by Gregg Loomis
"That's better," the man beside him said. "Now you will come with us."
"My mama told me never to go with strangers," Lang said, not moving.
Stall. Stall for time; stall for opportunity. Basic Agency training years ago. These people had demonstrated what they would do given the chance. Let time pass and watch for a break.
If it didn't arrive soon, though, he was in deep shit.
Getting into a vehicle with them or walking to some dark alley was like driving his own hearse.
"We only want answers to a few questions," the man said amiably. "That is all."
"You'll forgive me if I choose to stay here." Lang was trying not to be obvious as he searched the square for a cop, one of the olive-drab uniforms of the Polizei. No doubt they were all busy handing out parking tickets.
"We can go peacefully or forcibly. I fear I cannot be responsible if you anger my comrades by being uncooperative."
Lang shifted and put his hand in a pocket. "Try another bluff. You're no more going to drag me off kicking and screaming in front of all those people than you're gonna jump over the church there."
He was touching the BlackBerry, trying to remember...
The man beside him sighed and nodded to one of his comrades. The second man's hand came out of a pocket. Something twinkled briefly, something ... like a hypodermic needle. "If you insist..."
One-three-three! One-three-three was the police emergency number in Vienna. Lang hoped his touch was not betraying him, that he was pushing the right keys. He thumbed the thing to silent, fearful these men might hear its dial tone and guess what he was doing.
"I'm highly allergic to a lot of medication. If that kills me, you'll never get your answers."
Stall, delay.
"A risk I fear we'll have to take." He nodded to the man with the needle to proceed.
Lang stood, edging toward the center of the square. "C'mon, man. I hate needles. Surely we can do something. ..."
One of the men standing shoved him roughly back onto the bench! The man with the needle held it up, squirting silver liquid into the air to make sure there were no bubbles.
Lang took small comfort from the precaution. They weren't going to kill him right now, right here.
Lang had run out of stall tactics. "Look, I'll come along; just put that thing away."
He never knew if the local cops had the world's quickest response time or he was just lucky. A pair of white BMW motorcycles rounded the church, heading slowly toward them. Flashing blue lights reflected from the cobblestones.
The man next to Lang muttered something Lang understood only as unlikely to be a blessing, and stood. "Nothing funny, now, Mr. Reilly. My men are armed and have no problem dealing with the police. Unless you want to get innocent people hurt, you will let me speak."
Lang was certainly attentive to the safety of the ever "innocent" people, but even more so to his own welfare. If he was going to make a move, now was the time.
He rose slowly, as though to meet the approaching officers. He still had the beer bottle in hand. The instant the man beside him shifted his gaze to the oncoming motorcycles, Lang jerked erect, smashing the glass on the edge of the bench.
The man in the windbreaker saw what was coming and tried to raise his weapon. With his empty hand Lang shoved the gun's muzzle down while his other brought the jagged stump of the bottle up in a slashing motion.
The man screamed, the gun dropping as he threw both hands to his face to stanch a river of blood from shredded cheeks and nose.
Lang was certain he had seen teeth through the ripped flesh.
Lang scooped up the dropped weapon and threw himself over the bench. Something tugged at his sleeve as he heard the coughs of sound-suppressed weapons followed by shouts in German.
More sputters, two loud shots, and the clatter of motorcycles falling onto the street.
By now Lang was at the edge of the square's light. A brief glance over his shoulder showed two policemen sprawled beside their bikes and two men headed straight for him.
He did not take the time to place the one he had attacked. The man would be hors de combat for some time.
Lang sprinted into the darkness, the sound of footsteps in his ears.
In his hurry he was aware only that he was running in an easterly direction. The white walls of the Hofburg Complex, the area of palaces of Austria's nobility—now largely offices, embassies, and fashionable apartments— as well as the Stallburg, once a royal residence, home to the Spanish Riding School.
He was walking now, the hand with the gun in it under his jacket as he looked over his shoulder. A brief glance told him he was on Kohl Markt, which, he could see, dead-ended into a small platz in front of a domed building he recognized from the neoclassic facade as the Michaelerkirche, the Hapsburgs' parish church.
One of the city's main streets should be only a block or so to his left, an avenue that, even at this hour, would be crowded enough for him to disappear among the evening's diners and strollers.
The thought had barely formed when his two pursuers emerged from the shadows, one on his left, the other to his right.
There was nothing in front but the church.
THIRTY
Sonnenfelsgasse 39
Vienna
At the Same Time
Dr. Heimlich Shaffer had lived in the second-floor walk-up behind the Academy of Sciences since his divorce eight years ago. He loved the wandering, narrow streets of the Old Town. The baroque sixteenth-century facades had a soul that was sadly lacking in the faux-Vienna Woods cottages of Nussdorf, where he and Analisa had raised their two children. He didn't miss the commute by crowded U Bahn into the city, either.
