The Julian Secret (Lang Reilly Thrillers) (5 page)

Gurt was standing over them, watching the verbal contest. “And what is next,
Mein Herren
, Goethe and ice hockey?”

“Humor is not a logical part of human behavior,” Lang said.

“Shakespeare?” Francis asked.

“Mr. Spock,
Star Trek.”

“Who?” Gurt asked.

Francis started to reply, but was interrupted by the shrill intrusion of the telephone.

Francis looked at Lang. “Somebody’s in trouble, I’ll bet.”

Lang’s law practice consisted largely of defending the criminal elite—corporate executives with sticky fingers, or accountants of dubious veracity, tax cheats, those involved in what was referred to as “white-collar crime.”

Lang stood, wiping crumbs from his lips with a napkin. “My clientele don’t usually get arrested on a Saturday night; they can afford a lawyer who arranges a voluntary surrender during normal business hours.” He put the napkin down. “Besides, I’m not taking much new business. Too involved with the foundation.”

The foundation. Specifically, the Janet and Jeff Holt Foundation, a charity funded by some European company. Why a commercial venture, one Francis could never find on any stock exchange, would pay an annual ten-figure sum in honor of Lang’s late sister and nephew was a question that troubled the priest. Even more mysterious was the fact that Lang had left Atlanta about this time last year to seek the persons responsible for the deaths of Janet and her adopted son, returning some months later as the sole director of an incredibly wealthy charity that spent hundreds of millions of dollars solely to provide medical care to children in Third World countries.

Lang had also returned with Gurt, a woman he had apparently known before his marriage. The specifics of their previous relationship, like the foundation, were quickly established as off conversational limits.

That was one of several areas that puzzled Francis. Among others was the fact Lang had gone to law school
in his thirties and had never attempted to explain the intervening years between his practice and college.

All enigmatic; none worth risking a friendship by unwanted inquiry.

Lang returned to the table and sat without a word. He was either deep in thought or stunned by the conversation. Both Francis and Gurt paused, waiting for some explanation, but none was forthcoming.

Francis dabbed at the crumbs on his plate.

“You would like more?” Gurt asked.

The priest held up his hands in surrender. “No, please. It was wonderful, but I’ve eaten too much.”

She stood, taking the platter away. “Then I will wrap it for you to carry with you. Homemade takeoff.”

“Takeout,” Lang corrected, still thinking.

“Does he not take it off, away?”

Lang didn’t reply. He despaired of Gurt’s logical mind mastering the American idiom.

While Gurt wrapped the remains of the strudel, Lang brought two glasses and a bottle of single-malt scotch to the table. He set a glass in front of Francis and offered the whiskey.

Francis stood, aware that, whatever its nature, the phone call, not company, was on his friend’s mind. “No, thanks. I’ve gotta drive home, and I don’t need a DUI.”

Lang gave him a crooked grin. “No papal dispensation for driving under the influence?”

Francis accepted the rest of the strudel from Gurt, nodding thanks. “The police of the apostate cut us true believers no slack.” He opened the door to the hallway and elevators, turning to speak over his shoulder. “Although a clerical collar has spared me the occasional speeding ticket.”

“Okay, then,” Lang said. “But at least let’s check the
score. Ought to be somewhere in the middle innings out there in La-La Land.”

The Braves were playing a series against Los Angeles, three time zones distant.

“For just a minute,” the priest conceded, stepping back inside and closing the door. “But keep that scotch out of reach, my reach.”

Both men sat back down at the kitchen table as Lang turned on the small television set on the breakfast bar. No matter how many times he saw it, Lang still regarded the transfer of images across a continent to be every bit as magical as anything the ancient gods might have done.

They had hit the end of an inning, and a car ad began to unfold, the announcer shouting in perpetual excitement. As the shiny new vehicles available at LOW, LOW, UNBELIEVABLY LOW PRICES faded, a familiar figure appeared, a silver-haired man holding a Bible, his ice-blue eyes staring earnestly into the camera.

“My fellow citizens,” he began, “it is high time for us to take back our country from the godless courts and those who would crush our Christian heritage. When I am your president, we will work together for these things and to make America, once again, the first among nations . . .”

