Robert Eringer's attention turned to a power-struggle within Monaco's government.

Conseil Nationale President Stephane Valeri and Franck Biancheri, the finance minister, had been digging dirt on one another for some time as natural competitors for power and influence within the principality. Both were allegedly corrupt; each professed to possess muck on the other.

Valeri was first to throw some after Biancheri ignored a proposal from a group Valeri backed that desired to invest fifty million dollars in ASM, Monaco's football team.

It was not (yet) Eringer's brief to focus on Monaco's internal politics and corruption, but as the Prince's eyes and ears he could, in passing, watch, listen, collect, validate--and report.

Furthermore, Valeri had been trying to create a backchannel to the Prince, around normal protocol, through one of Albert's close personal friends. And one of Valeri's dubious business relationships, with a Russian, had become a counterintelligence issue.

With further regard to counterintelligence, FBI Special Agent TW telephoned Eringer in an excited state to announce that she had found a document connecting MING--the suspected spy and money launderer--to the company in Monaco that had been liquidated. This was fourteen months after Eringer provided the Bureau with his dossier. Had they asked Eringer then, he could have provided an officially stamped document from Monaco's economic registry linking the two.

"Good work," Eringer replied.

Next, the Prince's senior aide-de-camp and his relationships and possible business dealings with the Prince's personal friends: It was pointed out to Eringer by one of his assets-and by now Eringer had a number of such assets reporting to him-that the aide-de-camp had been spotted in the Americaine Bar of Hotel de Paris with the Prince's friend Robert Munsch and "a mystery Russian," apparently the man trying to lure the Prince to Azerbaijian so that, through the Prince's presence, and possibly in his name, an oil deal could be struck.

Eringer quickly identified the mystery man as Gocha Arivadze, not a Russian, but a Georgian businessman based in Moscow.

At Eringer's request, two friendly intelligence services ran traces on Arivadze and swiftly reported the Georgian to be of dubious character.

Coming Next: Strip-Club State of Mind