The Julian Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  Almost before the shower of dirt and rock splinters settled, Gurt pushed him aside and sprang to her feet, a sure target for the stone chips with which the next grenade would fill the air. Lang snatched at an ankle, missed, and stumbled to his feet in pursuit.

  His legs refused to obey his commands, moving at a pace that seemed almost leisurely. But then, everything seemed sluggish, to take on the dreamlike quality of a film in slow motion.

  As gracefully as any ballerina, Gurt spun as she drew the Glock from her belt, making it an extension of her outstretched arms to point upward. The man in the helicopter used both hands also, one to hold the grenade, the other to pull the pin. As he extended his arm to drop high explosives directly onto Gurt, two shots came, so close as to be indistinguishable.

  The man leaning out of the chopper stood erect, his mouth forming a perfect 0, as though he was astonished either at the two holes centered neatly above his eyes or the fact that the hand grenade was still in his hand. Then he disappeared from the doorway.

  Lang screamed a —warning, knowing what was about to happen. For what seemed forever, nothing did.

  Then the helicopter dissolved into a fiery orange ball that reached all the way to the ground. Theforce of the explosion knocked Lang onto his back. The last thing he remembered before everything went dark was the transformation of flame in the sky to a greasy, roiling black cloud.

  Lang reckoned he had been unconscious only a few seconds. He sat up and looked around. The blast had knocked him flat and out of the hailstorm of flying debris. Unidentifiable pieces of metal, still smoking, surrounded him. Shakily, he got to his feet and realized that not all the wreckage was inorganic. Bile rose in his throat as he stepped over the charred remains of a human hand, wedding ring still attached.

  "Gurt!"

  There was no answer.

  Trying to swallow both nausea and growing panic, he forced himself to make an orderly search of concentric circles. After a couple of minutes, hope flickered like a candle in a breeze. After twenty, it died.

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  Explosions can do weird things, he told himself. Stories of victims of World War II's bombing of London were replete with women dashing into the streets after a direct hit, unharmed other than the fact that their clothing had been completely blown off, of men finding themselves buried under rubble blocks away from where they had been when the bomb had hit.

  No doubt true, but there was no Gurt, bomb-denuded or otherwise.

  Despair became fear-fear he would find her, or, worse, some grisly part of her. The thought finally overcame his resistance to the urge. '-He knelt and vomited his breakfast.

  He staggered to his feet, swaying like a drunk as his empty stomach continued to cramp and convulse. His view of the cave and of the surrounding white hills blurred with tears. He had never felt so alone as on this hilltop an ocean away from home. Not even when Dawn died. At least then he had had ample time to prepare. Gurt had been snatched away in an instant.

  He lifted his chin, looking into a sky so innocently blue it was hard to believe that, just minutes before, it had been filled with death. He forced his mounting grief aside for the moment, thinking as he had been trained to do so many years ago.

  Even as remote as this area was, someone had most likely heard the series of explosions, possibly seen the fireball of the helicopter. He must assume the authorities were on their way. With only fragments, it would take months to even establish the number of people who had perished here, if in fact it could be ascertained at all by time-consuming comparisons of DNA. Unless that DNA had been previously recorded, it would serve only to number the dead, not identify them.

  Lang moved mechanically, straining to keep his mind concentrated on the tasks at hand. He stooped to retrieve the camera from where it had fallen when the blast had knocked him down. Surprisingly, it was unbroken. Using the rope still in place, he descended through the shaft. Unlocking the car's trunk, he took out Gurt's purse. His control momentarily slipped as a rogue memory of how he had teased her about its size interrupted the routine and tears wet his cheeks. Checking the bag's contents to make certain it contained nothing of significance, he returned it to the trunk. Sliding into the front seat, he opened the glove box, pocketing only Gurt's passport. No need to involve her now.

  The rented car would be traced to Joel Couch. His passport and the few human remains on the mountain should make Lang Reilly officially dead at least until DNA proved otherwise. That should keep the Frankfurt Police, if not all of Interpol, quiet for the time being.

  Joel Couch would seek revenge.

  He took a final look at the hilltop, from which smoke was still rising. Fists clenched, he spoke aloud through gritted teeth. "You bastards, you fucking bastards! No matter who you-are, this world is too small for both of us, and I don't plan on leaving."

  He took some small comfort from the fact that the threat was not idle. He

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  had tracked the killers of his sister and nephew, and, if necessary, he would end his days in pursuit of whoever was responsible for Gurt.

  His hand involuntarily went to the pocket where he had put the paper with the Latin phrases on it. He'd get them this time, too. At least now he had a starting point.

  Pocketing the car keys, he turned his back on the Mercedes and began to trudge along the narrow country road.

