The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [27]
There was some difficulty in locating the young lady we spoke about, but once I got hold of her she was delighted at the prospect of a holiday. She is well, and she reminds me greatly of her dear mother. She sends you her affection.
We will not meet again before our reunion. I will be traveling a great deal between now and then, so a letter will not find me. If for some reason you cannot keep our appointment, you can reach me by telephone here at 2315 hours on any day through 13 June.
I look forward to this meeting, for reasons you know so very well.
Ever your affectionate friend,
Sasha.
32. REPORT BY COLLINS.
On the eve of departure for the Sudan, Prince Kalash el Khatar continues to press me on the matter of the Sten guns. I think I have persuaded him that it would not be a good idea to transport such weapons across European frontiers where his royal birth is unlikely to influence customs inspectors. He is more or less reconciled to doing without machine guns until we reach Cairo. May I once again emphasize the importance of your making the necessary arrangements for delivery of the weapons in Egypt. Prince Kalash will no doubt wish to accompany me on the purchasing mission in order to inspect the guns, so it will be necessary to arrange what will appear to him as a bona fide purchase, preferably from a non-European. (Prince Kalash wishes to have also 100 rounds of 9 mm. ammunition for his automatic pistol; he proposes to carry this pistol with him from the start of the journey.)
2. The itinerary has been changed somewhat at Miernik’s request. Miernik is insistent that we travel to Naples, where we take ship on 23rd June, by way of Vienna. He explains that he has never seen this city and wishes to do so before he leaves Europe. Since Prince Kalash has arranged for Miernik to be given some sort of Sudanese travel document, Miernik has taken to making heavy jokes about his future as a slave in the Khatar household. The fact that a side trip to Vienna is several hundred kilometres out of the way troubles neither Prince Kalash nor Miernik. I shall make telephone contact with our Vienna representative on arrival in that city, probably on 14th June.
3. It is my belief, in which Christopher seems to share, that Miernik has some reason other than tourism for the detour. I shall try to discover what this may be, though of course constant surveillance of Miernik by myself once we are in Vienna is impractical.
33. REPORT BY CHRISTOPHER.
12 June. Until exactly 11:32 this evening, this wasn’t a bad trip. The Cadillac is comfortable. We rolled across Switzerland with the radio playing Mozart, attracting looks of desperate hope from girls on bikes (and glowers from their peasant lovers). In order to make time—Miernik seems to be in a hurry to get to Vienna—we ate sandwiches in the car, and kept on until we crossed the Austrian frontier. Collins knew a hotel in St. Anton in the Arlberg, and we arrived at about five in the afternoon. We made remarkable time—Kalash at the wheel all the way, his hand on the horn, slowing down to eighty miles per hour when threading his way among oxcarts on village streets but otherwise keeping to a steady 100 mph. “Tomorrow you drive,” Kalash said to me as we pulled into the hotel, “this car is a bit sluggish going up the mountainsides.”
We washed, had a beer on the terrace overlooking the Tirol, and ate an enormous meal. Kalash, who changed from European clothes to his splendid robes for dinner, stood the waiters and the other guests on their ears; he is, as you know, six feet eight inches tall and he has the head and the manner of an emperor. The headwaiter, who is old enough to have voted enthusiastically for the Anschluss, had never dreamed that there could be a black who would treat him as Kalash did: “There must be no pig fat and no alcohol in anything I eat unless