The Salzburg Connection

Bill Mathison: And that's what's put a bug up the international spy network's ass - a box of soggy records, twenty five or thirty years out of date? You've got to be kidding!

Chuck: Four dead bodies is not kidding, old buddy.

Bill Mathison: Hey. look, I can see a few warmed-over Nazis getting steamed up, I can see the Israelis sending out their war criminals but what the hell is our government interested in this for?

Chuck: Put your legal mind into gear, Bill. Forget the Nazi revivals, forget war criminals; think how many former German nationals the United States has in sensitive jobs. If any of the them are in the Toplitz lists, they're vulnerable to blackmail. We need to know those names. And if our guess is right, they're in the Finstersee box - wherever the hell it is.

Bill Mathison: And you think Anna Bryant knows and is going to tell me, if I ask her nicely?

Chuck: She, or her brother.

Bill Mathison: Her brother wouldn't give me the right time. Tell you what: why don't you ask them? I'll introduce you.

Chuck: I'm staying out of town until we know where the box is. I need a freehand when the action starts.

Bill Mathison: Look, there's a better idea; there's a guy named Felix Zauner. He's a friend of the family.

Chuck: Also, an Austrian intelligence agent; 'thought you were CIA, by the way. I was with him in Vienna, early this morning. Sure, he's on our side, but he's competition. My worry is that Zauner might just beat us to it just because of the old friend bit. You're clean. You've got an established business reason for seeing her. She knows you. And she seems to trust you. You're our connection, Bill. Like it or not.