The Poison Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  “As Alexander the Great, yes.”

  Lang didn’t mention he had been involved in the possible discovery of what might have been Alexander’s long-lost tomb while trying to foil an effort by the Chinese to gain a further foothold in the Caribbean, an affair he and Gurt referred to as the “Bonaparte Matter” because of the French emperor’s involvement almost 200 years earlier.

  “You know of Mithradates as strong leader in Hellenistic world, yet you are only interested in poison.”

  He seemed indignant at the idea as he continued, “In time when medicine as we know it did not exist, death by eating poorly prepared meat and especially fish was as common as dying by diseases we cure or prevent today. Likes tuberculosis and typhoid. Any time a death left no visible reason, people suspected poison.

  “There were no guns to shoot one’s self, no bottle of sleep pills. Poison was common means of suicide and murder in the ancient world. Mithradates had at court,. . . what you say, make medicines?”

  “Pharmacologist,” Lang supplied.

  “Yes, Mithradates had Crataeus, pharmacologist who could make potions like poison. Several Roman emperors died under conditions that might have been poison. Nero even organized a school of poisoning run by a woman named Locusta he had hired to kill younger half-brother. One most famous suicides of the ancient world was Socrates, who was made to drink hemlock.”

  Lang listened politely until he was certain the director had finished. Then, “It wasn’t just curiosity that brought me all this way. I have a reason to ask about Mithradates’ immunity to poison and venom.”

  “But not his importance in history of Hellenistic culture?”

  Lang could not have cared less if the man had been a fishmonger rather than a king, but he said, “That, too. Let me tell you a story. I am the head of a charitable foundation that operates children’s clinics and hospitals worldwide, usually in places where there are none. A few weeks ago, a child came into one of our establishments . . .”

  When he finished, Dr. Theradoplis nodded his understanding. “And you believe this, ah, tendency? Yes, tendency to be not harmed by poisons of snakes or plants?”

  Lang drained the last of the coffee and set the glass on the edge of the desk. “What I think isn’t as important as what the people who are willing to kill believe. Even if they are wrong, the lives of people who work for my foundation are at risk until I can identify and eliminate them. The reason I’m here, Dr. Theradoplis, is I need to know how realistic it is that the immunity you ascribe to Mithradates is a gene, a chromosome, whatever, that can actually be transmitted from generation to generation.”

  The museum curator shrugged. “I fear I am no geneticist, a word, by the way, that comes from the Greek genesis.”

  One could always count on an academic to supply more information than was needed. That was why scholarly papers had footnotes.

  “Geneticist?” Lang knew of the discipline but not the relevance.

  “The study of genes and, by necessity, inherited traits. Historical genetics actually began with Hippocrates, who noted that children more than not showed traits of their parents. He theorized these characteristics were carried in the male sperm and sometimes modified in the womb. Aristotle did not . . . how you say? Did not buy the theory, pointing out that if a man lost an arm in battle, his children would still be born with all their limbs. Plus some men had children after what we now know as male pattern baldness, yet their offspring had hair.”

  It was more information than Lang wanted, and still left the question unanswered. “But can a child inherit an acquired trait such as immunity?”

  Again, the shrug. “As I said, I am not a geneticist. You would have to refer to my sometime colleague, Dr. Phoebe Kalonimos.”

  Realizing he had gotten all the information he was likely to get, Lang was getting restless. “She is here in Athens?”

  “She is a professor at the National and Kapodistrian University here, yes. But I don’t know if . . .”

  He reached for the phone on his desk, tapped the receiver impatiently and spoke in Greek before putting it down.

  “I fear Dr. Kalonimos has left the university until the end of August. Perhaps you might contact her then?”

  Lang successfully kept the frustration out of his voice. “Dr. Theradoplis, I’m trying to prevent some unknowns who are killing people. I can’t wait that long. Is there any way I can reach her now?”

  Theradoplis treated Lang to an all-too-familiar look, that expression of the easy-going European for the always-hurried American. “She is at the University of the Aegean this summer, I believe, Rhodes campus.”