He had gotten the apartment cheap—he preferred inexpensively—when a colleague at the university had retired to somewhere in the Tyrol. Bedroom, bath, small kitchen and office, the formal living room. All his. His books, his computer with only his stuff on it, his bath with no drying panty hose dangling from the shower curtain like snakeskins.
His.
He supposed he was lonely from time to time, but his work was engaging, and he had to account to no one other than those who hired him.
Which reminded him—he hadn't asked the American
about his compensation for reading the translation of these remarkable documents spread before him. The dinner had been nice, but it was hardly going to pay next month's rent, no matter how enjoyable an alternative it had been to the snacklike meals he fixed for himself. The man, Reilly, surely didn't expect advice for free. That was hardly the purpose of maintaining the Web site in four languages. It Would be reasonable...
The buzzer for the street-level entrance to the building interrupted his thoughts A visitor? Unlikely. Shaffer's only visitors were his two children, and then only on occasional weekends. Someone pressing random buttons to gain entrance, then.
A year ago, thieves had gotten in this way and taken old Frau Schiller's TV set as well assorted valuables from other tenants. Some fool had pushed the button that let them in, expecting someone else. After that the landlord should have installed an intercom so residents could identify who was pressing the buzzer on the street.
The irritating noise sounded again as he got up and checked the locks on his door.
Secure.
He was returning to his reading when the annoying sound came again.
Ignore it.
But what if it were the American with more questions? He would call, though, wouldn't he?
The damned buzzer rasped again.
Reilly or thieves?
No matter. The door onto the street was heavy oak, and he wouldn't open it all the way, just peek around to see who was causing all that racket.
THITY-ONE
Michaelerplatz
Vienna
Minutes Later
There was no place to go but the church.
The main doors were closed, no doubt locked at this hour. To the right was a smaller one, one Lang hoped was kept op
en for parishioners with late-night spiritual needs. A dash across the small platz, a snatch on a brass handle, and he was inside.
The interior was dimly lit. The tumbling cherubs and sunbursts of the ornately carved choir loft threw sinister shadows, and the figures of the Renaissance frescoes of the fall of the angels were only malevolent hints of human figures.
Something about this church prowled the fringes of his memory, something from his last visit to Vienna years ago....
No time for a senior moment.
He turned to the door through which he had entered and lifted his eyes in thanks for a bit of luck: The entrance had both latch and dead bolt. He lowered the latch and strode quickly the length of the nave.
What was it about the Michaelerkirche?
The rattling of the locked door was followed by the thumps of silenced bullets. The old hinges wouldn't withstand an assault of that magnitude long. The whole door would fall into the entrance in seconds.
The sight of an iron railing to the right of the baroque altar sparked a memory to life. Now he recalled what he had known about this church.
In a second he was descending into the crypt. A very special crypt.
At the bottom of the stairs he ducked his head and shut an all too flimsy gate behind him.
The light from the single low-watt bulb overhead was swallowed by the uniform grayness. Gray bones were stacked in gray arches like gray firewood, the stump of a single candle melted on each brick ledge. Tibias, ribs, femurs, humeri, all clinically arranged by type. To his left he was observed by the empty sockets of countless skulls stacked in their niches like some pagan display.
Wooden caskets, gray with age, were in neat rows across the floor. Some had come open, displaying their occupants in gray funeral finery. A grinning mummy's face above a gray vest or lace collar, flesh-covered arms across the breast of a gray burial dress. A nightmare's bounty of corpses that had been entombed under the church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and been preserved by a freak of nature: the constant temperature and dry air of this particular crypt.
Footsteps in the church overhead.
Lang glanced around and made one of the more macabre choices of his life. Moving to the edge of the light, he chose a coffin just beyond the overhead lighting's penumbra. He hoped the protesting shriek of old hand-forged nails being pried loose wasn't as loud as it seemed to him.
The corpse he dispossessed grinned up at him, black eye sockets still rimmed with bushy brows, now gray. The face had gray skin stretched over it, much like the pictures of Egyptian mummies unwrapped after millennia.
Lang dumped him on the gray stone floor. "Sorry, old pal, but unless I'm gonna join you sooner than I'd like, I need this more than you."
He could hear someone tugging at the gate.
He rolled the former occupant behind another casket, arms and legs seeming to disintegrate into dust as it moved.
He had time only to grasp in both hands the weapon he had taken before squeezing into the confines of the coffin. Although the weight of the gun should have prepared him, he was surprised to note he was holding another IMI Desert Eagle, identical to the one held by the intruder in Jacob's office.
Whispers at the head of the stairs told him he didn't have the time to consider the significance of his discovery, only to make sure a round was in the chamber and the safety was off. He had chosen the largest box he could find, but he couldn't straighten out his legs. No time to look for another. The best he could do was to turn the casket on its side so only the bottom was visible from the direction of the gate.
He hoped he didn't have to wait long. He thought he could see small, furtive shapes scooting along the gray floor. He could hear gentle scurrying and the occasional squeak of rats that had not feasted on a new body in two hundred years.
He heard a whispered conversation, then slow footsteps down the stone stairs.