  He had gone less than a mile before a pair of police cars, sirens wailing, blurred past, headed in the direction from which he had come. Minutes later, he hitched a ride in a tractor-towed wagon dusty with remains of winter wheat. Turning his back to the machine's driver, he released the tight grip on his emotions and sobbed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Frankfurt am Main 141 Mosel Strasse

  The next day

  Reavers put, both hands flat on the desk and stared at them. "Gurt dead?

  You sure?" . Lang nodded wearily. "There wasn't enough left to ID anybody without DNA."

  Reavers glanced up without moving his head, a move that made his eyes look even more like those of a raptor. "But you searched anyway?"

  Lang knew it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't shake the feeling there had been something he could have done. "Other than the cave, there wasn't any place to hide. If she'd been there, I would have seen her."

  ''And you're going to continue to try to find the sum'bitches who killed Huff." It was not a question. "God knows them cheap bastards in Washington aren't going to give us the budget to do it. Just once, I'd like to think the security of the United States and our agents is worth more than funding some turnip museum in Iowa."

  "Damn right I am. When I know that, I'll know who's responsible for Gurt."

  "Tell me again what I can do."

  Lang shrugged, the trivial nature of his requests overshadowed by Gurt's death. "I'd like to keep the Couch identity, maybe acquire one other, preferably a citizen of an ED country. As for the credit cards, I can guarantee payment-"

  The CIA chief of station made a dismissive gesture. "Forgit paying the credit cards, pard'nuh. Budget cutbacks or not, we don' chintz when it comes to trackin' down people who hurt our people, you remember?"

  Lang remembered the Agency of the eighties probably destroying countless forests with the paperwork required to justify any remotely unusual expense in anticipation of periodic congressional inquiries. Apparently, there

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  really had been a peace dividend after all.

  Or politicians occupied with other matters. " 'Xactly how you plannin' on finding whoever you're lookin' for?"

  Lang sat back 'in his chair and shrugged. "There was an inscription on the cave wall, something about an indictment and the palace of the sole God."

  ''You plannin' on trackin' a bunch o' killers from some sorta religious claptrap?"

  Lang sighed deeply, all too aware of the task ahead.

  "That carving dates back to the fourth century; they would have been there when Skorzeny looted whatever was there. He must have seen the sa
me words."

  "So?"

  "I can read them, know what the words say. I need to figure out what they mean. I'd guess the Germans did. If I follow wherever they lead, maybe I'll find out who wants me not to."

  Reavers picked a pen from a cup on his desk, working it through his fingers like a magician about to perform a trick. ''You're guessing the sum'bitches killed Huff an' Gurt are tryin' to protect some religious secret sixteen hundred years old?"

  "It's the only lead I've got."

  Lang felt no need to point out he had nearly been killed a year ago by people trying to keep an even older secret. "It's either that or some organization trying to prevent identifying old Nazis."

  The Agency man returned the pen to the cup and gave Lang pretty much the same look-he might have given someone seriously delusional. "I don' see it, but okay." He opened a drawer and fumbled through it. "One more thing ..." He slid a square object across the desktop. "Take it."

  Lang picked it up. ''A BlackBerry? Thanks, I already have one."

  "With built-in scrambling and a global positioning system? You set you'sef a three-digit code, you press it, an' we know not only the caca has hit the ole ventilating device but 'xactly where it struck. They're special made for us."

  Lang dropped it into his pocket. "It would be your ass, the Agency finds out you let me have this."

  Reavers leaned back in his chair, grinning. "Or the passports, or the ID. Hell, at my age, gittin' fired ain't much threat. Tell ya, pard'nuh, best I can, I'm committed to findin' whoever killed that li'l gal."

  Lang could only imagine how Gurt would react to being referred to in the familiar diminutive. "I appreciate you getting involved."

  " 'Involved'? Hell, I'm committed."

  Lang stood, thinking the conversation at an end. "Involved, committed. I value any help you can give." Reavers stood also, extending a hand. "Y'know difference between 'involved' an' 'committed'?" Lang had a feeling he was going to learn. "Ever' mornin' I have Speck und Ei, bacon and eggs.

  The chicken's involved, but the pig, he's committed." The Lone Star

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  State's very own Jay Leno.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Frankfurt am Main Dusseldorf

  Am HauptbahnhofStrasse

  That evening

  Lang lay on the bed, staring at the abstract designs of the cracks in the ceiling without seeing them. He didn't notice the pulsating colors that came through the room's only window from neon signs outside advertising sex shops, pornographic movies, and cheap restaurants. If asked, it would have been doubtful if he could have named the cheap railroad hotel in which he was spending the night.

  He was far too lost in his own self-pity.

  First his wife, Dawn, then his sister and nephew. Now Gurt. All snatched away, exited from his life as if his existence were some cosmic revolving door turning in a single direction. Though neither religious nor superstitious, he waited for the other preordained shoe to fall.

