by Gregg Loomis
“Not guilty,” Wipp finally managed.
The judge turned to the U.S. attorney. “Does the government have any reason not to continue Mr. Wipp’s bond until trial?”
The prosecutor half stood. “No, your honor,” he said reluctantly. Prosecutors hate the concept of an accused felon being on the street. Confinement is more conducive to accepting harsher settlements.
Sylvester was consulting the computer screen, which had become as common on judges’ benches as gavels. “Very well, then, gentlemen. I will expect all pre-trial motions filed on or before September one.” He frowned, shaking his head. “Make that the Tuesday after Labor Day.” He looked up and smiled. “Spending the holiday with my grandchildren at the lake.”
Lang and the government lawyer exchanged glances. It was the first hint either had had that the man on the bench had an existence outside the Federal Building. For that matter, it was the first time anyone recalled the man smiling.
“And we will have a telephone pre-trial discussion and commence trial the first Monday in October. Conflicts, gentlemen?”
The U.S. attorney stood, an old-fashioned notebook in one hand. BlackBerries, smartphones, and the like were strictly banned from the Federal Building. “Er, I have to be before the Eleventh Circuit that day, Your Honor.”
There is no scowl like that of a federal judge who feels his turf has been invaded. “How many prosecutors are there in the Atlanta Division of the Northern District, Mr. Roberts?”
“I’m not sure, Your Honor.”
“Take a guess.”
“Maybe a dozen?”
The judge nodded. “I’ll accept that. And any one of them can either be here or in the Eleventh Circuit on the first Monday of October. Mr. Reilly?”
Lang had planned to plead for a longer period in which to prepare what little case he had, but his opponent’s announcement had changed his mind. No lawyer, whether in private or government practice, feels entirely comfortable handing a case over to someone else. Victory belongs to the lawyer trying it; defeat is too often traced to the initial trial preparation and handling. Add to that the fact he knew the Eleventh Circuit case involved a search and seizure issue that was destined to wind up in the Supreme Court. Being the winning party below or even arguing the case in front of that tribunal had boosted the career of more than one U.S. Assistant Attorney.
In other words, Fred Roberts would be feeling the heat to settle this case.
“First Monday in October it is, Your Honor.”
“Anything else, gentlemen?”
With no reply from either side, Judge Sylvester was gone, disappeared behind the bench.
Lang and his client were alone in the elevator when the latter spoke. “I thought you were going to ask for an extension of the trial date. You said that the longer before trial I was free on bond, the better.”
“I did,” Lang admitted, before explaining his change of mind.
The elevator door hissed open and the two walked toward the bank of doors, past a mural resembling nothing more than a painter’s torn drop-cloth. Before being mounted on the wall, it had been mistakenly thrown out by the building’s janitorial crew, who combined zero sense of contemporary art with a very clear recognition of trash. At the front desk, both retrieved their cell phones.
“Do you think they’ll settle, then?” Wipp wanted to know.
Lang shrugged. “Ninety percent of criminal cases do, both state and federal. If either jurisdiction had to try even half the cases, the entire criminal justice system would collapse.”
If Wipp was comforted by that factoid, he didn’t show it. “Well, I guess it is the beingness of the being.”
Lang bit his lip rather than respond to that ESTism. Instead, he pushed open one of a row of glass doors. “Would offer you a ride but it’s such a nice day, I walked.”
The truth was, he always walked or took a cab. Parking for the Federal Building was not a good idea. The site had once been occupied by Atlanta’s Terminal Station, a vaguely Moorish structure built over no less than 20-some railroad tracks. Completed in 1905, the disappearance of rail passenger service, coupled with an attitude toward historical structures inherited from General Sherman, led to the demolition of the building in 1972.
The sleekly dull Federal Building replaced the Terminal but left a sub-surface hole known as The Gulch, home to street people who viewed the parking area as a source of opportunity for car break-ins, other petty crime, and panhandling.
No way was Lang going to entrust the Porsche to the Atlanta Police Force’s empty promises of patrolling the area.
