by Gregg Loomis
Lang had fabricated a dozen excuses, some very good, why taking Manfred along was not a good idea. He was relieved when Gurt had dismissed them all with an arched eyebrow, an observation that children were not breakable and a reminder Lang had a lot of catching up to do.
The uncertainties evaporated as soon as Manfred put his small hand in Lang's, looked up with blue eyes expressing only pleasurable expectations and asked, "Where are we going today? Can Grumps come?"
How hard could fatherhood be?
Hadn't he been the closest thing to a father his nephew Jeff had? And Jeff had been only a year or so older than Manfred when Janet had adopted him. They had become instant buddies. Manfred would be fine. So would Lang.
Smelling of burned wood and mold, the condo resembled nothing more than some primeval cave. The walls were blackened as though from years of cooking fires. Glass crunched underfoot as he poked at this and that with one of his crutches while holding both the other and Manfred's hand.
The boy made an exaggerated show of holding his nose. "It stinks, Vati."
"Daddy," Lang corrected gently. "In America, I'm your daddy."
He had only about three years to make sure the boy spoke perfect English before he started school.
And it would be the city's best private school His son was bright and Lang had influence. He would also attend the best of colleges, maybe Harvard. No, someplace more interested in education than politics. Maybe something somewhere in the South. Vanderbilt or Duke, perhaps. Then law school and a partnership with Lang. Or maybe a year or two with one of the mammoth law factories where he'd learn a little humility as well as how to crank out twenty-five billable hours a day. Then ...
If Gurt would stay that long.
Bobby Burns's comments on the plans of mice and men came to mind.
The boy's face had clouded with the gentle reprimand.
"You're right, though, it doesn't smell so good." Lang agreed with a grin.
Lang was regarding what had been a secretary, a rare remainder from the Charleston workshop of Thomas Elfe, one of pre-Revolutionary America's finest cabinetmakers. It was one of the two or three items he had not sold after Dawn's death. It had housed his collection of antique books and a small group of antiquities. He and Dawn had found it in one of the shops along Queen Street, paid far too much for it and given it a prominent place in the small house he had also sold. Now it was all just so much ash.
He sighed.
Stuff, Francis had said, just stuff, objects that, after all, we only rent during the course of our lives.
Lang had at least pretended to be comforted.
But he wasn't.
Even though he would have gleefully swapped a dozen condominiums at Park Place to learn he had a son, an heir, whoever had done this was going to regret they hadn't killed him.
"Vat... Daddy, why did the bad people burn your house?"
A good question. Lang steered his small companion toward what had been the bedroom. "I don't know. Maybe because they were just that, bad people."
Manfred took in the destruction in the bedroom. "Shit!"
Lang's eyes widened. One of the things he had learned quickly: small children cannot remember to say "thank you" or "please" but they never forget four-letter words.
He couldn't bring himself to rebuke the boy. Instead, he would have smiled had he not been looking at the twisted wire that had been his bedsprings. Squatting sent an electriclike shock of pain from ankle to hip but he wanted to sift through the ash and debris. Sure enough, the SIG Sauer was there, its plastic grip melted into some form of modern art. The heat had set off the bullets in the clip, destroying the firing chamber.
He dropped it, his eye caught by another shine of metal. The small snapshot of Dawn in its silver frame. Miraculously, the glass hadn't even cracked. He blew the dust away and slipped it into his pocket.
"Who's that?" Manfred asked.
Lang sighed again. "Someone I knew a long, long time ago."
"Before you knew Mommy?"
Lang started to simply lie and stopped. He was not about to begin his relationship with his son with untruths. "No, I knew Mommy before I knew her. But there was a time ..."
How do you explain the complexity of man/woman relationships to a three-year-old?
You don't.
"Let's just say I knew her before I loved Mommy."
That seemed to satisfy him.
He put an arm around Lang's shoulders and squeezed. "I love you, Daddy."
"And I you," Lang said, gritting his teeth against the pain of standing up. "There isn't anything else here worth saving."
A knock at the door.
Lang gave Manfred a gentle shove. "Go open it, will you? It should be men with the oven. Daddy isn't moving so swiftly these days."
Painfully, Lang made his way from the bedroom. From its door he could see two burly men with a wheeled pallet. Whatever was under the shipping blanket was a lot larger than a wall oven.
Lang stopped just inside his front door, watching the blankets come off. Underneath was a huge stove. Six gas burners, grill, two ovens. The thing was larger than his entire kitchen.
"Where you want it?" one of the men asked.
"The enlisted men's mess at Fort Benning, maybe?" Lang responded. "That isn't what I ordered."
The other man looked at a slip of paper before showing it to Lang. "This is what the order form shows."
Lang groaned inwardly.
Home Depot had been founded right here in Atlanta and had grown into the largest home supply company in the world. Its two founders had retired, one bestowing on the city the world's biggest aquarium. The other had purchased the suppurating sore of sports, the Atlanta football team. Only fantasy and hubris could have made him think he could lift the team to a level of mediocrity for which it had vainly struggled for forty years.