  Rhodes, largest of the Dodecanese Islands, was a little over 250 miles from Athens.

  Lang stood, his hand extended. “Thank you so much for your time, Doctor. Could I impose on you to contact your friend . . .”

  “Colleague.”

  “Colleague, then. Could you send her an e-mail that I might be contacting her in the next few days?”

  Theradoplis was standing now, too, shaking hands across the desk. “Best give me a way she can contact you, and I’ll have her reach you direct.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Syntagma Square

  Twenty Minutes Later

  The cab stopped on Amalia Avenue just short of the square. The first thing Lang noticed was the absence of the Evzones, the skirted honor guards at the tomb of Greece’s unknown soldier, catty-cornered to the palace King Ludwig of Bavaria had almost completed for his son, Otto, King of Greece. The building originally had 350 rooms and only one bath with running water. After Otto was deposed in 1862, the structure, still unfinished, became the home of the Greek parliament. Presumably, the plumbing had been updated.

  Next to Lang’s hotel, it faced the square, formerly a royal private garden. Lang didn’t notice the blinding white glare of marble from the walkways and benches under a hundred oleander, orange, and cypress trees. All he could see was a surging, roiling, rioting sea of humanity. Police, figures from Star Wars with helmet visors down, fired canisters of tear gas from behind handheld shields. They received in exchange rocks, bottles, and the occasional Molotov cocktail. Even with the taxi’s windows up and the whisper of the air conditioning, Lang heard the yells of the opposing sides and the crash of things being broken.

  The wisdom of the Hotel Grand Bretagne’s fortifications became visually obvious. The question was, how was Lang going to get through a violent mob to his hotel immediately adjacent to the object of the mob’s rage?

  “How long do you suppose this is going to last?” he asked the cabbie.

  A shrug was his answer, whether to the question itself or because the man spoke no English, it was unascertainable. One thing was clear: the taxi driver was not going to risk his vehicle joining the several automobiles already burning furiously. Lang could hardly blame him. If he was going to cross that square, he was going to have to do it alone and on foot.

  Lang peeled euros from the roll in his pocket. He hardly heard the shriek of smoking tires on pavement as the cab turned around and fled.

  Cautiously, he skirted the edge of the barricades surrounding the parliament building, occasionally dodging flying missiles. His target was a contingent of armored police cars directly in front of the Bretagne.

  He concentrated on avoiding both being hit by flying bricks, or whatever else happened to be airborne, and the small groups of less-than-peaceful protesters. Had he paid closer attention to his other surroundings, he might have seen two men detach themselves from a group of students shouting slogans and distance themselves from each other to approach him from opposite directions.

  The problem with tear gas is that it is impartial as to whom it attacks. A shift in the light wind caused the uniformed police to don gas masks as their own weapon turned upon them, as did the billowing cloud of greasy smoke from the burning cars.

  Lang’s sight was beginning to blur with tears. Without a gas mask, or at least a bandanna soaked in cider vinegar or lemon juice,
he knew his eyes, nose, and mouth would soon be stinging. He would likely experience the purely psychosomatic sensation of choking that had sent a number of his classmates screaming for the exit at “the gas tank,” the Agency’s training facility that acquainted trainees with both lethal and non-lethal gases.

  He was tempted to turn around, retreat to a more peaceful part of the city. Too late. Until washed or cleaned, the gas would cling to his skin and clothes, filling his nose and eyes with fumes. He had to reach the hotel and a shower.

  He lowered his head, narrowed his eyes, and plunged onward.

  He didn’t see the man he bumped into, a man better prepared than Lang. The lower part of his face was covered with a cloth, and the long sleeves of his shirt, despite the heat, would prevent the gas from sticking to his bare skin.

  Lang hitched up his shirt to cover the lower part of his face. Poor protection from the gas but the best he could do under the circumstances.