He had hardly gone a block before a tinny rendition of Glenn Miller came from his iPhone. Modern wonders that such devices are, they are still dismal failures at replicating Miller’s trombone. He was surprised to see his secretary Sara’s name on the screen. She knew the Federal Court system did not allow any device that took photographs, which, in most cases, included cell phones.
“Yes, Sara?”
“Have you finished your hearing, the pleading of Mr. Wipp?”
Lang tasted bile from the bottom of his stomach. Although he knew the answer, he asked, “Why?”
“The check he gave you yesterday evening . . . The bank wasn’t open this morning before you had to leave for the court . . .”
Her tone was indignant.
“You mean the check we couldn’t verify until I was already in court? Not your fault, Sara. He swore he’d just gotten the money in time to bring a check before the close of business yesterday, no time to have it certified. It bounced when you presented it to the bank, right?”
“’Fraid so.”
Shit!
Bad check or not, judges, particularly those on the federal bench, were loath to release lawyers from representations of clients for whatever reasons for fear it might slow the speed of the all-important dockets. Lawyers, not the courts, were responsible for ensuring that their fees were collected. Taking on the black robes of the judiciary erased memories of the days when they, too, had been mere mortals, toiling for legal fees. Unless Lang could prevail on his client to make good on the check, a lot of his time was going to be unpaid.
And Wipp’s history of integrity, or lack thereof, would make a pessimist out of the most dedicated Pollyanna.
Oblivious to a beautiful early summer day, Lang trudged the mile back to his office in the blackest of moods.
CHAPTER 25
472 Lafayette Drive
Atlanta, Georgia
7:26 P.M. That Evening
Father Francis was annoyed he no longer felt entirely comfortable in his friends’ home. He supposed the all-too-clear memory of having a pistol stuck in one’s face could do that to you: make you justifiably nervous.
Everything seemed normal enough: the muted roar of engines as his and Manfred’s Formula One cars raced around the video game track, the glass of single malt scotch carefully placed on the low coffee table behind where he and the young boy sat on the floor violently pushing controls, the gently swaying clarinet of Artie Shaw’s Begin the Beguine from Lang’s collection of the big bands of the 30s, 40s, and 50s.
Best of all, the aroma of Gurt’s Rouladen baking in the oven. Flank steak rolled around onion, pickles, and thick strips of bacon, one of his favorite dishes from her native Germany. The thought of the savory meat washed down by an icy cold beer made him salivate.
Domestic tranquility at its best.
But he still felt just a bit ill at ease.
The red car flashed by a checkered flag waving in front of grandstands bulging with people.
“I win! I win!” Manfred was shouting in the glee only a seven-year-old can muster while pumping arms up and down as though standing in the Super Bowl’s end zone.
Grumps, stretched across the doorway to the kitchen, opened one eye long enough to assure himself nothing was amiss before resuming his snoring.
Lang had been observing the contest from the den’s leather couch. “Small triumph, Manfred. Your competition’s fueled
himself with scotch.”
Manfred turned to look at his father with the resentment of one deprived of rightful victory. “No fair! I didn’t ask him to drink that stuff!”
Grinning, Francis tousled the boy’s longish golden hair. “Of course you didn’t! Your dad is fooling with you.”
“Father Fancy’s right,” Lang conceded, using the name a younger Manfred, unable to pronounce ‘Francis,’ had coined. He stood and leaned over to swoop the priest’s near-empty glass from the coffee table. “And he and I are making a final pit stop before your mother has dinner ready. As a matter of fact, after today, I may make the most such pit stops ever recorded.”
The band’s lead-in to Shaw’s vocalist, Helen Forrest’s version of All the Things You Are was background music to the tinkle of ice cubes on glass.
“Tough day?” Francis inquired.
Lang widened his eyes in a baleful stare as he turned to hand his guest a glass of amber liquid and ice cubes. “Horrible dictum, believe me.”
Francis accepted the proffered glass. “Very well; I’ll wait a few more scotches. In vino veritas.”
“Why do you do that,” Manfred wanted to know, “talk in a foreign language all the time?”