Rumor had it that since the founders' departure, the company's service had sunk to the same performance level as the football team.
"I don't care what the paper shows," Lang said. "You can see this stove won't fit into that kitchen."
The man shrugged. "You can take that up with the appliance department. All we do is deliver."
"Well, you can't leave it here."
"Yeah, we can. Fact, we can't take it back without orders from them, the appliance department."
Lang eased the door shut, leaving just a crack. "You're not bringing that thing in here ."
With the disinterest Lang thought exclusive to the US Postal Service, the men simply collected the blankets, took the pallet and left the huge stove in the hallway.
Lang almost swore until he remembered the small boy at his side. Instead, he took out his BlackBerry and punched in a number.
"Sara? I need you to call Home Depot, see if you can get someone on the phone with at least a room-temperature IQ...?
Outside, a taxi was waiting to take him to meet Gurt and the SUV he had rented until he regained his agility. He hated the lumbering gas guzzler but a more nimble vehicle provided little room to maneuver with in a cast or to store crutches. Lang was unable to drive his manual shift Porsche still garaged here at Park Place. His frustration at having to rely on others tended to make him ill-tempered except where Manfred was concerned. He was impatient for the time he would be mobile enough to play with his son, to take him to a Braves game or any of the things young fathers did.
In the meantime, he kept alert. Whoever had tried to kill him wasn't likely to give up. The only reason he could imagine why they had waited this long was that they either hoped he would become less than cautious or hadn't been able to find him.
He had left the hospital to convalesce in a Trappist monastery in nearby Conyers, a small town east of Atlanta. The quarters had been Spartan, the food hardy if less than sensational. Given the vows of silence of the brothers, the conversation had been less than spectacular, too. He had lived for Gurt and Manfred's daily visits. Still, he appreciated whatever ecumenical strings Francis had pulle
d to get him into one of the last places on earth any who knew him might look.
Any organization efficient enough to track him down from London to Atlanta, though, would have eyes and ears. Now that he was on the street, they would know it.
The thought was less than comforting.
Once out of the monastery, he, Gurt and Manfred were living on the land Lang called simply "the Farm" The relatively small acreage would have made "plantation" seem not only potentially politically incorrect but pretentious as well. About an hour's drive from the city's southern limit, Lang had bought it some years ago in the name of a dummy corporation. The purchase included a frame cabin of about fifteen hundred square feet, no phone or cable TV. Even better, cell phone reception was spotty when it existed at all. A perfect retreat. It did have good redneck neighbors who took each others' property and privacy rights seriously. They adorned their pickups' rear windows with racks holding at least one shotgun or rifle.
Burglars or home invaders were wise to confine themselves to venues other than Lamar County.
Even better was the ten-acre pond. Manfred had, possibly, never seen a live fish. He squealed with excitement each time he, with minor assistance from Lang, dragged a shiny, flopping bass or bream onto the clay banks. The child had somewhat less enthusiasm for cleaning his catch, something his father insisted upon. Gurt was probably even more thankful than her son when throwing the fish back became the custom. All three had eaten about as much marine life as they wanted for the time being.
Instead of his normal twenty-three-and-a-half-hour daily nap, Grumps showed signs of life, even giving token chase to rabbits he had to know would outdistance him in seconds. He followed Manfred everywhere, a pastime Lang tried to not let annoy him. After all, it had been Lang who had provided the mutt's keep all these years.
But then, what living creature could not adore Lang's son?
All in all, it had been a restful, pastoral period to mend, reacquaint himself with Gurt and get to know his son while bones healed and internal organs returned to their natural locations.
It ended that night.
Not for the first time, Lang was pleasantly surprised by Gurt's adaptability. She had produced a dinner indigenous to the locale: roasted hen with baked sweet potato and collards. As a native Southerner, Lang had been equally delighted and astonished. The green leaves were usually harvested only after the first frost and the unpleasant odor of cooking them normally permeated an entire house. Before he was through marveling at their appearance on the table, she put a small black iron skillet of cornbread in front of him.
Made with buttermilk. It might not have been as good as Lang's mother used to make, but it sure was better than mix out of a box.
He started to ask where she had suddenly acquired such peculiarly Southern cooking skills, thought better of it, and reached for another slice of cornbread.
From his high chair, Manfred inspected the greens suspiciously. "Is it grass?"
Lang was sprinkling the customary green pepper sauce over his own. "It's good. Try it."
With a skeptical eye on his father, the child speared a single leaf and slid it into his mouth, followed by another.
"What is that?" He was pointing to the pepper sauce.
"Hot. You wouldn't like it."
The little boy extended his hand. "Gimme."
Gurt put down her fork. "We say what in English when we ask for something?"
Manfred thought for a moment. "Please!"
Gurt looked at Lang. "He will too hot to eat make it."
Lang had gauged his son's determination and guessed otherwise. He extended the bottle and watched his son dribble a few experimental drops. Then, his tearing eyes never left his father's face as he shoveled the rest of the collards into his mouth.
"He will be a perfect copy of his father," Gurt commented dryly, "too stubborn to admit a mistake."
