Pinnacle Event

6

“The crash was just there,” Konrad Voltke pointed. “Potgeiter was coming down the street into the city, as was the trolley. He sped up to pass the trolley and turned right in front of it, attempting to get into Daringergasse, but he was not far enough in front of the number 38 and it hit him when he turned. The tram driver did not have time to stop. The car exploded and burned poor Herr Potgeiter beyond all recognition. The file says they did the identification with dental records.”

They were sitting in one of BM.I’s many, blue BMWs, a five series. “Why would Potgeiter want to turn into that street? Where does it go? Where was he going?” Bowman asked his young driver.

“It’s a residential street, nothing special,” Konrad replied. “Herr Potgeiter was driving into the Innenstadt for his morning coffee and newspaper read, as was his custom, at least that’s what the accident investigation report says. I called a friend in the Polizei and he read it to me. The actual file will show up tomorrow morning.”

“So, why veer right into Daringergasse?”

“Why indeed? You think he was drugged, perhaps, Herr Bowman?”

“No, Herr Voltke, I think he was hacked, or rather, his car was.”

As they drove up the Grinzinger Alle into the little town, Bowman scanned the BM.I police file on the dead man’s son, Johann. From what he could discern from the German language report, the son of the late South African physicist was forty-two and had become an Austrian citizen. He worked as a financial analyst and investor in the private equity arm of an old Viennese bank. Speaks English. Married to an Austrian woman, he has three daughters. Since his father’s death, they had moved a few streets over into the father’s larger house, the house Johann had grown up in. There was nothing suspicious about him. Nonetheless, the BM.I had a file on him. Some habits die hard, Bowman thought as they entered the square.

The Potgeiter house looked modern, white, with a lot of glass. A man who could be Johann was taking grocery bags from the back of a Volvo station wagon in the garage, as the BVT car pulled up. “Herr Potgeiter?” Konrad called out as he and Bowman walked up the short driveway. “Konrad Voltke, Federal Interior Ministry.”

“Oh, no, not about the taxes again?” Potgeiter replied.

“No, we are here about a request from the American government. Herr Thomas here is with their Treasury Department. We would like to talk with you about some funds that transferred through American banks.”

“It’s a routine money laundering investigation, but you are not the target or under suspicion,” Ray Bowman said, showing his identification as Harold Thomas. “We just need your help.” Johann Potgeiter showed them into the house.

The three men settled around a table in the informal dining area off the kitchen. The picture window looked up at the vineyards on the hill behind the house. In a city of small apartments, this was a spacious home. California style, Johann called it. He spoke in German-accented English.

“When my father died, I took over managing many of the accounts he ran as a favor to his friends from the old days. Many of South African expats trusted him to manage their money and he did very well for them, I must say,” Johann said. “Naturally, I didn’t ask them where their money came from. I assume they liquidated their land and such in the old country in time, before the land values crashed after the takeover. Such crime there now, nobody wants to own things there.”

“Except gold and diamonds, of course,” Ray added.

“Yes, stocks in the mines are still doing well, but the rest? Such destruction of value there has been in the country of my birth. They were not prepared to govern and they have driven so many of the good people overseas. Like my father, like me.”

“So you don’t know where the funds came from, except that they were from friends of your dad’s?” Ray asked. “Just before he died, your father received a series of deposits totaling five hundred million dollars in a few days’ time. Do you know about that?”

Johann Potgeiter shook his head. He seemed a typical upper-middle-class Viennese, but he was being unusually cooperative with two men who had just appeared on his driveway. “To tell the truth, while he picked good investments, he kept bad records. I don’t really know too well what happened before he died.”

Konrad Voltke looked at Ray Bowman in a way that suggested that there was not too much point in pressing the issue with Johann, at least not now. Bowman nodded his head, indicating that Konrad should pick up the questioning.

“About his death, I’m sorry to bring you back to that day, but did you talk with him that morning,” Konrad asked in perfect English.

“No, unfortunately. Usually we would speak in the evenings. I had talked to him the night before and he was in good spirits. Naturally, I have been over all of this with the Polizei.”

“And do you know why he was turning into the street, the Daringergasse?” Konrad inqired.

Johann Potgeiter stared out and up at the vineyards. “I have wondered that so many times. So many times because I have to drive that way so often, past the spot.” He turned back to Konrad Voltke. “My conclusion is that he forgot something at home and was going to turn around. He could be so focused in thought sometimes that he would not notice the world around him. That’s why we never had him babysit with our girls. They are hard enough for us to handle.”

Bowman wondered to what degree Johann Potgeiter’s answers were rehearsed, or at least thought out, not spontaneous. Had the son of the late nuclear bomb maker been waiting for a visit like this from the authorities? Bowman knew he needed to change the tempo of the discussion.

