that?" Eberle demanded.

"I've tracked the same M.O. in four other cities, and they all point to the same man." Drummond stared intently at Eberle.

"Who?" Eberle finally asked.

"A vampire," Drummond said. "A vampire named Wilhelm Kluge."

Eberle stood up and walked over to the sideboard, returning to the table with two cups of coffee. "John," he said as he sat down again, "how come they let you wander around Los Angeles with a badge and a gun?"

"I know it sounds crazy, Markus, but it fits. Nearly twenty years ago in Los Angeles, a man I believe was Kluge ran a blood bank out on the east side, and LAPD was left with half a dozen bloodless corpses and an unsolved file. Eight years ago, Sacher hits the same pattern here in Vienna—dead people drained of their blood."

"Tell me about the blood bank in Los Angeles," Eberle interrupted.

"Not much to tell, really," Drummond said, knitting his brows, "except that it may have been linked to a company called Euro Plasma Technik in Hamburg. Why do you ask?"

"No reason in particular." Eberle had taken a small leather notebook from his pocket and was scribbling the name of the blood bank in it as he spoke. "Is that all you have to go on?" he asked, looking up at Drummond.

"No, there's more," Drummond said. "A couple of weeks ago, the police in Hamburg uncover a pile of bloodless bodies when they knock down a condemned ware-house. About two months ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, the city closes a blood bank where donors are literally being bled to death. When the police look for the owner, they find his body in a trash dumpster, totally drained of blood. Only it turns out that the body, a real John Doe, isn't the owner. He has vanished." Drummond looked at Eberle.

"Go on," Eberle said.

"Two weeks ago, we find Stucke's body in the shower in his flat in the seventeenth district. It's drained of blood. Last week, you have a double homicide, and one of the victims is totally drained of blood." Drummond took a sip of his coffee, but it had lost its taste.

"I've saved the best until last, Markus," he said, pushing the cup away. "The night before last, I was kidnapped and drugged by the Mossad, dragged to a motel and asked what I knew about Wilhelm Kluge, and asked if I believed in vampires." Drummond leaned back in his chair. "You might not believe in vampires, but the Israeli government apparently does. And so do I."

Markus Eberle went to the sideboard and poured Drummond a fresh cup of coffee. He came back, set the cup in front of Drummond, and sat down again before speaking.

"John," he said, "there is only one thing that convinces me that you are not a raving lunatic."

Drummond raised an eyebrow at Eberle, who smiled back.

"The body that Reidl found at Schloss Dielstein had been totally drained of blood. Not only that, the coroner places the time of death at about the same time that Stucke was killed. Now, I don't believe in vampires, and I don't give a damn about these other murders you've told me about, but I do know this: I have three dead bodies without any blood in them. Now, somehow these murders have to be connected, and if the connection is some old fart of a Nazi, then I'm going to put him away. For good."

"I'll give you your connection, Markus," Drummond said around a yawn. "Then I've got to get back to the hotel. My jet lag is catching up with me."

"All right. What's the connection?"

"Stucke had been pestering the police about seeing this fellow Kluge in Vienna," Drummond said. "The police investigate the report, but decide the man Stucke has seen is at least forty years too young to be Kluge. Kluge bides his time, then has someone off Stucke. When the killer goes to collect from Kluge, Kluge kills him and dumps the body in the woods." Drummond yawned again. "Later, Kluge returns to where he dumped the body and kills the two campers."

"Okay for murders one and two," Eberle said as he offered Drummond a cigar. "But where's the motive for killing the campers?"

"I don't know," Drummond admitted, "unless it was some kind of ritual killing—maybe an initiation of some sort. The beheading puts it in a slightly different light from the others."

"You mean that Kluge could be involved with some sort of cult?" Eberle asked.

With a slight shiver, Drummond thought back to the attack launched against the castle of the Order of the Sword by Kluge and his punkers—and the black knights with Kluge, who had been something else entirely.

"Yes," he said. "Something along those lines."

"Then we'll get them all," Eberle said. "Vampires or not, we'll get them all."

"I'm sure we will, Markus," Drummond said, unable to stifle a yawn. "But for now, I've got to head back to the hotel."

Eberle looked at his watch. "It's just midnight. Shall I call a taxi, or do you want to take the Corvette?"

Drummond grinned. "I'd never get out of the driveway in that car of yours, let alone find my way back to the hotel. I think we'd better call a cab."

A light rain was falling, blurring the shapes and colors of Vienna as the taxi returned Drummond to his hotel. Looking out the window of the cab as it moved through the neon-lit business district, Drummond wondered where Kluge was, and what he was doing.