by Gregg Loomis
But who?
It had been two years since Lang had faced real danger, two years of defending those who could afford to pay to evade justice, two years of administering a foundation that did tremendous good but offered little in the way of excitement. Even if Lang was no longer a member of the shadowy intelligence community, he wasn't without experience and assets, either. Whoever had killed those two men hadn't known that; he was sure.
They were about to find out.
"Sara, I'm taking a few days off. Tell whoever calls that I should be back in a week."
She looked up. "And the mayor?"
"Particularly the mayor."
TEN
Westview Cemetery
Atlanta, Georgia
That Afternoon
Lang supposed others might find the ritual macabre, but he really didn't care. He rarely left the country without coming here to the oak-shaded knoll where three marble stones faced a city skyline already blurred by summer's smog. He was never sure if the trip to say good-bye again to the three people he had so loved was a habit or some ritual to ensure a safe journey.
It didn't matter; he came.
Dawn, his wife; Janice, his sister; and Jeff, her adopted son and Lang's best ten-year-old buddy. There had been times when the tears flowed on a daily basis at the thought of his wife dying as she was devoured by cancer, or of the murderous explosion that had taken the other two. Now there was a certain peace to be had here among the silent inhabitants, a few moments to think without intrusion. It was the only place where he was immune to the demands of his profession and those of the foundation.
There had been a time when the two newer graves had commanded him to seek out an organization of killers. He had known he would know no rest until he did.
Beside two of the headstones he had placed the customary dozen roses like sacrifices on a pagan altar. By Jeff's marker were sunflowers. The kid had been fascinated by the gold petals around a face as brown as his own. It had never occurred to Lang that they would serve as Jeff's funerary decoration.
He sat On the dry grass, momentarily thinking of the uncertainties that constituted life. He watched an elderly woman in black lean on a cane as she hobbled up the hill followed by a chauffeur carrying gardening tools. He guessed she was headed for the azalea bushes a few plots over.
He stayed a few more minutes, until the clacking of hedge clippers and the woman's voice reached him. Then he stood, facing the three stones, saying farewell to the only family he had had. He turned and walked down the gentle slope where the Porsche waited on the narrow curving road.
He swiveled his head for a last look up the hill before he drove away.
ELEVEN
Brussels International Airport
Zaventem, Belgium
The Next Morning
Lang Reilly stretched and yawned as he sat up on the double bed in the main suite of the foundation's Gulfstream IV. Despite a dinner served on fine china along with a bottle of a fine old Bordeaux, despite a first-run comedy on DVD for after-dining entertainment and several brandies, he doubted he had had two hours of sleep. Lang simply did not sleep well on airplanes. The time when the very spooling up of engines lulled him had been replaced by an irrational fear of not having control of his environment. He had told himself the odds were better of being crushed in the Porsche by an SUV-driving, cell phone-talking soccer mom than of dying in the finest private jet yet produced, equipped with the most modern avionics.
Still, his stubborn phobia whispered, flying was an unnatural act.
Like submitting to a colonoscopy.
His irrational and rational minds had battled the issue while he tossed and turned. They had reached a temporary truce only minutes away from the destination.
Pulling aside the curtain over the bedroom's window, Lang saw a huge arched glass structure. Concourses extended both left and right, half of which were suckling aircraft from a potpourri of nations.
"We'll be at customs in about five minutes, Mr. Reilly." The pilot's tinny voice echoed through the plane's speaker system.
Lang scrambled into the tiny head and squeezed into the shower. He was tying his shoes when the twin Pratt & Whitneys whined down and stopped.
He could have taken a commercial carrier at considerably less expense. Considerably less privacy, too. It took little talent to hack into the airlines' reservations systems and ascertain the arrival time and destination of a flight. Although the same could be done with the flight plans of private aircraft, the task could be complicated by filing a separate plan for multiple legs of the journey, exactly why Lang had insisted on intermediate stops in New York and London, even though the Gulfstream was capable of making the trip nonstop.
There was also the matter of metal detectors, devices the SIG Sauer P226 would not pass through unnoticed. He was here to investigate the circumstances of one of two likely related murders. Being armed seemed only prudent. He jacked the action open, verifying there was a shell in the chamber, and released the clip to assure it was full, giving him a total of thirteen nine-millimeter parabellum bullets. He made sure the safety was on, pocketed two additional magazines, and stuffed the automatic into a holster on the back of his belt and covered it with a light windbreaker.
Next he stepped back into the head. He slid to his right the mirror over the aluminum sink, revealing a shallow hiding place. He took out a stack of hundred-euro bills and counted out ten before replacing the remaining money and easing the glass back into place. He stuffed the cash into a pocket.
Looking out of the window again, Lang noted wet tarmac and a steady drizzle beading on the Plexiglas. The aircraft's clamshell doors sighed open as an official car pulled up. Lang knew the crew would offer coffee and breakfast pastries to the customs officers, giving him slightly more time to get dressed than he needed.
After a brief greeting in his halting French to the two uniformed inspectors, Lang had his passport stamped, and deplaned while the arrival paperwork was being finished by the crew. His single bag would be delivered to his hotel.
