The Bonaparte Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  Francis cleared his throat. “Well, we thank God that your mother has the ability, the money, to buy . . .”

  The phone rang.

  Family custom decreed a ringing phone be ignored during dinner. If the call was important, there would be a message. If unimportant, why bother to answer in the first place?

  This time, though, Lang wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood. “Excuse me. The federal grand jury was meeting this afternoon, and the indictment of the Reverend Bishop Groom was one of the things they were considering.”

  “I thought grand-jury proceedings were secret,” Francis observed.

  Lang was headed back to the den and the ringing phone. “They are. That’s why I need to take this. My source isn’t free to call at just any time.”

  Lang noticed it the second he put the phone to his ear, a faint hum that had not been on the line when he used the telephone earlier that evening. “Hello?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Dean?” a man’s voice responded. “Is this David Dean?”

  The humming seemed to waver like an echo with each word.

  “Just a moment,” Lang replied evenly.

  Leaving the cordless receiver off its base, he went to the two windows closest to the street. The curtains were already pulled for the night. Reaching up behind the heavy drapes, Lang grasped a handle. He pulled, lowering a metal sheet. He repeated the process at the other window.

  When he returned to the phone, the caller had gone. So had the hum.

  As he returned to the table, Gurt studied his face. “Who was that, a wrong number?”

  Lang shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then, who . . . ?”

  Lang’s expression said he clearly didn’t intend to discuss it in front of Manfred or Francis.

  Thirty minutes later, the two men were back in the den. Now, with thudding guitars, the more-recently deceased baritone voice of Johnny Cash was lamenting his confinement in Folsom Prison. Francis was watching as Lang carefully decanted a bottle of twenty-five-year-old vintage Graham’s port.

  “What makes a certain year ‘vintage’?” Francis asked.

  Lang’s eyes were on the remains of crumbled cork collecting in the silver port filter along with the residue, or “mud,” of crushed fruit with which the distilled wine had been fortified before being stored in oak barrels. “A vintage year is when one vineyard declares it. That’s why the year of this Graham’s, say, might not be declared a vintage by another house, say, Sandeman’s, Cockburne’s or Fonseca.”

  “What’s to stop a port manufacturer from declaring every year a vintage? I mean, the price of a vintage is double or triple that of a late-vintage ruby or other port.”

  Lang placed the full decanter on the bar. “Nothing except the fact that if a house puts out an inferior year’s product as vintage, it won’t keep its customers long.” He filled a small crystal glass, holding it to the light to admire its ruby color. “You might say the free market keeps the port makers honest.”

  Lang handed the glass to Francis, who took a tentative sip. “As always, delicious!”

  Lang poured and sampled a glass of his own. “You’re right, it is good but . . .”

  “But what?”

  Lang looked longingly at the coffee table where a mahogany humidor sat. “It would be better with a good cubano.”

  Francis shook his head slowly as he sat on the sofa. “Don’t even think about going back on your word.”

  When Manfred arrived in Atlanta, Gurt and Lang had made promises to each other concerning the child’s health. Not wanting to set a bad example or subject the little boy to potentially harmful secondhand smoke, they agreed they would not smoke in front of him. That proved difficult for Gurt, leading to clandestine Marlboros smoked in the yard, the odor of which was clearly detectable upon her return inside. Lang, a lover of Cuban cigars, which he had ordered specially by an indirect route, only consumed one or two a week anyway. It had been easier for him to smoke less although more difficult to conceal, since he refused to throw away a cigar only half-smoked. The things cost nearly twenty-five bucks apiece. The ultimate resolution had been for both parents to simply quit—if there was anything simple about giving up a lifetime pleasure.

  “What word was that?” Gurt had returned from her turn to bathe Manfred and put him to bed.

  “Our mutual smoking ban.”

  She looked at her husband with mock suspicion. “A year into an agreement and you are already looking for hoop holes?” She shrugged. “It is not easy, being married to a lawyer, always the hoop holes.”

