by Gregg Loomis
Today the good father was clad not in the somber weeds of Mother Church, but in fire-engine-red slacks and a white golf shirt. A dazzling white smile split a face the color of midnight.
Lang sat across the table, waited for the building to quit shaking from the blast of a departing jet, and said, “Vestis viram facit.”
Both men considered themselves victims of a liberal arts education and enjoyed swapping Latin aphorisms.
“Ne supra crepidam sutor judicaret,” Francis replied, the smile becoming a grin. “Stick to what you know. It would be difficult to swing a club in my surplice.”
Lang glanced around. This was only the second or third time he had driven out here. “You’ve ventured far from your flock.”
“Ah, but not from the Lord.”
“God plays golf?”
“Who knows? But I hear him mentioned often on the course.”
“I suppose anyone is entitled to a little wasted time.”
Francis drained his glass and motioned to the sole waitress. “Wasted? I think not. I cajoled a pledge for a substantial contribution to the church’s literacy program from one of my golfing partners this morning. And I broke a hundred for the first time. Am I great or what? Look out, Tiger Woods.”
The waitress refilled Francis’s glass from a pitcher of tea. Lang held up his glass, “Same, please. And I thought you guys took a pledge of humility.”
“The Benedictines, maybe. And I don’t see too many of them on the course. Guess those long cassocks get in the way.”
There was a pause for another window-rattling roar while both men studied the brief menu. Lang ordered the Cobb salad; Francis, a cheeseburger with fries. The priest’s weight never seemed to vary in spite of an appetite that would have quickly put 50 pounds on Lang.
“How do you do it?” Lang asked. “I mean, you stay trim no matter what you eat?”
Francis was munching on the buttered, toasted saltines that were the club’s hors d’ oeuvres. “Exercise. Like playing golf.”
Lang conducted an hour-and-a-half workout three times weekly including weight machines and stationary bikes. “You walk around with a caddy carrying your clubs, hit the ball, walk some more. Don’t even tote your own clubs. How is that exercise?”
Francis rubbed his flat belly with one hand while reaching for another cracker. “Exitus acta probat.”
“The result validates the means, I know . . .”
A sound, conceivably a tune, interrupted.
“What’s that?” Francis asked.
“My iPhone.” Lang held it up. “Helluva lot easier to use than the old Blackberry. I understand that an organization that refuses to acknowledge divorce is so stuck in medieval theology that a cell phone might seem extraordinary . . .”
Francis leaned back in his chair. “Ah, my heretical friend, have you not heard? The Holy Father himself texts, tweets, and is on Facebook. If I recall correctly, you do none of the above, relying on outdated means such as e-mail. I meant what was the tune?”
Lang stood. “Tweets? What, that he’d like to sleep in on Sundays? And for your information, the ‘tune’ was an electronic reproduction of Chattanooga Choo Choo. Glenn Miller doesn’t translate so well. Electronics haven’t progressed enough for one of these devices to sound like the trombone section of his orchestra.”
Cell phones were prohibited on club property, a rule observed largely in the breach. Even so, good manners required that Lang not subject his fellow diners to his conversations. It took him only a few steps to be outside.
He recognized Dr. Walsh’s number on the screen. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”
There was a deafening roar.
As it diminished into the distance, Walsh’s voice was raised. “Where the hell are you, at a NASCAR race?” The stock cars would have been a lullaby by comparison.
“Too close to the airport. What’s up?”
“I need to see you as soon as possible.”
“Can it wait an hour or so? I’m at lunch.”
“Got a conference. I’ll be here all tomorrow afternoon.”
Lang returned to see Francis slathering ketchup on a cheeseburger surrounded by a mountain of French fries. He sighed as he sat down to his Cobb salad. “We were saying?”
“That you should try golf”
“Why not?”
“You’ll do it?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
It was a promise Lang would come to regret.
CHAPTER 7
Trabzon, Turkey
Hasttahane Cocuk (Children’s Hospital)
The Next Day (Eight hours ahead of EDT)
From noon forward, Fatima’s day had slipped by like one of those film sequences where the actors’ images are sped up to give the illusion of the passage of time. Right after lunch, there had been two admissions from the same village, both of whom she initially diagnosed as typhoid. Small wonder, since the populace’s drinking water came from upstream where sheep and goats grazed, likely polluting the small creek. The unsanitary conditions were known, but what were the people to do? Digging a well through the hard mountain rock would require more money than the entire settlement would see in a decade.
She had just finished e-mailing a report to the public health authorities in Ankara when a flurry of nurses shouted to her as they passed her open office door. A busload of schoolchildren had run off a narrow mountain road. Casualties were expected to start arriving any moment. Fortunately, almost all the victims were more frightened than seriously injured. Scrapes, bruises, a few broken bones. Incredibly, no fatalities or life-threatening injuries.
She remembered hearing the electronically enhanced voices of the Muezzin from the minarets of two nearby mosques announcing the Maghrib, sunset, call to prayer, before the last tear was wiped away, the last bandage applied, the last grateful parent called.
