by Gregg Loomis
But why?
The doorbell chimed as he reached the bottom step. He saw Gurt squinting through the peephole before she opened the door. He was surprised to see Detective Morse cross the threshold.
The policeman nodded to Gurt. “Evening, ma’am. Sorry to bother you.”
Lang grinned inwardly. As usual when the detective wasn’t on duty or around the other cops, the deep Southern-black accent dropped away like a discarded garment. Lang supposed the dialect was a device to disarm suspects, to conceal a sharp mind and a quick sense of observation.
“Well, Detective,” Lang said, “this is a surprise. I don’t recall a visit from you that wasn’t in response to some sort of mayhem.”
Morse was looking around curiously. “Tell me about it! This isn’t a social call, though.”
“Well, you’re welcomed nonetheless.” Lang gestured. “Come on back into the den. Can I get you something, perhaps an adult beverage?”
“Thanks but I won’t be staying that long. I’ve got a couple of questions, though.”
Lang led him from the foyer, past dining and living rooms and into the den. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” He went to the bar and poured himself a shot of scotch. “Sure you won’t join me?”
Gurt sat on the sofa and motioned the policeman into a chair across a glass coffee table. “Perhaps a Coke?”
Morse shook his head. “Mighty kind of you, but no thanks.” Reaching into a pocket, he produced a small notepad. “Don’t suppose either of you have ever seen the perp that was in your house?”
Both Lang and Gurt shook their heads no.
“Should we have?” Lang asked, adding ice and water to the glass.
The detective gave him a long look, the stare of someone who thinks he is perhaps not hearing the entire truth. “The question you asked me, the one about Asian criminals. Almost like you weren’t surprised at being burglarized by someone other than some homey looking for something to fence in a hurry.”
For not the first time, Lang realized the man’s perceptiveness was usually hidden behind his speech. He said nothing as he sat on the sofa next to Gurt.
“The guy’s Chinese, best we can tell. Least he seemed to understand one of our guys who speaks Mandarin, though he wouldn’t respond to it. And a pro, like he’s been in a police station once or twice, I’d guess, and I don’t mean to contribute to the Policemen’s Benevolent Association, either. No ID on him. A real hard nut. Only words he’s spoken since he was busted has been to ask for a lawyer, fellow named Wan who practices in DeKalb County. Mostly defends gang members. Why do I think to you all this isn’t news?”
Lang shrugged. “Detective, I can assure you, we were not expecting to be burglarized, not by a Chinese or, for that matter, a Frenchman or Sherpa.”
Morse gazed around the room. “For someone got his house secure as Fort Knox, you weren’t exactly expecting Girl Scouts selling cookies, either.”
“Last time I looked, Detective, a man’s house is his castle. He’s free to use any security measure he chooses unless it’s illegal like a spring gun or something else that potentially could injure emergency personnel.”
Morse gave him another long look. “You’re right, counselor. But you can understand why I might be curious as to the, er, rather elaborate precautions. I mean, what other house you know got steel curtains drop down from the ceiling, cameras and an intercom? And I’m far from certain the cyanide gas was just a bluff.”
Lang sat back, crossing his arms. “You know I seem to draw trouble, Detective.”
“Like sugar draws ants.”
“Now that I have a family, it seemed only reasonable to take certain… precautions.”
“OK, conceding that you’re just a cautious man, why would some Chinese guy be interested in your house?”
Lang rattled the ice cubes in his glass and took a sip. “Until you told me the man’s nationality-or should I say ethnicity-he could have been any number of people of Asian descent.”
Morse stood, stuffing the notepad in a jacket pocket. “See if I got this right: you had no reason whatsoever to think you’d be burglarized, and even less by a Chinese.”
Lang stood. “You got it.”
The detective glanced upward, perhaps checking this room for cameras also. “These real-time TV cameras that showed the perp in your foyer. I don’t suppose they make a tape, too.”
Lang shook his head. “No need. The purpose is to be able to see an intruder, not produce evidence.”
“You sure about that?”
“Very.”
Morse’s eyes narrowed. “Let me be very clear, Mr. Reilly. You hiding something pertinent to my investigation, I won’t hesitate to charge you with interfering with an investigation, obstruction, spitting on the street, parking overtime or whatever.”
Lang smiled disarmingly. “So you’ve told me.”
Morse pointed an accusing finger. “Ever’ time, there’s something I feel you aren’t telling me. This time…”
Lang crossed to the doorway between the hall and den, his good humor undiminished, a clear indication the conversation was at an end. “Thanks for stopping by, Detective. Anytime.”
Between drawn curtains Lang and Gurt watched Morse climb into his car and depart.
“You had a reason to tell him not about Venice and to lie about the tape?” she asked as the car’s taillights disappeared around a turn.
Lang let the drapes fall back into place. “What good would it have done? We can’t establish the break-in was related to Venice. As for the tape, I didn’t lie. The camera records on a disk on a twenty-four-hour cycle. If I’d told him one existed, he’d demand we hand it over. As it is, I’ve got a much better use for it. In fact, I’ll remove it now.”
