by Gregg Loomis
She could see him shake his head, a silhouette against the lights of the dashboard. “There’s a car behind us. It’s been there since a block from our driveway.”
“You are sure?”
“Impossible to be sure at night, but let’s see if it follows us into that McDonald’s parking lot ahead. It would be too much of a coincidence if they wanted a Big Mac just as we pull in.”
Gurt reached up to pull down the vanity mirror on the passenger side sun visor. Long ago Agency counter-surveillance techniques told her not to telegraph awareness of the car behind by turning around in her seat.
Lang almost passed the golden arches before making a sudden and unsignalled left turn into the drive-through lane. The pair of headlights in his mirror mimicked his move.
There were three cars ahead, four counting the one with the driver shouting his order into the microphone embedded in the oversized menu. Lang slowed as if to stop before floor-boarding the accelerator. Although hardly nimble and less than speedy, the three-liter diesel engine actually squealed rubber as the SUV darted for the exit, barely missing a pile of curbing stones piled to one side of what Lang guessed was a street-widening job in progress.
Had there been any doubt as to the following car’s intent, it would have dissipated as the auto swerved to speed around a car exiting the parking lot.
“What’s up, dude?” Leon’s voice came from the back seat. “We suddenly in a rush?”
“There’s a car following us,” Lang answered as the tires protested the sharpness of the turn onto the on-ramp.
“So, call the cops on your cell.”
“And tell them what?” Gurt interjected. “That we are being followed?”
“No time anyway,” Lang said between gritted teeth. “Here they come.”
It was not until the following car pulled into the left lane that Lang recognized it as a dark-colored, large BMW, quite possibly the one in which Meadows had arrived at this afternoon’s meeting. Whether it was or not, the light from the fast-receding McDonald’s reflected off the weapon extending from the front passenger window.
“Manfred, tighten your seat belt.”
“It’s already tight.”
“Suck in your breath and get it tighter. NOW!”
The instant the command left his lips, Lang’s side mirror showed the BMW’s headlights pull even with the Mercedes’s left rear fender. He snatched the wheel to the left.
Sheet metal screamed as the BMW reeled sideways drunkenly. The heavier Mercedes shuddered but did not lose traction.
Manfred shrieked in fear.
“The fuck . . .?” Leon gasped.
Grumps was no longer snoring.
Lang lifted his eyes to the mirror, watching the headlights momentarily fade before growing again. “Here they come!”
He felt nearly helpless as the BMW pulled into the left lane again. This time, there was no effort to pull even. Instead, Lang could see a figure almost half out of the front passenger’s window. His hands clasped something with a long, curved clip.
Lang slammed on the brakes.
The BMW tried to emulate but was a fraction of a second too late. Lang could see the terror in the shooter’s eyes as he realized what Lang was about to do.
Sharply cutting the wheel to the left again, the man’s upper torso was momentarily caught between the two vehicles. His scream as he was crushed almost drowned out the sound of metal on metal.
The BMW slowed, and Lang pulled away.
“A businessman, eh?” Gurt murmured. “Too busy for revenge, is it?”
“Save your sarcasm until we’re out of this. They’re coming on again.”
Gurt reached down and picked up her purse, drawing out her Glock. “Perhaps . . .”
Lang took a hand from the wheel long enough to push it aside. “No telling how many are in that car or how many of what weapons they have. Our best chance is to not give them another opportunity.”
“You have a plan?”
“I do. Listen up, Leon.”
“Man, now is the time to call the cops!” he protested.
“And how long for the local law to get here? Think our friends in the BMW are going to wait?”
As he spoke, Lang took the next exit ramp, crossed the overpass, and headed back in the direction from which they had come. Just as he reached the bottom and pulled onto the interstate, he saw the battered BMW going the other way. It slammed on the brakes hard enough for the nose to dip and tires to smoke but made the exit ramp.
Their pursuers were not gaining as fast as before. Perhaps the two collisions had damaged the Beemer’s suspension, Lang thought. Or having a man smashed between two cars had made them a little more cautious. Whatever, Lang’s foot was hard against the floor as he headed up the next ramp and for the McDonald’s.