Both Lang and Francis had heard it before. Harold Straight, candidate for his party’s nomination in the upcoming presidential election. His determined face faded to strains of “God Bless America.”

“I’m sure the Jews of this country find his message comforting,” Lang observed wryly.

“Not to mention Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else,” Francis added. “Also, any country that dares to think it’s number one is likely to find the Marines on its national doorstep.”

Gurt, abandoning her usual posture that television
was a sure cause of brain rot, moved to look at the fading screen. “This man has a chance to win?”

Lang shrugged at the unpredictability of American politics. “A lot of people believe he can put the Ten Commandments back in courthouses, stop the teaching of evolution, and reverse Roe v. Wade.”

“And this is good why?”

Lang glanced at Francis, who smiled back. “I’m sure Francis here would advocate the end to abortion—”

“Not at the price of having Straight in the White House,” the priest interjected.

“And,” Lang continued, “his message about his dad dying in World War Two to save American values hits home, too.”

“This is normal, to get into politics because of what your father did?” Gurt was incredulous.

“There wasn’t a war convenient for this guy to get into when he was in the Army,” Francis explained.

Gurt turned and went to the sink to wash dishes, a pastime both more interesting and useful than politics.

As the image of Dodger Stadium returned to the screen, Francis said, “After seeing Mr. Straight, perhaps I will accept your kind offer of a little scotch.”

In spite of multiple scotches and dinner wine, Lang could not sleep. Instead, he watched shadows of light from the street below form abstract patterns on the ceiling. Finally, he gave up. Moving carefully to avoid waking Gurt, he slipped out of bed and stood on the deck just outside the room. Absently, he observed the golden ribbon of traffic moving along Peachtree Street, his mind miles and years away.

He was startled when an arm encircled his waist from behind.

“The phone call, yes?”

He reached a hand over his shoulder to touch Gurt’s face. “Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

He sighed. “Remember Don Huff?”

There was a pause. “I’m not sure. Should I?”

“Tall, slender fella from somewhere in the Midwest. Passed through the Frankfurt office after coming over to the Third Directorate from Ops. He was the one got my ass out of a sling at Checkpoint Charlie when I was bringing your dad out. We didn’t see a lot of Don, ‘cause he was older and married.”

Gurt shook her head. “There were so many. It is a difficulty to recall even those I was working with last year. Why is he calling you after all this time?”

Lang turned to face her “He didn’t. His daughter did. Don was murdered in Spain yesterday.”

Even in the dim light from below, he could see her eyes widen. “Was it someone settling an old score?”

Lang shook his head. “I doubt it. Don left about the time I did, took early retirement when the Evil Empire collapsed, the intel budget was getting cut, and anyone not blind could see the main show was moving east, to hot, sandy places where the women hide their faces, scotch is hard to come by, and the fly is the national bird. Last I heard, he was writing a book.”

“Perhaps someone did not like what he was writing.”

Lang turned back around to stare below without really seeing anything. “Possible, I guess, but I doubt it. Seems a bit of a stretch.”

“Then who?”

“That’s what his daughter wants me to find out.”

“We are going to Spain?”

“I are going.”

He sensed, rather than felt, her stiffen. “The last time
you left me, ran away, you would have been killed had I not followed.”

More true than he was comfortable admitting. “But you have a new job. Besides, all I’m gonna do is look around, see what I can find out. Least I can do for someone who saved my life.”

“I also saved your life, and I want to go.”

If Lang had learned anything since Gurt had been in Atlanta, it was that he was not going to win this argument. Or any other. At first, he would believe he had won only to discover days later the dispute was far from over. If surrender was inevitable, he might as well hand over his sword as gracefully as possible.

“Okay, I’ll do what I can to make sure I have no court dates for the next few days, and you take Grumps to the kennel.”

“You can call Sara, your secretary, and she will tell you more about your schedule than you could know.
You
take Grumps to the kennel.”

Although Grumps was well-mannered to the point of being docile on most issues, the kennel wasn’t one of them.

Lang sighed with his second defeat in as many minutes.