“To do what?”
“See if some of our former friends can identify our visitor.”
Gurt turned to go back into the den. “What do we do now? The next time may be more than a burglary.”
“Perhaps. The listening device, the surveillance, even the break-in when you weren’t at home, tells me someone is after information.”
“But what, who?”
“That is precisely what I’m going to try to find out.”
Lang went to a broom closet in the kitchen. Behind brooms, mops and a vacuum cleaner he had every intention of repairing someday was a small metal door resembling a box housing circuit breakers. Inside were a slot and a button. Pressing the latter caused a shiny silver disk to eject.
Lang took the disk into his office, a cramped space under the stairs that was a former closet, large enough only for a small table that served as a desk with a telephone, lamp and computer screen and keyboard on it, a single chair and two-drawer file cabinet. He shut the door. That made the specially insulated space both claustrophobic and immune to listening devices. Sitting at the table, he reached into the file cabinet, his fingers marching across file folders until he found the one he wanted. Extracting it, he flipped it open and ran his eyes down a sheet of paper until he came to a phone number prefaced by the Washington, D.C., area code, 202.
He pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket, remembered that the device was basically like a radio, subject to interception by anyone who had the right frequency. He reached for the phone on the table and keyed in the number. He knew the person he was calling could be, and likely was, anywhere in the world other than the District of Columbia. The number was connected to a series of electronic switchbacks and cutouts that made it impossible to trace without some very sophisticated computers.
The ringing stopped and a brief tone beeped.
“Miles, ole buddy, Lang here. I could use your help. Give me a call. Thanks.”
Lang hung up.
By the time Lang had gone back to the den to refresh his scotch, his office phone rang.
He picked up on the third ring. “Miles?”
There was a half-second pause, confirmation the call was being relayed, but the softness of a Southern voice was unimpaired. �
��It’s me, Lang. I’m here with my endless wisdom and bountiful wit to be of service.”
Lang grinned. Miles Berkly, scion of one of Alabama’s wealthiest families, prepped at Groton-or was it St. Paul’s?-and then on to Princeton. Educated, cultured and totally without false modesty. He wore suits that would have cost a month’s pay had he purchased them on his salary. He had been Lang’s best friend at the Agency. Fortunately for Lang, a combination of political connections and a brilliant record had saved Miles from the post-Cold War cuts. From time to time Lang had needed favors that would have been unavailable to someone without access to the Agency’s resources.
“I need a favor.”
A theatrical sigh. “And I had hoped you were calling to tell me Gurt had regained her senses and left you, that she was available again. She hot as ever?”
“Eat your heart out, Miles. I’ve got a bit of a problem I hope you can help me with.”
“That’s me. Good deed a day.”
Lang picked up the disk. “I’ve got a disk with a running sequence of a man who broke into our house. I’d like to e-mail it to you and have you run it through the Agency’s face-recognition program.”
A dry chuckle. “You need to talk to the Fibbies. They’re the ones who keep files on your average American burglars, robbers, congressmen and other members of the criminal element.”
“I think this guy is more than that.”
“Divine inspiration or you have something to base that on?”
Lang turned the disk over in his hand. “If you have the time, I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“No need. I’ll take your word for it. You know that specific technology isn’t exactly open to the public. I could get in deep shit for using it for a non-Agency purpose.”
“That mean you can’t do it?”
“No, it means you owe me big time. Here’s the e-mail address.. .”
Petionville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
The next evening
The restaurant was deserted. White-linen-topped tables surrounded a pool like mounds of snow around a mountain lake. Plates were in place, silverware arranged as though for some ghostly banquet. The evening’s gentle breeze ruffled the surface of the blue water to the cadence of the songs of tree frogs. It was hard to believe that only a few miles away, all downhill, the city was a muggy cesspool with nighttime temperatures in the high eighties and no movement of the torpid air.
Undersecretary Chin Diem knew: he had exited the private jet and broken into a sweat before he reached the bottom of the staircase and the air-conditioned Mercedes. He had been surprised when the car delivered him not to the presidential palace but to this place-Bistro La Lantern, according to the sign in front. His questions had brought uncomprehending stares from the driver and the other man in the front seat. At least he thought they were staring. It was hard to tell, when both wore reflective sunglasses that concealed the upper part of their faces.
Diem distrusted people who wore sunglasses at night like American movie stars.
Distrust or not, though, here he was beside a pool, looking at the city below without any idea why. All he knew was that he had received an urgent note from Haiti’s ambassador to the People’s Republic demanding in most undiplomatic language his immediate return to Haiti. Perhaps the president for life had yet another demand. He sighed.
Something streaked the surface of the water like a fish striking prey. But there were no fish. He could see the bottom of the pool and there was nothing in there but water. He was still puzzling over the occurrence when it happened again.
The wind?
No.
Quite impossible. He had felt no sudden gust that would slash the surface as though something had been ripped through it. For reasons he could not have explained, he looked over his shoulder, seeing no one but the two men who had brought him here.
