The Julian secret lr-2

by Gregg Loomis

  She had had no life before the sun exploded.

  Through vibrations of the floor or some other means, she sensed someone else in the room.

  Fully conscious of the effort, she refocused her line of sight from the IV bag and stand to the foot of her bed. The doctor was there again. At least, she guessed he was a physician. He was definitely a man in white-white shirt with white lab coat, topped by unruly shocks of white hair.

  He looked up, noting her attention, and flashed white teeth at her, saying something she could not hear.

  She knew what was coming and neither looked forward to nor feared it. After flipping the pages of her chart at the foot of her bed (how did she, know what he was looking at?), he pulled back the covers, took the arm with the IV in it, and half-pulled, half-lifted her to a standing position on the floor. The tiles felt cool and soothing. With one hand on the IV stand and the other resting lightly, if protectively, around her waist, he led her out into the hall.

  After she had gone about halfway toward the end, the doctor surrendered her to a nurse before standing in front of her, smiling. He pointed to his ear, then to hers, before making a circle with thumb and forefinger, the universal OK sign.

  But her ears weren't OK. She could not hear. Perhaps he meant she soon would be OK. She hoped so. Not just because being deaf was a decided disadvantage. Without hearing, she had so much trouble speaking that she had all but abandoned the effort.

  She could communicate by writing on the notepads they gave her. Unfortunately, she couldn't convey the very information the doctor and nurses wanted most: her name, where she came from, and so on. She had no such data to give them.

  Somehow, again from that reservoir of knowledge that seemed to have no source, she knew that it was likely at least most of her memory would return, although she had no idea when. Until then, she would have to be patient, let the cuts, bruises, and aches heal, and hope she would know who she was before much longer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Flumicino, Italy

  Leonardo da Vinci International Airport

  The present

  Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, Lang trudged down the concourse, cursing whoever had designed the airport so that nothing was near anything else. One of the newer passenger terminals in Europe, customs and immigration were nowhere near flights arriving from non European Union countries, the flights that would need those services. Likewise, the train station connected to Rome was far closer to domestic arrivals, those passengers most likely to have left cars at the airport.

  The Byzantine mind was alive and well in Italy.

  In a rare moment of self-assessment, he realized he was simply in a foul mood, the result of plain bad luck combined with his own decisions.

  First, he had decided to use the Couch identity provided by Reavers. No point in having his own name on a passenger manifest, readily available to anyone who knew how to hack into the airline's less-than-secure computer, or the charge appear on his own credit card, equally accessible. Let Reavers get "committed" by picking up the ticket.

  Of course, the fictional Mr. Couch was not a frequent flyer and therefore was beneath the minimal notice given platinum, gold, or silver flyers. Ineligible to use the limited facilities of the preferred customer lounge, Mr. Couch had experienced the endless security lines reserved for nonprivileged passengers before spending an hour or so sharing the gate area with screaming children, blaring but unintelligible announcements, and overpriced fast food.

  He had also been treated to passengers bellowing things like "Dallas, not Dulles!" or "Tampa, not Tempe!" into cell phones-a response to the airline's mechanized-voice reservation system that made it difficult if not impossible to speak to a human being.

  Good goes around, but nobody at the airline wanted to talk about it.

  The fact that it had been his decision to keep a low profile by entrusting himself to the uncaring hands of Atlanta's dominant carrier rather than arrive by Gulfstream did nothing to diminish his temper.

  Even before arriving at the airport for the Washington leg, he had had signals that this was not going to be an enjoyable experience.

  Since the Porsche's destruction, Lang had let Park Place's attendants park and retrieve the Mercedes, both from an assumption that another potential assassin would see the futility of a second car bomb and because he simply didn't care how the young men treated what he viewed as simple transportation.

  This particular morning, the Mercedes had chosen not to respond to the electronic device that unlocked the car. His call to the dealership, one of several owned by the same company, had left him with the impression that the service department viewed his continuing problems as somehow his fault rather than designer-induced over-sophistication.

