The Sinai Secret (30 page)
Lang shook his head and started off again.
A series of what were undoubtedly curses made him look over his shoulder. Tweedledum and Tweedledee had knocked over the old woman's drinks, and she was expressing her disapproval in what Lang guessed was most unladylike terms.
His small bag held like a football to a running back's chest, Lang shoved aside a tourist in shorts and hideously European sandals as he ducked between two stalls, but not before the young souvenir salesman approached the newcomers.
"Scarab, mista? Only five dolla 'merican."
The souq was a maze of rickety stalls and sagging tents. Lang had little room to run, but his determined pursuers could go no faster. He ducked between a wooden kiosk where turquoise jewelry was hanging and the ropes holding up an adjacent tent under which dates were stacked in boxes.
Then he stopped.
One of the men was no longer there.
A quick look told him where he had gone. Somehow he had gotten in front. Lang was hemmed in by stalls, canvas, and two men who certainly bore him no goodwill. His hand went to the Desert Eagle in his belt.
No. Too crowded. Customers or purveyors were as likely to get hurt as his targets.
2110 Paces Ferry Road
Vinings, Georgia
7:38 a.m.
Two Days Earlier
Alicia was humming an old show tune as she stepped out of the shower. Last night with Lang had been every bit as wonderful as she had fantasized. Smiling at the thought, she swaddled herself in the thick terry-cloth robe from the Willard Hotel in Washington, the one she had swiped the time the cheapskates at the Department of Justice had allowed her to stay there instead of the usual out-of-the-way Sheraton or Marriott. She was wrapping a towel into a turban around her hair as she walked into the bedroom and stopped.
For an instant she thought Lang had come back to reclaim some forgotten item. But there were two men she had never seen before standing between her and the door to the hall.
The one closest was of slender build, over six feet, mid- thirties, dark hair cut slightly shorter than currently fashionable, and freshly shaved, as though he had just put down his razor. He looked out of place in the landscaping service's uniform he wore.
Her first reaction was anger rather than fear. "How did you get in ...?"
He held up a thin black wallet with a badge fixed to one side, a photo ID on the other. She had seen hundreds just like it. "Special Agent Witherspoon, Federal Bureau of Investigation."
The other man was holding up similar creds.
Her anger not even slightly mollified, she snapped, "You're not from the local office. I hope to hell you've got a warrant."
Witherspoon returned the black wallet to a pocket. "We understood Langford Reilly was here."
She stepped to the bedside, reaching for the phone. "I don't care if you thought Osama bin Laden was here— you don't have a warrant, your ass is grass, as you're about to find out."
She picked up the receiver and had punched in the first four digits of the local FBI office, a number any assistant U.S. Attorney knew by rote, when she felt a slight prick in her arm.
"What the hell do you think...?"
Her knees suddenly gave way and she was lying on the floor, looking at a pair of men's shoes. Above her she heard the phone being replaced on its cradle.
Then her world went black.
Should a neighbor have been leaving his house for work a minute or so later, he would have seen nothing unusual at 8:10. Two men from the community association's landscaping service were carrying a large bag, no doubt full of grass cuttings or fallen leaves, to their truck. The only thing unusual was that the sack seemed to weigh more than such material should. Both men were struggling with the weight. It would have been comforting to know residents were getting their money's worth.
Khan al-Khalil
Cairo
Lang didn't see many options. Even if he could literally push through the crowd, he would wind up confined by more stalls. The only good news was that for whatever reason, the Mukhabarat men had not yet called for backup or summoned the local police to join in the chase.
Lang moved sideways under the tent, pretending to examine a small carton of dates. The tent's proprietor smiled, showing yellowed teeth, and extended a hand with one of the fruits. He was offering a sample of the merchandise.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, anticipating success, had slowed to a walk. As they approached, the angle for an escape right or left, never good, diminished even more.
Lang accepted the proffered date, nibbling tentatively as he backed slowly to stand beside one of the ropes supporting the canvas. Four guy lines wrapped around rocks held the tent against a peaked pole that looked less than steady. Lang guessed it was rigged for easy removal once the day's business was complete.
Tweedledee ducked as he stepped under the edge of
the tent. From where he stood, Lang watched as Tweedledum did the same.
With a forced nonchalance, Lang took a step, as though to speak with the date seller. The two men anticipated his move and came further under the canvas.
Lang suddenly spun, exiting the shade of the sailcloth, and snatched the rope from its tethering rock. One corner of the canvas now hung limply. Repeating the move, he slipped the second line free, cutting himself off from the view of the two. He gave the corner a hard pull and the entire structure collapsed, to the screams and curses of those inside, who were blindly shoving one another to get out from under the confines of the enveloping canvas.
Lang fled.
Two blocks away he finally succeeded in waving down a cab and was on his way to the airport. He would take the first flight out to anywhere.
Then he had some very specific questions he needed to have answered.
The sound of his BlackBerry's beep startled him. It could be only one person.
"Yes, Sara?"
"Lang? I can't hear you."
Cairo's traffic intruded even through the cab's windows rolled up to contain air-conditioning of doubtful value; horns honking, as many mufflers missing as were still working, the driver's radio blaring something Lang supposed was music. He tapped the man on the shoulder, motioning him to lower the volume.
"Okay, Sara, try again."
"Lang, someone slipped a package through the mail slot last night."
