by Gregg Loomis
In jeans and a T-shirt designed to display her figure, Alicia met him at the door. Her hair, shoulder-length, framed her face. A emerald in the shape of a heart sparkled on her finger.
Lang gave her a perfunctory hug. "Don't you look nice! I don't remember the rock."
She let him in, closing the door and holding up her hand for inspection. "Don't usually wear it. It was an engagement ring, only good thing left of a bad marriage."
Lang followed her toward the back of the house, noting tasteful contemporary furniture punctuated with an occasional antique. "So why wear it tonight?"
She stopped so suddenly he almost ran into her. Turning, she took both of his hands in hers. "Because I'm through brooding about a failure. I'm in a new house in a new city and with a man who's fun and entertaining."
"I'm being damned with faint praise? Is that the female equivalent of, 'All the girls like her' or, 'She's a great cook'?"
"I'll bet it's the first nice thing anyone's said about you all day."
"Maybe. But my dog loves me."
She dropped one of his hands and led him to a small deck; a view of Atlanta's skyline serenely floated on a sea of trees. "Single-malt Scotch, if I recall."
He took the sweating glass she was offering. "It's clear to me there's nothing wrong with your memory."
There was an energy between them, the electricity a woman projected when she had something in mind more than an affectionate embrace. In college dorms Lang had participated in the ageless debate of whether a woman decided she would bed a man when she first met him, playing out the event like some sort of drama. Lang never
knew the answer, but he had come to recognize the signals when a decision had been made to implement the choice. Tonight, as the saying went, he would get lucky.
The meal, fish poached in a wine sauce with steamed vegetables, would be act one.
Lang sipped a glass of chilled white wine. "A California chardonnay?"
Alicia was peering over her glass. "You can't tell me the vineyard and vintage?"
"I'm not that much of an oenophile."
She put her glass down. "Oh? Then how did you know...?"
"I saw the bottle as we came through the kitchen."
She studied his face a moment. "Do you always notice the details?"
Lang was looking back at her. "I try. You know as well as I do that winning a case often depends on it."
"I have a confession to make."
"I have a friend who hears them professionally."
She shook her head, sending a wave of red hair flying. "You're going to hear this one."
"Do I get to choose the penance?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"On whether I want to serve it or not."
Lang pretended to gravely consider this for a moment. "So, confess."
"I had a conference call this afternoon, a really boring one with the Justice Department in Washington."
"A bunch of Department of Justice lawyers are tedious? That's not a confession; it's fact."
She waved him silent. "I had nothing better to do than an occasional 'uh-huh' or 'uh-uh' and to play with the computer. So I looked you up on the bar's Web site. There's a big gap of time between college and law school."
Lang tried not to let her know he was getting uncomfortable. "Lots of people try to earn an honest living before they become lawyers."
"True. But I thought about that... that bit of excitement in Underground. Made me wonder if you were involved in something... something shady."
"What criminal lawyer isn't?"
She grew serious. "I used my DOJ creds to get into lists of former government employees. At various times you were listed as being a trade attache, a chargé d'affaires, diplomatic researcher, and in charge of cultural exchanges."
"Job instability: It's one of my less attractive features. Besides, I was never in charge of anyone's affairs. They did it all on their own."
She was staring at him as though he had suddenly dropped out of the sky. "Lang, I've been with the government long enough to know those positions are phony, usually used as cover—albeit thin cover—for intelligence agencies. You were some kind of spy."
He held up three fingers. "Scout's honor, I never spied on anyone."
"Would you tell me if you still were?"
"I wouldn't be much of a spy if I did, would I?" He saw her face fall. "But I'm not."
"Sure would explain someone taking a shot at you."
"So would a jealous husband."
Her mouth twitched, and she failed to straighten it before breaking into laughter. "Do you take anything seriously?"
"Only those things that deserve it."
"Do I? No, wait, I don't think I want the answer."
"Hear it anyway. Yes, Ms. Warner, very seriously. Now, do I get to set your penance?"
"As I said, it depends."
"How 'bout we have dessert in bed?"
She stood. "Direct, aren't you?" "I try."
"I suppose I should worry that you won't respect me in the morning." She was already moving inside.
He stood. "Don't forget 'I don't know you well enough.'"
She turned with a malicious grin. "Why is it I feel that if I knew you better, I wouldn't do this?"
Lang didn't leave the town house until the next morning.
His mind was too occupied with promises unspoken and consequences just now considered to notice that the landscape crew paring already manicured grass was the only one he had seen in years that included no Hispanics.
It was only after he was almost a mile away that the workers, four large, muscular men who acted with the concert of military personnel, packed up their equipment and crossed the street to Alicia's residence.
6
THIRTY-NINE
Near Intersection of Hassan Sabry and Sharia
26th of July
Zamalek District
Garden City
Cairo, Egypt
0920, Two Days Later
Gezira had been a mere sandbar in the Nile until it was built up as an island site for a royal palace. The northern part, Zamalek, was now a leafy, upscale residential district much like those found in Paris, London, or Rome. It was far enough away that little of the noxious air and even less of the noise of the Central City invaded its neat, palm-lined streets. Lang's first impression of the Egyptian capital had been seemingly random traffic, the stench of animal offal combined with exhaust fumes, and air so dirty it made Los Angeles's worst days seem pristine.
