by Gregg Loomis
The few streets in Ravello are too narrow even for this accommodation. Anything larger than a compact risks leaving body parts in front of someone's door.
That was why Lang had chosen this place. There was nothing remarkable about the old stone buildings along the Via S. Giovanni del Toro other than interesting examples of Moorish influence in the Mediterranean. The sign announcing the hotel was small, evidencing management's hopes that only those aware of its presence would notice; that new, possibly American, clientele would seek the hospitality of the other hotel, the one that catered to American film and TV stars, on the hill on the other side of town.
That, of course, was exactly why Lang had chosen the Palumbo.
Unimpressive if not downright plain from the street, the lobby usually caused first-time visitors (if they could not be encouraged to go elsewhere) to stop, stare, and mutter whatever translated as "My God!" in their native language.
Two stories of glass looked straight across a gorge at the misty cliffs that lined a golden beach hundreds of feet below. In the distance, fishing boats bobbed in cobalt-blue waters like so many gaily colored corks. The staff was quiet, unobtrusive, and usually invisible unless summoned.
Lang had reserved a room just off the lobby with much the same view. He and Gurt lapsed into a routine of early-morning walks, midday swims in the hotel's infinity-edged pool, lunch at one of the town's one or two trattoria, and frantic lovemaking in the afternoons before a nap.
Eschewing the hotel's barrel-vaulted, frescoed dining room, each evening they dined at a small ristorante on one of the two narrow streets that forked off the one in front of the church. Like most such establishments, the place was lit like a surgical theater. Lang theorized that Italians liked to make sure they got what they paid for rather than risk less expensive substitution in a dimmer, more romantically lighted place. Gurt suggested the unfortunate medieval habit of disposing of one's dinner guests by poison was the source of the custom.
Either way, the place was run by an elderly woman who commanded her eatery like the captain of a ship. Each night, shoeless, she circulated among her guests, demanding an explanation for any remaining scrap.
After the third dinner there, Lang and Gurt were walking up an incline made steeper by the Fiori di Zucca e Carciofi Fritti he had had along with his Saltimbocca alia Romana in his stomach.
He stopped on the piazza, a small square with a gelaterie and a seller of dubious antiques on one side, the church adjoining on the other, and two sides open. "Okay, how did you know?"
The events in the necropolis had not been discussed, but had been avoided like an unpleasant subject everyone knows will have to be thrashed out at some point
Gurt, in the pencil-legged leather pants and peasant blouse favored by younger Italian women, thought a moment. Then she took his arm and guided him back uphill toward the hotel. She told him what had happened, or what she remembered of it, of the hospital and her memory and hearing loss.
"It was the piece of torn-off ticket…"
"Stub," he said, "a ticket stub."
"The ticket stub, then," she said. "It brought it all back: being in Frankfurt, the Agency. Also, if this man who tried to kill me had such a ticket from the Frankfurt U-Bahn, he had been in Frankfurt. If he had come out of there, the chances were the Agency was somehow mixed in it. Why would anyone else want me dead? I would have called to warn you, but my Agency phone was lost in the explosion. Besides, if the Agency was involved, they would be listening to any conversation you had."
Lang pulled open the door to the hotel to let her enter. "Good thing. What the bastard gave me wasn't just a secure phone, it was a tracking device."
"And I suppose that if I had called Sara…"
"That line was probably bugged."
She looked at him curiously. "Like the roaches we see in Atlanta?"
"It had a listening device. They would have heard anything you said."
He stopped, looking back down the hill. The piazza was obscured by treetops. "What about Die Spinne, some organization to protect old Nazis? Did you ever consider that?"
She pulled him forward. "You were the only one who ever saw Nazis on every bed."
"Under every bed. You're right. You and Blucher didn't think much of my theory."
This time it was Gurt who stopped. Even in the dim light from the lobby, he could see her exaggerated expression of surprise. ''Ach! The dumb woman has right once?'"
He grinned good-naturedly. "The dumb woman who saved my ass again." She winked mischievously. "It is not your ass I wish to save."
They crossed the threshold and started toward their room, in silence for a moment before he asked, "The necropolis under the Vatican-how did you know?"
She thought for a moment, either trying to get the English phraseology right or deciding exactly what to say. By now, they were outside the room.
He put the key in the lock but blocked her entrance.
"Well?"
Again the sly smile. "Would you believe women's intuition?"
"No."
She sighed theatrically. "Very well, deprive from me the illus… illus…"
"Illusion?"
"Illusion of feminine mystery."
He was still holding the door open, standing in her path. "Gurt
…"
She shook her head. "I heard you tell Reavers how you thought it out, bow you had guessed that Skorzeny was one of the Germans the Americans brought over after the war and that man Straight was the son of Skorzeny. If you can pull that hare out of your cap, you tell me how I knew."
Lang stepped back outside to join her in the narrow hall. This wasn't a conversation he wanted overheard. He pulled her inside and shut the door. They sat on the bed.
