The Pegasus Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  The museum director smiled. Lang would have been astonished had he shown anything but perfect teeth. “Actually, the board of directors runs the museum. I am their humble servant.”

  “Yeah. Well . . .” Uncertain how to respond to the ill- fitting humility, Lang opened his briefcase and leaned forward to hand the copy of the Polaroid across the expanse of mahogany. “I was wondering if you could tell me about that.”

  Seitz frowned, squinting at the picture. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Les Bergers d’Arcadie, Nicholas Poussin. Or at least a copy of it.”

  Seitz nodded. “Mid–seventeenth-Century French, if I recall. The original of that picture hangs in the Louvre. What specifically is it you want to know?”

  Lang had what he thought was a plausible explanation. “I’m not sure. That is, I’m a lawyer and I have a case involving . . .”

  The director held up his hands, palms outward. “Whoa, Mr. Reilly! The museum is not in a position to authenticate art for individuals. As an attorney, I’m sure you can understand the liability issues.”

  Lang shook his head, eager to calm what he recognized as a bad case of legal anxiety syndrome. “I apologize. I didn’t make myself clear. All I want is to learn the history of the painting, what it’s supposed to depict.”

  Seitz was only marginally calmed. “I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.” He whirled his chair around, removing a book from the antique table behind him that served as a credenza. Thumbing through it, he continued. “I can say, I think, that what you have there is a picture of a copy, and not a particularly authentic copy, either. Ah, there . . . Not quite the same, is it?”

  He was pointing to a photo of a similar picture. At first Lang saw no difference. He looked more closely. The background was smoother; there was no upside down profile of Washington.

  “Religious art, late Renaissance, not my specialty,” Seitz continued, shutting the book with a thump. He brought Lang’s copy closer to his face. “Those letters on the structure, they look like Latin.”

  Lang moved to look over his shoulder. “I think so, yes.”

  “Obviously, they mean something. For that matter, the whole painting may well be symbolistic. Artists of that era often had messages in their paintings.”

  “You mean, like a code?”

  “Sort of, but less sophisticated. For instance, you’ve seen a still life, flowers or vegetables with a bug or two, perhaps a wilted blossom?”

  Lang shrugged noncommittally. It wasn’t the sort of art he would remember.

  “It was popular about the time Poussin painted. A certain flower or plant—rosemary for memory, for example. A beetle might be reminiscent of an Egyptian scarab, symbolic of death or the afterlife or whatever.”

  Lang went back and sat down. “So you’re saying this painting has a message of some sort.”

  This time it was the director who shrugged. “I’m saying it’s possible.”

  “Who might know?”

  Seitz slowly spun his chair to face the window behind him and gazed out in silence for a moment. “I don’t really have an idea.” He flashed the Rolex. “And I fear we’re running out of time.”

  Lang didn’t budge from his seat. “Give me a name, if you would. Somebody likely to be familiar with Poussin, preferably somebody who might be able to decipher whatever symbolism there might be. Believe me, it’s important. This is no academic exercise.”

  Seitz turned back to stare at him, a frown tugging at his mouth, no doubt because he wasn’t used to being delayed. Then he returned to the row of books from which he had taken the first one before snatching another one up and paging through it, too.

  “It would appear,” the art director said, “that the leading authority on Poussin and on late Renaissance religious art, too, is a Guiedo Marcenni. He’s written quite a lot about your man Poussin.”

  Lang pulled a legal pad out of his briefcase. “And where do I find Mr. Marcenni?”

  The frown had become a sardonic smile. “Not ‘mister,’ but ‘Fra.’ Brother Marcenni is a monk, an art historian with the Vatican Museum. Vatican, as in Rome.” He stood. “Now I really must ask you to excuse me, Mr. Reilly. One of the young ladies will show you out.”

  He was gone before Lang could thank him. Thank him for nothing. Lang was more puzzled than ever.

  3

  Atlanta

  That evening

  Lang was so absorbed in his thoughts that he almost missed the elevator’s stop at his floor. Still thinking, he took the few steps to his door and stooped to pick up the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He froze, key in hand.

