by Gregg Loomis
Another switchblade snicked open, the last of the afternoon sun dancing on a six-inch blade. Lang used his cane to push himself to his feet as the man advanced, knife extended.
He mistook Lang's steps backward for an attempted retreat. Lang didn't understand the words but the tone was clear enough: "Come here, little fish. All I want to do is gut you."
Lang was about to get his twenty-five dollars' worth along with a handsome dividend. Holding the cane in his left hand as he backpedaled as best he could on gimpy legs, he used the right to tug at the cane's knob.
His eyes never left his assailant's; they didn't have to. Instead, he watched his opponent's widened stare as Lang withdrew a good three-and-a-half-foot blade from his gentlemen's walking stick. He had recognized it as a sword cane the second he had touched the brass knob in Monk's shop.
The blade hummed evilly as Lang slashed at the air. "Not exactly what you'd expect from a cripple?"
Evidently so.
It was a lot more steel than the man facing him wanted any part of. He took a couple of steps backward before turning and fleeing.
Bastard probably parked in handicapped spaces, too.
Lang had started to trudge back to the hotel when his BlackBerry buzzed. His office number showed on the screen.
"Sara?"
"It's me, Lang."
"What's up?"
"It's Home Depot. I called like you asked me to and asked that they come get the stove, deliver the wall oven."
Jesus! She could have text messaged him; that was the point of having a BlackBerry. But then, that was Sara, resistant to new technology as a flu vaccine to the virus. When typewriters had become the next buggy whips, it had required a series of threats, promises and finally a raise to convince her to learn basic computer skills rather than retire. E-mail was suspect, subject to electronic whim just as computer files were not to be trusted nor CD's worthy of confidence; they would not cannibalize their information unlike their paper counterparts.
She picked up on the pause. Or perhaps his sigh. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No, no. I was just, er, meeting with some people. Home Depot was delivering a wall oven and ... ?" "The man from your condo management company called, complaining about the hall outside your unit being blocked"
"See if you can get the guy who was supposed to install the oven to move it inside."
"Not that simple. They left the stove and delivered a hood to go with it. I called the store. They said that was what you ordered."
Lang sighed. "Who did you speak to, Laurel or Hardy?"
IV.
Thirty Minutes Later
When Lang got back to his hotel, he felt as though Baldy and Co. had succeeded. The still-mending parts, which was most of his body, ached, stung or just plain hurt. He resisted the impulse to stretch out on the bed to relax sore muscles and joints. Instead, he went back to the hotel's small office.
"A favor?" he asked.
The woman nodded. "Surely. Perhaps choose a place for dinner? Call for a driver for a tour of the city tomorrow?" She grinned suggestively. "Maybe arrange for company this evening?"
"Thanks, but no." Lang pointed to what looked like a phone book. "I have a hobby, collecting old books and manuscripts. A friend referred me to a shop here in Prague .. ."
Certain he would never get the pronunciation anywhere near understandable, he wrote out the name. "The sign on the window said 'by appointment.' Could you ... ?"
She squinted, reaching for an old-fashioned rotary phone.
She spoke what Lang guessed was Czech. He only understood his name and the word "American," a frequent European synonym for "sucker" She handed the phone to him.
"Hello?" he asked tentatively.
"Mr. Reilly?"
He could not tell if the voice, slightly accented, belonged to a man or woman.
"Which of my customers was kind enough to give you my name?"
Lang made the instant decision to go with the truth. Or as much of it as seemed expedient. "Eon Weatherston-Wilby."
"A great pity. You have heard?"
Lang nodded as though the person on the other end could see. "Yes. He gave me the name of your shop shortly before he, er, died. I would very much like to see what you have that might be of interest to me."
"Is there something in particular, some certain type or time period?"
"Something similar to what you sold Sir Eon "
There was a definite pause. "I think it better if we met someplace other than my business."
"I'm a stranger in Prague. Make a suggestion."
