Krause whirled in his chair to place the X rayon a viewer built into the wall. Fluorescent light flickered and came on. 'The bottom of the cervical spine, yes. Actually, the picture is a chest X-ray.'
It was obvious the doctor wanted to ask why Morse wanted to know.
Morse ignored the implicit question. 'And there be no foreign objects imbedded in Mr. Reilly's cervical spine, right?'
The doctor's face wrinkled into a puzzled frown. 'Foreign object? Like…?'
'Like a bullet.'
The doctor paled visibly. 'A bullet?'
Morse leaned across the desk. 'What I said, a bullet. If one were there, we'd see it, right?'
Krause nodded. 'I'd certainly think so. But why…?'
'In your examination of Mr. Reilly, you never saw a scar, anything that would indicate he'd either been shot there or had a bullet removed?'
The doctor shook his head. 'No, nothing. But why…?'
Morse stood, hand extended. 'You've been very helpful, Doc.'
Krause took the extended hand gingerly, as though he thought it might break. 'You think Mr. Reilly has been shot in the neck?'
Morse turned to go. 'Somebody sure does.'
3
Atlanta: Parking deck of Piedmont Medical Center
Morse handed over a wad of bills and the gate out of the parking lot lifted. It was one of the rare times he didn't count his change. He was too preoccupied with a wound shown by records but not by physical exam.
He had no trouble with a man making up a military career. Lots of men did that, pretended they had been in combat when they hadn't gotten any closer to the enemy than the officers' club. Or claimed military service when they hadn't worn a uniform since the Boy Scouts. But he'd never seen the service itself fabricate a Purple Heart.
Why would they do that?
He fiddled with the air-conditioning in the unmarked department-issue Ford, grimacing when warm air came out of the vents. He sighed and rolled down the window.
They would do that because Mr. Reilly had never been a SEAL, probably never been in the navy, because someone preferred Mr. Reilly's past not be subject to scrutiny.
That was the only answer Morse could come up with.
He grimaced again, this time from the thought of the can of worms that thought opened up. If some nameless, faceless bureaucrat had given Reilly a bogus past, his real past would, most likely, come under the huge and ill defined umbrella known as national security. In a word, Mr. Reilly had been some sort of a spook. Or still was.
And if Mr. Reilly was still in the spook business, he didn't have to have a reason to kill Halvorson. Or throw the other guy from his balcony, either, for that matter. Somebody in Washington could have decided the doorman was actually an agent for some terrorist cell and ordered him terminated. Or that the alleged burglar was bin Laden's brother-in-law, for that matter.
Morse slammed on the brakes, almost running a red light.
National security or not, people didn't get away with murder, not on Morse's watch. He'd report his suspicion to the federal boys to add to their international alert. Maybe they could pry something out of the cloak-and-dagger crowd, find out who Reilly knew in Rome, where he might be hiding.
Part Three
CHAPTER ONE
1
London
The next day
The ping of the seat belt and 'no smoking' lights woke Lang from a deep sleep. He rubbed stinging eyes and leaned across Gurt to peer out the window. A sea of dirty clouds was rising to meet the MD 880. Across the narrow aisle, a young couple of Eastern European origin were unsuccessful in comforting a howling infant. The British Airways flight attendants were scurrying to collect the last plastic drinking cups before trays were ordered back into their upright positions.
He let the seat up and ran a finger across his upper lip, making sure the moustache was still glued into place. Graying hair and thick glasses aged him a bit, Lang hoped. Bits of foam rubber stuffed into cheeks made his face match the jowly photograph of Heinrich Schneller on the German passport in his pocket.
Gurt and Lang had the picture taken at a photographer's shop a block from the embassy. The glue on it had hardly been dry when she applied a copy of the official stamp to the blank passport.
Facial hair was a new sensation for him. He had always believed it silly to cultivate on an upper lip what grew wild elsewhere.
The ticket clerk at Milan's Malpensa Airport had given their documents a cursory glance before wishing them a cheerful arrivederci. The only attention from the gray uniformed Policia with their gloss polished gun belts and boots had been appreciative stares at Gurt.
A blunt-cut dark wig and a slight stoop to minimize her height were the only disguise to which she would agree. There was, after all, no reason to think They had ever seen her face. Still, she was worth the unabashed gaping for which Italian men are notorious.
Herr Schneller and his wife, the much younger-looking Freda, had departed Milan on a flight to the relatively new City Airport in Docklands just outside London. Had anyone checked with the company whose name was on the credit card paying for the tickets, Frau Schneller was accompanying her husband on a trip to price carpet-grade wool in Milan and then London, from where they would proceed to Manchester.
Lang had no idea if the address for Herr Schneller's employer even existed, but he knew from experience the Hamburg telephone number would be answered by someone speaking credible Hochdeutsch and probably sitting in a room in Virginia. He also knew the passports and drivers' licenses would pass scrutiny. Anyone attempting to verify the Visa or American Express cards would find valid accounts, although he had had to promise not to use them for anything other than identification. Gurt had called in a number of favors to get the paperwork and plastic. Making charges to the account would overstep whatever agreements she had made. It was comforting to have the chicanery of professionals on his side.
As the aircraft trembled, Lang cinched himself tighter into the seat, a Pavlovian response to the airlines' implicit assurances that no problem could not be solved by a fastened seat belt. On a rational level, he knew the plane's bucking and groaning was due to the deployment of flaps and landing gear, and that the aircraft was the consummate product of American engineering. Still, he could take little comfort from the quality of American-made parts that would litter the countryside should something go wrong.
Lang had become no fonder of flying.
The landing and subsequent taxi to the terminal were uneventful and blood began its normal circulation through