  Mercedes-Benz CLK: the revenge of the Third Reich.

  It had been no surprise that the Dulles-Rome flight had been delayed three hours for a mechanical problem the pilot described as "a minor glitch." The tone of the man's voice said it was no surprise to him, either.

  Time to spare, go by air.

  Forgetting life's sharper points for the moment, Lang set down his single bag to buy a cup of espresso at the coffee bar in the rail terminal. A large, barnlike structure with a glass roof, the airport station contained a few shops and four tracks, all of which went to Termini, Rome, departing at approximately twenty-minute intervals. The only question was whether to take express or local. Lang took the first departure.

  Staring out of the window at the weed-covered switching yards and intermediate stations, Lang wondered how many times he had taken this ride. Shortly before leaving the Agency, he had brought Dawn here. Her first trip outside the United States, she had taken delight in even the dreary scenery that surrounds most rail right of-ways. Before arrival at the final stop, she had become radiant at the sight of the first antiquity, a bland section of ancient brick that had been part of the city's wall.

  Lang had always heard Rome was a city of churches, but he had never realized how many. Dawn had insisted on seeing the places of worship of the Jesuits, the Dominicans, and the Capuchins. They visited churches boasting sculpture by Michelangelo and Bernini and paintings by Caravaggio and Raphael. Before the first morning was over, Madonnas, martyred saints, and incidents from the Gospels melded into a religious blur. Never had Lang been so thankful for the three- to four-hour afternoon period when museums, businesses, and especially churches were chuiso, closed.

  But he had never let Dawn know, feeding on her delight like a starving man presented with a banquet.

  Only last year, he had been on this very same train, unknowingly about to revive a relationship with Gurt dormant since he had met Dawn. He and Gurt had made wild love in a small pension in the Trastevere District, ridden her motorcycle into the countryside, and hidden in an Agency safe house just across from the Villa Borghese, Rome's largest park.

  Now Gurt, like Dawn, was gone.

  He could take no vengeance against the cancer that had stolen his wife, but he could, and, by God, would, make those responsible for Gurt pay. Only the apprehensive look on the face of the woman seated facing him made him aware that his teeth were grinding. At the same time, he noticed the pain of fingernails digging into the heel of each hand.

  An hour later, he was unpacking at the Hotel Hassler, a slightly past-its-prime, very American-style hotel at the head of the Spanish Steps. It was the sort of place Couch might stay, particularly if he was on business and, like most Americans, more than willing to compromise quality for the certainty he would not he confronted by people speaking only the native tongue.

  Lang had requested a room on the side facing away from the steps, fully aware that those flights of marble constituted the place for younger tourists to-congregate, play loud music, smoke, and photograph one another.

  Finished unpacking the small bag, he stepped into the hall, looking both ways. He saw a maid's linen trolley but no maid. Bending over to shield what he was doing, he pulled a hair from his head, ran
a saliva-moistened finger along it, and stuck it to the top of the doorknob. Once dry, that hair would fall at the slightest touch. Unlikely the telltale would be needed, since no one in Rome knew who Mr. Couch really was, but old habits died hard.

  He checked his watch. If he didn't dally, he would make it on time.

  A little over a mile away was a cartoonlike carving of an elephant with an obelisk on its back. The monks of the monastery that had become the church Santa Maria sopra Minerva had commissioned Bernini to grace the small square in front with the animal and then proceeded to insist the original plan was unstable, unsuitable, and overpriced. Not lacking a sense of humor, the sculptor had adorned the supposed symbol of wisdom and piety with a trunk of serpentine proportions and ears that could well have been the inspiration for Dumbo.

  That had been the thought for centuries, anyway.