Seville, Spain
Aeropuerto San Pablo
Five days later

Even with a bedroom in the foundation’s Gulfstream V, Lang’s basic distrust of anything that flew prevented sleep. There had been a time when he couldn’t keep his eyes open on a plane, but somewhere he had come to dislike aviation even if he could not deny its convenience. The flight could have been worse—Atlanta to Madrid by commercial jet, then take Aviaco, the local feeder, to Seville. Lang’s view was that if one plane had proved airworthy, it was folly to challenge fortune by changing to another.

That was why he was making one of his rare personal trips on the foundation’s airplane. Scrupulous to the point of compulsive, he kept the line between his own life and the foundation’s business delineated far clearer than even his battalion of accountants suggested. He had de
fended too many clients who had let their own needs extend into money they were managing for others.

The irritation caused by lack of sleep was exacerbated by Gurt’s deep, regular breathing, which lasted until he got up and went forward to watch one of the movies the plane carried, one described by the critics as a sophisticated, sexy comedy, “two thumbs up.” The first twenty minutes went from trite to corny and back again. Lang suspected the leading man, if not the producer, was one of the critics’ in-laws.

He never knew if the film got better. He awoke in front of a blank screen when the plane’s steward, chef, and majordomo gently shook him with one hand while placing a steaming plate of eggs Benedict on the tray in front of him and announcing that they would be on the ground in an hour.

Having wakened Gurt, Lang showered and shaved. Although minuscule, the Gulfstream’s toilet facilities were a vast improvement over the commercial airlines’. So were its storage capabilities. Lang took a sports shirt and slacks from a closet rather than donning attire wrinkled by storage in a suitcase. Minutes after the Gulfstream’s tires kissed the runway, the aircraft’s clamshell doors wheezed open and Lang and Gurt squinted into brilliant morning sunlight made all the brighter by their confinement aboard the plane.

Leaving the crew to deal with the paperwork generated by international travel, Lang and Gurt carried one suitcase each to the customs area, where a uniformed official spent more time trying not to be obvious in his admiration of Gurt than on his cursory inspection of their luggage. Chagrined at the brevity of the examination of bags, Lang realized he could have easily brought the Sig Sauer P226 automatic that had resided in his bedside table since his retirement. But why? he consoled
himself. He was here to nominally investigate a murder while giving such consolation as he could to the bereaved child of a man who had saved his life. What use would he have for a firearm?

None, he hoped.

“Mr. Reilly?”

Both Lang and Gurt turned to look at the young girl. Petite, almost elfin. Her face was longish but with a small nose that looked as though it had been added as an afterthought. Only a closer look told him she was an adult, not a child. There was something in her dark eyes that made Lang think of a small animal about to bolt for its burrow.

“You are Don’s daughter?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly. “No,” she said in English, “I am Sonia, Mr. Huff’s assistant. His daughter is at the house, waiting for you.”

The voice had only a trace of the languid Spanish, spoken at a much slower pace than its New World counterparts.

It took a few minutes for Lang to make sure the flight crew had found accommodations and that they would remain in touch with both him and the foundation in case needed by either. He and Gurt followed the woman to the parking lot, where she indicated a sleek, clean Mercedes of recent vintage.

“A beautiful car,” Gurt commented, her first words of the morning.

Sonia shook her head sadly. “It is, was, Señor Don’s, Mr. Huff’s. He was very proud of it.” She opened the back door. “Please.”

After tossing the bags into the trunk, Lang helped Gurt in, choosing the more informal arrangement of sitting next to Sonia in the front. “Kind of you to meet us. You are taking us to the house?”

The engine started with a purr. “No, Mr. Reilly. Señorita, Miss Huff, has made hotel reservations for you within walking distance.”

The ride was through a city virtually indistinguishable from any other in Europe. The greatest difference, Lang thought, was the unhurried pace of traffic. The blaring horns and screeching brakes of Rome and Paris would feel isolated here. If anything, the drivers were courteous, something most cities, including those in America, would find novel. A few minutes more brought them to the sluggish brown waters of the Rio Guadalquivir. Below the
Puente de Isabell II
, foot-powered paddle boats traced lazy S-curves and fishermen stood on the banks.