The Memorist

Chapter 89

Musikverein Concert Hall

Thursday, May 1^st-7:37 p.m.

The mayor, Herman Strauss, and his very much younger wife, Annabelle, sat in the front row. Toying with a covered button on the sleeve of her ruby evening dress, which had been chosen in homage to the ruby and gold concert hall, she was busy looking around. While she noted who was there, who they were with, and what they were wearing, her husband listened intently to the music. She was bored. Bored with the music. Bored with the endless events. Herman hadn’t taken her to this many official functions when they were dating, but now it seemed as if that was all they ever did. And if she heard once more how much his dear departed wife had loved classical music she was going to spit.

Strauss was indeed oblivious to his wife’s boredom. The Austrian sat at attention in his red velvet chair, proud of his Philharmonic and the superlative job they were doing. He noticed that many of the dignitaries from other countries seemed more than appreciative; they looked astonished. Strauss was sure that even people who couldn’t care less about classical music had to be moved, despite themselves. He knew something spectacular was happening tonight, that this wasn’t an ordinary performance. Didn’t everyone in the audience suspect it?

The chairman of the ISTA conference, Stan Miller, sneaked a look at his watch. It wasn’t that he wasn’t enjoying the music; he was. Every aspect of this concert had been sublime, from the conductor’s powerful emotional virtuoso performance to each orchestra member’s flawless playing. This evening, coming at the end of a grueling four-day conference, was truly a celebration of how far ISTA had come in the post-9/11 years in instituting new security measures. But he didn’t feel well. Something he’d eaten at the dinner wasn’t agreeing with him. He’d popped heartburn pills before the lights had dimmed but they didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. Trying to refocus his thinking away from the fire in his chest, he examined the faces of the orchestra members.

Two rows behind him, Gerta Osborne, a well-known and celebrated Austrian opera singer, felt the large diamond earrings pinching her earlobes and cursed that she couldn’t take them off. Beside her, the lovely young tenor she’d brought with her sensed her discomfort and turned to smile at her. She delighted in the gossip that she’d taken him for a lover-gossip he’d perpetrated even though it wasn’t true because it made the spotlight shine on him. And that could only be good for his career. Gerta knew that and took advantage of it. It was only good for her career, too. She was seventy-four and he was forty years her junior. The idea was delicious and fit her larger-than-life image.

As the head of the American National Security Commission, Edward Fields knew this conference was a very important event and felt it had gone well. He’d been impressed by some of the new concepts in security that he’d seen. The only fly in the ointment was the woman sitting beside him. All he wanted to do was pull Ellen Grant’s icy blond hair out of that French twist and unbutton her severe black evening suit. He found it unbearable that this was going to be their last night together before he went home to Washington and his wife, and Ellen went home to her family in California.

Dr. Erika Alderman sat next to Fremont Brecht, who had invited her to the concert. His invitations were among the few she ever accepted anymore. Relationships, family, food, hobbies-everything in her life had been subordinated to her research. She fell asleep worrying about it and woke up to the last thought she’d had before she’d closed her eyes. But when Fremont invited her to concerts she always said yes. Not because she enjoyed the music-in truth she found listening to music tedious-but she was fascinated watching the people around her being affected by what they were listening to. How they relaxed and their body language changed as the music cast its spell over them was research. A concert like tonight was an experiment-albeit on a larger scale than she was used to-and with better-dressed subjects than she typically worked with.

Malachai Samuels tried to enjoy the concert but was preoccupied by the two empty seats beside him. He hadn’t heard from Meer since yesterday when they’d been separated in the Rathaus garden and no one had contacted him with any information on where Jeremy Logan had gone or with whom, even though Inspector Kalfus, whom Malachai had talked to that morning had taken his cell phone number and assured him that he would be in touch.

By five that afternoon he’d become frantic. For hours he’d been calling Meer on her cell and Jeremy on his, but neither of them answered. He’d finally called the inspector but had only reached his voice mail. He’d left a message but that did nothing to alleviate his panic. Where was Jeremy? Meer? Did Meer still have the flute? There was only one person who might know but Malachai didn’t have any way to get in touch with Sebastian Otto, except to come to the concert and talk to him when it was over. So he’d changed into his tuxedo and used the ticket that Otto had supplied him with earlier in the week, and here he was.