The Coptic Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  "Nearly a month."

  "I need to get out and—"

  "And what? At the moment you aren't strong enough to get out of bed."

  "What happened? I had just come back from England..."

  "Likely you left the gas on your stove on. When you opened the door, something sparked."

  Lang had no trouble remembering his last night before departing for London. He had dropped Grumps off at the kennel and met Alicia Warner, an assistant US attorney and fairly regular date for almost a year, for dinner at a Thai restaurant. The relationship was definitely on the wane. He had the feeling both of them were simply going through the motions before ending it.

  The fact she had been kidnapped a year ago in an effort to lure Lang to his death hadn't exactly helped matters.

  Lang banished her from his thoughts.

  "Grumps?" he asked.

  Francis shook his head slowly, not managing to suppress the ghost of a smile. "In an act of Christian charity, I took him in. He repays me by howling at choir practice, snapping at the chairperson of the women's auxiliary and raiding the garbage at the feed-the-poor soup kitchen."

  "Centuries of persecution have made us heretics a surly lot. Vivit post funera virtus."

  "My deeds may survive the grave but I question if they will survive the bishop."

  Lang's ribs ached when he chuckled but it felt good anyway. The fact Francis would give shelter to a mad dog rather than see it put down wouldn't stop him from complaining about being bitten.

  He became serious again.

  The stove. He hadn't used it the night before he left and he surely would have smelled gas when he came home that night if it had been on.

  Then ... ?

  "You were lucky," Francis observed. "For reasons I can't imagine, the angels were watching over you. Somehow you managed to get the apartment door between you and most of the blast. That kept you from burns that would have been fatal. You wound up with surprisingly few burns, but significant internal injuries and broken bones. Happily your skull was too thick to fracture, saving possible brain damage."

  Lang smiled weakly. "I'm not sure if I'm being diagnosed or insulted."

  The priest glanced at his watch. "I've got a midday prayer service to do but I'll be back this evening."

  "That a threat or promise?"

  This time Francis chuckled. "Careful or I'll have the folks at Manuel's cater you a meal."

  Manuel's Tavern. Quite possibly the funkiest bar in town, the pair's favorite watering hole despite spectacularly bad food. It was a place the Zagat's people would hire Michael Shumacher to drive them past.

  "I'll bet the chow here makes Manuel's taste good."

  Francis opened the door. "A true miracle."

  "Oh, Francis?"

  The doorknob in his hand, the priest turned, a question on his face.

  "Gurt. I dreamed of Dawn and Janet and Jeff, a number of people who ... who aren't here anymore. But Gurt... she seemed real enough. Did she ... ?"

  Francis face became immobile, the expression of someone unwilling to speak. "She's real enough." "But... ?"

  "I'll see you later."

  Francis was gone.

  More of a retreat than an exit.

  V.

  Two Days Later

  The White Angel propped Lang up enough to eat the equally unappetizing and unrecognizable meal from his bed tray. Its mere appearance made Lang nostalgic for the feeding tube that had been removed just that morning. With totally unjustifiable enthusiasm, she set it before him: there was some sort of mystery meat, into the origins of which Lang feared to inquire, green goo that might at one time have been string beans and a sickly sweet red mass he guessed was Jell-O.

  He had discovered a cuisine to rank below airline food.

  But it was food, the first he could actually eat rather than absorb through a plastic line.

  "Doctor will be so pleased when he makes his rounds," she cooed. "You've really made a remarkable recovery."

  "Doctor" was spoken in the same tone as she might have referred to the Deity.

  Lang shoved the tray away, surprised at how much of the stuff he had eaten. "That mean I'm going home?"

  She looked almost hurt at the suggestion. "Home?"

  "You know, the place we sleep at night, keep our stuff. Usually a house or apartment."

  She took the tray. "I'd guess you'll be moved out of the trauma and burn ward, probably to a private hospital."

  Grady was publicly funded. Unlike most institutions in which the Atlanta/Fulton County government had a hand, it somehow managed to accomplish its function despite continual budget overruns, accusations of racism from both sides, scandals, mismanagement that would make Larry, Curly and Moe look like geniuses and a bureaucracy that could stifle a hurricane.