He jolted to a stop at the edge of the parking lot’s exit, threw off his seat belt, and almost rolled onto the ground in his haste to make a place for Gurt at the steering wheel. “C’mon, Leon. We don’t have all day!”
The two men reached the curb just as the Mercedes’s taillights vanished down the same entrance ramp it had used only minutes before. Lang and Leon flattened themselves behind the small pile of curbing stones as the BMW flashed by perhaps a full minute later.
Lang grabbed one of the heavy stones, grunting with the effort. “Let’s go, Leon. We only get one chance!”
With the pain in his shoulder forcing Leon to stop and go under the weight of the rock he was carrying, it seemed to take forever for each man to lug his stone to the overpass and lift it to the top of the wall running along the edge. They had just succeeded when Leon yelled, “There they are!”
To their left, headed north again, the Mercedes was speeding toward the off-ramp. Behind, the BMW followed. Sparks came from somewhere underneath. One or both impacts had knocked something loose. That was why the car wasn’t quite as fast. Both cars would have to pass under the overpass bridge to reach the circular exit ramp, pass just below where Lang and Leon now stood.
The Mercedes slipped beneath their feet on the road below.
“Okay,” Lang said as calmly as possible. “On my count.”
The BMW was clearly visible from above. Even through a cracked windshield, Lang could see figures inside illuminated by the instrument panel.
“On three. One . . .”
The BMW was maybe 50 yards from the bridge now. Hitting a target moving at nearly a hundred miles an hour was not exactly shooting fish in a barrel.
“Two . . .”
At least there was no windage problem. The stones were far too heavy for any light spring breeze to alter the trajectory that would be straight down. Trajectory . . . Don’t overthink a job already difficult.
“Three! Drop!”
The first stone struck the pavement no more than five feet in front of the BMW’s grill. Before Lang could absorb the fact of a miss, the car braked hard, the reason the second rock scored a direct hit.
The bridge’s lights showed a windshield dissolved into a translucency of spiderwebbing quickly turning crimson. The driver had not fared well. The automobile spun to its right, the front fender smashing into the concrete of the overpass’s abutment in a shower of sparks. The scene below seemed to magically go to slow motion as the vehicle’s bodywork folded up like an accordion. A tendril of smoke drifted lazily upward from somewhere underneath, followed by a whooshing sound that sucked the air from Lang’s lungs and turned the BMW into a raging fireball, the heat from which scorched Lang’s face.
He was transfixed for a second. Perhaps longer had Gurt’s voice not come from behind him. “I do not think we have time for backside patting.”
He turned to see the Mercedes, passenger door open. “Back. Back patting.”
“Either way, the police will soon be here.”
CHAPTER 50
Lamar County, Georgia
State Route 18
Half an Hour Later
The entrance would have been nearly invisi
ble to anyone unaware of its existence. The height of the grass between the twin dirt tracks told Lang no one had been this way lately. A startled doe, eyes orange in the headlights, sprinted into the shadows followed by her spindly legged fawn.
If he saw her, Grumps showed little interest. He had learned his abilities did not equal the speed of the local whitetail deer. In fact, a number of his encounters with the local fauna had ended badly; notably, with a porcupine that had resulted in painful trip to the veterinarian in Barnesville. Harassment of a skunk had ended with Grumps being ostracized from his family, kept out of the house for nearly a week, and being given half a dozen baths.
Limiting his canine duties to mere barking seemed the better part of valor.
Lang had gone to some trouble to keep secret any connection between him and this place. County records would show ownership by a limited liability corporation whose agent for service, required by law, was a company in Atlanta. Utilities, gas, and electricity were billed to the LLC at a PO box in Atlanta. Water was pumped from a well on the premises.
In spite of the meticulous precautions, Lang’s enemies had found him there once. He was never quite sure how, although he suspected he or Gurt had been careless in making sure they had not been followed, a problem he was certain had been solved tonight.