  “FIRE GUTS MIDTOWN DISTRICT,” the above-the-fold headline screamed. An aerial view showed a pillar of smoke towering from a block of one-story, flat-roofed buildings. The one in the middle was—had been—Ansley Galleries.

  Lang let himself in and dropped into the nearest chair, oblivious to Grumps, who was more than ready to go outside.

  A fire leveled an entire block of Seventh Street early this afternoon as the result of a faulty gas stove, according to Capt. Jewal Abbar, Chief Investigator for the Atlanta Fire Department.

  Three shops, Ansley Galleries, Dwight’s Interiors and Afternoon Delites, were totally destroyed. Other establishments in the popular in-town shopping area were severely damaged.

  Abbar said there were no serious injuries, although several people were treated at Grady Memorial Hospital for smoke inhalation.

  Maurice Wiser, manager of Afternoon Delites, a vegetarian restaurant, was quoted as saying the stove exploded when turned on.

  Lang didn’t finish the article, but dropped the paper and stared at the wall. It was possible, he conceded, that the stove exploded in an amazing concurrence of accident and coincidence. Just as it was possible someone had firebombed the house in Paris, he had nearly had his throat slit, and his highrise had been burglarized just to steal a painting—and a copy at that. Now the gallery that had kept a copy was also a fire casualty.

  If all of that were coincidence, the Poussin made the curse of the Hope Diamond look like a lucky shamrock.

  Instead of coincidence, he saw an emerging pattern, frightening in its simplicity: Whoever possessed that picture, or knew something about it, was in jeopardy. Including Lang.

  But why? The original Poussin, the one in the Louvre, must have been seen by millions. The slightly different background in Janet’s copy, then, was the reason someone wanted that particular painting. And if they wanted it badly enough to commit indiscriminate murder and arson for it . . .

  Lang knew four things: They were intent on erasing every trace of that painting, they didn’t care who got hurt, they had an international intelligence system as good or better than most poilce forces, and they were well prepared for the task.

  The last two observations were the most frightening. Intelligence and preparation indicated a professional and a professional indicated an organization. What sort of an organization would burn and kill just to destroy a copy of the Poussin? An organization that had a very strong interest in whatever secret the canvas held.

  His train of thought was derailed by Grumps’s insistent pacing. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Gimme a minute.”

  He went into the bedroom and opened the drawer in the bedside table. He took out the Browning. Easing back the slide, he confirmed there was a round in the chamber. He checked the safety and stuffed the weapon into his belt. From now on, it was going to be like the credit card: Don’t leave home without it.

  Tomorrow he would have to go apply for a permit. But for the moment, being caught without the gun had more dire consequences than being caught with it.

  As Lang left the apartment with Grumps on a leash, he stopped in the hall to leave two telltales. The first was a tiny strip of plastic tape stretched between the door and jamb, a device any professional would anticipate and find fairly easily. Then he licked his hand and wiped it on the knob, sticking a hair to the brass. Virtually impossible to see and it w
ould fall loose at the slightest touch.

  If his reasoning was anywhere near correct, he could expect company soon.

  4

  Atlanta

  A few minutes later

  When Lang and Grumps came back in, he nuked a frozen enchilada in the microwave and fed Grumps the dog food he had finally remembered to buy. From the sounds of voracious eating, Lang judged he had made a good choice.

  Lang’s meal was laced with so many chilies it could have constituted an act of war by the Federal Republic of Mexico. He scraped his leftovers into Grumps’s bowl. The dog gave him a reproachful glare and retreated to a corner, Lang’s offering untouched. Apparently Lang was more a connoisseur of canned dog food than international cuisine

  Lang selected a tubular steel chair with minimal padding, one in which it was unlikely he would be very comfortable, putting it just to the side of the door to the outside hall. As the door opened, the chair would be behind it. Then he moved a three-way lamp to the other side of the entrance, its lowest setting enough to silhouette anyone coming through the doorway but dim enough not to spill into the hall outside. He put the Browning in his lap, although he didn’t intend to use the automatic unless he had to. He wanted answers, not bodies.