  It did, however, have the area's premier trauma and burn centers and provided practical experience to the residents of both Emory and Morehouse medical schools.

  No matter what its qualities, Lang didn't intend to remain a guest any longer than he had to. And he certainly didn't plan a lengthy convalescence at a private hospital. "But I need to . .."

  The White Angel exited, tray in hand, leaving him to stare at the open door.

  It seemed almost preplanned. Seconds after her exit a slender black man in a suit walked in. "Unnerstan' you doin' much better, Mr. Reilly."

  Franklin Morse, Detective Franklin Morse, Atlanta Police Department. He and Lang had a history.

  "Who snitched, the nurse?"

  Morse made himself at home in the chair Francis had occupied. "Now, that ain' a friendly way to start a conversation, Mr. Reilly."

  "I don't recall any of our conversations being particularly friendly, Detective."

  Morse sprung out of the chair and began inspecting a list of regulations posted on the back of the door. The man rarely sat still, Lang remembered. His age was at best a guess but he had the build of one of those African marathon runners. Lang would have bet he had run more than one felon down on foot.

  Morse spun around to face the bed. "You prolly don' recall any time we had a conversation when there wasn't some sorta mayhem goin' on. Folks jumpin' outta your condo, gettin' murdered, blowin' up your car, stuff like that. Take a whole precinct to keep up with you, Mr. Reilly. Now yo' condo's exploded."

  Lang knew the man was perfectly capable of speaking English instead of the dialect he usually chose. "Gas. They say I left the gas on."

  The detective flopped back into the chair. "Thass what they say. Question I got, you leave the gas on, why wire a fire starter to the latch?"

  Lang stared wide-eyed. "Fire starter?"

  "Y'know, one of them gadgets you get what you pull the trigger an' it lights up to start yo' charcoal or fire. Get 'em in any hardware store."

  Lang didn't have to think long about the implications of that.

  "You found the fire starter?"

  "Arson 'vestigator did. What was left of it. Sum'bitch fixed up so's you turns a key and disengage the lock, it clicks. Time you push the door open ... Boom! A blast furnace. 'Fraid everythin you had in there is so much ash."

  "So you think someone's trying to kill me."

  "Don' think it's an April Fool's prank. Lucky it didn't take out none o' your neighbors."

  "No one was hurt?"

  " 'Cept you. Made dust outta the crystal collection the lady 'bove you had, though. Like usual, I don' s'pose you got even a guess who the perp might be."

  Lang shook his head. "You're right."

  Morse was on his feet again. "This ain' no game, Mr. Reilly. Whoever done that, he gonna try again. Nex' time you might not be the only person hurt."

  Lang gestured around the room. "If they were going to try again, this would be the perfect time and place. I've been pretty helpless."

  The detective had his back to the room, staring out of the window. From somewhere below, an ambulance's siren wailed. He could hear the mechanical grinding of a garbage truck's insatiable appetite. "Thass why I
had a coupla men stationed on this floor."

  "I appreciate that, Detective."

  Morse turned to face him. "Wasn't you I was worried 'bout, Mr. Reilly. I jes' wanted to make sure nobody here got kilt."

  Lang sank back into the embrace of the pillows. "How thoughtful."

  Morse shook his head. "Sumpthin' 'bout you. Mr. Reilly, you piss off the wrong people. I jus' wanna find out who 'fore the next body arrives."

  "I'm truly touched."

  Morse shot a glance Lang couldn't read. "Jus' 'member, Mr. Reilly, this ain' Dodge City. I catch you even spittin' on the street, you are so busted." "I'll bear that in mind"

  "Be sure you do, Mr. Reilly"

  Morse didn't look back as he left.

  With extra effort, Lang reached the TV remote on the table beside his bed. Reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond and Seinfeld. Silliness met with canned laughter. A game show and a cooking lesson. The two twenty-four-hour news channels were recounting the latest episode in the life of a movie star Lang had never heard of.

  He turned it off.

  He'd been right: he hadn't left the gas on. Someone had tried to kill him. Whoever had kidnapped and killed Eon would be a likely culprit. They had moved quickly, putting a plan into play within twenty-four hours and across an ocean. Whoever they were, they had international ties. The thought didn't make him feel any better.