The Mercedes stopped at a steel gate, and Lang got out to put a key in the padlock. What was not visually apparent were the sets of spikes concealed by a thin layer of soil, sharpened points that would shred tires to spaghetti. Unseen, Lang could hear them sink back into place as the lock clicked open.
The stop woke Manfred, who had gotten over the earlier excitement and dozed off.
“We there yet?” he asked, the perpetual question of small children in automobiles.
“Almost,” Lang replied. “I’m seeing light through the trees and brush.”
The house, little more than a two-room cabin, stood in the center of an area Lang had had bush hogged to give clear field of fire should that ever become necessary again. It appeared every light in the small dwelling was on, as well as those strategically placed in tree branches.
The Mercedes came to a halt behind a mud-splattered pickup. Before Lang could cut the ignition, the cabin’s door burst open revealing a man who could have passed for Santa Claus had his beard been white instead of red.
“Lang!” He charged the Mercedes, open-armed to smother Lang in an embrace.
Manfred had somehow squirmed out of his seat harness and past his mother. “Uncle Larry!”
Larry turned his attention to the small boy, hoisting him above his head, a feat Lang had not attempted in years.
“The fish bitin’, Uncle Larry?”
Larry set him down. “Those fish are practically jumping outta the pond. They . . .”
He stooped and ran a hand along the Mercedes’s side. “Damn, Lang! You beat this thing like a borrowed mule!”
“Lot of careless drivers on the road, Larry.”
“Hope you got his number.”
“You might say that.”
“It was an accident?”
“Let’s just say neither party expected it to happen like it did.”
Larry shook his head as he stood erect. “Damage is the same no matter what happened. A rose by any other name.”
Lang wasn’t surprised at the quote from Romeo and Juliet. Larry believed the lack of a college education did not equate ignorance. His home was lined with bookshelves. Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton shouldered translations of Dante, Goethe, Rousseau, and Tolstoy. Bertrand Russell competed for space with Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche, and Jung. The Classists through the Existentialists. Nor were the historians ignored: Pliny the Younger’s account of Pompeii’s destruction was only a shelf above Manchester’s multivolume biography of Churchill.
Lang wondered how the man found time for farming.
“Well, y’all c’mon in!” Darleen stepped out of the house.
A plump yet attractive woman, Darleen viewed Manfred as the child she and Larry had always wanted.
She ran a hand through his hair. “I just finished churnin’ some ice cream for blueberry cobbler. We got more blueberries this year than ever.” She shot a glance at Gurt, fully aware of her dietary regimen for her son. “‘Course he got to eat his collards an’ green beans first. An’ the chicken I baked special.”
Gurt managed a smile she didn’t feel. Although Larry and Darleen were loving custodians, Gurt did not approve of the southern cuisine, food she found as bland as it was fattening. The collards, she was sure, had been seasoned with bacon fat. Darleen had made a major concession by baking the chicken rather than frying it. But she hadn’t mentioned the cornbread stuffing that was as certain as death itself.
Later that evening Lang and Gurt were alone in the cabin’s single bedroom after Larry and Darleen had taken Manfred and Leon across the small creek that formed the boundary between their farm and Lang’s acreage.
“Don’t worry, they’ll take good care of him,” Lang said.
“It is not the care that worries. It is the extra weight Manfred will gain.”
“If he does, he’ll grow into it in six months.”
She had no reply. Lang’s observation on his son’s growth rate was accurate.
The two were silent for a few minutes before Gurt asked, “It is necessary, you believe, this trip?”
Lang nodded before he realized she couldn’t see the gesture in the dark room. “You do too, if you think about it. Remember one of the first lessons the Agency taught: forgive thy enemies at thy peril. Certain people see forgiveness as weakness. And you can bet Alex Kolstas is one of them. He won’t forget being made a fool of in front of his men. Besides, he’s a link to getting to whoever is willing to kill for a blood sample. Also, I need to visit with that geneticist, Dr. Phoebe Kalonimos.”
