by Gregg Loomis
Time for Plan B.
He turned and fled back upstairs.
Minutes later, the stairs became a busy place very quickly. A photographer was firing off a flash from every angle. Two men in uniform picked up shell casings, using a grease pencil to mark the location of each. A man in a suit was kneeling beside a body with its head pointing downstairs. Another put on latex gloves before picking up a Beretta.
Several more uniforms were standing to the side doing little but observing.
Inspector Manicci, in charge for the present, watched from the top of the staircase.
The assembly stopped as one as a priest came down the steps. No one observed that his cassock swept the steps rather than ended at the ankles or that the clerical collar was a size too big. The absence of the usual rosary was not noted. Instead, all of the men nodded politely with the courtesy toward the church shown by all Italians, whether churchgoing or not.
The priest stopped, shocked, at the sight of the dead man. Kneeling, he began reciting in Latin. No doubt a prayer for the dead. At first the men on the stairs exchanged uncertain glances. Then, one by one, they decided it was time for a cigarette break outside.
A few minutes later Deputy Chief Police Inspector Fredrico Hanaratti arrived, blue lights flashing on his dark blue Alfa Romeo. His driver parked squarely in front of the massive doors. No matter. No one was going to be leaving anytime soon. One of the uniforms escorted him inside, explaining what had been found so far.
And that some priest was slowing up the investigation.
The inspector hunched his shoulders and started up the stairs. He would put an end to this interference, priest or not.
Except there was no priest.
"Interview everyone in the building," Hanaratti ordered, "including the priest."
But he was not to be found.
Twenty minutes later, a deputy inspector reported the discovery of another, much smaller entrance/exit across the piazza. It lead onto another street.
Just inside the doorway were a clerical collar and a cassock.
Chapter Five
I.
Alitalia Flight 171
Between Rome and Atlanta
Four Hours Later
Lang luxuriated in the first-class seat as he accepted his second glass of champagne. Well, Spumante, a discrepancy more than compensated for by being able to actually extend his legs while he enjoyed it. The past few days hadn't exactly been the rehab his surgeon had recommended. Wriggling his toes in the thick airline-issue socks, he gazed down on the rugged Alpine region below, replaying his last hours in Rome.
After a hasty exit from Father Strentenoplis's apartment building and shedding priestly garb, he had headed back toward the Vatican, stopping only long enough to dump the .45 from the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele into the sluggish green Tiber.
He had not even considered returning to Viktor's to collect his passport. It was too likely the men he had encountered in the ghetto yesterday had observed him coming in or out of the building. That they knew about the priest only strengthened this supposition. He would need to find translation of the gospel elsewhere, preferably somewhere someone wasn't trying to kill him.
He had used his BlackBerry as he walked to call up Delta's stored number. With surprising accommodation, they booked him on that afternoon's flight on Alitalia.
He had no sooner disconnected than the device buzzed, this time showing his office number.
"Sara?"
"It's me, Lang. You all right?"
Just swell, Sara. Twice in as many days, somebody has tried to kill me. I've been forced to seriously burn one man, maybe crack the skull of another and shoot one more to death. I'm not forgetting being responsible for yet one more getting his throat slit and the disappearance of a priest. I'm a one-man plague, but I'm just peachy keen. "What's up?"
"I thought you'd like to know, a Larry Henderson called last night. Says he knows you. He's in the federal pretrial detention center in Macon on what I gather are a number of charges related to growing marijuana. He's got an arraignment in front of a magistrate coming up."
Larry Henderson.
The name was familiar but just out of his memory's reach. Lang was puzzled for other reasons, too.
"I'm still on medical leave of absence from the various courts, I don't practice outside the Atlanta area and I sure as hell don't defend dope dealers. None of this is news. What's special about this guy?"
"He said to remind you of your home in Lamar County."
