On June 16th (2007), the Prince's spymaster, Robert Eringer, lunched in the open-air at Quai des Artistes with LIPS from CIA.

LIPS said his ambassador had expressed concern about the Prince's plan to vacation come summer with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. "He's concerned that it could open Pandora's box."

"It's already open," said Eringer. General Pronichev, Bruno Philipponnat, Gocha Arivadze, and the dacha at Roc Agel. "You haven't been paying attention."

LIPS gulped-an Ohmigod moment. This was not how he wanted his tenure as Paris chief, with responsibility for Monaco--and a relationship with the Prince--to end. "Doesn't he want to keep doing what he asked you to do?"

"He thinks he should," Eringer replied.

"Thinks he should?"

"Exactly."

"That's an important distinction."

"I'm glad you caught it."

"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"Whack away," said Eringer. "They're like weeds. We need a giant weed whacker. Under the circumstances," he added, "I'd like to see somebody senior at your headquarters to redefine our relationship-next month, if possible."

"That's very doable," said LIPS, for whom everything was very doable--until he actually needed to do it. "We have a new European division chief taking over shortly." (The fourth in as many years.)

Before departing from what would be their final meeting, LIPS ran through, as always, his motivational playbook of concepts to keep the relationship structured. "Does that make sense?" he concluded with his catchphrase.

No, the relationship with you has been rather sense-less, but thanks for lunch.

At 7:50 that evening, at the same table in Columbus where the Prince and Eringer created Monaco's intelligence service five years ago to the day, Eringer met with Jean-Luc Allavena (JLA)-their first meeting since he'd been fired eight months before.

"The best period," Eringer told JLA, "was while you were the chef de cabinet. That was our golden age. The right changes were being made-we had momentum."

JLA seized on the word momentum. Indeed they had, he sadly concurred.

One of the incidents held against JLA was his so-called "firing" of Christiane Stahl as Cabinet Communications Director. Stahl had thrown several tantrums in JLA's office, shouting her resignation on three occasions. On the third, JLA insisted she truly go. "I didn't do such things by my own authority," JLA told Eringer.

Eringer already knew this. The Prince would authorize JLA to take action on something and, if he were then criticized, he would assign blame on JLA for "exceeding his authority." In this case, the Prince flip-flopped, re-hired Stahl-and ever since she had, according to a source, been running around Paris calling Albert "stupid" behind his back.

"Albert fired me," said JLA. "He had every right to do that-it's the kind of authority I wanted to instill in him."

The irony.

As for Thierry Lacoste, JLA had seen him for lunch in Paris one week earlier.

"Lacoste has twenty faces," said JLA. "Never trust him. Last week he said to me, `Too bad you left, Monaco is falling apart, Albert doesn't have a grip, Albert doesn't work'-can you believe? Then Lacoste probably goes to Monaco and tells Albert I said something bad about him."

What bothered JLA the most: the Prince never said thank you; he never showed any appreciation for all JLA accomplished, even while the Prince got hailed as a genius due to JLA's efforts.

On June 18th, Eringer flew with Jean-Leonard de Massy to Malta for a Columbus Group meeting. It was innovative and sensational.

For the first time, the intelligence services of micro-Europe were engaged.

Upon his return to Monaco, de Massy was summoned to the Palace by Claude Palmero, presumably to set things right, as promised by the Prince.

But that was not what happened.

Palmero claimed he had been authorized to "loan" de Massy past payment due him, but only if he would sign a written statement binding him to the following conditions:

He should have nothing further to do with intelligence.

He must not drive a car around Monaco.

He must not go out and be seen in public, but must lay low and become invisible.

It was as if Palmero and Lacoste had re-conspired to punish and humiliate de Massy while the Prince traveled in Central America.

De Massy had done nothing to deserve such despicable treatment. He refused to comply, believing a mistake or miscommunication had taken place.

Perhaps Palmero and Lacoste were, again, usurping the Prince's authority?

Then de Massy bumped into interior minister Paul Masseron at a reception.

"Monaco is a very fragile institution," Masseron lectured. "One must be very careful if one wants to keep living here, because it's a nice place, isn't it? Monaco is like a porcelain shop. We can't walk in like a big elephant, everything breaks."

This was part veiled threat, part defense of the status quo. Masseron liked his job. With JLA gone, he no longer needed to walk a tight rope-and clearly had stepped into Jean-Paul Proust's camp.

They couldn't strike out at Eringer (they didn't know how or where to find him), so they struck at de Massy instead.