  Then, in the recent past, excavation for enlargement of the Vatican's underground parking lot had uncovered a large beast first thought to be the remains of some sort of dinosaur. Quick research of the vast papal library had revealed that the king of Portugal had made a gift to one of the several Pope Leos of an albino dwarf elephant. The pontiff named the beast Hano, and elephant and man shared such an affection that the little pachyderm followed his master everywhere, including papal masses.

  Lang never passed this way without a smile.

  Just behind the piazza was a small store that sold ecclesiastical vestments and paraphernalia. Before entering, Lang debated: a simple black shirt with clerical collar, or full cassock, perhaps with biretta, the three-ridged square hat favored by many European priests? He chose the latter along with a simple ebony-beaded rosary. He was tempted to include a Bible printed in Italian but decided keeping his hands free might prove a better choice.

  In a half hour, he was on his way. The shopkeeper had asked not a single question nor requested any documentation of Lang's ordination into the Church. He did, however, carefully examine and count each. euro with which Lang paid.

  Lang was uncertain exactly what this said about the clergy.

  Package under his arm, Lang stopped at a favorite pizzeria just off the Piazza Della Rotunda. There were only two tables, both outside on the street. Both were filled with chatting American college students. He took his square of anchovy, pepper, and onion to enjoy while sitting on the. edge of a fountain and looking at the Pantheon, Rome's oldest structure still in use. His pleasure, if not his sense of history, was undiminished by the presence of a McDonald's on the very same piazza.

  The Pantheon was erected by the Emperor Hadrian a hundred years before Constantine, a temple for not one but all the gods. Every emperor after him erased his predecessor's name from over the door and carved his own. When Rome became Christian, the building became a church. Michelangelo studied that dome to learn how to do one for the new St. Peter's. In the eighteenth century, Bernini was hired to put bell towers on each side. The people ridiculed them, called them "donkey's ears." They came down. The hole in the center of the dome allowed sunlight into an otherwise windowless single room.

  The massive bronze doors, the symmetry of the round building, as well as its antiquity had always had a salutary effect on Lang. He could feel the anger associated with the trip melt away like smoke in a breeze. Thankful Rome's fountains flowed with potable water, he cupped his hands to drink and washed the last of the fish taste away before using the thin square of paper that had served as a plate to wash his hands.

  He took his time, wandering familiar streets, many of which were too narrow to admit sunlight for more than a few minutes a day. Far too confined for automotive traffic, scooters buzzed by unfazed. Lang was careful to back up to a wall as each Vespa passed, fully aware that the little machines provided a great getaway from purse or parcel-snatching. He also remembered an attempted stabbing by a killer on a similar contraption.

  He 'was not going to be distracted by his love for the Eternal City.

  Back at the hotel, he stood at the front desk, awaiting his room key. He happened to notice a newspaper with block headlines taking up the top fold. Below was a vaguely familiar face, a slightly chubby man in an expensive suit.

  Lang held the paper up for the clerk to see. "Who's this?"

  The young man didn't have to look up from his computer screen. "The prime minister. He is about to be indicted for taking pay, er, pay…"

  "Bribes?" Lang supplied, reaching for the key a young woman was handing him.

  "Bribes, yes."

  Lang couldn't recall the man's name, but he recalled him as being, if not one of the richest men in Italy, a conservative (at least by European standards) and a mainstay in a country that changed governments more regularly than its men changed their shirts.

  The telltale was as he had left it.

  Without taking off his clothes, Lang stretched out on the bed and was asleep before he was aware of being drowsy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Rome

  Hotel Hassler

  Three hours later

  Refreshed and his body clock now on the same time as Europe's, Lang untied the string that bound the paper wrapped package. A few minutes later, he surveyed his image in the bathroom mirror. He looked as much a priest as any he had seen. He took the stairs to the ground floor to minimize being noticed. The Hassler was not a hotel within the budget of an ordinary priest.

  Thirty minutes later, he was in St. Peter's Square.

  Among the usual throng of visitors, two men were more interested in the priest striding past the fountain than in the architectural splendor that surrounded them.