  He reached for the phone to call Sara and ask her to go to his place and bring him the SIG Sauer. He took his hand back. If what Morse said was correct, the weapon was likely so much twisted metal.

  He needed a replacement and he needed it fast.

  Without it, his life depended on the protection of the Atlanta Police Department, the Keystone Kops who had mistakenly shot and killed a ninety-two-year-old woman when the SWAT team had raided the wrong house in a drug bust, who had arrested and roughed up a visiting college professor for jaywalking and who, more than once, had put 911 callers on hold.

  No thanks.

  Weak or not, he had to get out of here.

  Problem was, he was wired in. Two tubes in the back of one hand and a catheter. The two in his hand were easily removed but the other ... ?

  He was reaching for the buzzer to summon the nurse when his hand froze in midair.

  He must be hallucinating again.

  Gurt stood in the doorway.

  Just under six feet, long blonde hair reached below her shoulders. With large, firm breasts, wasplike waist and shapely legs, she had a figure most twenty-somethings would envy.

  The same small boy from Lang's supposed dreams stood at her side, his blue eyes locked onto Lang's.

  "It was said you might die," Gurt announced, immobile in the doorway.

  "Sorry to disappoint you."

  Gurt was impervious to sarcasm. It was part of her Germanic nature. "Why sorry? It does me glad."

  "I'm glad you've come back."

  "I came because I wanted Manfred to at least see his father."

  She gently pushed the boy forward.

  "His father?"

  "Lang, close your mouth. It is most unattractive hanging open."

  Now Lang realized why the child had something familiar about him. His face was a small, youthful reproduction of his own. _

  Lang couldn't take his eyes off the boy who was standing next to the bed, regarding him as though trying to memorize what he saw. "But I don't... I couldn't... You never..."

  Gurt seated herself in the chair, fished in a purse the size of a small suitcase and produced a pack of Marlboros. "I left because I was pregnant. I did not want what you call a marriage of a shotgun."

  Gurt s mastery of the American idiom was less than complete.

  "Shotgun wedding," Lang corrected.

  "Why would someone marry a shotgun?"

  Lang shook his head impatiently. "You knew I wanted to marry you. That's why it hurt so bad when you left me. I

  mean, I just turned around one day and you were gone .. ."

  His voice trailed off as he remembered his shock and sorrow. Hell, he ought to be angry with this woman who had thought so little of his feelings. He ought to...

  Whatever.

  He was so glad to see her, even more astonished and delighted his dreams of a family might materialize long after he had abandoned them, that his joy would permit no anger. He shook his head slowly, making sure this scene wasn't the result of painkillers.

  A son!

  He had despaired of ever seeing Gurt again, of having a child of his own. Pain or not, he would have chosen a dozen more broken bones as the price of the elation he felt. Despite his desire for a family, he had always viewed the alleged joy of parenthood as suspect. Midnight feedings, projectile vomiting, nasty diapers. In seconds he had become a believer, a transformation more miraculous than any politician's hundred and eighty degree change of position.

  And look at him! Already handsome, intelligence glittering from those blue eyes. In an instant he forgave Gurt the pain of her disappearance, her refusal to consider marriage and anything else she might ever have done or do in the future. He knew it was irrational but he didn't care. He knew it was love for the family that had appeared as though from behind a magician's cape. It was not a time to be rational

  Involuntarily, he reached for the boy, to touch him, to make sure this was no drug-induced dream. The tubes stopped his arms short. The boy, Manfred, stepped into the embrace without hesitation. Lang felt even more delight at the touch of his son's skin, the rigidity of his bones, the knowledge this flesh was of his own.

  Ignoring the sign above her head that proclaimed Grady was a smoke-free environment, Gurt lit up, sending a jet of blue smoke into the air. Lang was too happy to chide her about her habit in general and the locale in which she was giving in to it in particular.

  She leaned back in the chair. "When I left you, I did not want you to know I had pregnant. I wanted to go back to work—"

  "You didn't have to," Lang interrupted.