  “Loopholes,” Lang corrected.

  “Is one hole in an agreement not as good as another?”

  For an answer, Lang poured a third glass of port and extended it to her. “At least we didn’t give up port.”

  She accepted the offering with a mock curtsy. “For small favors I am thankful.”

  Johnny Cash bewailed being named Sue.

  Francis smiled. “Always found that song amusing. What I don’t understand, though, is your choice of music.”

  “I suppose you would prefer Gregorian chants?”

  “Not necessarily. What I meant was, you obviously enjoy history.” Francis pointed to the overburdened bookcases. “I see everything from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall to Will Durant’s Story of Civilization and Churchill’s Second World War. I see works by Dickens, essays by Emerson and a bunch of contemporary novels.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t get it: someone as obviously well-read as you likes country music?”

  Lang nodded. “Yeah, I do. At least some of it. I can understand the words and it actually has a tune I can whistle. Try whistling Beethoven.”

  An hour or so later, the port exhausted, Francis stood and stretched. “As always, a magnificent dinner, wonderful port and delightful company.”

  Lang also stood. “You are easily amused.”

  Francis sighed. “Not as easily as you think. It’s been a long time since you broke bread at the parish house.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Mrs. Finnigan, my housekeeper-cook, bless her heart, is a fine woman and a good Catholic but a horrible cook. Deorum cibus non est. Food for the gods it ain’t.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a fair trade-off to me,” Lang said, walking his friend to the front door. “Why not get someone who is a decent cook, then?”

  Francis stopped, facing Lang. “She’s been at Immaculate Conception longer than I have. I can’t just fire her like that.”

  Lang reached to open the door. “Maybe you’ll be canonized someday for your martyrdom in suffering heartburn as the price of Christian charity.”

  Francis stepped around Lang to give Gurt a hug. “In addition to being a heretic, your husband is a wiseass.”

  Gurt hugged him back. “Be grateful you do not have to live with him.”

  “I include thanks in my daily prayers.”

  They watched him pull the Toyota into the street. In following it with his eyes, Lang noticed a sedan parked at the curb to his left. The people who lived there had an ample yard in which to park cars, so the automobile was not a visitor’s nor was it one he recognized as his neighbor’s. For that matter, the humble Ford was not the type transportation preferred by the residents of affluent Ansley Park.

  Its sheer ordinariness stuck out like an automotive sore thumb.

  Lang took a little more time closing the door than was necessary. He thought he saw a flash of movement. Someone was in the car.

  Why?

  Lang thought he had a good idea.

  It was then he realized he had forgotten to ask Francis about his cryptic remark at lunch the other day concerning the true occupant of Saint Mark’s tomb under the altar in Venice. Oh well, he saw the priest on a regular if purely social basis. He’d get an answer the next time.

  Upstairs, Lang cut off the bathroom light and was approaching the bed where Gurt was an indistinct pile of covers.

/>   “Who was it on the phone?” she asked as he pulled back the covers to climb in.

  “Someone who wanted me to think they had a wrong number.”

  “Why would someone want to do that?”

  “There was a hum on the line.”

  The blankets fell away as Gurt sat up. “A parabolic listening device? That could make wireless electronics like a cordless telephone hum. Someone with the thing trained on the windows to pick up the vibrations of the glass caused by the human voice. It can also pick up both sides of a telephone conversation. They were testing it.”

  “That’s why I pulled down our custom-made privacy shields before I got in bed.”

  In remodeling the old Ansley Park home, Gurt and Lang had spared no expense to retain its early twentieth-century charm while modernizing a number of features. One of these additions had been a security system that would shock their more conventional neighbors, and one many military bases might envy.

  With the past they shared, neither wanted to risk a former enemy’s reappearance. The house contained a complete privacy system designed to thwart the most sophisticated listening devices, in addition to a number of other surprises, such as oak bolted to two-inch case-hardened steel for doors, a central control system that could remotely seal off any part of the house and real-time surveillance cameras.