  Then he began to wait.

  There wasn’t enough light to read. So he just sat, observing Atlanta’s skyline. Far to the south, he could see jets, pinpricks of light, as they approached or departed Hartsfield-Jackson International. Somewhere between Lang and the distant airport, beams of searchlights aimlessly crisscrossed the night sky. He resisted the impulse to check the luminous dial of his watch. Time passes more slowly when you keep track of it.

  Maybe he was mistaken; maybe he was in no danger. Maybe, but unlikely. Whoever had obliterated the place in Paris and started a fire in Midtown wasn’t likely to spare him. The only question was when it would happen.

  Well after what Lang estimated was midnight, past the time he usually turned out the lights and retired, he detected, or imagined, something from the floor beside him, not so much a sound as an undefined interruption of clinging silence. A growl from Grumps, increasing until Lang put a comforting hand on the furry head. The dog had taken Lang’s rebuke after the burglary to heart.

  Lang stood, silently moving the chair aside and putting the Browning in his belt again. Caterpillars with icy feet were marching up and down the back of his neck where muscles were tightening in anticipation. Years had gone by since he’d last had that feeling. He had missed it.

  A series of soft clicks came from the door. Lang was glad he hadn’t had time to install a new lock. The replacement would have alerted whoever was on the other side of that door that the occupant knew the intruder could gain entry, make him even more cautious than committing a burglary would.

  Lang tensed and tried to breathe deeply to relax mind and muscles. Tension begot mistakes, his long-ago training had taught. And mistakes begot death. Tension and training were both forgotten as the door slowly opened inward, a square of darkness against the pale, buttery light of the lamp.

  Lang resisted the impulse to lunge and throw his weight against the door, pinning the intruder against the jamb. Too easy for him to escape into the hall. Or shoot through the door. Instead, Lang waited until he could see the entire form of a man, a dark mass, arm extended as it entered and quietly shut the door. Something glittered in the man’s hand.

  A weapon, Lang was certain. He felt the fury for Janet and Jeff boil up in his stomach like bile. But he made himself wait.

  Wait until the intruder turned from closing the door. Then Lang moved, pivoting to face him. Before Lang’s brain even registered the shock on the invader’s face, Lang’s left hand came down like an ax against the other man’s right wrist in a move designed to shatter the small, fragile carpal bones. Or at least knock a weapon loose. Simultaneously, Lang smashed the heel of his open right hand into the throat. Done correctly, the blow would leave an opponent helpless, too busy trying to force air into a ruined larynx to resist.

  Lang was only partially successful. Something clattered to the floor and there was a gasp of breath as the man, still a solid dark form, staggered backwards. Lang’s weight had shifted with his attack and he followed through, pirouetting to put his full bulk behind a fist aimed at where he gauged the bottom of the intruder’s rib cage would be, the place where a blow to the solar plexus would double him over like a jackknife.

  Lang hit ribs instead.

  Lang’s opponent lurched sideways, stumbled over the mate to the chair in which Lang had been sitting, and sprawled onto the floor. Lang flipped the light switch.

  The man on the floor, scrabbling to his feet, was dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, with leather gloves. He was about Lang’s size, his age difficult to guess. He backed away, reaching into a pocket as he measured the distance to the door.

  Lang thumbed the safety off the Browning as it came out of his belt and he assumed a two-handed shooting stance. “Don’t even think about moving, asshole.”

  There was a click as a switchblade flashed in the light. The stranger lunged forward clumsily, his legs still shaky from Lang’s punches.

  Like a matador evading the charge of a bull, Lang sidestepped, spun and brought the heavy automatic down across the back of the man’s skull with all the fury accumulated since the night Janet and Jeff had died. On one level, Lang wanted to split his head open even more than he wanted answers.

  The impact reverberated through the Browning and set Lang’s hands trembling. The stranger went down like a marionette when the strings are cut.

