by Gregg Loomis
Miles was as good as his word; the overnight air envelope had been waiting for him as Lang limped into the office. He shut the door before pulling the tab that opened the package. Inside were what looked like bank transfer records. From The Bank of Guernsey account of International Charities, Ltd., one of Eon's foundations, to a numbered account in the Ceska Narodni Banka of Prague account of Starozitnictvi Straov of one and a half million pounds. A relatively small amount when Echelon was usually tracking the hundreds of millions that rah through the accounts of fronts for terrorists and narco-traffickers.
Along with the transfer was a note in Miles's oh-so-fine prep school handwriting:
Lang knew that foundations and corporations had a regular banking routine just as individuals did. People paid their utility bills, for example, on a fairly regular basis along with credit cards, mortgages and the like. In a manner of speaking, so did corporations. Even charitable foundations, such as Eon's, were consistent in the amount of money spent on its good works. A computer, not having a human brain, was unable to understand anything that did not fit its programmed norm and kicked out the fact or data at variance with what it had been told, as more than one major American corporation had learned to its sorrow. For reasons Lang would never even want to understand, the gizmo had flagged this particular expenditure.
Perhaps it was related to the Nag Hammaddi volumes, perhaps not. It was, though, the closest thing Lang had to a clue as to who killed his friend and wanted Lang himself dead.
When he had proposed the trip to Prague, Gurt had wanted to come along. They had argued. Just as correct as painful, she reminded him of at least twice she had saved his life. Her agency training was not only the same as his but years more current. Besides, she spoke several European languages including a couple of Slavic dialects.
"Just what," Lang had asked, "do you suggest doing with Manfred?"
Rather than leave his son without either parent, Lang would let the killers come to him, a risky option at best.
When Lang had thought he had won past arguments with Gurt, he had subsequently learned to his chagrin the debate simply wasn't over yet.
This time her jaw snapped shut and she said nothing.
"We can't very well take him with us," Lang said. "And it's hardly fair to him to risk losing both parents."
"But, we have no place—"
"No problem," Lang said in the same soothing tone he used when urging a jury to discount testimony damaging to his clients. "We can either find a place here in Atlanta or you go back to Germany until this whole thing is over."
For once, he was reasonably certain the argument was done.
In addition to the normal poor service and indifference of the airlines, there were two other problems: First, getting the Browning and its ammunition aboard, either on his person or in his baggage, would be difficult. Second, the explosion and fire at his condo had consumed the false passport and credit card he had used so many times. The real one was in a lockbox at the bank. The reason for the distinction was now unclear. Putting his name on a passenger manifest would be tantamount to sending an engraved announcement of both his departure and his destination to anyone modestly sophisticated in hacking into poorly guarded airline computers.
There was really little choice: He had to take the Gulfstream IV registered to the Jeff and Janet Holt Foundation, the eleemosynary institution Lang had founded with funds he had extracted as compensation from the murderers of his sister and her stepchild. He was its president, implementing its declared purpose of providing pediatric medical services to underdeveloped nations. He took no salary but he did have use of the most luxurious private jet on the market.
And that jet had just happened to be flying a team of physicians to Nigeria the next day. One of them would be picked up in Munich. From there, Lang could take the train to Vienna and thence to Prague. It took far longer but rail transport required no security checks, no identification when buying a ticket. As long as only cash was used, it was untraceable.
There had been only one thing remaining before departure. As always before leaving Atlanta for an indefinite period on an uncertain mission, Lang went to the cemetery. The cab stopped at the foot of a gentle slope with a view of the city skyline. The driver left the engine and meter running as Lang pulled himself up the slight grade, floral paper in one hand, cane in the other. Dawn, Janet and Jeff, the closest people to family he had known in his adult life until now. He was never quite certain why he came here at these times; this time he was more unsure than ever. Somehow, visiting the former family seemed a betrayal of the family he now had. Was it a sense of wrongdoing that had prevented him from telling Gurt where he was going? Had he feared he would offend her? Was the thought he was doing wrong why he had refused to let Manfred come along? Dawn, ever mindful of his well-being, would be happy to know he now had the child she could not give him. Janet had nagged him regularly to seek another mate. Gurt was not one to look over her shoulder. So why the guilt trip?
Kneeling, he unwrapped the green tissue from two dozen roses and placed them in vases attached to the headstones.
Then he had stood, staring at the polished granite for a few moments before going back down the hill.
The train finally eased into the concrete cube that was the Prague railway station. The featureless, massive structure was reminiscent of the country's past as a Communist satellite, its capital city strewn with architecture Lang thought of as Stalinist empirical. Outside the dimly lit interior, he found a relatively undamaged Skoda, a Czech Audi knockoff. Guessing the sign on the roof meant "taxi," he opened the trunk and slid his single bag in next to what looked like the remains of a jack assembly and a spare tire that would have had a hard time even remembering treads.
In front, the driver put down a newspaper and took the last drag from a cigarette that smelled very much like silage. It also smelled very much like the cardboard tubes smoked by the Soviet Bloc defectors Lang had questioned. Cheap, odoriferous tobacco had apparently not vanished along with the Soviet Empire. The evil men do does, in fact, live after them.