“To shield your tender ears, lad,” Lang replied.
Gurt appeared in the doorway. “To show off the uselessness of a liberal arts education, more likely.”
“Unfair!” Manfred protested. “It’s not fair to say things other people can’t understand.”
Lang was following Gurt’s lead through the kitchen and into the dining room. “I fear, my boy, people saying things that can’t be understood is a burden all of us carry through life. If you don’t believe me, follow the next election.”
Francis put a hand on the child’s shoulder. “Your dad doesn’t usually start waxing philosophical until later in the evening.”
Behind the four humans, Grumps trotted to his place beside Manfred’s chair and lay down. The boy was prohibited from feeding the dog from the table, but if luck caused a scrap to fall to the floor . . .
Lang nodded to Francis. “If you can squeeze the blessing in before dinner gets cold . . .”
Francis was quite aware he was the only one in this household to say anything approaching pre-meal grace, that he was being humored, but he bowed his head and began.
From the sound system the band’s solo trumpeter, Billy Butterfield, was playing Stardust.
Dinner over and dishes piled in the sink for the moment, Gurt, Lang, and Francis stretched out in lounges alongside the pool, drinks in hand. They watched the moon rise above the surrounding oaks, eclipsing the few stars bright enough to be seen through the aurora of the city’s lights.
Francis broke the companionable silence. “So, how did your trip to Turkey go?”
Lang and Gurt took turns telling him.
“Any idea why those people would want a blood sample from a small boy?”
“It might have something to do with the child’s reaction — or lack thereof — to the snakebite.”
Francis sat up straight suddenly enough to rattle the ice cubes in his glass. “Where, exactly, were you?”
Lang looked over at his friend, surprised at the sudden interest. “Black Sea coast, little town called Trabzon. Why?”
“Couple of years back, I visited some of Turkey’s Biblical sites in Galatia and Cappadocia . . .”
“Where?”
“Galatia and Cappadocia.”
Francis noted the ensuing silence. “Galatians is one of the Bible’s shortest books, just six chapters. It deals with the early Christians straying from the teachings of St. Paul. Cappadocia was one of the first Christian colonies established by St. Paul. But I’m sure you knew that.”
Lang ignored the jibe. “Other than early church history, what does that have to do with someone wanting a blood sample?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“You brought it up — the church history, that is.”
Francis got up, collected Lang and Gurt’s glasses, and went inside to freshen them.
When he returned, he sat and said, “There were about ten of us there in Turkey, all priests.”
“I’m surprised there was enough scotch in the country to go around.”
Francis ignored him. “We were touring rock churches in Urgup when one of the tour guides got bitten by a spider. Turned out to be a brown recluse. Now, I’m no entomologist, but I do know the brown recluse’s bite can cause not only fever and severe lesions but organ damage and, in some cases, death. Far worse than a black widow.”
“When did you get into the study of spiders?” Lang wanted to know.
“When you deal daily with a building as old as my church, you learn about all sorts of critters: spiders, mice, even bats.”
“Why not let him continue?” Gurt suggested.
Francis gave her a grateful nod. “Anyway, the other tour guide simply shrugged off his comrade being bitten, muttered something like, ‘Pontus.’
“That night I noticed the guide who had been bitten felt fine. There was a faint red splotch around the area, but no swelling nor any of the other symptoms you’d expect from a highly venomous bite. I asked him if he was sure the insect involved was a brown recluse. He was, but he either could not or would not explain why he showed no effects of what should have been a pretty toxic experience.
“I was curious, so I asked around to the locals. Seems there is a theory, more a legend, I’d guess, that certain people from a section of the Black Sea coast are virtually immune to venom or poison. The area was an ancient kingdom known as Pontus. Seems one of the region’s kings developed some sort of formula or whatever that made him safe from poison, the favorite method of murder in those days. Story has it that some of his descendants in the region carry that trait today.”
Lang was sitting up from his lounging position. “And what was the name of this magical king?”