  Gurt turned on the light by her side of the bed. “They called to make sure their device was operational.”

  “Not as good as tapping the phone but not as risky, either. And they can follow conversations anywhere within a hundred yards just by focusing the antenna.”

  “But why would someone want to . . . ?”

  “To enjoy my brilliant wit?”

  Gurt’s frown showed that at the moment, she wasn’t enjoying it at all. “What should we do?”

  “Not much. Far as I know, there’s no law against eavesdropping as long as no wiretap or trespass is involved. I’d say someone is more interested in learning about us than doing us harm.”

  Gurt nodded. “For now.”

  “For now.” Lang turned to open the top drawer of the bedside table and verify his Browning HP 9 mm was where he kept it. “At some point they—whoever ‘they’ might be—are going to either find out whatever they want to know or give up. Then they’ll either go away or move to the next step.”

  Gurt was crawling out from under the covers.

  “Where are you going?” Lang asked.

  “Downstairs to make sure all the locks are on and so are the motion and impact detectors.”

  “Don’t forget the motion-activated cameras.”

  Lang knew the house was as secure as modern technology could make it. He still had a hard time getting to sleep.

  From the diary of Louis Etienne Saint Denis, secretary to Major General Napoleon Bonaparte

  Chateau Malmaison

  September 22, 1799

  The general will not see his wife. We arrived in Toulon1 from Egypt near a week past and hastened to Paris and then to this small palace nearly in the shadow of the grandeur that was Versailles before it was sacked by the mob. It is the news received in Egypt that lent wings to our heels, the open secret of the many affairs of the general’s wife, known to all but, it would seem, the general himself. Had not General Junot told him, all would be well.2

  Now, he sulks in the upstairs of this petite palace, which he provided for Joséphine,3 not allowing her to his bed despite the most piteous wailing and tears. The general married this woman but three years past and it has appeared to all close to him the marriage has been unsatisfactory from the start. The widow of an aristocrat who fell victim to the guillotine, she escaped the same fate only by the overthrow of Robespierre.4 She is the daughter of a plantation owner in the West Indies5 impoverished by a hurricane. Older than the general by several years, she is far from beautiful but has a charm and grace that, according to gossip, have enslaved many of her lovers.

  From the beginning, she treated the general with scorn, while he adored her. Now things are upside down, she begging forgiveness while he ignores her.

  I can do nothing to improve his dark state and have quit trying lest I draw his ire. Even remarking that we will not miss Egypt’s searing heat brought forth nothing more than a glare. Other than meeting daily with his staff and walks in the small garden,6 the general keeps to himself, reading and dictating letters to me. He has become fascinated by the history of Alexander the Great. Only this morning, he commented to me that a great battle7 had been fought along the Nile for possession of Alexander’s body, for it had been prophesied that the nation that possessed the remains of the god-king would never be defeated.8 Though he does not say, he believes himself to be a second Alexander, his conquests in Europe rather than the East.

  The only constant in the general’s life is the mysterious box he brought from Egypt. It is never out of his sight.

  Law offices of Langford Reilly

  The next day

  Gurt was the only person who regularly called Lang on his cell phone while he was at work and then only if she had reason to short-circuit Sara’s phone-answering duties. So why was she doing it now?

  Lang pushed back from his desk, where he had been proofreading a motion to be filed the next day, dragged the cell from a pocket and pressed “start.”

  “Yes ma’am?”

  “Lang, there is someone in our house.”

  It took a second for her meaning to register. She wasn’t referring to Allard, the man who did twice-a-week cleaning, and he couldn’t recall anyone else who had a key. “You mean, like a burglar? In broad daylight?”

  Her voice was perfectly calm, the way it always was when she was facing danger. “I took Manfred to kindergarten, went to the grocery store, came home and the red light was blinking.”