"Hotel Continental," Lang said, wondering if the man understood.
They passed tired-looking warehouses with rusty steel doors before emerging onto a four-lane boulevard that followed the gentle sweep of the Vltava River. Ahead, Lang could see Prague Castle brooding on the landscape's only high point. The ebulliently Gothic spires of St. Vitus's Cathedral rose above the ramparts like a crown.
He grinned at a memory: The Defenestration.
In May of 1618, more than one hundred Protestant
nobles had marched into the palace to protest the succession of the notoriously intolerant Catholic Habsburg, Archduke Ferdinand. In the ensuing argument, Ferdinand's two governors were flung bodily out of a window, landing unharmed five stories below.
Intervention by angels, Catholics proclaimed. More likely by the inhabitants of the castle's stables, Protestants retorted. The defenstratees had landed in a huge pile of the morning's soft, still-steaming mucking. Thus began the Thirty Years' War, the only conflict Lang knew that, quite literally, began with horseshit.
Crossing a bridge, the cab came to a stop in front of a glass-and-steel building, just as ugly as the train station.
Lang handed the driver a number of kroner, unloaded his own bag and hobbled into a lobby paneled in light wood. To his left was a shop selling contemporary glassware. On his left, a cigar shop sold Cuban tobacco.
Lang joined a line of camera-toting Japanese at the reception desk. He turned sideways and watched the car in which he had arrived pick up another fare and pull away from the curb. He waited another few minutes before doing an about- face and exiting the way he had come. Trolling his bag behind him with one hand, leaning on his walking stick with the other, he headed south along Parzska. The hum of traffic faded behind him as Baroque buildings with shops on the first floor lined the street. To his right, the sharp angle of the roof of the Old-New Synagogue rose, marking the ghetto,
a place that had seen centuries of pogroms long before the twentieth century and Adolf Hitler.
Within another block, he was facing the Old Town Square, a space enclosed by three- and four-story buildings with Baroque facades in fanciful, pastel colors. Lang crossed north to south. To his right was the Old Town Hall with its "new" tower, added in the mid-fourteenth century. A small crowd had already gathered, awaiting the performance of the mechanical figures of the astronomical clock.
Lang paused, a tourist taking in the sights, before selecting one of the crowded sidewalk cafes. He slid into a seat still warm from its former occupant and ordered a Plzensky, one of the slowly matured pilsner beers for which the Czechs are famous. In fact, Lang recalled, pilsner was first brewed only fifty miles away.
Taking his time, he surveyed his surroundings. The place probably looked pretty much the same when Franz Kafka wrote stories of people turning into cockroaches and trials where no accusations were made.
No one paid any particular attention to him. Slowly savoring his beer, he scanned a menu in English before ordering a salami chlebicky, an open-faced sandwich served on a baguette. He ate watching the crowd. Still no one seemed interested in him. By the time he had finished and dusted away the last of the crumbs, every table had turned at least once.
He had done what he could to make sure no one had followed him.
Still cautious, he left the square to walk around the block. He paused, seeming to admire toys in a shop window while he checked reflections of passersby. None of the faces were those he had seen earlier today. He returned to the square and entered the huge arched doorway of a blue- tinted building on the south side.
He stood in a cavernous, vaulted space he guessed had once been a stable. A sign at the back advertised a restaurant in the basement below with red, hot and blues! live american jazz and blues nightly. A stone staircase on his right led to the hotel whose small sign he had noted while he enjoyed his meal. He pushed the buzzer for an antique cage-style elevator. His mending legs could use a respite.
The place had clearly been a private home at one time. On each floor, rooms were angled from a center vestibule so that there had been no need for corridors. Yes, they had a vacancy, the English-speaking lady at the small office announced. It fronted right on the square. Would Lang like to see it?
Minutes later, Lang was in a modestly furnished, high- ceilinged room, poring over the free city map common to most European cities. All its advertisers' locations were prominently marked. Starozitnictvi Starov was not among them. Returning to the office, Lang had the proprietress run the name through her computer's city directory.
She looked up from the screen and pointed. "It is a dealer in old books. It is to be found in the Mala Strana, Little Quarter." She pointed as though Lang could see through the walls of the cramped space. "The area just on the other side of the Charles Bridge."
II.
Piazza dei Cavatieri di Malta
Aventine Hill
Rome
At the Same Time
The older man was looking over the shoulder of the younger, squinting at the computer screen. "You have found nothing, Antonio?"
Antonio shook his head. "Nothing, Grand Master. The American lawyer, the woman, the child—even the dog— disappeared after leaving the pawnshop" He turned to look into the face of the other man. "But I can speculate, should you permit."
"Please."
"We know this man, Reilly, has access to a private jet." He paused long enough to click several keys. A photograph of Lang at the British Museum filled the screen. "We also know that jet left for Africa the day before yesterday"
"Africa? I don't—"
Antonio held up a cautionary hand. "If I may, Grand Master?"
The older nodded. "Forgive my interruption"
"The plane made a single stop en route: Munich "
"And you think this Reilly was on it."