Francis shook his head. “I’m sure they told me, but I don’t recall. Didn’t seem important at the time. I do recall he was an enemy of the Roman Republic, and Pompey fought him in 66 BC.”
“You remembered the date but not the name?”
Francis shrugged. “Odd what sticks to our memory, sort of an arbitrary choice made by the subconscious. Or perhaps a Higher Being.”
Lang was tempted to ask if Francis had ever heard of the EST organization.
CHAPTER 26
An Hour Later
Gurt Emerged from the bathroom and noted Lang was missing from his side of the bed, where ordinarily he would already be asleep. In fact, the covers had not even been pulled back. Stepping into the hall, she could see a light from downstairs. She glanced toward Manfred’s room, where Grumps’s snoring was audible through the open door. She often wondered how the child could come instantly awake at the slightest sound, real or imagined, and yet sleep right through the buzz saw sleeping right next to the bed.
Holding the banister against the chance the stairway might be booby-trapped with one of Manfred’s toys, she descended. The light came from under the staircase. Originally a broom closet, Lang had managed to squeeze in an office swivel chair, a file cabinet, a gooseneck lamp, and a small table on which sat a computer monitor and keyboard. With anyone in the chair, there was no room to shut the door, hence the light spilling out.
“Well, who is he?” she asked.
Startled, Lang might have jumped out of the chair had there been space enough to do so. “Who is who?”
“The king Francis was talking about. What else would you be up researching at this hour?”
After years together, Lang was still amazed at the accuracy with which Gurt read his mind. “Mithradates. He ruled an area in what the Romans called the province of Asia, Pontus as well as other parts of what is now Turkey. Was a constant pain the in Republic’s ass. He fought two of the Romans’ most capable generals, Sulla and Pompey.”
“Very interesting,” she said in a tone that indicated just the opposite. “It is now
after eleven.”
Lang sighed and, had there been room, would have pushed back his chair. “Asia, or at least the Romans’ province, was basically a Greek culture.”
“Es ist sehr interessant.”
“You said that and the sarcasm comes across just fine in German, too.”
“You coming to bed any time soon? I have no patience for trying to wake you when you have been up late.”
He turned the screen so she could see. “There is a man at the Greek archeological museum, Abiron Theradoplis, who wrote a book about Mithradates.”
Gurt stuffed a fist into a yawn, using the other hand to click the X in the red box at the upper right of the screen. “Perfect. You can buy it tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 27
King of Pontus, Foe of Rome,
Story of a Hellenistic Empire
by Abiron Theradoplis, PhD
National Museum of Archeology
Athens
Translation by Chara Georopoulos
University of Iowa Press
(Excerpt)
The power of the queen, Mithradates’ mother, lay in the city of Sinope and perhaps a few miles around it. His father’s friends and allies still controlled the castles and fortifications that guarded the major cities and the strategic cross roads leading to them. Among those cities, most principal was Amasia, home of the Dorylaus family, strong friends of Mithradates’ father. Mithradates’ small group made the decision to stop there briefly to resupply themselves with such items as arrows, spears, clothing, and other items as they could not find in the forests.
The Greek philosopher and geographer Strabo described the richness and beauty of the area, mentioning the grain, fruit, and rich silver mines in the valley in which the city was located. He also refers to a temple of Zeus on a nearby hill.
We cannot be certain, but it may well be this temple Justin mentions as one where Mithradates had often watched his father, as king of Pontus, perform sacrifices. We do know that, before entering the city, Mithradates and his companions found a wild ass and slaughtered it at some religious site.
It was during this ceremony that either Diophantus or Gaius noticed the long brown centipede climbing up Mithradates’ arm. He described it as perhaps two to three daktylos (approximately four inches) in length, brown with red antennae waving menacingly. When warned, Mithradates only smiled and continued the ritual. The result is unclear, but we do know he suffered no substantial consequences of a bite because the next day he visited the silver mines. His comrades apparently objected vociferously because the mines were known as death traps where only slaves labored, soon succumbing to the arsenic-laden air. Nonetheless, he went to the mines daily during his stay in Amasia, staying a number of hours each time.