"Do you like the food of New Orleans?"
Strange question. "Sure, but... ?"
"The basement of your hotel in, say, an hour? If we are to talk, we must finish our business before twenty-one hundred hours. Thereafter, the music makes it difficult to hear."
The line went dead.
How was whoever he had just spoken to going to recognize him wherever they met? He didn't even have the name of the person he was meeting.
Then Lang recalled the sign in the huge vaulted room below the hotel: red, hot and blues! live american jazz and blues nightly.
Apparently complete with New Orleans cuisine.
New Orleans jazz, too, Lang hoped. He loved Dixieland, the music that had originated in the Crescent City, the Big Easy, that rich gumbo of spirituals, African rhythm and improvisation.
But then, the music wasn't what he had come here for.
An hour later it hadn't begun.
Lang descended a wrought-iron circular staircase to what looked like a large cave. White cloth-topped tables were arranged around a stage to his left, the location of whatever music there would be. Only when he reached the bottom of the steps did he realize the entire room had been carved into solid rock. In days long before refrigeration, such cellars had been used to keep vegetables as fresh as possible. But he had never seen one of these dimensions.
At the bottom of the stairs, a white-jacketed waiter approached.
"Mr. Reilly?"
Lang nodded.
"This way, please."
Lang was less than surprised to be shepherded to the only occupied table. An elderly man lifted watery blue eyes and smiled as he extended a hand.
"Forgive me for not rising, Mr. Reilly, but..."
Only then did Lang notice the wheelchair, an old model with a wicker back and a wooden frame that had seen recent polishing.
Lang took the hand, its skin feeling like parchment.
The old man's smile widened, exposing dingy teeth. "You like my antique?" He patted an armrest. "It is old, like me. Handmade when people took pride in the things they produced. I like to think of it as my Chippendale or Bugatti." He motioned for Lang to be seated. "I have the advantage of you, I fear. I know your name but you do not have mine."
His hand slipped from Lang's. "The English pronunciation would be Havel Klaus."
The accent was decidedly British-tinged.
"Your English is quite good"
Klaus leaned back in his seat. "As it should be. I spent most of the war in England, at least that part before Heydrich's assassination. After those brave men died in the crypt of St. Cyril and Methoious, I felt I had to do more. I parachuted in to join the partisans."
It took Lang a moment to draw up the memory. Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's fair-haired boy, had been the Nazi "Protector of Bohemia." In spite of his brutality, he fancied himself much loved by the people of occupied Czechoslovakia, so certain he drove himself to work daily in his open car. In May of 1942, the result had been an English-made bomb tossed into the passenger seat by Czechs recently dropped near Prague by the English. As intended, the event had been a morale raiser for all of German-occupied eastern Europe.
Cornered in an Orthodox church, the killers had elected to shoot themselves rather than face certain torture. The reprisal was the leveling of one of Prague's suburbs and the execution of every man, woman and child in it.
Klaus signaled the wa
iter. "But you did not come to Prague to hear the stories of an old man. I recommend the étouffée. Those who have traveled to your New Orleans tell me it is quite good here."
And they were right.
By the time Klaus put down his fork, the room was beginning to fill. Lang had expected the place's patrons to be a young crowd. Instead, most customers looked middle- aged or older.
Klaus was draining the last of his beer. "It would be best if we talked before the band arrives. Exactly what is it in which you have an interest?"
"Do you have anything like the book you sold Sir Eon?"
Klaus chuckled, the sound far deeper than his spare frame should have been able to accommodate. "No, and I doubt there are any more outside of museums."
Lang leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "What can you tell me about the one you sold?"
"Tell?" The old man's eyebrows made snowy arches. "Definitely part of the Nag Hammaddi Library, the Koine Greek, the Coptic Greek that was—"
Lang hated to interrupt, but he wanted to conclude this business before the tables around them were full and the music made shouting necessary to be heard. "I know. I mean, what was the subject matter and where did you get it?"