"The mayor can't afford stamps?"
"Lang, I'm serious."
"Okay, what's in it?" "Makes no sense. A ring with an emerald in the shape of a heart."
It took Lang three tries to Alicia's personal office number before someone else answered.
No, Ms. Warner was not in her office. No, she had not called in. The anonymous coworker was certain Alicia had an appointment out of the office and had simply forgotten to tell anyone.
Lang was less sure.
FORTY-THREE
British Airways Flight 721
Somewhere over the Mediterranean
That Night
Lang usually enjoyed British comedy, with its understated humor and cleverly absurd situations. Tonight, though, he watched the Hugh Grant movie on the individual screen without really seeing it. Instead he saw the shadow in the mist, a figure now recognizable.
Maybe.
His rush from the Khan al-Khalil to the airport had gotten him there only twenty-five minutes before a departure for London's Heathrow. When he'd been told by an unconcerned ticket agent that the plane was full, a wad of bills provided enough baksheesh to purchase not only a ticket but also an avoidance of time-consuming if indifferent security. The ease with which he evaded supposed protection against bomb-toting candidates for Islamic martyrdom du jour did little to make him feel safe, but it did get him to the gate in time. A bored glance at his forged passport, a nod from the accompanying ticket agent, no doubt signaling a willingness to share the newfound wealth, and he eased himself into a first-class seat.
He tried not to think of the righteous indignation of whomever he had displaced.
Instead he utilized his flight-induced insomnia to review the few facts he knew about whoever it was that wanted him dead. He had concluded that the reason was the white powder, the manna, or whatever it was with such amazing chemical and physical properties. The stuff simply didn't answer all the questions, though. If two scientists working for the foundation an ocean apart had discovered it, it could not have been such an impossible secret. In his mind he replayed the morning's conversation with bin Hamish and the revelations of Dr. Shaffer in Vienna.
Perhaps it was not the powder; perhaps it was...
He shook his head to decline the offer of a beverage by a flight attendant, regulation smile in place. The noun
drink
apparently did not exist in the airlines' lexicon.
The scene at the marketplace had added another riddle: Why didn't Tweedledum and Tweedledee call for backup from the local police?
There was only one reason he could think of in retrospect.
Somewhere between that thought and the glare of the next morning's light, the weariness that was the dregs of the day's adrenaline surge took over.
New Scotland Yard
Broadway
London
The Next Afternoon
Inspector Dylan Fitzwilliam scowled at the grainy photograph on his desk, the product of an airport security camera. The man tendering his passport might have been traveling under the name of Joel Couch of Macon, Georgia, but face-recognition technology revealed him to be Langford Reilly.
IRA terrorism of the seventies and eighties had spawned the know-how of storing facial features in data banks. With cameras all over Great Britain, the average Englishman had his picture taken almost daily, a Londoner three times a day. The Irish killers had long since swapped bombs and guns for pin-striped suits and negotiating sessions, but the cameras remained. Like any other government intrusion, once begun, the program was unlikely to end nor the technology to be scrapped.
Mr. Reilly had appeared on one of the cameras at Gatwick a week or so ago, and again the same day on another that scanned London's streets. Although Fitzwilliam had been alerted, there was nothing to be done. In spite of the suspected murder in the West End, the shooting of two unknown thugs on the streets of South Dock, and the surprising discovery in Portugal a few years ago, the American had been cleared of any wrongdoing. There had been no reason to detain him.
Innocence, of course, had no place in data banks.
That had been before the Yard had received notice from Interpol that Reilly was wanted for questioning in connection with a murder in Vienna.
Fitzwilliam exhaled wearily as he turned to the computer terminal on his desk. Some people simply could not shake off the violence that followed them any more than Patel, the inspector's immediate subordinate, could rid himself of the smell of curry.
A few taps on the keyboard and a list of names appeared. The inspector squinted over half-moon glasses at the screen. It seemed each year the font became harder to read, no doubt some space-saving economy by the Yard's accounting boffins. He refused to accept that age had anything to do with the matter.
There it was: Annueliwitz, Jacob, wife Rachel. A flat on Lambeth Road on South Dock. A barrister, unsurprisingly with offices at the Middle Temple Inn.
He printed out the addresses before summoning Patel.
The man appeared silently with the smile that perpetually lit his dark face. Even dressed in a suit and without a canteen, Patel reminded Fitzwilliam of a modern-day Gunga Din. The inspector mentally chastised himself. Let a word of that slip and it would be sensitivity training instead of police work for a fortnight at least.
The policeman handed both addresses and the picture across the desk. "Send a couple of lads to watch both these places. If this Reilly chap shows up, I want him brought in. There's an international warrant on him."
Patel, grin still intact, reached for the papers.
"No, on second thought, send four men to each." He caught himself in another politically incorrect gaffe.
"Officers. Men or women. And make sure they're armed. The bloke has been implicated in some pretty rough activity."
Patel nodded his understanding. "Like the killings a few years back? Should I have vests and rifles issued?"
Fitzwilliam regarded his subaltern for a moment before deciding the man was serious. "Hardly a way to avoid attracting attention, wouldn't you say?"
Grin undiminished and gentle reprimand ignored, Patel turned and left the inspector staring at his office's walls. Sodding rotten luck, having Reilly show up, unbidden as Banquo's ghost, on the night Shandon, his wife, had booked theater tickets.