Fatima was not a particularly religious person, but like most residents of Islamic countries, the calls to prayer divided her days into five measurable sections. The early, predawn Faji, when she rolled over in bed to hug a sleepy Aydin; Duhur, shortly after noon, usually while she was gulping down a hasty lunch at her desk; Asr, late afternoon, a reminder to begin afternoon rounds; Maghrin, on most days a signal to start wrapping up the day’s activities; and Icha, historically at bedtime. But in today’s life with cinema, TV, and other entertainments, this latter was usually observed, if at all, as most families were finishing dinner.
She looked at her watch. Closer to Icha than Maghrib. Aydin would be calling her cell phone any minute. It would be too late to cook by the time she got home. No chance Aydin could prepare anything. She smiled, remembering the last time he had tried. He might be a skilled architect, but even boiling water was an invitation to disaster in the kitchen. No, she would call suggesting they go out.
But first, Emre. Had he sent that unexplainable report to Dr. Walsh in the States? She hadn’t spoken with Emre in a couple of days, and, based on prior experience, the man might well have forgotten. She reached for the telephone on her desk, then drew back her hand. No, she’d go in person. She stood, looked around her small office, and shut the door as she left.
She paused in front of twin elevator doors before choosing the stairs. Her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the tiled floor, she walked briskly to the door of the lab, which was uncharacteristically closed.
Her first impression was that Emre had drifted off to sleep. His head rested on a lab table, his face away from her. The inevitable pack of Murad cigarettes were only centimeters away. But what an uncomfortable position, his arms dangling toward the floor rather than cushioning his head.
“Emre?”
Fatima crossed the room and shook a shoulder gently. “Emre?”
No response.
What happened next would be replayed in her nightmares with news-reel clarity for the rest of her life: she shook him again, this time none too gently. Limp as a rag doll, he rolled over onto the floor. Lifeless eyes seemed to look straight through h
er.
It never occurred to Fatima to scream or do any of the things the women in the cinema did in similar circumstances. Her medical training took over like an aircraft’s autopilot. Kneeling, she felt for a pulse and, finding none, placed a hand on the carotid artery. Nothing. The skin, though, was only slightly cooler than normal.
Emre had been alive only a few minutes ago.
But, what . . .?
The hand that had touched the junction of jaw and neck was wet. She stared dumbly at the smear of red, recognizing but not understanding what she was seeing. Slowly, hesitantly, she turned the head to one side. Had she not been looking for it, she would not have noticed the wet spot in the luxurious dark hair. A small hole. Always surprising how little a non-facial head wound bled.
Gently, she lowered Emre’s head to the floor and stood. Only the pain made her aware she was biting her lower lip, not to stifle a scream but to staunch the tears that were blurring her vision. She must call the police, of course. Watering eyes searched for the telephone before her addled mind recalled its location.
She took a step toward the plain metal desk and stopped. The file cabinet was open, papers scattered around it. While Emre was less than fastidious about his personal appearance, or, for that matter, his laboratory or office, he was obsessively meticulous when it came to files and records. The file cabinet always displayed a military-like order that bore no relationship to the rest of his life.
Emre had not left this disorder.
Fatima looked around the lab, almost expecting to see an assassin, before approaching the metal, four-drawer cabinet. Yes, she knew she should summon the police. Yes, she knew she might be tampering with a crime scene. But she was drawn to look in the file cabinet by a compulsion as strong as any addict’s.
She was never able to explain to herself why she was not surprised that Baris’s file containing the hematology report, Emre’s notes, and any report he may have sent Dr. Walsh were missing.
She stood by the file cabinet a moment, thinking. She was fully aware that every second she delayed in summoning the authorities gave Emre’s killer that much more time to escape. The warmth of the body indicated she might have found the victim while the perpetrator was still in the building.
Still, there was something . . .
Two steps took her to the desk. She pulled open the top left drawer, thumbed through its contents, and closed it. The one below yielded what she was looking for: a stack of red and yellow DHL shipping receipts. The one on top was addressed to a Simon Walsh, care of the Janet and Jeff Holt Foundation. A package. Emre had wasted no time in sending the sample, otherwise he would not have used an express company instead of simply a report that would have been easier to send by e-mail.
She scanned the receipt. Overnight air. Nearly a hundred new Turkish lira. There was only one thing Emre would have sent Dr. Walsh that needed overnight air: bags of ice surrounding a blood sample.
She stuffed the receipt into a pocket of her lab coat and went back to the desk and telephone. By the time she reached it, she could no longer suppress the sobs that convulsed her.
CHAPTER 8
Janet and Jeff Holt Foundation
1527 Clifton Road
Atlanta, Georgia
1:27 P.M. Local Time
The Same Day
Dr. Simon Walsh Dressed more like a businessman than a physician. And justly so, Lang thought as he settled into one of a pair of contemporary chairs. The day-to-day operation of an international multibillion-dollar charity required acumen taught in few business schools and no medical colleges.
Years ago, Lang realized he had neither the time nor the ability to manage the burgeoning Foundation. He had conducted a nationwide search of hospital administrators, officers of eleemosynary institutions, and those who had experience in operating government programs. The Foundation’s endowment was increasing faster than he alone could apply the funds, funds supplied annually pursuant to an agreement he had made with one of the world’s wealthiest and most secretive organizations as compensation for the death of his sister and adopted nephew.