CHAPTER 51
Trikoupi Street
Piraeus, Greece
Two Days Later
Purse over her shoulder, she swayed on five-inch spike heels as she passed the nautical museum. The skirt was tight enough across the back to reveal the movement of every muscle in her shapely derriere. The low cut of her blouse was filled with bulging breasts like an overflowing fruit basket. The blond hair that reached her mid-back seemed to move on its own.
She did not look like the Albanian women who constituted the bulk of Greece’s illegal street-walking prostitutes, nor did she resemble the one thousand or so locals who were licensed, regulated, and largely confined to legal brothels. Her jewelry — watch, ring, and bracelets — was tasteful rather than flashy.
The four dark-skinned men lounged in front of number 37. They spoke in a mixture of English and Urdu, the two official languages of their native Pakistan, but anyone who had ears had little trouble guessing the subject of the conversation. If not, doubt disappeared when the woman dug a cigarette out of her purse. Four lighters sprung to life and were proffered.
If unspoken, the men’s intentions were equally clear, as the woman’s above-the-knee skirt rose when she leaned against a wall while she smoked.
Among the buildings on the next block, the ones whose backs touched the rear of those on Trikoupi Street, was a small taverna. There was nothing to distinguish it from half a dozen others within a three- or four-block area. Lunch customers had already departed, leaving a single elderly gentleman hunched over a small glass whose cloudy bluish contents suggested ouzo cut with water. His hands, blue-veined with age, were unsteady as he sampled, then bit into the mezes, the appetizers of fish, chips, olives, and feta cheese that traditionally accompanied the liqueur. His gray hair was long, touching the frayed collar of his working man’s shirt. He regarded his surroundings with rheumy eyes magnified by thick glasses to resemble those of a fish.
As the establishment’s staff, a father, mother, and son, busied themselves clearing tables, replacing tablecloths, and loading dishes into the sink, the sole customer rose unsteadily and made his way toward the back and the unisex toilet
. Once inside, he squeezed into the small space between the sink and commode. From the pocket of his shabby jacket, he produced a small bag and laid it on the lip of the sink before turning on the water.
Touching his head, there was a swish as he tossed the white wig into the trash basket, revealing the thick brown hair of a much younger man. The spectacles followed the wig. From the bag he produced a cloth that he soaked under the faucet before running it across his face. An observer, had the tiny room been large enough to accommodate one, would have been justified in believing he had witnessed magic. Or at least a visit to the mythical Fountain of Youth. The wrinkles lining the old man’s forehead were gone, as were the laugh lines around his eyes, the furrows bracketing his mouth, and the loose flesh under the chin had joined the wig and glasses as he peeled back flesh-colored plastic. He used his hands to scoop water into his eyes to dilute the drops. Bright blue eyes stared back out of the mirror.
Upstairs at nearby 37 Trikoupi Street, Alkandres Kolstas was at his desk comparing numbers provided by his army of accountants. He smiled. The world economy might be sluggish, but oil smuggling was increasingly profitable, as was the percentage he received for the transportation of narcotics on his ships. And then there were the occasional windfalls such as intimidation, strong-arm, or even murder for hire, blackmail, or kidnapping.
The thought of the latter wiped the smile from his face. The Reilly matter had gone badly, and his American customers were becoming increasingly insistent about the return of their money. Not that there was a prayer of a refund, but such things were bad for business. Hiring blacks had been a mistake, but they had been the only really organized entity he knew in the Atlanta area. He . . .
He straightened in his chair, certain he had heard something but unsure of what it had been. He paused, head cocked, before returning to the columns of numbers.
The totals on raw Afghan and Turkish heroin, opium, smuggled on behalf of the Pakistanis, were down. The brown, latex-like substance was easy enough to conceal in the false bottoms of oil barrels, mostly those headed for Marseilles, where it would be boiled in open pots, strained, reheated, and dried in the sun, thereby removing most of the toxic alkaloids. Then it was cut in exact measurements, packaged, and sent on its way throughout Europe and the West where it would be diluted or “cut” with everything from baby laxative to baking soda to dishwashing detergent before being sold on the street.