Lang twisted his head as far as possible, giving him a limited view through a crack between the planks of the casket.
One man, gun with bulbous silencer in hand, was carefully picking his way in front of a bone-filled arch. From his constant glances to his left, Lang was certain his companion was across the room, if out of view They were setting up a cross fire. If Lang had entertained doubts he was dealing with professionals, he no longer did.
At some point they would be at the row of coffins where Lang was concealed. His protruding knees would give him away. Better to use whatever bit of surprise he could, to make his move.
Then his BlackBerry beeped.
THIRTY-TWO
Sonnenfelsgasse 39
Vienna
At the Same Time
Adel Schiller thought at first that she had left her television on, the new color model that had replaced the old black-and-white stolen last year. She had been watching an American film when she had dozed off. Sometime later she had woken up, seen the movie was over, and gone to bed.
Then something had awakened her again.
The TV?
Slipping blue-veined feet into the furry slippers her grandchildren had given her this past Christmas, she pushed the covers aside. A longhaired dachshund hopped to the floor from the foot of the bed. Ignoring Fritzie's growl of displeasure at being disturbed, she stepped into the small living room. No, the television was off. Something else had awakened her.
With a clatter of hardware she undid the three chain locks and single dead bolt on her door and peered into the hall through the narrowest of cracks. She wasn't nosy, of course, didn't really care what her neighbors did, but after being robbed it simply made sense to know what was going on around her. That was why she peeped out into the hall every time she heard the door downstairs open, just for her own safety.
Oh, she had learned that Frau Grafner on the floor above had occasional visitors, all-night visitors, when Herr Grafner was out of town. That might have been the reason for the horrible fight she had heard right from this same doorway. And then there was that nice young man, Manfred Kellner, the one who always spoke to her. At least, she had thought he was a nice young man until she had stood at this very door and seen him kiss another young man leaving his apartment one morning!
But neither the Grafners nor Kellner had her interest at the moment. Instead, two men she had never seen before were standing in front of Herr Dr. Shaffer's door, using a key to get in. Dr. Shaffer never had guests. Oh, his Kinder paid infrequent visits on Sundays, but he never had night visitors. And even if he did, why didn't he let them in himself? She knew he was home, had seen him enter at an hour later than usual.
One of the men in the hall started to turn around, and she gently shut the door, puzzled. Where was Dr. Shaffer?
From Fritzie's low growl, he must be wondering, too.
THIRTY-THREE
Michaelerkirche
At the Same Time
The sound of the BlackBerry froze the two men, each turning his head like a wild animal trying to ascertain the source of a predator's scent.
The BlackBerry beeped again, the sound's origin difficult to determine in the confines of the crypt.
A third beep would surely give Lang away, as would any movement to turn the infernal thing off.
He had no choice.
Move now!
He rolled out of the coffin, the heavy Desert Eagle in both hands. He extended both arms, locking elbows against the anticipated recoil, and fired.
The silencer still on his weapon spared Lang's ears the concussive roar of a large weapon in confined space. Instead there were two spitting sounds. The man on his left flinched as a skull next to his head exploded like a hand grenade, sending fragments into his face and neck. He yelped in pain and surprise as he turned to bring his pistol to bear.
Long-past Agency training slipped into place as comfortably as an old shoe. Lang made himself forget the man on his right for an instant, ignore his own exposure as he looked down the muzzle of his adversary's pistol wavering under the weight of the silencer.
/> Although Lang rationally knew he was acting in split seconds, it seemed to take forever to place the stubby sight of his own Desert Eagle on the target's belt buckle, where even a near-miss would take the man out of the fight.
He ignored another puff of a sound suppressor and the sting of brick fragments on his hands and cheek.
He squeezed off a shot, and the man on his left was screaming on the floor, a rivulet of blood coursing its way across old brick.
Lang thought he heard the damn BlackBerry buzz again as he rolled to his left just as there was another puff, and the coffin in which he had been hiding splintered.
The remaining man was not visible. There were more than enough places to hide, and he had chosen one of them, Lang guessed. On his belly he was using the rows of caskets for a shield as he crawled toward the only exit, his arms crossed commando-style.
He paused and listened, unsure whether he could hear anything among the muffling effect of wood and brick.
He could clearly make out the moans of the man he had shot.
He turned his head to glance over his shoulder. Would the weakening cries for help draw out the remaining gunman? Not if he were a professional.
Lang crawled on.
After what seemed an hour of scraping elbows on brick, Lang was at the foot of the stairs. He had little doubt his adversary was waiting for him to try to escape that way, to expose himself.
But how else was he going to get out of here?
Lang was next to one of the open caskets. Still flat on his stomach, he reached inside. What he touched felt more like leather than human skin. He probed until he found the head. A gentle tug of the hair was enough to pull it free from its long-desiccated body.
The head in his left hand, he rolled onto his back, avoiding looking at what he held. Instead he concentrated on carefully aiming the big pistol at the naked lightbulb overhead. One more whisper of a shot and his area of the crypt went dark.