  The police contingent was perhaps 50 yards away now, maybe less. If he hurried, Lang might reach them and the relative safety of the hotel before the gas temporarily blinded him with tears.

  He bumped into someone else, muttered an apology, and started to back away.

  Until he felt the hard metal of a gun barrel in the small of his back.

  CHAPTER 36

  City of Atlanta Detention Center

  254 Peachtree Street

  At the Same Time

  Leon Frisch had found Jesus. Or, more accurately, Jesus had found him.

  Jesus Hernandiz, five foot two, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, was hardly a commanding figure. But when he fixed you with those brown eyes and began to speak in his Puerto Rican–accented English, he had the hypnotic power of Kipling’s Kaa, the python of Jungle Book fame.

  Jesus was here in jail just as Peter and Paul had been imprisoned in Rome and, also like the two saints, on a bum rap. But, then, every man here was falsely accused, innocent of all charges and a victim of the “system.”

  Whatever his history, Jesus believed in forgiveness and redemption. Renounce your sinful ways, repent, make such amends as possible, and be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven. That simple, simple enough that even Leon’s meth-fried mind could get a grip on the concept.

  He wasn’t exactly sure where the Kingdom was, but the price of admission was reasonable enough. And he was already two-thirds there. During the days since Leon had been arrested for possessing a few crumbs, he had suffered skull-splitting headaches and depression that would have resulted in suicide had not Jesus (the real one, not the Puerto Rican) been right there with him. He had heart-stopping anxieties about nothing (would lunch consist of the four-day-a-week entrees of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?).

  Now, without those crystal rocks, he was back to normal. Or, at least, pre-meth normal. And he was free, standing right here in front of the jail, looking at the Greyhound bus station.

  Over 2,800 men packed into a facility meant to house a little more than half that number. Four prisoners in a 12-by-12 cell with a double bunk bed and two mattresses on the floor. A rec room that only a tenth of the inmates could share at the same time. Only 350 at a time could fit into the mess hall, which meant meals were served in shifts. One man might have breakfast at 5:30, lunch at 10:00, and dinner at 4:00, going without food for the next eleven and a half hours.

  He’d gotten lucky, a sign Jesus (the one in heaven) looked out for his own. Fears of federal intervention forced the powers that be to reduce the jail’s population by releasing as many non-violent offenders as possible to harass the law-abiding population. The result was flooding the city with the homeless, aggressive panhandlers, petty thieves, and various other undesirables.

  Okay, he had done the renouncing and repenting, leaving that troubling-making amends part remaining. It’s hard to make amends when you’re cooped up in a 12-by-12 cell. But now he wasn’t real sure exactly how you went about it, either.

  There was Old Ben, one of his street buddies, who had found two unattended cell phones on the front seats of a couple of cars in the parking lot. A quick smash of the glass and Ben had the price of all the MD 20-20 he could drink for a week, even if the vintage was within the last 24 hours. But Ben never made it to the ecoATM, the machine that paid cash for old cell phones, to get the money for his bender. Instead, he stuffed them into a coat pocket before sleeping off his last binge. It had been childishly easy for Leon to help himself.

  That had kept Leon in crank for a while.

  He really should make amends with Ben, but the old man, like most street people, wasn’t always easy to find. When you had to walk everywhere you went, a change of locale of a few miles was as distant as another continent.

  So, who else should be the recipient of these amends? There was Tyrone, whose face Leon had split with a screwdriver. Couldn’t remember what had started the fight, but poor Tyrone was drenched in his own blood by the time a Grady Ambulance appeared.

  Hadn’t seen Tyrone around since last winter.

  There was no shortage of people to whom Leon owed amends, just a dearth of them available.

  There was one person, though, who he was pretty sure he could find: the lady he had hassled about washing her windshield and who had left him sore and bleeding in the street. GURT. Yeah, she had gotten the better of him, but the new, reformed Leon knew he’d had it coming for being such a jerk. His wrist had suffered what the jail medic said was a green stick fracture and the bandage was due to come off. He guessed his balls still worked, but, either way, they didn’t hurt anymore.