“Your father was a member of the Trustees, a cabal of the leaders of the former South African defense industrial complex. So, have you replaced him in that role? Are you coordinating your investment decisions with those of the other Trustees who also each got a half billion dollars days before your father died?”

Potgeiter did not blink. “I am not a Trustee of anything, Herr Thomas. And no one tells me how to invest.” His demeanor did not change. “And, as I said, I don’t really know about funds that moved around before my father died.”

Bowman tried again. “Johann, if you knew that your father was murdered, that the controls for his car were hacked and he was driven into the oncoming tram, that he did not drive himself into it, would you want to find out who did that to him?”

Johann Potgeiter was silent for a moment, a blank look on his face. He turned to the Austrian security man. “Is that what happened, Herr Voltke?” There was still no emotion.

Konrad Voltke was caught off guard, first by Bowman’s line of attack and then by Potgeiter’s question to him. “The Polizei’s official conclusion is that it was a traffic accident, but we, ah, we wondered if you accepted that?”

“I have no reason not to accept what the Polizei told me. Unless there is some new information. Is there, Herr Thomas? Does the U.S. Treasury Department know something that the Polizei missed?” He pronounced the words U.S. Treasury Department in a tone that almost implied he thought his houseguest was perhaps from some other part of the American government.

“We are always suspicious when billions of dollars slosh around in strange channels and then people die, Herr Potgeiter,” Bowman said rising from the table. “If you should be contacted by the Trustees, please do let us know. Thank you for your time.”

Back in the BMW, Konrad Voltke looked at a text message on his mobile. “The boss wants to see us at his home. It’s not far, it’s here in the Eighteenth District.”

“What did you think of Johann?” Bowman asked as they drove down the hill.

“Practiced liar.”

“What part?”

“I couldn’t tell, perhaps all of it,” Konrad replied.

The Deputy Director of the BVT lived in a house that looked too small for the tall iron gate and fence around it. Indeed, it had been an out building, a carriage house, for the larger villa next door. The fencing had been part of the original estate. Now it was a small home in a neighborhood of large homes, many of which had been divided up into multiple units. Konrad had an electronic gate opener that worked at his boss’s house. He was obviously a regular visitor. “I often drive him to work,” he explained as they parked.

Inside, the former carriage house seemed spacious and warm. A wing addition provided a large, open plan dining room and kitchen. Bowman heard music coming from the second floor. “My sons,” Gunter Rosch said, pointing upstairs. “They say they cannot study without their music. I think it is why their mother volunteers at the hospital in the late afternoon.”

At home, the Deputy Director of the Austrian domestic intelligence service looked more like a farmer: unfashionable blue jeans, a plaid short-sleeved shirt, and a tall beer in one hand. “So you had a successful meeting with Potgeiter?”

“No we didn’t, I’m afraid,” Bowman said, taking a proffered glass of the local brew. “He was uninformative.”

Konrad Voltke joined them. “I’ve been out at the car, using the radio to chat with my boys down at the Polizei. The charred wreck of the late Potegeiter’s car was crushed after the investigation. We will not be able to examine its computers.”

“Ach, so,” Rosch smiled. “Well, if Johann was not informative, his neighborhood was very interesting. My countersurveillance team on you detected two, amazing, two distinct sets of people looking at the house while you were in it. You are quite a magnet, Raymond.”

“The U.S. Embassy boys and who else?” Ray asked.

“That’s what is so fascinating. Neither one of them were the Americans from this morning. We waved them off at the Palais Modena and they stayed away after that.”

Rosch was smiling, hardly able to contain his enthusiasm that his team had stumbled into something fascinating. “My countersurveillance unit on you was not big enough to handle such a surprising situation, but they got enough information that we should be able to track down your tails and identify them. It was a good drill for my boys. They had never caught a double surveillance before.”

The enthusiasm was contagious. “Well, maybe we are flushing the birds we wanted to find. Maybe I should stay a few more days before I go to Israel,” Ray thought aloud.

“May I suggest you do consider altering your travel plans, Ray? I talked to a friend today, after you left my office, my counterpart in South Africa,” Rosch said. “They knew all about the Trustees and they, too, are suspicious about their deaths. In fact, the investigation is apparently their number one priority. They would very much like to compare notes with you as soon as possible, in Cape Town.”

“Never been to Cape Town,” Ray replied. “Well, I can delay the trip to Israel a couple of days if the South Africans have been investigating all this and think they have something to share. Tell him I accept his invitation.”

Gunter Rosch emitted a good belly laugh. “You are booked in First on the Qatar flight tomorrow morning out of Schwechat to Doha and then on to Cape Town, courtesy of my friend Mbali, but, Raymond, make no mistake, Mbali Hlanganani is definitely not a him.”