During the interview, Walsh had been one of only two or three candidates to get the clear, if unspoken, message that the source of the Foundation’s funding was not now, nor would it become, of interest to the person who became its COO.
Walsh sat in a hideous ergonomic office chair bristling with levers and buttons. It could well have come from the bridge of the starship Enterprise. In front of him was a matching ergonomic desk. As though to emphasize the doctor’s commitment to all things modern, two matching globs of paint hung in their stainless steel frames facing the desk. Lang understood the purported value of comfortable work space furniture, but at the price of a visual assault?
Walsh could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. Salt and pepper hair brushed over ear tops, a face with a perpetual tan, and brilliant white teeth he flashed at every opportunity. The hourglass shape of the jacket of his Italian tailored suit suggested a figure of a man who, as far as Lang could tell, had neither gained nor lost a pound in the five years he had known him. In short, Simon Walsh looked like either a movie star or a politician.
Behind Walsh was the modern glass front of the building through which Lang could see the facade of Emory University Hospital and its main pedestrian entrance that resembled a Roman palazzo far more than a medical facility. Atlanta and environs were dotted with Italian facades, most attributable to the city’s premier architect, Phillip Shutze, whose early twentieth-century work reflected his admiration for all things Italian. The small, hedge-lined piazza reinforced the impression of the Eternal City. A pity, in many ways, Lang thought, since few entered a hospital through its front doors anymore.
Lang sank into a chair shaped more like a human hand on rollers than furniture.
“I appreciate your coming on such short notice,” Walsh said. “I know you stay busy.” He favored Lang with a glimpse of pearly whites. “Defending the rich and powerful from otherwise certain justice, no doubt.”
Lang nodded in acknowledgement of the hoary line. “Better than the poor and meek. The rich and powerful pay better. But there’s nothing more important than the Foundation, Doc. Short of being in court, I can make the time.”
Walsh produced an envelope from somewhere. The desk had no drawers. “I received this along with a blood sample from our pediatric hospital in Trabzon.”
“Trabzon?”
“Turkey. On the coast of the Black Sea. The Foundation opened there just five or six years ago. You flew to Los Angeles to personally interview the person who is now the director, a Dr. Fatima Aksoy . . .”
Long dark hair surrounding a rather pretty oval face, intelligent brown eyes. The memory came rushing back. Lang had had initial doubts about hiring a female to run a hospital in a Moslem country. He had been more interested in a smooth operation than social justice.
“She is the best qualified?” Gurt had asked the evening he returned from the West Coast.
Lang had admitted she was. “But I’m more interested in providing care for children than sticking my thumb in the eyes of a bunch of Neanderthals who believe women should be confined to having babies and keeping house.”
Gurt had put down her sweating glass of Riesling. She preferred her homeland’s sweet wine to anything that came out of California. “You remember our trip to Istanbul?”
There was a vague threat in the question, though Lang couldn’t see what. “Sure. We went out to Prince’s Island and . . .”
“Then, you recall Turkey is not Saudi Arabia. Women drive cars, wear fashionable clothing instead of bedsheets, even work for wages.”
Gurt’s stand on women’s rights would have made Susan B. Anthony seem a reactionary. Lang never understood why. Gurt had never been denied anything because of her sex. In fact, after winning the Agency’s women’s shooting competition, she insisted she have a chance for the overall trophy, which she won handily from some ego-deflated males. She was tops in women’s
martial arts, too. Again, she demanded to take on the men. After breaking the arm of her first male opponent, no others stepped forward.
No, there was no real reason for Gurt to be so fierce in her defense of what she perceived as women’s rights. But she was. Lang could have justifiably told her that selection of the chief of staff of the Children’s Hospital was his duty and his alone. He could have pointed out that he and he alone had the final say in such matters. He could have. He could have spent a week sleeping in the guest room, too.
“Mr. Reilly?”
Lang realized his thoughts had drifted off the center line, what Gurt referred to as “wool gathering.” “I’m sorry, Doc. A lot of things on my mind. You were saying you got something from Dr. Aksoy?”
“Not Aksoy, from the hospital’s hematologist. A report along with a blood sample.” Walsh tendered an envelope across the desk. “I sent the blood sample to the hospital’s hematology department since the Foundation doesn’t have one.”
Nor would it, Lang thought as he took the paper from its envelope. Modern charities, like government, had not been in the business of making money and therefore had grown like Georgia’s kudzu, without a thought to cost-effectiveness. Need a post office in a town of 200? Sure, build the sucker. The eleemosynary organization’s equipment not as bright and shiny as another’s? Modernize now, no matter the old machine worked just fine. Throwing money away, particularly other peoples’, could become addictive. Only the cold reality of the economics of the new century’s first recession had slowed the trend by eliminating a part of the taxes and contributions that financed extravagance.
Lang glanced at the paper, then leaned back, hands outstretched as though pushing off an invisible wall. “No, no. I can never understand the medical jargon. Tell me what it says in layman’s terms.”