  She nodded and took another drag from her cigarette. "I know. But who wants to be like the women in the building where you live? Not working makes them stupid." She took another puff. "Or they already are. Even though I knew I had a baby coming, I did not want to ask you for help, to look like I needed anyone nor was I willing to give up what could be the only part of you I would ever have."

  "By your choice." There was no brittle edge to his tone, only a happy recitation of fact.

  "Had you not nearly died, I would probably never seen you again," she said with uncharacteristic emotion. "I would have been very foolish. If you wish me to go, I will."

  Instead, he spread his arms again, releasing his son. Cigarette in hand, Gurt came to the bed and embraced him. Lang smelled a mixture of stale tobacco and soap with the smallest hint of some sort of flower fragrance, the one he associated with her. The memories flooded back: Rome, London, Seville, the Languedoc of France. All the dangers they had faced. And the wild, uninhibited, noisy sex. He had missed the former almost as much as the latter.

  "Go? Try it and I'll chain you to the bed," he said with a smile.

  As though with a will of their own, his hands started moving across her back, down her sides to her hips.

  She gently pushed back. "Later. When Manfred is not here."

  The first lust he had felt in longer than he cared to remember had not made Lang forget the boy. "No harm in him seeing his parents' affection."

  Gurt cocked an eyebrow. "Affection'? Another minute and you would have had me across the bed."

  The growing discomfort from the catheter made Lang painfully aware of how right she was.

  He leaned back into the pillows. "Exactly what do you have in mind? I mean, I better be planning on you staying this time."

  He was afraid to bring up any arrangement that smacked of permanence. She had left his life twice before when he had.

  "Manfred and I will be here at least until the hospital releases you. Longer if you wish."

  Lang's eyes were riveted o
n his son, the child he was beginning to regard as miraculous as any held by one of Rubens's Madonnas. "I can't wait that long. Whoever blew up my condo is going to try again. I'm a sitting duck here."

  "What do nesting birds have to do with it?" She was looking for a place to stub out her cigarette. She finally settled on a glass beside the bed before she returned to the chair. "There are men outside that look like policemen."

  "They are, City of Atlanta. You lived here a year or so. Would you trust your life to the Atlanta police?"

  She gave a toss of the head. "You do not have to. That is one of the reasons I came."

  It was not bravado. She had saved his life more than once. After winning the agency's women's shooting competition, she had demanded a face-off with the male champion. She had humiliated him.

  "You have a weapon?"

  "I had no plans to protect you with a nail file."

  "Manfred?"

  "He will stay with Francis for the time being."

  Francis, keeper of Lang's dog and now Lang's son. The priest was making his bid for sainthood.

  Or institutional confinement.

  Francis.

  Lang recalled his friend's reaction when he had told him he thought he had dreamed of Gurt. "Francis, he..."

  "He called me hours after you were admitted to the hospital. The doctors were not, er, optimistic."

  Lang realized Francis had kept in touch with Gurt, maybe even knew about Manfred. He should feel annoyed, piqued that his friend had kept this information to himself.

  But he was far too happy.

  And too tired. His first few days back in the world had fatigued him far beyond anything he would have anticipated. He fought the gravitational pull of his eyelids as long as he could.

  Then he slipped into sleep.

  VI.

  Park Place

  2660 Peachtree Road Atlanta, Georgia A Month Later

  Today was the first time Lang had seen his previous home since the blast. He had decided to rebuild section by section, starting with the tiny kitchen. A new wall oven was to be delivered from Home Depot today. So far it had not arrived.

  The condominium association had replaced the exterior glass through which was a magnificent view of the city's premier avenue, a long stretch of pavement lined with blossoming trees that pointed like an arrow to the high- rise office buildings of downtown. That was the only thing unchanged. Today was also the first time Lang had had Manfred to himself. There had been moments when Gurt had been running errands or absent for some other reason but never far away. Lang's anticipation of the event had been more disturbing than the prospect of seeing his condo for the first time since the explosion. Lang was a newcomer in his son's life. What if the kid suddenly decided he wanted his mother? What if he suddenly got sick, developed one of those childhood diseases that seemed to come and go with the irregular suddenness of summer thunderstorms? There wasn't any Parenting for Dummies on the bookstore shelves.