He shivered but not from the warm breeze. He hated this place. Not only the sewer that was Port-au-Prince, but this largely barren area, stripped of the lush vegetation indigenous to these latitudes. The constant sound of drums at night, the voodoo of natives who worshipped gods, loa, that were an equal mixture of Christian saints and African spirits, gave him the creeps even though he had been reared to believe in no power higher than the state.
The water’s surface parted again, this time with an audible ripple.
Diem stood just in time to see a tiny shape, all but indistinguishable against the night, as it flitted away. A bat! The little creature was drinking from the pool in midflight. Diem gritted his teeth. He hated rodents, winged or otherwise.
His revulsion was quickly forgotten at the sound of footsteps. Another man behind mirrored sunglasses, this one perhaps the supposedly deaf bodyguard he had seen on his last trip, followed by two men in uniform with holsters on their belts.
Behind them, President for Life Tashmal duPaar, in what Diem guessed was dress uniform. More like Gilbert and Sullivan, complete with a galaxy of medals. He strode to the table as though marching to his own coronation.
As Diem stood, duPaar waved a hand, indicating the restaurant. “A good choice, is it not? Beautiful view, pleasant surroundings. And the food!” He touched his lips.
“I’m sure, Mr. President. But there are no other customers…”
“Aha!” DuPaar waved a dismissive hand. “Of course there are no other customers! I had the place cleared. Few are worthy of dining with the president of Haiti, and besides, other customers present security issues.”
“Ah, of course.”
As the two men were about to sit down, a figure dashed out of darkness to take the back of duPaar’s chair. A man, a Haitian of indeterminate age, seated duPaar and said something in what Diem guessed was Creole.
“The owner. He says it is a privilege to have me dine here tonight,” the president for life translated before replying in the same tongue. “I have ordered us a cocktail, as the Americans say, a taste of Barbancourt, our world-famous rum.”
Diem drank little, even less when on business, but like so many diplomats, he had learned how to take the tiniest of sips, enough to be able to comment on, say, a fine wine, but far too little to reach any stage of inebriation.
When duPaar had thrown down his second glass of the amber liquid, two beer bottles appeared. Though bearing the same label, one was green, the other brown. One long necked, the other not. One was certainly, or had been, a Budweiser. Haitian brewers, it seemed, recycled the bottles of their peers in other countries.
“Good Haitian beer,” duPaar announced. “Unlike some here in Petionville who drink the finest of French wines, I am a man of the common people, drink what they drink. One of the reasons they love me so. Besides, beer will go better with the dinner I have ordered prepared.”
The undersecretary saw no reason to mention the fact that few of those “common people” in the city below could afford to spend more than the national average annual income in an establishment like this, nor would he inquire why such security was necessary for a man so beloved.
The proprietor and another man placed platters before each man.
“ Lambi with rice,” duPaar announced. “Small, er, conchs dried in the sun and cooked with a spicy sauce. It goes well with beer, does it not?”
It would have gone better with CO 2 out of a fire extinguisher. The small, experimental bite Diem had taken singed his tongue and was now consuming his entire mouth. He was afraid to swallow for fear he would incinerate his intestines and stomach. Szechuan Chinese food was hot but a mere summer zephyr compared to the inferno he was experiencing.
He grabbed the beer bottle and emptied half of it at a gulp.
“As I said, the beer goes with the food, do you not agree?”
Diem was using his linen napkin to stanch the tears running down his cheeks. In his diplomatic career, he had been subjected to cuisine including hummingbird tongues, raw monkey brains and fried insects, but he had never suffered anything so painful.
DuPaar ignored his guest’s obviou
s discomfort, continuing. “The dish, lambi, is a meal of the common person. The conch, of course, come from the sea and are available to all. Many of the spices grow wild.”
Diem was now mopping the back of his neck.
“And the pepper… it is a small one.” DuPaar held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Small but quite potent. I believe it to be peculiar to Haiti.”
Diem passionately hoped so.
The president for life was already smoking a cigar when Diem finished moving enough food around his plate to give the maximum illusion of having eaten it. It was a trick most diplomats learned early.
He was reaching for his Marlboros when duPaar slammed a fist down on the table hard enough to overturn the beer bottles.
“It is a fraud!” he screamed. He leaned over so that his face was inches from Diem’s, close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath. “Did you not think I would not run tests? Do you take me for a fool?”
The transformation from affable host to outraged victim was so sudden, the undersecretary was reduced to a stammer. “F-fraud?”
“The package, the one you retrieved from Venice.”
Diem swallowed his discomfort, both from food and company, and regained his composure. “Mr. President, I can assure you…”
Another fist hit the table, this time making the plates jump. “Assure? Assure what, that you have given me a worthless collection of partial bones?”
“But…”
Leaning even closer, duPaar lowered his voice to a near whisper that Diem found more disquieting than the outburst. “As soon as I received the package, I sent small parts of it to the States for testing of DNA. The bones were of a man, a Semite, who lived in the first century AD.”
Diem thought for a moment, remembering what he had learned of Western history and religion. “The Christians’ Saint Mark?”
