by Gregg Loomis
Both men silently watched the spreading ripples.
Lang finally spoke. “I understand why you hear God’s name out here so often.”
There was a muffled snicker from one of the two teenaged girls acting as caddies. Lang pretended he didn’t hear.
“The rules provide you can play your ball from where it lies or take a drop with a one-shot penalty,” Francis informed him with ill-concealed amusement.
Lang handed his putter to the grinning caddy. “You know, Francis, the problem with playing with you is I can’t feel free to curse a priest even if he is wearing an outfit that would look better on a circus clown.”
Francis’s bright red trousers clashed with the electric green golf shirt.
“Delighted to hear the heathen hath some moral restraints,” Francis responded amiably. “Now, drop or play? Not that it matters. Vanitas vanitatum, omnis vanitas.”
Lang eyed the lake. Was that his imagination, or had he glimpsed a large, triangular fin for an instant?
“I’ll drop.”
He still two-putted.
Followed by caddies, the two walked toward the next hole.
Seven iron in hand, Francis decapitated dandelions as they went. “You said you were no longer worried about the people who ransacked the house while I was there. What were they after, anyway?”
“A blood sample from a kid in Turkey. Turned out a pharmaceutical house was after it.”
“Must have been pretty valuable to commit burglary and attempted murder.”
“It was. Or the serum based on it is. One of the biggies, Merck, has contracted to pay the Foundation a couple of hundred mil for it.”
Francis whistled. “Quaerenda pecunia primum est.”
“‘Virtus post nummos’” finishes Horace’s thought,” Lang added. “‘Money is the first thing to be sought,’ yes. But “a good reputation, after wealth.’”
“So, you can prove this pharmaceutical company was behind the break-in? I’ve never felt more in the hands of the Lord than while I was staring down the barrel of his gun.”
Lang’s mind flashed a picture of the priest with a gun to his head. Knowing the depth of his friend’s faith, he could imagine the equanimity with which he faced death. “Quod avertat Deus! But yeah, it’s provable. At least the U.S. Attorney thinks so. Company’s name is Dystra Pharmaceuticals. All of its top officers are under indictment for money laundering, RICO, conspiracy, you name it. The company and its executives are also facing civil suits for patent infringement and varying degrees of industrial espionage, stealing competitors’ trade secrets. All but one, that is.”
“Why an exception?”
“I understand their chief operating officer, guy named Wright, swallowed his shotgun the day the indictment came down.”
Francis paused long enough to cross himself, a gesture he rarely made outside of his church.
“That bad, huh?”
“Suicide is a sin. It is God’s place to decide the time and circumstances of our death.”
Lang smiled. “Well, it’s for sure God wasn’t looking at 15 to 20 in the Iron Bar Hotel.”
Francis shook his head, having long decided Lang’s irreverence, if not downright blasphemy, was as much his personality as his love for single malt scotch. “Speaking of jail, what about your client, Wipp, the one who belonged to that weird cult?”
“More like a cult of weirdos. Wipp bonded out. Damned if he didn’t go right back to advertising seminars on the Internet, ‘training,’ he calls them. Of course, after the current crop of suckers, there was no seminar. I thought the judge was going to launch into outer space, he was so pissed. He revoked Wipp’s bail.”
“What does that mean?”
They had reached the tee. Lang stared at the limp flag dangling on its staff about 300 yards of manicured grass away. “It means Wipp is in jail until trial, either at the pre-trial detainee center out at the penitentiary or at one of the local jails where the DOP leases space.”
Francis used his forearm to wipe his brow. “DOP?”
“Department of Prisons.”
“You don’t know where exactly?”
“Only that it will be one where Wipp can’t get his hands on a computer. I’m sure I’ll be notified in due course.”
Francis gestured to the forward part of the tee, indicating Lang should drive first. “No chance you’re going to get paid?”
Lang took the driver proffered by his caddy and took a few practice swings before teeing up the ball. “About as much chance as I have of breaking par on this hole.”
“Manus e nubibus, perhaps?”
“I’ll need a hand from the clouds.”
The moment club met ball, Lang knew something different was happening. The driver felt good in his hands, and the impact had the clean crack of a rifle shot. At first, he thought he was hallucinating. The white dot that was his ball sailed true toward the distant green. A 100-, 150-yard drive? Even better, a couple of decidedly favorable bounces.
There was the sound of hand-clapping. “Great! Best shot you’ve ever made!”
“Yeah, if I could only remember what I did different.”
Lang was not a believer in omens, but he really did have a chance of breaking par on this hole. Maybe even a chance of getting paid by his client. If he could nail a drive like that, anything was possible. He began to whistle Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Mithradates was an actual person. Machiavelli praised his military genius. European royalty sought his secret and Mozart wrote his first opera about him. He ruled what is now the north coast of Turkey and fought the Roman Republic twice. Only after sending their best generals, Sula and Pompey, did the Romans succeed in curbing Mithradates’ ambitions to rule the Roman province of Asia (today’s Turkey). Rather than be taken prisoner by his rebellious son, he took an enormous amount of poisons with no effect. Twice, he upped the dosage until he finally reached a fatal level.
Because its sure presence was difficult to ascertain, its abundance in nature plentiful, and its source obscure, poisons of varying types remained a favorite tool for ancient assassins.
Most of the material concerning Mithradates comes from Adrienne Mayor’s fascinating biography of him, The Poison King.
A few more comments: the Black Mafia Family was a very real crime family centered in Atlanta. Although it supposedly no longer exists, snippets in the local news appear occasionally about a supposed film on the subject being in progress.
EST really existed, and yes, the people P. T. Barnum described as being born every minute paid good money to be verbally abused. See Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, specifically the part where the King and the Duke put on a stage presentation so bad that none of the attendees would admit they had been flimflammed.
The Yerkes Primate Center, though owned and operated by Emory University, is miles from the school in an adjacent county. I chose to put it on campus rather than slow the story down by explaining this.
Many people believe writing is a lonely pastime. Perhaps, but not an “alone” one. Were it not for a number of people’s efforts, you wouldn’t be reading this. First, my wife, Suzanne, spotted the biography of Mithradates that inspired the story. Thank you! Chris Fortunato, my agent, to whom I am perpetually grateful. Without his efforts and patience, this book wouldn’t exist.
Then, Christina Roth and Kelsey Reiman of Turner’s editorial staff, as well as Lynn Northrup. The editorial department of a publishing house is like the offensive line of a football team: their names never get called unless something goes wrong, but without them nobody moves the ball forward. These folks do a lot more than strew commas like Johnny Appleseed. They rearrange cumbersome verbage and check facts, and note inconsistences, too. I hastily add that if there are factual errors, it’s because I insisted on what was written, not because Christina, Lynn, or Kelsey didn’t catch them. My fault, not theirs — thanks, ladies.
April 2013
G.
L.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gregg Loomis is an American author of thrillers, including the popular Lang Reilly series. He has also written several short stories and was a nominee for Writer of the Year—Fiction by the Georgia Writers Association. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, where he still resides, Loomis is a former racecar driver and is licensed as a commercial pilot. He currently works as a lawyer specializing in commercial litigation. Over half a million copies of his books are in print, and several have been translated into multiple foreign languages.