  Lang stamped a heel into the hand holding the knife, forcing the fingers open. A kick sent the weapon skidding across the room. Lang straddled his unwanted visitor’s back, his right hand pressing the muzzle of the Browning against the man’s cranium while his left explored pockets.

  Nothing. No wallet, no money, no keys, no form of identification, the absence of which was a form of ID itself. Professional assassins carry nothing that yields information as to their own persona or those who hire them.

  There wasn’t even a label on the inside neck of the T- shirt. But there was a silver chain around the man’s throat, the sort of plain strand that might carry a woman’s locket or lavaliere. Lang bunched it in his hand to snatch it free.

  The guy bucked and rolled violently, tossing Lang aside like an unwary bronco rider.

  Lang rolled up on his knees, the Browning in both hands again. “Give me an excuse, asshole.”

  The intruder shakily got to his feet, his eyes darting to the door at Lang’s back. Lang thought he was going to rush him, make a try for the hall outside. Instead, he spun, staggering for the glass door that separated the living room from a narrow balcony outside.

  Lang got to his own feet in a hurry. “Hey, wait, hold it! You can’t . . .”

  But he could. With a crash, he went through the glass and over the edge. The room’s light played off knifelike shards to make patterns on the ceiling as Lang struggled with the latch to the sliding glass door. There was no need, he realized. Lang simply stepped through the jagged hole the man had made. He heard traffic twenty-four floors below and the tinkle of the remaining broken glass falling from the door frame.

  People were already gathering in a tight bunch below, six or seven of them obscuring all but a leg twisted at an impossible angle. Lang recognized the uniform of the night doorman as he looked up, pointing an accusing finger. In the landscape lights, his mouth was an open, black “O.”

  Lang went back inside to dial 911, only to learn a police car had been dispatched along with an ambulance. He returned the Browning to its drawer before conducting a hurried inspection of the living room. Two chairs were overturned, the rug in front of the entrance bunched as though from a scuffle. The switchblade glistened evilly from under an end table. In front of the couch, the light caught another knife, this one a broad dagger with a curved blade and a narrow, decorative hilt. A jimbia, the knife carried bare-bladed in the
belts of nomadic Arabs, a weapon worn as commonly as a westerner wore neckties.

  It wasn’t until he was on the way to answer the insistent buzzing of the doorbell that he noticed something shining from the folds of the wrinkled rug.

  “Coming!” Lang shouted as he stooped to pick it up.

  The silver chain. It must have spun free when the intruder threw Lang off his back. He held it up. A pendant swung from the thin strand. An open circle about the size of a twenty-five-cent piece was quartered by four triangles meeting in the center. Lang had never seen anything exactly like it, yet it seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps very similar to something else.

  But what?

  He shoved it into his shirt pocket to consider later and opened the door.

  Three men were in the hall, two of them were in uniform. The third was a wiry black man in a sport coat who was holding out an ID wallet.

  “Franklin Morse, Atlanta police. You Langford Reilly?”

  Lang opened the door wide. “Yep. Come in.”

  Morse took in the disheveled room at a glance. “Wanna tell what happened?”

  Lang noticed the two uniforms had spaced themselves so that, should he try, he could not attack both at the same time. Standard procedure when you don’t know if the person being interviewed is the perp or not.

  Lang shut the door. “Sure. Have a seat?”

  Morse shook his head. “No thanks. Crime scene crew’ll be here any minute. So, Mr. Reilly, let’s hear it.”

  Lang related what had happened, omitting any reference to the pendant he had found. He didn’t want to have to surrender the only clue to what he suspected was an organization far beyond the understanding or reach of the local cops. He saw no reason to mention the early warning of the invasion, either. The last thing he wanted was to provoke further interrogation based on what would be perceived as some nut’s conspiracy fantasy.

  As he finished, there was a knock at the door. Morse opened it, admitting a balding white man with futuristic- looking photographic equipment and a young black woman with a suitcase. Lang felt marveled at how quickly they made themselves at home.