He sat on a rickety stool at the bar in Simonds, one of the oldest European-style cafes in Cairo, trying to ignore eyes stinging from both lack of sleep and pollution. He munched a croissant that rivaled any he had enjoyed in Paris. He hoped the bitter, black Turkish coffee would help clear a head still dusty with two days of jet lag, even if it was stripping away his stomach lining.
Atlanta-Dallas-New York-London-Cairo, all with tight connections. If anyone had been following him, they would have been obvious as he passed briskly through one terminal after another.
At least he had been lucky. Only one screaming child, and no seatmates exhibiting what might be the symptoms of a terminal and highly contagious disease. Not bad, considering each aircraft had contained, what, one hundred and fifty-plus passengers? All those people, with the only commonality being that no two of them had paid the same price for their ticket.
The Couch passport, multiple reservations, and having the Gulfstream fly to Stockholm had reduced to negligible the chances of his being followed to Egypt.
Before leaving Atlanta, he had used an Internet cafe to e-mail Amid bin Hamish to confirm that he had the right man, the name given him by Dr. Shaffer, and made an appointment. Bin Hamish had suggested meeting here.
Lang glanced around the dimly lit interior. Although the savage desert sun had not yet risen completely above the cluster of modern office buildings across the river, the cafe's lowered blinds were already lowered, giving a zebra effect to t
he newspapers of the few remaining breakfast patrons. Dust motes spun for seconds in the streaks of light before disappearing into darkness like planets out of orbit. The hum of air- conditioning muted but did not block the cries of muezzin, recorded, amplified, and blasted from the minaret of a nearby mosque, calling the faithful to the second prayer of the day.
As far as he could tell, Lang was just one more European in the most Westernized part of a Muslim city.
That was precisely as he wanted it.
He used a linen napkin to wipe the last crumbs from his mouth.
The waiter behind the bar pointed to Lang's nearly empty cup. Lang allowed him to refill it.
His mind went back, what, less than two days since he had sat on Alicia's deck in Vinings? He saw her face in the highly polished wood of the bar's surface, heard her laugh in the wheeze of the AC. For the first time since Gurt had left, he was not just looking forward to coming home; he was excited. Love, lust, attachment—he knew better than to try to quantify what he felt. Just enjoy it, just...
"Mr. Reilly?"
Lang turned to look into eyes almost as dark as the coffee. A round face perched above a pink knit shirt displaying an alligator on the left breast and buttoned to the chin. Even seated on the stool, Lang was half a head taller. The man's dark skin made guessing his age difficult, even if a few gray strands were clearly visible scattered among the jet-black.
"Langford Reilly?"
Lang nodded. "Amid bin Hamish?"
White teeth were made even brighter by the dark skin as the man extended a hand. "As you English say, Any friend of Dr. Shaffer's..."
"American. And Dr. Shaffer is dead."
The smile disappeared. "Dead?"
Lang slid off the stool and groped in his pocket for change. "I'm afraid so. Murdered in Vienna. Were you close?"
Bin Hamish shook his head slowly. "We never met, just exchanged ideas on the Net, wrote each other."
Lang was grateful to come up with a handful of piastres, one hundred of which made up the Egyptian pound. He had already learned the hard way that so few coins were in circulation that exact change was rare. He started to leave them on the bar top, thought better of it, and left an Egyptian note instead. At the current exchange rate, the coffee had been a bargain compared to, say, Starbucks.
"You have euro, dollar?" the waiter asked hopefully.
Egypt's chronic currency problems caused many hotels and restaurants not to accept the national money.
Bin Hamish snapped something at the man, who sulked as he picked up the Egyptian bill.
The little man turned his attention back to Lang. "Murdered? By whom?"
Lang noted the correct grammar. "I'm afraid I don't know. I'm sure the Austrian authorities are working on finding out, if they haven't already."
Bin Hamish glanced uneasily around the cafe, as though one or more of the killers might have followed Lang to Cairo. "Perhaps we should talk elsewhere, perhaps my house."
Why meet at the cafe if they were going to bin Hamish's house to talk?
As Lang took his light jacket from the back of the stool and started for the door, bin Hamish put a hand on his shoulder. "No, this way."
They walked out the back door into an alley fetid with garbage that smelled like it was a permanent part of the environs. Flies buzzed angrily at the disturbance, and rats boldly surveyed them from atop piles of refuse. An occasional skeletal dog paused in rooting through piles of waste to snarl territorial claims.
As though by magic, a turn at the end of the alley brought them onto a street that could have been in Beverly Hills or Palm Beach.
Cairo, it seemed, was unaware of modern zoning. Or public health.
Lawn sprinklers made rainbows over lush grass medians lining high walls. Through the occasional gate Lang could see lavishly landscaped grounds with driveways winding to tile-roofed mansions.
The preferred mode of travel was by chauffeured Rolls-Royce, the less fortunate making do with highly polished Mercedes limousines.