"Surely you understand my sources are secrets of my trade."
"But Coptic? All the way from Egypt to the Czech Republic?"
"I never said I got it in Prague. I will say that we have to look back in history. By the fourth century, the time these books were written, the western Roman Empire was shattering. The capital was moved to Ravenna, near Italy's east coast, more easily defendable than the ancient city. Thereafter, conquering Franks were calling themselves Caesar though they were not Roman, or even Italian. In the east, Byzantium was flourishing, the city of Constantine. Do you have any idea how long the Byzantine Empire lasted, Mr. Reilly?"
Truthfully, Lang had never given the matter a lot of thought although he considered himself a student of history.
"From, say, the rule of Constantine in mid-fourth century until the Ottoman Turks finally took the city in 1453. It was because of that city's fall that western Europe needed another route to the Orient. Columbus was seeking one when he found the Western Hemisphere."
Lang looked anxiously at the room's growing crowd. The decibel level was climbing noticeably.
Klaus sensed Lang's impatience. "To make it brief, Mr. Reilly, Byzantium, the city we knew once as Constantinople, now Istanbul, was at the center of an empire for a very long time. As the western part of the Roman Empire declined, the east flourished, much more Greek in culture than Roman. Since the pre-Roman rulers of Egypt had been Greek since Alexander's conquest, there was a cultural if not political tie between that country and the Byzantine Empire, an empire that was much of today's Eastern Europe including what is now the Czech Republic. When various parts of the books went on the antiquities black market back at the time of their discovery, it would seem natural to peddle them to some wealthy collector in what, at one time, had been essentially a Greek empire, particularly if that place was not a party to any international treaties regarding the buying and selling of another country's antiquities." He shrugged. "That's only a theory but it is as good a guess as you will hear as to how Sir Eon's book came into my hands."
He continued. "The Nag Hammaddi texts were written by Coptic, Egyptian, Greek Christians, probably a sect we know today as the Gnostics. In AD 367, the pope Athanasius circulated a pastoral letter declaring Gospels not chosen by the Nicene Council of 325 to be heretical. As you know, only four were chosen. The rest were ordered destroyed. Apparently, the Gnostics, or some of them, decided to bury, rather than burn, their copies."
Having explained it to Jacob the night at the British Museum, little of all this was news to Lang. Still, the subject was no less interesting. He forgot the increasing noise level. "Which was the gospel you sold?"
"The Gospel of James."
"James?"
"James, called The Just. He was the first bishop of Jerusalem and the brother of Jesus."
Two questions immediately came to mind. "Brother? I didn't know Jesus had a brother."
Klaus's face wrinkled in a smile. "Then you haven't read your Bible. He had a number of siblings. Mark refers to them in chapter six, verse six."
"I never knew that, either. But then, I grew up Episcopalian."
"You were not supposed to know. The existence of siblings presents a problem for the church. First, the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. Multiple children contradict that idea. Second, having brothers and sisters of the Son of God running about is a bit inconvenient."
Lang forgot the background noise and leaned closer. "How do they explain away what the Bible says?"
"The church, particularly the early church, was a master of... what do you Americans call it? Spin. Yes, they were spin masters. I think the standard argument goes something like this: Joseph, Mary's husband, is not mentioned in any gospel by the time Jesus reaches maturity, most likely died. He was, therefore, considerably older than Mary, a man who outlived his first wife who was the actual mother of all of Jesus's half siblings."
"Pretty lame. My next question is, what did the Gospel of James say?"
A shrug. "I do not know. As I said, it was written by Coptic Greeks and I do not read Greek nor understand Egyptian."
"Then how did you ... ?"
Klaus held his empty glass up to a passing waiter. "How did I know what I sold Weatherston-Wilby was genuine? I assure you, he had it vetted thoroughly before the transaction was complete. The provenance was impeccable if..." He searched for a word. "Not entirely normal."