  Another of the home’s security features was a series of perimeter sensors that illuminated small warning lights discreetly placed beside front and rear doors.

  “Any sign of entry? Our locks aren’t the kind that can easily be forced.”

  “Whoever is inside the house had to have special equipment. The locks on both doors are intact and I can see no broken windows. Shall I call the police?”

  Response time for Atlanta’s emergency services had been the subject of TV and newspaper articles after several houses had burned to the ground and one or two home invasions had taken place between notifying 911 responders and arrival of the police. Callers had an equal chance of being put on hold or having the emergency crews sent to the wrong addresses. The director of the service blamed budget cuts. Most citizens realistically blamed stupidity and the city’s civil-service system, which made death almost the only cause to terminate inept employees.

  “Whoever’s in there isn’t going anywhere and he might be armed. I take it you’re not.”

  “I do not carry weapons to drive Manfred to kindergarten, no.”

  “Call 911. I’m on my way.”

  Less than twenty minutes later, Lang parked in front of his home. It must have been a slow day at the 911 number. Already, the driveway was filled with police cruisers, lights flashing and the street filled with curious neighbors. A van bearing the logo ATLANTA POLICE S.W.A.T. TEAM was disgorging a number of figures in paramilitary dress carrying M16 rifles, who were running toward the uniformed officers already surrounding the house. Lang climbed out of his Porsche just as a tall black man in a suit exited an unmarked but obviously official car.

  “Well, Mr. Reilly! I shoulda knowed this be your house, the place where there always some kinda trouble.”

  Lang smiled. “Good to see you again, too, Detective Morse.”

  Morse shook his head as he followed Lang up the path to the front door. “Reckon I should be thankful you called us, someone in your house, instead of you bagging him yourself like usual.”

  Lang didn’t break stride. “Be fair, Detective. The only times you’ve arrived after someone got hurt was when I had to defend myself.”

  Morse shook his head. �
��Still a mess. Between somebody taking a walk off your twenty-fourth-story balcony at your condo, blowing up your car, killing a professor down to Georgia Tech, you just plain trouble. Not to mention your condo exploding.”

  Lang spied Gurt in conversation with a man who appeared to be the leader of the SWAT Team. “At least it’s never dull, Detective.”

  “Maybe ain’t dull but sure gonna make retirement enjoyable.”

  Gurt recognized Morse and turned from the other man. “Ah, Detective! So glad you could come!”

  “Ain’t by choice, ma’am, tell you that.” His eyes focused on a small blinking red light under the mailbox. “That gizmo there what tell you somebody inside? Hate to think we got all these folks and hardware out here ’cause of a false alarm,” he added dubiously.

  “I made sure . . . ,” she began.

  Reaching past her and the detective, Lang flipped open the mailbox beside the door and pushed a small button. The back of a very ordinary looking postal receptacle fell away, revealing a small TV screen. The picture was black-and-white. It showed a figure pacing up and down a room, a gun in his hand.

  “Our foyer,” Lang explained. “You can see there’s someone there.”

  Morse’s eyes widened. “So we seeing a burglary in real time? But why ain’t he trying to get away? He gotta have heard the sirens.”

  “He can’t. The minute he stepped into the room, activating the security system, steel screens dropped down from the ceiling, trapping him in the foyer. Same thing would have happened if he had broken in anywhere else.”

  Morse gave Lang the expression of a man who thinks he may be the butt of a joke. “Get outta here!”

  “If you liked that, you’re gonna love this.”

  Lang pushed another button and a panel next to the video mailbox popped open, revealing what looked like a small speaker. Those standing close by could hear the footsteps of the man inside.

  “Voice activated,” Lang explained as he leaned forward. “You, in the house!”

  The figure on the screen froze for a second before turning around, looking for the source of the voice.

  “You! You’ve got exactly ten seconds to drop your weapon, lie down of the floor and put your hands on your head. Now, nine seconds before we shoot in the cyanide gas.”