At the bottom of the stairs a long, black, customized Mercedes waited, its exhaust pluming in the chilly air. It was the car the foundation used to meet VIPs. With tinted windows and a roll-up glass partition between the driver's position and the six passenger seats, it assured the privacy desirable for meetings en route to meetings.
It also would have been at home at a Mafia funeral.
Once headed southwest into the city, Lang let the metronome-like windshield wipers lull him into near sleep. Through half-closed eyes he noted street signs in both French and Flemish. The northern, Flemish part of the country had its linguistic and cultural roots in the nearby Netherlands and Germany, while the southern Walloons were similarly connected to France. In 1962 the country legally recognized what had been true for centuries and officially made Belgium linguistically schizophrenic. French was still the tongue of Brussels, however, rather than the guttural, consonant-rich Flemish.
The clutter surrounding the airport thinned, and the Mercedes accelerated smoothly to a speed Lang was certain exceeded whatever applicable limit was in place. He watched the countryside roll by with near-hypnotic sameness. Its flat character had been both blessing and curse: easy and rich to cultivate but an ideal invasion route between the sea and the rolling hills of the Ardennes since Roman times. Nearby, Wellington had vanquished Napoleon for the final time, and the German army had passed through twice to attack France in the first half of the last century.
Lang suddenly became fully awake.
The airport was less than ten miles from town, yet he saw little but fields and shallow farm canals.
He leaned forward to tap on the glass. "Excuse me, but I'm staying in the Lower Town. In the city."
If the driver heard, he paid no attention.
Lang pushed the button that lowered the glass.
Nothing happened.
He tested one of the doors. The handle was frozen.
Locked.
He had made the mistake that had doomed more than one employee of the Agency: He had assumed. He had assumed that the car and driver were both sent by the foundation. There was little doubt the car was the same. But who was driving?
His hand touched the butt of the SIG Sauer in its holster. Even though the glass wasn't bulletproof, shooting the driver of a car hurtling along at nearly a hundred miles an hour did not seem wise. There was little to do but sit back, even if he was unlikely to enjoy the ride.
Twenty minutes later the car decelerated and exited the four-lane for a narrow farm road. It slowed even more before turning onto a rutted dirt path. There were buildings half a mile away. Cows grazed in a pasture, oblivious to the misting rain. Had it not been for a picture-postcard windmill, the scene could have come from rural America.
The Mercedes stopped in front of a small structure of gray limestone. Lang guessed it was a dwelling. The driver got out and trotted inside, leaving Lang in the car.
He did not have to wait long. The driver and two burly men carrying weapons approached. As they got closer, Lang recognized the armament: Heckler & Koch MP5s, the A3 model with the folding stocks of metal rather than plastic. The banana clips carried thirty rounds. The weapon was an international favorite of police in hostage-rescue operations, where close-range accuracy was most desirable, although you really didn't have to be a marksman to hit your target if you didn't care who or what else got shot. With firepower of over eight hundred nine-millimeter parabellum rounds a minute, those guns could fill a fairly large space with a lot of lead.
The newcomers positioned themselves on either side of the car. Mid-thirties, lean, tanned, short hair. The way they maintained their spacing and carried their weapons with familiar ease told Lang they were not amateurs but had had military training somewhere along the line.
The driver leaned over so his face was even with the passenger window. "Please show us your hands, Mr. Reilly."
The English was accentless.
Reilly held up one hand, middle finger extended. "Please tell me what the hell this is all about."
Unruffled, the chauffeur tried again. "All will be explained once we're inside."
"Tell whoever's in there to come out here where I can see him."
"You are not in a position to argue, Mr, Reilly. Someone wants a few words with you, and then you'll be taken to your hotel."
Lang nodded. "I suppose you're going to give me a bank-certified guarantee of that, right?"
Although Lang couldn't hear it, the driver looked like he sighed. "There is no reason to be difficult, Mr. Reilly. We wish you no harm."
"Right. The H and Ks are to protect me from the cows over there. Tell your two playmates to take the clips out of those weapons, eject the one in the chamber, and toss them away. HI feel a lot more like conversation."
The driver grimaced."We can certainly wait, Mr. Reilly"
"But you're not going to. Sooner or later my people will figure out I haven't arrived at the hotel. Or that the car that was supposed to pick me up has disappeared. How many of these customized Benzes are around? You want to waft while the police start questioning possible witnesses, put a picture of the car on TV? No, I don't think so."
The driver said nothing. He turned on his heel and jogged back inside.
Moments later he returned, his mouth a determined line.
"Mr. Reilly, you can either get out or my orders are to forcibly remove you."
Without moving his head, Lang surveyed his situation. A man armed with an automatic weapon on either side of the car, the driver at the door to his left. No way to un- holster the SIG Sauer, let alone use it before those two weapons filled the passenger compartment with lead. He stretched slightly to see over the back of the front seat. The driver had taken the keys out of the ignition. Even if he could somehow get into the driver's seat, he'd be no better off.
No way... unless...