Traveling in Guatemala on a state visit, the Prince walked into a meeting minded a certain way, but his ministers danced circles around him, skillfully deflecting his position, and he walked out minded their way.

As one adviser who was present put it, "Albert is bamboozled by his government-they know exactly how to handle him and get their way."

Everyone was playing the Prince, from his government, to the Monegasque establishment ("The Clan"), to the Freemasons, to the Italian mafia ("The Organization"), to the Paris "kitchen cabinet," to the Russians, to his own aide-de-camp--exploiting him to their own advantage.

Then Eringer learned that Palmero's beastly treatment of de Massy genuinely reflected the Prince's disposition. The Prince no longer wanted de Massy to do intelligence work. But due to his pathological fear of confrontation, he could not tell de Massy himself-or even tell Eringer.

De Massy was devastated that the Prince would turn his back on him. He had done nothing wrong; had worked for almost a year without pay.

Meantime, word began to leak all was not well in the principality.

On July 22nd, The (UK) Sunday Times published a story by its Paris correspondent Matthew Campbell titled "Monaco in a Mood Over Absent Albert":

The jet-setting ruler has come under attack for spending too much time away from his tiny country on the sun-kissed Riviera.

The "green prince," who used to be seen on a bicycle or at the wheel of an electric car is also being lampooned for using a gas-guzzling Mercedes as well as a helicopter and a private jet to get around while lecturing his citizens about their emissions.

Criticism of the centuries-old Grimaldi clan is rare to the extent of being considered almost blasphemous in Monaco. But Albert has become the target of Internet jibes, and last week a magazine labeled his country a "ghost ship" because he was so often away from the Palace#

"The prince is more interested in multiple conquests than the conquest of his people's hearts," wrote one critic last week#

Albert is making himself scarce, becoming, as one report put it, "more and more of a distant figure." By all accounts, the "falling out of love" is mutual, and Albert is just as tired of his subjects as they are of him#

#"He needs to re-launch his reign," said Frederic Laurent.

Instead, the Prince launched himself to the United States for yet another vacation-a sweep through the five American states he had not yet visited, so he could say he'd been to all fifty.

Eringer was supposed to meet the Prince in Iowa. But he had had just about enough. His quarterly invoice was still unpaid, and based on what Palmero had told de Massy--"Eringer's cell is terminated"--it was going to take much chasing up. Had the Prince been honest and terminated the Monaco Intelligence Service when Palmero announced this in December, Eringer would have had six months to delicately close the doors he had opened, on the Prince's behalf.

Instead, Eringer had launched to San Marino and Malta in perpetuation of the Prince's lie.

It had long become clear that the Prince did not truly desire to clean things up; he just wanted to look like someone who did. Eringer had simply called Albert's bluff.

Then Eringer learned Robert Munsch had copped a ride on the Prince's plane to Des Moines, and he realized the Prince would skirt around his pledge to talk business, as had happened before when the leeches and hangers-on were present. So he bagged it.

Eringer realized he had to close the Prince's intelligence service down himself. It did not matter to the Prince any longer--and he probably wanted it to just disappear without having to confront the issue.

Finally, on August 2nd, the Prince phoned Eringer from Arkansas. This was his way of confronting the issue: "Let's continue on a case-by-case basis," he said.

Clearly, the Prince had no sense of the structure and network that had been established over a five-year period.

"That won't work," replied Eringer. "My focus is largely keeping alive relationships with our liaison partners from twenty countries."

The Prince said, "Twenty countries?"

"Yes," replied Eringer. "The United States and Britain, France and Italy, the microstates of Europe, the Bulgarians, the Poles, the Romanians#" he trailed off. "You approved these contacts, met all these people-remember?"

Eringer offered the Prince two options: One, close it all down, Eringer's preference, but it required discretion and sensitivity, because it would come as a jolt to the services of other countries that had opened their doors. Or two, for reduced funds Eringer could reduce his effort and focus solely on liaison relationships.

The Prince opted for the latter, and promised to get Palmero to pay the current overdue invoice.

The Prince asked that Eringer become "invisible." He did not want police chief Andre Mulhberger or Masseron to know that Eringer continued to operate in his service-probably because he had already told them (along with Lacoste and Palmero) what they wanted to hear: that he had terminated his intelligence service.

About de Massy, the Prince said, "I know I said it was okay for him to work with you, but what do they say--only dumb people don't change their minds?"

Eringer guessed this was a line the Prince had been spoon-fed. And it was very lame indeed, bordering on dumb.


Coming Next: Order of the Monk

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