"Okay. I'd guess it went something like this." He thought for a second, arranging his suppositions in much the same way he had lined up theorems in high school geometry. "You knew I was trying to track down whatever Skorzeny took from Montsegur. The only clue we had before that helicopter showed up was Julian's inscription, the one about the palace of the single god."
She ruffled his hair with her fingers. "So far, so bad. Just before the helicopter flew over us, you were talking about Julian and a palace of some sort."
He shrugged. "Okay, so tell me."
''You will not like what you hear."
"I can stand it."
This time it was Gurt who shrugged. " 'Palace of the one god.' What could that be but the Vatican?"
It took a moment to sink in. "Palace of the sale god and you immediately knew what Julian meant?"
"I was there, was I not?"
He nodded slowly, absorbed by what she was saying. "It took Francis and me a while to be certain that was what was meant. You figured it out in minutes."
She grinned, fishing in her bag for a cigarette. Just before she lit it, she chuckled. "I told you, you would not like it. I called a friend in the Rome station."
"A friend posted with the Agency? You knew the lines would be secure."
"Exactly. I asked this friend where Reavers was because I knew if what I had guessed was true, he would be trying to kill you, too."
Lang stared at her with uncomprehending eyes. "Asked where he was? You know that's need-to-know only."
"As I said, I asked a friend."
"A former lover, you mean."
"I said you would not like this. You have no reason to be, er, angry. We were through before 'you came to Rome last year."
What she said made irritatingly good sense. Lang had no possible reason to care what Gurt had done since they had broken up before he married Dawn ten years ago.
That, however, did absolutely nothing to stop more than a twinge of jealousy.
Lang pretended he was only interested in how she had found him. "So you found out Reavers was in Rome. Then?"
"I got the nun's dress and hung down…"
"Hung around."
"Stayed around the Rome station."
''You were conducting
surveillance of the Agency's Rome station and nobody noticed?"
"I was stationed in Rome, remember? I knew what 'was covered by cameras and what was not. Besides, I convinced a nice man to rent me a room just down the street for only a few days."
The green-eyed monster stirred again. ''A nice man?"
She shook her head impatiently. ''A nice man who must have been at least seventy. Do you want to interrogate me, or shall I complete?"
Lang's curiosity outweighed any irrational jealousy. "Go on."
"So, when I saw Reavers come out, I followed him."
Lang was incredulous. ''You managed to follow a station chief?"
"No one is as cautious as we were in the old days. Reavers has been around so long, he probably forgets women now work there."
It had taken a threat of congressional intervention to bring that about, if Lang remembered correctly.
"Anyway, while I was observing him, he was observing what I took to be a priest, you. I didn't contact you because I might have been watched myself. I was also afraid to call your hotel. I just waited until I saw Reavers and his men follow you into the bottom of the Vatican."
Lang nodded, digesting the information. Then: "The gun-how did you get that?"
"I told you, I had a friend in the Frankfurt office."
Must be some kind of a friend to violate a couple of dozen regs concerning firearms as well as information, Lang thought sourly. If the bastard didn't get summarily fired, he would have spent the rest of his career counting printer cartridges in some place infected with rats smaller only than the scorpions. But he said, "I guess l owe you a 'Thank you.' "
She stood, unzipping her blouse. "It is late and you have had hours since this afternoon to recover. You owe me more than 'Thank you.' "
***
It was early the next afternoon when reality stuck its ugly head into paradise. Sara's daily call warned of decisions that had to be made for the foundation and clients who were getting restless at the unavailability of their lawyer.
It was time to go home.
"We can fly Naples-Paris-Atlanta," Lang said, taking the phone from his ear. "Or we can drive to Rome and fly direct."
Gurt gave her head a slight shake, a gesture that always implied something negative. "I will be staying in Rome."
Lang forgot the airline reservationist on the other end of the line as well as the per-minute profit the hotel was making. "You're what?"
She took the receiver from him and hung it up with one hand while she caressed his cheek with the other. "It is something I cannot do, Liebchen. I cannot live on your char… er, char…"
"Charity."
"Your charity forever."
"But you're not," he protested. ''You have a job teaching…"
She waved a dismissive hand. "And after what I have done for the last fifteen years or so, you think teaching rich kids to mangle the German language is going to fascinate me?"
Lang had known her long enough to know she was slow to make up her mind and implacable once she had.
He had thought he had lost her once, and now he was about to lose her for real.
He turned and went into the bathroom to collect his toilette articles so she could not see the misery he knew was on his face. "I wish you well. I'll miss you."
When he returned from the bathroom, she was gone.
EPILOGUE
Berlin
May of the same year
Jochim Stern, Ph. D., was puzzled. He had been summoned from his archaeology class at the university to examine some very interesting pottery shards. Interesting because of their location, not quality. One would expect such things to be unearthed every time Rome worked on its underground metro or Cairo began a new sewer line. In fact, the Herr Doktor had consulted with a number of cities with classical Greco-Roman pasts.
But Berlin?
