The Coptic Secret (10 page)

Another long pause. "A little out of my bailiwick, Lang."

"Oh, come on, Miles! You guys track large transfers of money like a hen with one chick. I recall, it was you that warned of nine-eleven because you'd noticed a transfer of cash from al Qaeda accounts."

"Shucks, weren't nuthin'."

"False modesty doesn't become you, Miles. If the powers that be had listened to you ..."

"OK, OK, flattery appreciated."

Manfred walked into the room and froze, awestruck by the view provided by the floor-to-ceiling glass. Lang pointed to a helicopter making a pickup from the roof of a nearby building.

"So, Miles can you help?"

"Officially, no. But I'd like to renew the friendship, Lang. Haven't laid eyes on you in years. You and Gurt still..."

Gurt's looks were famous throughout the agency, as was the fact that Lang was the only one of the select members of that group who had ever gotten further than a refusal to do more than have lunch. His post-agency relationship with her was, he was certain, the subject of company gossip.

"We're getting along fine, Miles." He watched Manfred staring outside. "Better than you could believe. Thanks for asking. Now, about Eon Weatherston-Wilby ..."

"Like I said, I'd like to keep up the relationship with an old friend. You got a cell phone number?"

Less than half an hour later, Gurt was driving the rented SUV back to the residence hotel that would serve as home for the next few days. Lang planned to move frequently until the danger was eliminated.

Gurt was thinking the same thing. "We will live in hotels for how long?"

The prospect of one set of interchangeable living quarters after another was bleak at best. It would be particularly disturbing to watch his newfound son try to understand why he was suddenly an urban gypsy. Not to mention the bribes he would pay desk clerks to take Grumps. "Until we can figure out what to do, learn enough to go after whoever is trying to kill us."

"Kill
you,"
she corrected. "Manfred and I were not in the country even when the bomb did your condo."

"Whoever shot up the cabin wasn't making distinctions."

Gurt nodded. "Collateral damage. They didn't care."

Lang pointed to a strip center on the right side of the road. "Pull in there."

Gurt did as she was told, parked in a space perpendicular to the curb and looked up at a sign advertising the best ribs in town. "You have hunger?"

He indicated another neon sign in a window that announced,
pawn! tvs! electronics! guns!
"No, I have a need to be armed."

On the door, a sign informed the entrant that (a) the place was under video surveillance, (b) all firearms must be in cases or holsters and (c) Visa and Mastercard were equally welcomed.

A bell tinkled as Lang entered. A glass case displayed cheap watches and jewelry. Along one wall hung every imaginable form and shape of guitar, trumpet, trombone and several musical instruments Lang didn't recognize. Opposite was a rack of rifles and shotguns.

A man emerged from the shadows at the back of the shop. "Good mornin'! What can I—" He stopped, staring. "Langford Reilly! How have you been, Counselor?"

Lang took a very hairy hand in his own. "Pretty good, Monk. I take it you're keepin' your nose clean?"

"You bet. Not so much as a parking ticket since you got me off." He noticed Lang's difficulty in moving. "What happened to your leg?"

"That's why I've come to take you up on your offer of a favor if I needed one."

William "Monk" Vester, one of Lang's earlier clients.

Also one of the city's more entrepreneurial fences, Monk had been charged with specifying items to be stolen by a cadre of burglars. The case had been airtight with the housebreakers lining up to roll over on their compatriot in exchange for lighter sentences. Lang's only hope had been the incompetence of the Fulton County prosecutor's office. His reliance had been rewarded: somehow the exhibit numbers had become so mixed up it was impossible to ascertain with certainty which object had come from which victim or, for that matter, if the items had been stolen at all.

In Atlanta, Fulton County, it was not only better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted, it was a near certainty. The district attorney could have screwed up the trespassing prosecution of Attila the Hun.

"Owe you one, sure." Monk's head was bobbing as though on a spring.

Lang suspected the sobriquet came from his former client's resemblance to something simian. The hunched back made overly lengthy arms seem longer still, perhaps long enough to drag on the floor. The hairline seemed to end just above eyes that never stayed one place very long, shifting as though in perpetual search. Thick black hair covered every visible part of his body: his arms, his hands, most of his face.

"So, I'm here to call it due," Lang said.

Again the bobblehead doll effect. "Yeah, yeah, anytime."

"I need a gun and I need it fairly quickly."

The smile vanished into the heavy black beard. The man was clearly torn between doing a service for a friend and the possible hazards. "I dunno. I don't make you wait like the law says, I'm in trouble again, lose license."

Lang stepped over to a glass counter much smaller than that containing the jewelry. "Let's see what you got." He pointed. "Let me see that Browning HP 35 nine millimeter."

"Good gun," Monk murmured as he loped to the other side and turned a key. "Thirteen shots ..."

"I know," Lang said impatiently, extending his hand.

The feel of the weapon brought back memories. This was the model he had first been issued by the agency before the lighter SIG Sauer with its larger clip had replaced it. Lang pulled back the slide, held the gun up to the ceiling lights and peeked down the muzzle. The grooving was barely worn, the automatic clean, as though its former owner was aware that a well-maintained weapon was a reliable weapon.

He slid the action closed with a distinctive click. "How much?"

Monk pursed his lips and reached over his shoulder to scratch his back, an ape's gesture if Lang had ever seen one.

"Three fifty. For you, an even three."

Lang would have bet Monk had loaned no more than a hundred and a half but he had neither the time nor inclination to haggle. "Done. But I need it now."

Monk produced a sheaf of forms. "ATF requires a background check. Meybbe I can finish before you leave, meybbe three days."