It all came back to Lang like a yo-yo on a string. Shit! A real pain in the ass when you owe someone, really owe them, and they come around to collect. Especially when your own plate is full of assassins who want you dead.
On the other hand ...
"Have someone tell Mr. Henderson I'll drive down to Macon tomorrow. Call and make arrangements with the Fed Bureau of Prisons people."
Lang terminated the call and made another, this one to Gurt.
"There's been a change of plans," he told her.
When he got back to the Vatican to throw his few clothes into his single bag, Francis was waiting for him. The priest was sitting on one of the twin beds, fingering the rosary in his lap.
"Lang, what have you gotten into?" were the first words he said.
"You already know as much as I do," Lang replied, crossing to the small closet and taking out a pair of slacks. "What brings this up?"
Francis hesitated before answering as though carefully constructing an answer. "That Greek Orthodox priest you asked to translate for you, the one visiting from Istanbul.. ."
"Strentenoplis."
"Father Strentenoplis. He was found an hour ago."
Lang felt as though he had tried to swallow something without chewing, something very large. "Found?"
"In the Tiber."
"He fell into the river?"
Lang knew better.
"Not unless he was carrying the hundred-pound anchor tied to his legs."
"Who ... ? I mean, you can't just throw somebody tied to an anchor into a river in broad daylight without a couple hundred witnesses. Somebody must have seen it."
Francis arched an eyebrow. "And what makes you think it was done in daylight?"
A warm coffeepot, a clerical collar with studs on a dresser, a breakfast not eaten.
But Lang said, "Lucky guess?"
Francis shook his head. "A dozen or so people called the police. Of course, each had a different idea of the make of the truck they used, its color, even how many people were involved."
"And, of course, nobody got a tag number."
"Oh, they did, all right. According to Vatican security, the Rome police found the truck abandoned. It had been stolen." He stood, staring at Lang intensely. "Lang, you're not telling me something."
Lang laid his suitcase out on the other bed and began transferring shirts and underwear into it from the bureau. He was acutely aware someone in addition to Francis was probably listening. "More than one something, Francis. Unless you want to end up like Father Strentenoplis, I'm doing you a favor." He stopped in midpacking. "The anchor, it's the symbol for ... ?"
"St. Clement. He was tossed overboard at sea tied to an anchor."
Lang zipped his bag shut. "Crude but efficient. Even considering the Tiber is, what, ten feet deep? I'll see you when you get back."
"You're going back to Atlanta?"
A fact the eavesdroppers either knew or would soon.
"It's a starting place."
Francis stood. "Lang, please. Drop this search for a translation of that gospel. It's not worth your life. Give it to whoever wants it. No more killing, no more ..."
Lang gave his friend a bear hug. "Always the man of peace, Francis. Problem is, I wouldn't know who to give it to or that they'd call off the dogs if I did."
Lang's thoughts were interrupted by the flight attendant extending a pair of tongs holding a hot towel. He mopped his face and dropped the towel onto the seat divider to be collected by the s
ame set of tongs.
One of his problems was he had no real clues as to who it was that wanted him to drop the matter of the Gospel of James. The obvious answer was some fanatical religious splinter group of Catholics. Problem was, which one? He couldn't name them all. He could eliminate the Pegasus organization as having too much to lose in the event of his violent death. Besides, Pegasus's killers were professionals. The men who had made attempts on his life, at least in Rome and Prague, hadn't been, a fact for which he was extremely grateful. There was no way to tell whether the bombing of his condo had been the work of a true pro or some Timothy McVeigh wannabe. Ever since the tragedy in Oklahoma City, anyone could mix up an explosive mixture of sulphur nitrate from recipes on the Internet. And this particular bomber hadn't had to. Natural gas had worked just fine.
A comforting thought.
He had no clue, nothing other than the untranslated gospel and the hope it would help identify those who were more willing to kill him than have it see daylight.
He pushed his seat back to a near-reclining position, punched a series of buttons on the in-flight entertainment system and began watching some mindless comedy.