Lang was silent for a moment, pressing circles into the tablecloth with the bottom of his glass. "I sure would have liked to know what it said."
The old man smiled again, this time creating enough wrinkles to make him resemble one of those Chinese dogs, a shar-pei. "Then I am a fortunate man. I thought the copy I made would have no value other than the satisfaction of having it translated so I, too, would know its contents."
Lang simply stared at him, remembering Gurt's admonition about closing his mouth.
Klaus laughed, a sound like footsteps crunching in dry leaves. "You are surprised, yes?"
"Astounded would be more like it."
"And how much is your astonishment worth?" He saw the expression on Lang's face. "I am, after all, in the business of selling old books and manuscripts."
"Certainly not as much Sir Eon paid. And I'd like to come to your shop, see how legible your copy is."
The old man shook his head slowly. "Only those patrons I know well visit my shop." He waved a blue-veined hand in the air. "Much of my merchandise is ... well, of difficult pedigree."
"Provenance, you mean?"
Klaus nodded.
Swell.
Lang was doing business with a dealer in stolen rare books.
"But I am a reasonable man. Selling the copy is like, like..."
"Finding money on the street."
"Yes, money on the street, say finding five thousand US dollars."
Lang folded his arms. "I'm not that curious."
Klaus nodded again, acknowledging the haggling had begun. "And just how curious are you?"
"About a thousand dollars."
"I have enjoyed the supper, Mr. Reilly." He pushed back from the table and swung the wheelchair around toward the elevator, stopping only to offer over a shoulder, "Many museums will want a reasonably priced copy."
The copy had gone from being self-educational only to a desirable museum exhibit. The prospect of money had been known to work even bigger transformations.
As Lang had suspected, the old man had intended to
make additional dollars with a copying machine all along.
Lang motioned for the check, studiously ignoring the wheelchair rolling across the dining area. He was almost ready to get up and go after Klaus when the old man folded first.
He spun around and rolled back to the table. "We Czechs have a saying: St
ubbornness deprives all of a fair bargain."
Lang grinned. "We Americans also have a saying: A fool and his money are soon parted."
"Thirty-five hundred."
"Fifteen hundred."
At two thousand dollars, the two shook hands.
"Give me the money and I will see that your copy is delivered to you."
What had he just said about a fool and money?
Lang shook his head. "Tell me where to meet you so I can look it over and the cash is yours. As soon as I can get it out of an ATM."
Klaus looked puzzled, then brightened. "ATM? Here we have Bankomat. Bring it to my shop in the morning. With two thousand dollars, you will have become one of my customers I know well."
Lang went to his room with the vision of Klaus hunched over a Xerox machine all night.
As the waiter deftly snatched the cloth from the table Lang and Klaus had vacated, he stopped and removed an object not much larger than a penny from the bottom of the table. He walked to the men's room and opened the door to the sole stall. Inside was a man who exchanged a wad of kroner for the thing from under the table.
V.
A Few Minutes Later
Once in his room, Lang used his BlackBerry to call Gurt. Ostensibly, he was calling to make sure she and the little boy were keeping on the move. He really wanted to speak to his son. He had thought he had experienced Loneliness before but never had he suffered an absence as he did being away from little Manfred. Surely, he told himself, he would finish his business here in Prague in time to be home tomorrow night. His conversation might well be picked up by a tap on Echelon, but whoever wanted him out of the way probably already knew he was in the Czech Republic.
"Lang?" Gurt could have been in the next room, not an ocean and half a continent away.
"We are weary of this all the time moving. I have decided to visit Manfred's Grossvater"
Grandfather, Gerhardt Fuchs, a former East German official and the subject of Lang's only venture into Soviet territory while with the agency. Few people knew Fuchs was now living in the resort town of Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. Gurt, also aware of Echelon and the possibility of its being compromised, didn't mention the location.
"Do you need to? I was just getting acquainted with my son."