  Gurt. Her blond hair swirled around her face like a halo as she spun around to display the dress she had just bought. He smelled the musk of their lovemaking and felt the comforting warmth of her body next to his. Without realizing it, he smiled at some of her more egregious grammatical or idiomatic faux pas. The thrust and parry of their conversations, the smell of her cooking.

  Gone.

  Gone forever.

  He wondered if the pain would have been greater or less had she agreed to marry him. The same, he supposed. If he ever needed consolation, it was now. He held his watch up, squinting to see the face. Just past five in the afternoon in Atlanta. Getting out of bed, he crossed the room to the electrical outlet and his BlackBerry, plugged into the current converter to charge. He called up the directory as he recrossed the room and punched the call button.

  Two rings later, a man's voice answered as clearly as though speaking from across the room instead of an ocean.

  "Francis?"

  " The voice warmed with pleasure. "Is this my favorite heretic?" , Lang felt better already. "Francis, I've got some bad news."

  He related what had happened since Huff's death, omitting only references to the Agency. He went into detail describing what had happened at Montsegur.

  "You're sure she's dead?"

  Anger flashed through him like a lightning bolt and was gone just as quickly. The second time in a few hours somebody had asked. What did they

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  think, that he just assumed Gurt had died and abandoned her?

  "I'm sure I couldn't find her on that hilltop, Francis. I mean, the biggest human thing I saw was a severed hand, which, by the way, wasn't hers." There was such a long silence, Lang was beginning to think the connection was broken.

  Then: "What are you going to do?"

  Lang was sure of only one thing. "Find whoever is responsible." There was concern in Francis's reply. "Isn't that something best left to the police?"

  Lang swallowed a sharp retort and made himself speak slowly. "I can't exactly walk into some French cop shop and announce I was there when three or more people were killed. By the time the Froggies finished their investigations, they'd be sure to turn up the fact that I'm wanted by at least the Frankfurt Polizei, if not in Heidelberg, too."

  "Lang, acting out of revenge may not be wise."

  "Francis, I know you're in the mercy and forgiveness business, but I have no intention of turning the other cheek right now."

  Another pause.

  "Lang, you know I'll help any way I can. I loved Gurt, too. I'll be praying for her soul."

  "Better you should pray for whoever I find killed her."

  "That carving on the cave wall-what do you make of it?"

  Lang knew he was being manipulated, steered away from the subject of Gurt. "Not sure. In fact, why don't you write it down? I'd appreciate your thoughts."

  He read it, careful to spell out noun endings.

  "Got it," Francis said. "Doesn't make a lot of sense, translates as something like 'Julian, Emperor, orders that the accusation against Jews' king be interred in the palace of the sole god.' Without the endings, can't be sure. Sure you haven't screwed up the declensions again?"

  The old familiar sparring made Lang think he might get through his grief somehow. "Decamo bona verba. "

  "I never said you didn't speak good words, it's mixing a classical language with the Southern accent that makes your diction difficult. You speak ..." This time Lang was aware he was smiling. The priest was capable of miracles. "... ore rotundo, as Horace described gifted orators." He turned serious. "What about the solusdeiand the Jews' king?"

  "Christ, of course, was mocked at his crucifixion by being called 'king of the Jews,' but the phrase could refer to some actual Old Testament king like David or Solomon. Likewise, the 'sole god' could very well refer to the one God of Jews, Muslims" and Christians."

  Lang was thinking as he stretched out on the bed. "That presents something of a problem: Julian repealed Constantine's laws granting Christians the right to worship. He hated them, felt they were diverting Rome from its heritage of pantheism."

  "What else can you tell me about the man?"

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  "Like all literate Romans, he loved riddles, and I have a feeling we may have one here. What is the palace of the sole god?"

  "Could be in the Christian concept of heaven," Francis speculated. "But how do you bury someone in heaven? I think there's something more literal there."

  "We can figure it out over a dinner at Manuel's."

  Lang was suddenly homesick for the first time he could remember. The thought of overcooked food and an atmosphere of pseudo-intellectualism had never been so appealing. He knew what he was going to do.

  "Reserve us a booth for night after next. I'm coming home."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Atlanta, Georgia Lindberg MARTA Station

  Two days later

  His mind told Lang it was time to go to bed, but the sun was still bright as he stepped from the tr
ain. He could have taken a cab, but Atlanta's rapid rail, though not particularly rapid, made the run from the airport in less time than a taxi, was cleaner, and obviated the necessity of speaking Swahili, Tutsi or whatever other African dialect was native to the driver. Lang supposed the city's Cab Bureau, in Atlanta's tradition of Civil Rights Mecca, felt requiring English of its licensees to be discriminatory.

  At the top of the escalator, he found one hack driver who at least seemed to comprehend "Peachtree Road" and got in the back.