The contrast was enough to make Lang look over his shoulder to be certain he had not imagined the squalor of the alley. "Any reason we couldn't take the front door?"
Bin Hamish turned to look up and down the street behind them, a gesture performed so frequently, Lang was beginning to think of it as some sort of nervous tic. "They would have followed, just as they would have noted your arrival at my home."
"They?"
Bin Hamish left the question unanswered. "We are almost there. Good thing, hey? I remember what your English poet said about only mad dogs and Englishmen going about in the midday sun."
"I'm American."
Bin Hamish ducked down what Lang had thought to be another driveway. After a turn to the right, he realized they were approaching the back of a house. Slightly smaller than its neighbors, judging by the perimeter of the wall, it still would be a large estate by most American standards. Whatever its size, Lang would be glad to get inside and out of soaring temperatures that promised to soon become unbearable.
They stopped at a small wooden door while bin Hamish fumbled with a jingling set of keys. When the portal swung open, Lang was treated to perhaps an acre of rampant flowers, citrus trees heavy with fruit, and towering date palms that obscured most of what appeared to be a two-story stucco house, each floor with the arched, elaborately columned loggias favored in Muslim architecture. At the back of the building the blue waters of an Olympic-size pool sparkled.
Bin Hamish relocked the gate. "It is my oasis."
Lang hoped it was an air-conditioned oasis.
Lang followed his host to the house and through huge mahogany doors that opened and closed soundlessly. He stopped for a moment to let his eyes adjust to light low enough to reveal furniture only in silhouette. He followed bin Hamish up a short flight of stairs to what Lang guessed was the foyer. Reception hall would have been a better description. Lang was surprised to see the screen of a TV set flickering above more massive mahogany doors.
Bin Hamish pointed. "As you can see, they are watching."
Looking closer, Lang realized he was observing the sweep of a security camera mounted somewhere outside. Two men sat in an old Mercedes and stared back through sunglasses. Neither made any effort to appear interested in anything other than this residence. Since they were in the only car parked in the area, Lang assumed they knew their presence was no secret.
"Who are your pals?" he asked.
"Mukhabarat."
Lang turned away from the television to look at the little Egyptian. "What are you doing that would interest the state security police?"
Bin Hamish smiled again. "Ah! You recognize the name of the Mukhabarat! Most Englishmen would not."
Lang gave up. It would be easier to be British.
Bin Hamish motioned. "Come, I will show you."
As they passed along one dimly lit corridor into another, Lang had the impression that they were not alone. Twice he was certain he heard gentle footsteps, but when he turned no one was there. Once he recognized the swish of fabric against the wall. Again, no one was to be seen.
Stopping in front of an arched doorway, bin Hamish ushered Lang inside. From one of the beams high overhead, a slow-moving fan stirred the dry air around the paneled room. Upholstered cushions surrounded a low table floating on the muted colors of an Oriental rug. On the table were several bowls and a teapot, steaming as though just set in place by some invisible jinni.
"Tea?" bin Hamish asked, pouring into a small cup without handle or saucer.
The idea of hot liquid was less than appealing. Lang shook his head. "No, thanks."
His host shook his head, too. "Arabs begin conversations with coffee or tea, Mr. Reilly." He pointed to the bowls. "Perhaps a few dates, almonds, or pastries?"
Lang helped himself to a date the size of a pecan, nibbling carefully to avoid the pit. "I certainly did not mean offense."
"None taken. Another Arab custom is a long chat before getting around to business, someth
ing you English are loath to do. Why did Dr. Shaffer send you here? What is it you want with me?"
Lang decided not to correct the impression that Shaffer had actually sent him. Instead he reached into the pocket of the jacket he had been carrying over an arm and proffered the papers Jacob had translated. "I'd like your thoughts on this. Dr. Shaffer said you might be able to help."
Lang never saw the switch, but a light from the ceiling suddenly beamed down onto the table in front of his host. Bin Hamish read, his eyebrows coming together in a near scowl. When he finished, he began again.
At last he looked up. "Where did you find this?"
"Hidden in an old radio," Lang said, and explained what had happened.
Wordlessly, bin Hamish rose and went to the wall at Lang's back. Soundlessly a panel slid back, revealing nothing but dark space. It suddenly became ablaze with such light Lang had to shield his eyes after the dimness of the rest of the house.
When he moved his hands from his face, he was looking at a laboratory of glass and stainless steel. A number of machines occupied the single counter, some of which he recognized from Georgia Tech.
They entered and the door silently slid back into place.
"I thought you were with some university," Lang said.
"I was until... Well, as you Americans say, that is another story."
He walked over to a box about the length and width of those Lang's cigars came in, but much thicker and made from a shiny metal. "The Ark in your document, Mr. Reilly, has certain dimensions. This has proportionately the same."
Lang waited for him to continue.
"You will note that, like the Ark, this is made of gold and wood."
Lang waited again.
"Are you familiar with superconductors, Mr. Reilly?"
Lang stepped closer to take a better look. "Only that it's some kind of new theory of physics."
