On the evening of July 7th (2004) Prince Albert and his spymaster, Robert Eringer, dined at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Washington DC.
Their host: U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss.
Also in attendance: U.S. Representative Jim Gibbons and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss.
Senator Chambliss ordered steak, creamed spinach and au gratin potatoes for everyone; the superb food, wine and company inspired very positive discussion.
Afterwards, Eringer and the Prince toured Washington's monuments and memorials, winding up in Georgetown at Café Milano, where Prince Albert fell asleep at the table.
It wasn't the first time Albert nodded off in the company of others, often for twenty seconds, sometimes for as long as several minutes--leading Eringer to suspect the Prince suffered from narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder that causes daytime sleep attacks.
In early August, Porter Goss was appointed by President George W. Bush to replace George Tenet as Director of Central Intelligence. It bode well for Eringer's liaison-plus relationship with that agency.
Meantime, CIA's Paris station chief had packed his bags and wanted to introduce his replacement, a man whose strongest suit was lip service. So Eringer codenamed him LIPS.
The Prince was scheduled to visit M-Base for a 2:30 meeting.
Eringer stood in the lobby of Shangri-la awaiting his arrival, the customary protocol, while LIPS and his predecessor waited upstairs.
No Prince.
At 2:45, Eringer rang the Prince's cell phone.
No answer.
Eringer rang the Palace. One of Albert's secretaries said he was at Roc Agel, the Grimaldi family country estate in the mountains. Eringer asked the secretary to please phone the Prince and remind him of their meeting.
Ten minutes later, the Prince phoned Eringer. "Is that central control?" he asked. "I'll be there in an hour."
An hour later the Prince phoned again. "Can you come up to Roc Agel?" He could not escape from the clutches of his father, with whom he'd lunched.
Eringer found a driver, and the trio drove thirty-five minutes to Roc Agel.
With its Willys Jeeps and security guards garbed in commando jumpsuits, Roc Agel had the feel of a paramilitary survivalist camp.
Eringer and company were shown to the pool house and waited another thirty minutes in stillness and quiet, the occasional dog bark.
At 5:45 the Prince finally appeared.
Said LIPS to the Prince: "Your concerns are our concerns," and he echoed his predecessor's standing invitation to visit CIA Headquarters.
The Prince and Eringer had no time to meet privately, so they scheduled a late drink that evening at Flashman's, a Monte Carlo bar, and nailed a timeframe for the Prince's visit to CIA Headquarters: late October, about seven weeks hence.
They then drove to M-Base for a briefing.
Eringer provided the Prince with findings of an investigation into Simon Reuben-a British national with Monaco residency-authorized by the Prince. The detailed report was quite illuminating.
Monaco's police had investigated Reuben for money laundering associations with Russian organized crime in the 1990s. According to French police services and Interpol, Reuben linked to companies named Randal and Off Shore TL.
As a result of that earlier investigation, in 2002, Reuben's residency permit had been revoked, resulting in his expulsion from Monaco.
However, Eringer had received a report that Marie-Therese Escaut-Marquet, Monaco's Bailiff of Justice, had approached someone at the Palace to quash the expulsion.
Consequently, Reuben had been readmitted with a "privileged" resident card dated April 7th, 2003--a maneuver that both appalled and demoralized Monaco's police, and seemed to concern the Prince, at least for a minute.