  "Sure that's him?" one asked.

  "No way to be mistaken," the other said.

  "We cap him here?"

  The second man, obviously in charge, shook his head. "Too much of a crowd. We'd start a panic. Better we wait, make it look like a robbery."

  "Of a priest?"

  "They'll find him, they'll find out soon enough who he is. He walked here. He'll walk back. Be patient."

  As Francis had instructed, Lang veered to the left, approaching a Swiss Guard on duty where a small avenue separated the Bernini Colonnade from the basilica itself. As though to repel a medieval attack, the purple-and-gold-costumed guard lowered his halberd to block Lang's progress. From the determination on the young man's face, there was little doubt he would use the weapon if necessary.

  Reaching into a pocket, Lang produced the pass from the Scavia Archeolgia that had been faxed at Francis's request.

  The Guard gave the paper the briefest of scans and pointed as he spoke in accentless English, "First door on the right. Show this to the man behind the counter."

  Lang did as he was told, entering a small room filled with nine or ten priests, including one standing behind a ticket booth-like fixture.

  "Okay, listen up," the man in the booth said in tones that came somewhere from midwestern America. "In a few minutes, a couple of our Jesuit brethren are going to take you through the necropolis. Stay with the group. We'd hate for you to get separated and locked up with an unknown-number of heathen souls."

  There was a murmur of chuckles.

  ''And watch out crossing over the street out there." He pointed as a small truck whizzed by. ''You get hit and nobody's gonna stop to administer final rites."

  Subdued laughter.

  The various priests returned to the process of informally introducing themselves. Lang hadn't counted on this and hoped none were from Atlanta.

  His anxiety was relieved when two more came through the single door, their guides.

  "A few preliminaries," the older one said, also an American, although Lang couldn't exactly place the accent. "As most of you know, the Vatican was originally no more than one of ancient Rome's seven hills…"

  Lang's mind drifted as facts he already knew were repeated.

  His attention snapped back as one priest led the way outside and to a glass door that led into a small vestibule, while the second made sure there were no stragglers by foll
owing the group. The lead. priest pushed a series of buttons on the wall. Lang memorized the sequence. A door opened with a whisper that indicated it also served as some sort of airlock.

  "The temperature and humidity are carefully maintained," the leader said over his shoulder, as though answering an unasked question. "You'll see why in a moment."

  From an invisible ceiling, soft lights illuminated a narrow cobblestone road between brick buildings that, at first glance, could have lined any ancient city street. Closer examination revealed that ·the structures even had windows and doors. The insides were decorated with sculptures and wall paintings of scenes from mythology and nature. A bird, easily. identifiable as some sort of partridge, sat on a pine bough, depicted in tones fresh enough to have been applied yesterday. Lang marveled that something so ancient could be so well preserved. Another room was done in glittering mosaics, a picture of Apollo in his golden sun chariot being pulled across the sky by two white horses in midcanter. Almost every tiny tile was just as the artist had placed it.

  "Most of these mausoleums were buried for nearly two thousand years," the guide/priest said. "That's why they are so well preserved."

  The road climbed more steeply the farther they went. At irregular intervals, another door would open and close with a ghostly sigh.

  "They certainly buried their dead in style," someone observed, speaking in a whisper, much the same as one might do in church.

  "The families came to visit on certain days," the lecture continued. "See the hole in the roof there? For food and drink. The, Romans believed the deceased's spirit could be maintained by pouring nourishment into the sarcophagus or cremation urn."

  Lang stopped, nearly causing a collision with the priest trailing behind the group. He surveyed the incline and looked up and down a street that had not seen the sun in almost two millennia. It was as though he had entered another world, as indeed he had. It took little imagination to see toga-clad Romans walking this street. At several points there had been gaps between tombs. Intersecting paths? Lang was certain the necropolis had more than one avenue. In fact, finding the right one was going to be a problem.