  And he had her tag number, had seen it as she drove off. Amends hadn’t been his motive as he used all the tricks of jailhouse veterans to get a few precious minutes on the phone to the DMV and run the number.

  No, amends hadn’t been his motive then, something much darker had been. But now, the new, reformed, about-to-enter-the-Kingdom Leon had at least one person to whom he could make amends, although he wasn’t exactly certain how. Jesus (the one in jail) had been turned loose before he could explain. Leon guessed it was sort of like saying you’re sorry.

  He started walking north, rehearsing what he would say to the white lady when he got to her house.

  After that, he’d be on his way to the Kingdom.

  CHAPTER 37

  Athens

  Syntagma Square

  At first, Lang thought, or hoped, he had been mistaken by the rioters for someone with whom they had a grievance, like any member of the government.

  “Mr. Reilly, come quietly with us.”

  So much for hope.

  Lang held his hands where they would be clearly visible, as someone behind him ran theirs through his pockets and conducted a quick body search. Both his iPhone and Glock were removed.

  Perhaps someone might notice what had to look very much like a mugging in a sunlit, open square. Again, disappointment. The police were too busy trying to prevent the rioters from causing further damage, and the rioters were fully occupied with doing just that.

  Rough hands spun Lang around to face two men whose lower faces were covered with bandannas, as were those of the bulk of the protesters facing a steady barrage of tear gas. These two were indistinguishable from the mob surging around them.

  “Look, guys,” Lang was shouting to be heard, “you can have the phone and the gun as well as any cash I’ve got. Okay?”

  Apparently not. Each hooked an arm under one of Lang’s shoulders and marched him toward the edge of the square. Beyond, an Opel Vectra waited with a rear door open. A trace of blue oil smoke from the exhaust denoted a running engine. Lang was crammed into it like a bulky bit of luggage. One of the men beside him climbed into the front while the other, keeping Lang’s own weapon pointed at him, slid into the back along with Lang. The car lurched away from the curb with all four cylinders rattling as only an underpowered diesel engine can.

  Lang was not sufficiently familiar with Athens to know where he was, and his abductors were silent on that and any other
subject he chose despite an effort to get a discourse started. It was becoming clear, though, that they were headed out of town. The implications of not being blindfolded were worrisome. These men were not concerned that Lang would be able to direct the authorities to wherever their destination might be. If he were alive, that is. The good news was that they kept the bandannas on.

  He avoided looking at his watch, relying on his Agency training to count the seconds, measure the time. He was certain they had not traveled more than 26 minutes before he was aware of the sea nearby. The smell of salt water with an undertone of rotting vegetation and a hint of petroleum products told him there was a commercial harbor nearby. The only one this near Athens would be Piraeus, the city’s port.

  Shit! Was he about to be taken aboard a ship, its destination unknown?

  His fears were slightly diminished when the car turned into a street named Trikoupi and pulled up in front of a row of shabby office buildings, one of which seemed to house some sort of maritime museum. He was hustled out of the car, which was presumably immune to the adjacent sign depicting a car being towed away. The few people on the street studiously ignored what was going on as Lang was shoved into a doorway and through a glass door. People in this neighborhood had apparently learned to mind their own business.

  If there was an elevator, Lang didn’t see it. Instead, he was pushed up three flights of wooden stairs. At the top was a short hallway of old-fashioned office doors. He was led to one where the upper half was opaque glass with faded gilt Greek letters on it, presumably the name of the office’s occupants, across from another door with a window equally opaque with dust. Lang was ushered through the one on the left and into a small sitting area lit by a single brass floor lamp whose tattered shade cast fanciful images on the simple unpainted Sheetrock walls. Four chestnut hand-carved ladder-back chairs with cane seats surrounded a traditional fluffy flokati rug, its woven wool fibers giving the impression of an off-white cloud. On the far side was another wood and opaque glass door, this one blank.