He smiled and shrugged, speaking up to be heard through the window. "Not much I can do. You've got the door locked, remember?"
The driver reached into his pocket, and there was an electronic squawk as the lock popped open.
Lang lunged for the door, grabbed the handle, and pulled.
Perplexed, the driver gave into his natural reflex to pull the opposite way. The door opened a crack and closed, a tug-of-war of sheet metal.
Just as the other leaned backward to pull, Lang slammed his full weight forward, throwing the door open and smacking the driver squarely. He stumbled back as Lang lunged out of the car and on top of him. Grabbing the man by the collar with one hand, he pressed the SIG Sauer against his head with the other.
The two men with machine guns raised their weapons uncertainly.
"One of you so much as wiggles his ears and he dies!"
Neither seemed willing to take that responsibility.
Still pressing the automatic against the man's head, Lang released his grip on the collar to search the man's pants pockets. Gratified when his fingers closed around the car's key, he pulled it loose.
Keeping his hostage in tow, Lang used him as a shield against one gunman and kept the Mercedes between him and the other as he backed slowly toward the car. He reached the hand that didn't have the gun in it behind him and opened the driver's door.
He was bending to slide into the seat when a yell came from the house. He didn't understand the words but the intent was clear.
There was a short, staccato burst of gunfire. Lang felt a tug at the sleeve of his jacket, and the driver pitched forward with a grunt.
Had the driver not been there to block the bullets, it would have been Lang lying on the ground.
So much for intending no harm.
The nearest man with the H and K was lowering his weapon for another burst. Lang fired two quick shots, more to distract than to kill, and leaped into the car, slamming the door behind him.
He jammed the key into the ignition and turned, ducking a shower of glass pebbles that an instant before had been the driver's window. He jammed the shift lever into drive and floored the accelerator.
The big car fishtailed, caught traction, and lunged ahead as the rear window went opaque in a spiderweb of safety glass.
As soon as Lang reached the four-lane highway, he checked the rearview mirror. He was not surprised to see a black car approaching fast. In seconds he could recognize it as a Land Rover, smaller than the custom job he was driving and, quite likely, faster.
Any doubt as to relative speeds evaporated as he floored the gas pedal and still the pursuing car gained on him.
If his vehicle was speed-handicapped by its size and weight, perhaps he could use those features to his advantage. Lang lifted his foot slightly.
As anticipated, the Land Rover pulled into the left lane, its occupants no doubt intending to spray him with gunfire as they drew even.
Lang looked back at the road, aware that he was going to get exactly one chance.
At least, in this lifetime.
The Land Rover behind had closed to slightly more than a single car length. Lang cut in front, the move of a man desperately trying to avoid what was inevitable.
He passed a Peugeot, pulling slightly ahead and blocking the Land Rover behind him. Driving in the left lane was illegal on European superhighways, a rule more uniformly enforced than speed limits. It was also frequently fatal.
He could see the Peugeot's perplexed driver in the mirror. Either the man was unwilling to share the road with a maniac or he had reached his destination. He took the next exit, leaving Lang alone with his pursuers.
Before Lang could return to the right lane, the car behind him pulled into the empty slot. The men in it preferred to force Lang to fire his weapon across the seat, if, in fact, he had a chance to fire at all before they did.
Lang backed off the accelerator, letting the Land Rover draw almost even before touching the brake. Before the driver of the Land Rover realized what had happened, it had shot past.
&n
bsp; Lang sped up as the Land Rover slowed, trying to recover the best position for a shot.
As in the police chases on any American city's local news at six o'clock, Lang nudged the left rear of the Land Rover with the Mercedes's front right bumper.
The high center of gravity of the sport-utility vehicle combined with the wet surface and the German car's weight to break the adhesion between the tires of the Land Rover and the road. The British car began a slow but uncontrollable counterclockwise spin down the highway.
Lang tapped his brakes and watched the other car smash into the steel Armco barrier dividing the road.
He passed just as two dazed men were fighting ballooned air bags to climb out. He gave a cheery honk of the horn, noted the license plate, and headed back to Brussels.
TWELVE
Rue des Bouchers
Brussels, Belgium
Two Hours Later
Lang had returned the scarred Mercedes to the foundation's garage. The attendant gaped at what were obvious bullet holes. The man was staring openmouthed, too fascinated to notice as Lang dropped the keys into his hand.
"In America," Lang said, "we call it road rage."
From there he walked to the offices on the flamboyant Grand Place, the geographic, historical, and commercial center of the city. Surrounded by elaborate seventeenth- century architecture, it housed statues of saints and busts of a ducal line peering from their lofty niches high above the bustling cobblestone square. The Hotel de Ville, city hall, with its fourteenth-century spire, competed for attention with the former palace of Belgium's Spanish monarchs.
Lang entered Le Pigeon, former residence of Victor Hugo during his exile from France. The grand old building had been converted into commercial space long ago.
Louis deVille dropped the telephone when Lang walked into his office. "Monsieur Reilly!"
He came around the desk to clasp Lang with both hands. He was about to kiss him on each cheek when he recalled Lang's opinion of the traditional French greeting.