January 11th, 2007, 8:30 a.m.

Robert Eringer appeared at the Palace for a meeting with Prince Albert. (The night before he had seen Albert at Le Texan, which had closed permanently, for a "last drink" before it was turned over to a new owner. But the two could not speak privately, other than Albert reaffirming that he wished the Monaco Intelligence Service to continue.)

A servant escorted Eringer to a breakfast nook in the Prince's kitchen for their first real pow-wow since Claude Palmero and Thierry Lacoste attempted to terminate Eringer's service without the Prince's authority exactly one month earlier.

When the Prince entered and took his seat opposite Eringer, his spymaster looked him in the eye and asked, "So who's trying to do me in now?"

"What do you mean?" the Prince replied, taken aback. "No one."

No one turned out to be police chief Andre Muhlberger. He probably never liked the idea of a non-official outsider telling SIGER what to do, but he put up with it while Jean Luc-Allavena (JLA) was around.

Now, with JLA gone and others trying to terminate Eringer's service, The Mule mis-judged his timing as right to put his own boot in. So he had accused Eringer, behind the spymaster's back, of stealing SIGER's reporting on Islamic activists and repackaging it as a product of the Monaco Intelligence Service.

"As I've already told you," said Eringer, sipping coffee, "SIGER produced a number of reports over a ten year period that no one at the Palace bothered to read, assuming the reports even reached the Palace. And as I also told you, since the police had not taken it upon itself to conduct an assessment of such reporting, even after 9/11 and bombings in London and Madrid, and since we received intelligence from a liaison partner suggesting Monaco could be targeted by independent Islamic cells, we took it upon ourselves to translate the reporting into English, analyze it, mesh it with other intelligence we were receiving from several liaison partners, and write it into one easy-to-read, up-to-date report that fully credited SIGER's in-put."

The Prince said, "Oh."

"Have you read it?" Eringer asked.

"Not yet."

The Prince wished to discuss money. He wanted to scale funding back to where the service was two quarters earlier. Eringer explained that he would need the higher figure for one more quarter, after which he would end the lease at M-Base and look for new digs.

The Prince agreed. He also agreed to meet Luxembourg's intelligence director on February 7th.

Afterwards, Eringer returned to M-Base for a meeting with# police chief Muhlberger, who knew (from Jean-Leonard de Massy) that Eringer had just met with the Prince.

The Mule, doubtless, hoped that Eringer had been reprimanded, if not curtailed or outright terminated. So he was devastated when Eringer appeared relaxed and confident.

Eringer explained that he had enjoyed an excellent dialog with the Prince; that Eringer understood The Mule had some turf concerns-would he like to address them with Eringer directly?

The Mule shrugged, shook his head, slightly embarrassed, like he didn't know what Eringer was talking about, then launched into how earnest he had become regarding the investigation of Philippe Narmino, which he called his "Number One priority." He said he had put SIGER's officers on it full time to either find evidence--or terminate the investigation and move on.

Yet The Mule did not even ask Eringer for his dossier on Narmino, which contained the crucial documentary evidence.

Eringer offered his dossier to The Mule, suggesting that he trace the fax number on a particular document to determine through Monaco Telecom records if Narmino's office fax machine indeed connected to a particular bank. Eringer's service could not do this because SIGER did not have access to Monaco phone records. But, surely, as police chief, The Mule could nail it down--evidence.

The Mule said okay. He then said he would travel "anywhere in the world" to get to the bottom of this.

"Excellent," said Eringer. "You should travel to (Balkan country) to meet the intelligence chief. I will arrange an introduction."

The Mule said fine, he would be free to travel in mid-February.

Eringer escorted The Mule to the foyer and saw him into the elevator. "Thank you for your support and friendship," said Eringer looking the police chief straight in the eye.

The Mule looked away, then down. He knew Eringer knew.

The next face Eringer saw in M-Base belonged to LIPS from CIA.

Eringer remained in crisis mode, fighting for survival, and LIPS wanted to recite his playbook, or "The S's," as he called them: Support, security, structure and separation--though "the S's" could have stood for shit-squared. This wasn't Intelligence 101--it was hardball.

LIPS told Eringer that CIA's new director, Michael Hayden, had finally been briefed on CIA's relationship with the Monaco Intelligence Service, fully supported it, and sent his greetings.

Really? Eringer felt like saying. To hell with lip service--how about a bazooka?



Coming Next: Pulling the Plug on the Pug

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