II.
Macon
Bibb County, Georgia The Next Day
Larry Henderson had thought he might be in trouble when Jerranto found the man on Larry's property. Clearly from the city, the trespasser was all dressed up in blue jeans newer than Larry'd seen in a long time. Shiny new boots, too. Had a pair of binoculars around his neck, a camera with a long lense and a book with pictures of birds in it. He said he was a bird-watcher, come down to the crick because he heard some kind of woodpecker was there.
What man would tromp around with rattlers and cottonmouths just to see a woodpecker? Hadn't made sense then.
But it made a lot of sense now, to Larry's misfortune.
Particularly as the man was close to two things Larry'd just as soon keep folks away from: the current crop of marijuana and a couple shallow graves containing the men who had shot up the house belonging to that Atlanta lawyer.
After he thought about it, Larry decided the man's story smelled like a mess of catfish that had been out of the water too long.
And he was right.
Two days later, the federals were swarming all over the place like fire ants when somebody's kicked over their hill. It took them less than a minute to find the crop, as if they knew where to look.
Now Larry was in deep shit.
More specifically, he was in the federal pretrial detention center in Macon.
Good thing that Atlanta lawyer, Lang Reilly, told him he'd be happy to return the favor if Larry ever needed it. Just out of curiosity, Larry had Googled him one night when there was nothing on TV. Reilly had five or six pages on him.
Reilly had defended the previous mayor of Atlanta against all kinds of corruption charges and got him off with a couple years for tax evasion. He'd also pissed somebody off big-time, had his house blown up, in addition to the men who shot up his place.
Whoever was mad enough at Reilly to want him dead wasn't any of Larry's business. He'd done Reilly a huge favor and now he was asking to be paid back.
Larry was just sitting down to his prison lunch of peanut butter sandwich, french fries and strawberry Jell-O when two of the guards came over to his table in the mess hall.
The man had to holler to be heard above the noise of a couple hundred men all talking at once. "You got a visitor, Henderson."
Although he knew it was routine, Larry's face burned with embarrassment when one of the guards snapped on leg shackles while the other watched. None of the other prisoners seemed to notice anything but the food left on Larry's plate.
Larry shoveled as much of the sandwich as he could into his mouth and followed the lead guard, the other one behind him. His fellow inmates were welcome to the Jell-O, but he hated leaving the fries even if it was the fifth time in as many days they had been featured on the noon menu.
They went down on an elevator and through a series of doors that hissed shut before the next one opened; then he was led into an eight-by-eight room divided by a metal table at which were two chairs. In one of them was the lawyer Reilly.
Lang stood and extended a hand as the guards removed the shackles and withdrew. Larry's bright orange jumpsuit was less than becoming.
"'Lo, Larry. How goes it?"
Larry looked around the room. "Stone walls a prison do not make, but this sucks."
Richard Lovelace? The value of a liberal arts education: recognizing cavalier poets.
Dumb question, anyway. Lang started over. "Looks like I'm going to have the chance to repay the favor."
" 'Preciate anythin' you can do." Larry sat in unison with Lang. "Guess you know the federals impounded all the cash I had. All the cash Momma and I had," he added bitterly. "I ain't astin' for charity, but..."
Lang waved his hand. "You're not getting charity. You're allowing me to repay a debt, a very big debt I owe you on my behalf as well as my family's."
Larry felt better already. The Hendersons had never been rich, but they'd never been beggars. This lawyer might be from Atlanta, a place so evil they let women dance naked in bars, or so Larry heard, but Reilly talked like he had the same principles as people in Lamar County.
Lang slipped papers out of a briefcase and handed them across the table. "Here's a copy of the indictment. Basically, you're accused of growing marijuana for purposes of distribution. That encompasses several other crimes such as transporting for sale, sale, etcetera."
Larry's heart sank as though suddenly cast in lead. "I done it. I'm guilty. How long'll I be in jail?"