It was Antonio's turn to nod. "I cannot know, of course, but our brothers in Germany are to obtain copies of whatever documents the aircraft submitted to the authorities. We should know before tomorrow"
"That may well be too late. Discovery of the contents of those books would mean disaster."
Antonio was silent for a moment. "We do not know there are copies."
"It is a chance we cannot risk. It is better we eliminate this American than to find we have made a mistake. Safer yet, we must silence all but us who might know of the contents of the book. That is why the Englishman died. We must continue to observe the shop from whence they came. If he has found out anything, he will come there."
"It will be done, Grand Master."
III.
Prague
Twenty Minutes Later
The late afternoon sun had sunk enough to put the narrow streets into total shade, making it difficult for Lang to read the tiny print on the map. He was pleased to find he was not lost when he looked up and saw the Old Town Bridge Tower, a medieval defense that guarded the eastern end of the Charles Bridge. He was tempted to take a minute or two to admire the Gothic sculptural decorations of its facade, including the carved kingfisher, personal symbol of
the fourteenth-century King Wenceslas of Christmas carol fame.
Then he thought of Manfred, weeping in terror as bullets tore through the walls of the country cabin.
He had no time for historical exploration.
Crowds of tourists wandered back and forth or took pictures of the procession of marble saints that lined the wall along each side of the bridge. Similar to its builder's inspiration, Rome's Ponte Sant'Angelo, the bridge also seemed to be a favorite spot to photograph opposite skylines.
Lang had no time for a Bernini wannabe, either.
Almost a mile later, Lang was leaning on his cane as he stepped off the bridge and began to study the map again. The shop he was looking for should be two blocks down the Nerudova and then right on the street he was seeking, Josefska.
Unlike the Old Town, here the roads were wide enough for automotive travel if barely so because of the lines of parked cars. The pavement began a steep incline toward the castle, now invisible behind nearby rooftops. He made a right turn and stopped suddenly. Directly across from the shop two men lounged against a black Opel Astra. One was smoking a cigarette, the other reading a newspaper. The short street consisted of one or two shops and several restaurants, all closed until the dinner hour. Possibly, the men were waiting for someone, but just like the men outside the pawnshop had attracted Gurt's attention, they set off a well-tuned alarm system in Lang's head. Any anomaly, a dirty, dented car in an upscale neighborhood, a panhandler with shiny shoes, anything that didn't seem to belong where it was, brought agency training to mind like a reflex.
Realizing standing still would make him as just as obvious, Lang developed an interest in the menu posted in a restaurant window before crossing the street and resuming a leisurely stroll. If these guys were, in fact, watching Starozitnicvi Straov, he would certainly attract their attention by entering. As he passed, he noticed a neat sign in Czech, German and English. If Lang was seeing correctly through glass that appeared not to have been washed in this millennium, the latter two announced entry was by appointment.
Lang was about to turn a random corner when he caught his reflection in the side mirror of a parked Renault Megane. He saw himself clearly but also one of the men from in front of the shop, walking casually but at a clip that would shortly close the distance between them.
Lang glanced around. There was no one other than he and the two men on this stretch of street. The weight of the Browning in its small-of-the-back holster was reassuring, but gunfire in this quiet section of town would likely draw the police in a hurry. Involvement with the local cops had no upside. He would be far better off handling this quietly.
The man behind was getting closer. Lang could see sunlight reflecting from the shaved scalp and the single earring so many Czechs seemed to favor. He was big, too. Somewhere north of two hundred, Lang guessed, m
ost of it muscle, judging by the biceps that strained against the restraints of the tight black T-shirt.
Lang increased his speed slightly, swaying like a ship under sail as he used his cane to hobble around another corner. He stopped, turned and spread his legs into a batter's stance.
He didn't have to wait long. Baldy rounded the turn, his eyes searching for Lang in the near distance. It took a millisecond for him to adjust his sight.
Not a lot of time but enough.
Lang lunged forward like a clock spring suddenly released, putting all his weight behind a major-league, go-for-the-fence swing with the walking stick. It landed where it had been aimed, at the bottom of the man's nose, bending the nasal cartilage back against and into the point it became bone. Tissue snapped with an audible pop.
The blow was neither fatal nor particularly damaging but it was one of the most disablingly agonizing Lang knew. Its recipient would be blinded by tears of pain for several seconds at the least.
Baldy's hands flew to his face as he yelped and collapsed to his knees, bringing his head into range of another home-run cut to the side of the jaw.
Baldy fell sideways, lying on the sidewalk as he emitted blood and moans in equal parts.
Looking up to make sure his victim's companion had not heard anything, Lang knelt and awkwardly rummaged through the man's clothes. His fingers closed around a switchblade, which Lang shoved into his own pocket. He had expected no identification and he found none. He was about to give up when his fingers touched paper. He pulled it out and stared.
He was looking at himself in formal garb.
The British Museum.
But how ... ?
He had scant time to think.
Baldy's friend rounded the corner, grunting in surprise as he saw his pal stretched out on the pavement. If anything, he was bigger than Baldy, big enough to make Lang wonder if steroids were the Czech breakfast of champions.
One thing was certain: they liked knives. Or at least, this pair did.