A trait often attributed to her countrymen. Who else would lose one war and begin another in exactly the same way?
Lang was deciding how well the observation would be received when Grumps leapt up from his customary spot under Manfred's chair and dashed toward the front door, barking.
"Another one of those big rats?" Gurt asked.
Lang was getting to his feet. "Possums. No, I don't think so."
He took a step in Grumps's direction. Through the window, the crescent moon was a diadem on the pond's black velvet. Lang thought he saw one, two, no, three shapes blot out the reflection and dissolve into the night.
What the hell?
The neighbors were definitely not the type to come calling uninvited.
But... Shit!
The cab, the fucking taxicab!
Someone had been waiting, knowing Lang would return to his condo sooner or later. All they'd had to do was follow the cab to the place he had met Gurt and then trail along behind until they were led here. Lang had never thought to look back to see if they had had a tail.
He had ignored agency training. He knew of more than one instance where the omission resulted in no chance to repeat the mistake.
Lang made a dive across the room, knocking the table onto its side among the clattering and shattering of dishes, glasses and silverware.
Gurt knew better than to take the time to ask questions. Instead, she snatched a bewildered Manfred from his chair and darted behind the overturned table as Lang joined them.
A hailstorm of bullets shook the frame house.
Splinters of wood, glass shards and bits of furniture flew through the air as though by the hand of an angry poltergeist. Sharp porcelain bits from the dinner dishes danced and hopped across the floor, all to the accompaniment of gunfire.
Lang snatched Manfred away from Gurt, shielding the child as best he could with his own body.
He alternately cursed himself for his inattention and was grateful to the cabin's prior owner for leaving the ugly but thick oak table.
The sheer helplessness was maddening. The closet where he kept the double-barrel shotgun he used to frighten off rather than harm deer marauding the summer vegetable garden was too far away. He'd never make it unharmed through the fusillade. Gurt's weapon was no doubt in her purse, useless in the bedroom.
It was quiet, the calm of a hurricane's eye, Lang was sure. The only sound was the terrified sobs of the little boy clinging to Lang as though he might fall into the abyss if he let go.
The stillness was more frightening than the storm.
Lang peeled the little fingers loose and handed the trembling child to Gurt. "Try to keep him quiet. I'm going to try to get to the shotgun before they charge the house."
She took her son, jiggling him gently. "It is not likely you will make it."
Gurt the optimist.
Lang was already on his way, crawling commando fashion across a floor littered with a forest of sharp objects. "What else do you suggest, fighting them off with spoons?"
Lang stood and almost fell the last few feet, snatched open the door and was jamming shells into the twin barrels when the bullet-ridden door slammed open.
In a single motion, he swiveled and dropped into a squat, groaning at the pain the sudden movement caused.
He saw only a blur in the doorway framed by the night, a smudge of camo shirt and pants, white face and a weapon.
He pulled one trigger.
The image staggered backward as he was pulling the second.
The twin blasts rebounded from the enclosure of walls and set his ears ringing and his eyes watering from the sting of cordite.
The open threshold was empty. The riddled door moaned as it swung drunkenly on its remaining hinge.
Lang jammed two more shells into place, dragging his cast as he stumbled toward Gurt and Manfred.
Suddenly, the entire outside seemed to light up with a wavering orange glow.
Lang didn't have to guess what was coming. Molotov cocktails, bottles filled with gasoline, fumes compressed by gas-soaked rags for fuses. They would explode like napalm upon
impact just as they had when used sixty years ago by Russian partisans against German tanks.
And this cabin was a lot more flammable than any Panzer.
Lang glanced around.
He saw no options.
VII.
Lamar County, Georgia
Five Minutes Earlier
Larry Henderson considered himself a farmer just like his daddy and his daddy's daddy.
In Grandpa's day, cotton had been the crop. He had come home from fighting the Germans to find a combination of boll weevil and long-fibered Indian cotton grown in Texas had pretty much put him out of business. Subsequent efforts at peanuts, soybeans and even a peach orchard had provided a subsistence living, mostly through government subsidies.
Then the BIG CORPORATIONS (Larry always thought of them in capital letters) had bought up thousands of acres on which to not plant anything and the bulk of the county's allotment shares went to them. Gave new meaning to the lines from that old song, "He don' plant 'taters n' he don' plant cotton and them that does is soon forgotten."
By the time Daddy come along, Grandpa had had to adapt. He and Daddy planted corn. Good, sweet corn that fermented in the crick that ran through the property. Boil off a gallon or two and Daddy always said it was the best white in middle Georgia, well aged if the customer got there late in the day.
Daddy sold enough to buy a secondhand Ford every other year to make the weekly run to Barnesville, Hawkinsville and all those other 'villes where the thirst for good white lightnin' was never quenched.
By the time Daddy passed away, the coalition of Baptist preachers and bootleggers wasn't as strong as it used to be and the county went wet. Folks stopped drinking white. Instead, they bought bourbon, vodka, scotch. Government whiskey with the stamp on the bottle's cap.