Lang shook his head with just a trace of a smile. "You may or may not have done it, but you aren't guilty till a jury says you are. Tell me exactly what happened."
And Larry did just that. Starting with the bird-watcher whom he vaguely connected with his problems, he finished with the raid on his home.
"Can you tell me the exact date you found this person on your property?"
Larry scratched his jaw, thinking. "Was a Tuesday, 'cause Momma has her hair done ever Tuesday. An' it was a Tuesday, las' Tuesday, I was arrested."
Lang glanced at the papers from his briefcase. "And the indictment was handed down thirteen days after you saw the bird-watcher."
"You reckon he had any thin' to do with it?"
"I reckon he had everything to do with it."
"Shoulda shot him when I had the chance."
If past experience was any indication, he wasn't kidding.
Lang put his elbows on the table, making a steeple of his fingers, "If you'd shot him, you would have been in a lot more trouble than you are now."
"It's for sure he would be. Look, how long will I have to spend here?"
Lang puffed and blew out his cheeks. "Frankly, I have no way to know. If you're found guilty, or decide to cooperate ..."
"Cooperate?"
"I'm sure the DEA boys would be delighted to know to whom you sold, stuff like that..."
Larry shook his head. The Hendersons weren't tattlers, either. "Not gonna happen."
Lang stood, snapping his briefcase shut with finality. "That is, of course, up to you. But in any scenario, we are a long way from talking prison time, a very long way."
"But if I done it... ?"
Lang leaned across the table, lowering his voice. "The government is a long way from even getting to whether or not you did what they say. A bit of advice: drop 'I done it' from your vocabulary. Second, remember, there are men in here who will swear you said just about anything so they can trade for a lighter sentence."
Larry watched the guards unlock the door and Lang start to leave. Slightly skeptical men would actually bear false witness against each other for their own benefit. There must be some very bad people in here.
"Lang..."
He turned back from the door, a question on his face.
"If you can, meybbe when you come down this way to be in court, if it ain't
too much trouble ..."
Lang grinned. "C'mon, Larry. Spit it out."
"Momma. It's jus' she ain' never been alone an'..."
Lang chuckled. "I think I can assure you she won't be now. Even as we speak, Gurt is at your house making arrangements to move into your son's old room until all this is over."
Lang had never seen a man in a prison jumpsuit happier.
III.
Lamar County, Georgia
7:28 p.m.
That Evening
Lang needed to take a walk. He'd eaten a great deal more than he had intended. Starting with a tomato aspic salad, he had been served with a panoply of fresh vegetables "from the garden," homemade corn bread, ham with redeye gravy and peach cobbler for dessert. Feeling slightly guilty, he had left Gurt and Darleen to do the dishes at the latter's insistence despite the glare he got from the former. Manfred, in a blatant effort to postpone bedtime, had wanted to come along, which meant Grumps, recently liberated from the boarding kennel, had included himself.
The stroll, though pleasant, had a purpose other than a futile effort to settle the results of gluttony in his stomach. Lang headed slowly but purposefully along the dirt drive leading to the highway. He took his time. He stopped to watch Manfred chase the few early fireflies that ventured out into the fading light and Grumps's futile attempt to extract some small animal from its lair, a hole the dog was rapidly expanding. When he could see the state road, he stopped. He was not surprised a Ford sedan in plain wrapper was parked on the shoulder. In most federal dope busts, the DEA would keep a constant watch on the premises in hopes of snaring others who might be involved.
At least that was the reason usually given.
Lang suspected a more sinister motive might be to prevent intentional damage to property that the federal government would surely seize as contraband once Larry was convicted.
Either way, the inexhaustible assets of US law enforcement would be guarding Gurt and Manfred even if that was not the intent. They would also be protecting the very lawyer who already had a plan to defeat them in court.
He grinned. Is this a great justice system or what?