As far as he knew, neither Greek nor Roman had ever set foot in the area that was Germany's historical capital. In fact, the Germanic tribes had served up one of Rome's few defeats, routing Augustus Caesar's army at Teutoburg Forest in the first century. As a result, Rome had turned elsewhere for conquest and trade. That being so, what about these pieces of pottery he was holding in his hands as he squatted in the raw dirt?
No doubt they were ancient in origin, highly likely part of a Greek-style amphora. A large one, the sort of vessel used to store wine or oil.
The Herr Doktor looked up from the excavation of a new U-Bahn line. This was the area where Hitler had had his bunker, wasn't it? Hard to be sure. In their fury, the Russians had not only demolished whatever was left of the Fuhrer's redoubt and everything in it, filling it in, they had made a sort of park surrounding the place so that it was difficult if not impossible to ascertain exactly where Hitler's last hours had been spent. Probably the only green space the Russians had contributed to East Berlin, and now far too valuable to the expanding city to leave untouched.
So, what was a Greek or Roman urn doing here?
As far as Stern knew, Hitler had never been particularly interested in ancient history, but the shards were at the same layer of digging at which workers had found Nazi uniform buttons, fragments of what had been furniture, and the like, all of which confirmed that the pieces of the amphora were placed here at the time of the war.
He placed the shards in a large plastic food bag and stood. Like many mysteries surrounding World War II, this one wasn't going to be solved anytime soon. Just as well. That period of German history was best forgotten.
At least by the Germans.
Atlanta, Georgia
Park Place, 2660 Peachtree Road
July
Grumps was less than great company. Alternate snores and burps from his corner of the tiny kitchen announced he had ravished his evening meal and, as usual, fallen sound asleep.
Lang looked up at the bar that separated the kitchen and living areas. "It's your companionship and good looks, fella. That's the only reason I keep you around."
His attention returned to the evening news, today consisting. almost entirely of the unanticipated withdrawal from the race for his party's nomination for president by one of the leading candidates, Harold Straight. With tearful countenance, the former aspirant for the nation's highest office had announced that "family matters" would need his exclusive attention for the next several years, necessitating not only an end to his present quest but a termination of all political activity. Based firmly on a total lack of facts, the talking heads interviewed one another, eliciting speculation ranging from AIDS to alcoholism, to the possibility of a scandalous divorce, to possible criminal prosecution for offenses unnamed.
Liberal politicians and the press hailed the event as demonstrating what-was-right-with-America, a theme unheard from the left since Newt Gingrich had declined to run for reelection to Congress. The right wing received far less media attention, as usual, but it was clear that the viciousness of partisan-politics had, in their view, defeated a just cause.
Lang smiled with the satisfaction of true knowledge.
It was, however, his only satisfaction. In the two months since his return from Europe, he had buried himself in work, micromanaging the foundation to the extent that several of his top employees were seeking positions elsewhere. Sara had simply refused to come to work for several days, asserting he was unfit for association with human beings. Only pleas of the longevity of their relationship, promises of a real vacation at the end of the summer, and an assurance he would reduce his caseload had lured her back to the office.
He had, however, had time to read of Rome during the German occupation and the sparse literature available concerning Otto Skorzeny. Although none of the books actually connected the two, Lang knew from the Huff CD that the SS officer had-been there. Supposition had answered at least one question: Why had Skorzeny taken only the one amphora and not come back for the second? Time, pure and simple. By the end of April 1944, Allied troops had broken out of the German encirclement of the invasion beaches and wer
e heading for Rome as fast as artillery and trucks could be supplied. Skorzeny had skedaddled, no doubt with the first container, the mark of which was still visible in the dirt when Lang arrived sixty-plus years later.
That raised an even more interesting query: What was in it?
Lang would have to live without even a guess. He would have enjoyed swapping theories with Gurt. Another reason to miss her.
His return without Gurt had somehow been communicated throughout the building by a system he suspected akin to blood in shark-infested waters. Almost nightly, his doorbell rang and one or more of the building's single women presented him with a casserole, an entree or something else edible, almost all of which had clearly come from one of the caterers nearby. After all, cooking was work, and few of these women would admit to being forced into such drudgery.
Lang had remained steadfast in his declinations of invitations to dinners and cocktail parties.
He knew the single women in this building, the Wet Cats, were as predatory as any animal in the jungle and even more desperate to find someone to rescue them from the alternative of having to support themselves. Wealthy and single, he was a wildebeest in lion territory.
Even in his placid marriage to Dawn, he had learned that men were preservationists, women restorationists. A man saw the woman he loved and took her as is, not wishing (or noticing) so much as a change in hairstyle. A woman took a man as a work in progress, a project to be molded and shaped to her specifications. That "aromatic tobacco" would become "that stinking cigar" overnight, and his "comfortable favorite chair" a "ratty embarrassment."
And soon.
Lang wanted none of it.
Dinners with Francis, shared Cubanos, probably this small, easily maintained condo, and Grumps were likely to become no more than vapors of memory if he gave in to the onslaught of single women who were desperate to eliminate the specter of necessary employment.