Lang shook his head. "I may not even be in the country in three days."

"No problem. Jus' fill in the forms an' give me a check with a blank date. You don' pass the background check, my ass is so busted."

Gratefully, Lang took the forms and began. "Don't worry. I wouldn't be an attorney if I'd been convicted of a felony."

Monk looked at him, deadpan. "Bein' a lawyer don't mean you haven't been committed to a mental institution or any of those other things."

Lang peeled off an extra fifty after counting off three one-hundred-dollar bills. "To compensate for losing all that sleep."

Then he stopped beside the door, fascinated. He picked up a brass-headed cane, an old-fashioned gentlemen's walking stick. "How much?"

"I'll throw it in f 'nother twenty-five."

Lang examined it more carefully, noting the head could be detached from the cane itself. "Done!"

Monk stuffed the bills into a pocket without counting. "Say, know the bes' way to get a lawyer down from a tree?"

Here it came.

"Cut the rope."

Whatever happened to blonde jokes?

Browning in one pocket, a box of ammunition in the other, Lang limped outside leaning on his cane and used his arms to pull himself into the passenger seat of the SUV. "OK, got my business done. Let's go."

Gurt didn't turn her head. "As soon as I parked here, the white Chevrolet parked in front of the place that advertises ribs."

Lang was tugging at his shoulder harness. "So? Lots of people like barbecue for lunch."

"No one has gotten out."

Without turning his head, Lang could see two men in the front seat. Neither seemed to be doing anything.

Lang struggled back out of the car. "Wait a minute."

Monk was fading back into the shadows as Lang reentered. "You unhappy already?"

Lang shook his head. "Need another favor."

He told the pawnbroker what he wanted.

Once Lang was back in the SUV, Gurt continued watching the Chevrolet. "And now?"

"We wait."

But not for long.

A bilious green Caddy convertible eased out from behind the strip of businesses. From the size and gigantic tail fins, Lang would have guessed its origins lay somewhere in the late fifties. Monk had had the car ever since Lang had known him.

The huge automobile stopped just behind the Chevy, blocking it in its perpendicular space. Monk got out and started to go into the barbeque joint.

"Now," Lang said.

Oblivious to the shouts from the barricaded Chevrolet, Monk was entering the rib shack, a man making a quick stop to pick up a take-out lunch. Lang memorized the Chevy's license plate, although he was certain it would lead to a dead end.

Gurt was about to say something when Lang's cell phone pealed. It was Miles.

"What took you so long to get back to me?" Lang asked.

Miles snorted. "I didn't exactly have the full resources of the company behind me, y'know."

"But you did the best you could."

"As always. Where do you want the info sent?"

Lang thought a moment. Miles's reluctance to pass anything along over the phone was understandable. Worldwide, all electronic transmissions sent by satellite were monitored. Since this included well over 90 percent of all communications, Echelon, as the program was named, literally eavesdropped on that part of the world that no longer used wires to transmit messages. It was located in northern England and shared only by the English-speaking nations. The Achilles' heel of the project was the sheer volume of communications. Thousands of computers were programmed to record each message to be searched by other machines for keywords or phrases in a hundred or more languages. Still, the process took a day or so, and "bursts," those messages condensed into a single electronic beep, were not translatable into words.

Keywords or not, Miles was wise to take no chances. Passing oat information to the unauthorized was at best a firable offense. At worst, it could lead to criminal prosecution.

"Overnight air to my office." Lang gave him the address.

x.

Magnolia Motel

US Highway 41

Marietta, Georgia

That Evening

Not the Disneyland Hotel, it wasn't a lot to look at: a room whose faint odor of cheap perfume hinted at a usage by persons who would be acquainted for a short period of time rather than by families. The suggestion was enforced by the fly-specked sign behind the sole desk clerk
, in god we trust, all others pay cash.
The room's scruffy shag carpet, the tattered spreads on the two sagging double beds gave mute testimony that the Magnolia, located on what had once been a main thoroughfare between Marietta and Atlanta, had seen better days.

But the positive aspects outweighed the pervasive atmosphere of sleaze: The proprietor clearly expected cash, a necessity in the hot-pillow trade, thereby leaving no credit card trail for Lang's pursuers to follow. Parking behind the cinder block building lessened discovery of the marital infidelities and indiscretions that Lang guessed were the place's stock in trade. If the moans piercing the thin walls were any indication, business was good.

Lang had produced his money clip and peeled off several bills. The proprietor leered at Gurt with such lust, he seemed surprised when he noticed the child holding on to her hand.

No doubt assuming some sort of perversion was about to take place, he turned his attention back to Lang. "Don' 'low any loud noises. No dope 'lowed on th' premises. Unnerstan?"

Lang assured him he did.

The first thing Gurt had done after entering the room was to put down a suitcase and began stripping one of the beds.

"Now what?" Lang asked.

She was shaking a sheet as Manfred watched. "I wish to rid the bedclothes of any life-forms other than ones I can speak to."

Lang hadn't considered this possibility.

Grumps apparently thought this was some kind of game. He began to bark. The noise next door continued unabated.

Lang kneeled to quiet the dog. He doubted the Magnolia would eject any paying guest but there was no sense taking chances.

When Gurt had made sure the linen was free of unwanted fauna, she put her hands on her hips and gazed around the room. "With you is always first-class, no?"

Lang was in the tiny bathroom, trying to decide if the shower was hygienic enough for Manfred's use. A colony of mildew was prospering nicely on the plastic curtain and a circle of rust decorated the drain. "When you're on the run, you can't always be choosy."