he waited for the other preordained shoe to fall.
Gurt. Her blond hair swirled around her face like a halo as she spun around to display the dress she had just bought. He smelled the musk of their lovemaking and felt the comforting warmth of her body next to his. Without realizing it, he smiled at some of her more egregious grammatical or idiomatic faux pas. The thrust and parry of their conversations, the smell of her cooking.
Gone.
Gone forever.
He wondered if the pain would have been greater or less had she agreed to marry him. The same, he supposed. If he ever needed consolation, it was now. He held his watch up, squinting to see the face. Just past five in the afternoon in Atlanta. Getting out of bed, he crossed the room to the electrical outlet and his BlackBerry, plugged into the current converter to charge. He called up the directory as he recrossed the room and punched the call button.
Two rings later, a man's voice answered as clearly as though speaking from across the room instead of an ocean.
'Francis?'
' The voice warmed with pleasure. 'Is this my favorite heretic?', Lang felt better already. 'Francis, I've got some bad news.'
He related what had happened since Huff's death, omitting only references to the Agency. He went into detail describing what had happened at Montsegur.
'You're sure she's dead?'
Anger flashed through him like a lightning bolt and was gone just as quickly. The second time in a few hours somebody had asked. What did they think, that he just assumed Gurt had died and abandoned her?
'I'm sure I couldn't find her on that hilltop, Francis. I mean, the biggest human thing I saw was a severed hand, which, by the way, wasn't hers.' There was such a long silence, Lang was beginning to think the connection was broken.
Then: 'What are you going to do?'
Lang was sure of only one thing. 'Find whoever is responsible.' There was concern in Francis's reply. 'Isn't that something best left to the police?'
Lang swallowed a sharp retort and made himself speak slowly. 'I can't exactly walk into some French cop shop and announce I was there when three or more people were killed. By the time the Froggies finished their investigations, they'd be sure to turn up the fact that I'm wanted by at least the Frankfurt Polizei, if not in Heidelberg, too.'
'Lang, acting out of revenge may not be wise.'
'Francis, I know you're in the mercy and forgiveness business, but I have no intention of turning the other cheek right now.'
Another pause.
'Lang, you know I'll help any way I can. I loved Gurt, too. I'll be praying for her soul.'
'Better you should pray for whoever I find killed her.'
'That carving on the cave wall-what do you make of it?'
Lang knew he was being manipulated, steered away from the subject of Gurt. 'Not sure. In fact, why don't you write it down? I'd appreciate your thoughts.'
He read it, careful to spell out noun endings.
'Got it,' Francis said. 'Doesn't make a lot of sense, translates as something like 'Julian, Emperor, orders that the accusation against Jews' king be interred in the palace of the sole god.' Without the endings, can't be sure. Sure you haven't screwed up the declensions again?'
The old familiar sparring made Lang think he might get through his grief somehow. 'Decamo bona verba. '
'I never said you didn't speak good words, it's mixing a classical language with the Southern accent that makes your diction difficult. You speak…' This time Lang was aware he was smiling. The priest was capable of miracles. '… ore rotundo, as Horace described gifted orators.' He turned serious. 'What about the solus dei and the Jews' king?'
'Christ, of course, was mocked at his crucifixion by being called 'king of the Jews,' but the phrase could refer to some actual Old Testament king like David or Solomon. Likewise, the 'sole god' could very well refer to the one God of Jews, Muslims' and Christians.'
Lang was thinking as he stretched out on the bed. 'That presents something of a problem: Julian repealed Constantine's laws granting Christians the right to worship. He hated them, felt they were diverting Rome from its heritage of pantheism.'
'What else can you tell me about the man?'
'Like all literate Romans, he loved riddles, and I have a feeling we may have one here. What is the palace of the sole god?'
'Could be in the Christian concept of heaven,' Francis speculated. 'But how do you bury someone in heaven? I think there's something more literal there.'
'We can figure it out over a dinner at Manuel's.'
Lang was suddenly homesick for the first time he could remember. The thought of overcooked food and an atmosphere of pseudo-intellectualism had never been so appealing. He knew what he was going to do.
'Reserve us a booth for night after next. I'm coming home.'
CHAPTER TWENTY
Atlanta, Georgia Lindberg MARTA Station
Two days later
His mind told Lang it was time to go to bed, but the sun was still bright as he stepped from the train. He could have taken a cab, but Atlanta's rapid rail, though not particularly rapid, made the run from the airport in less time than a taxi, was cleaner, and obviated the necessity of speaking Swahili, Tutsi or whatever other African dialect was native to the driver. Lang supposed the city's Cab Bureau, in Atlanta's tradition of Civil Rights Mecca, felt requiring English of its licensees to be discriminatory.
At the top of the escalator, he found one hack driver who at least seemed to comprehend 'Peachtree Road' and got in the back.
Lang was not expecting a reception, certainly not one from the SWAT team. As the cab turned into the condominium's circular drive, a police car pulled in behind it while a van blocked the other end. The concierge and Lang's neighbors gawked in awe as ten helmeted men clad in body armor, wearing an assortment of wind breakers denoting police, FBI, and U.S. Marshal's Service, and pointing Mac 10 machine guns advanced on the terrified cabdriver as though Osama bin Laden were the passenger. Lang took a quick look from the rear window in time to see a thin black man in a suit climb out of an unmarked third car.
He immediately understood: The Federal Republic of Germany had officially translated its displeasure at the airport incident into an extradition request.
Hands raised, he stepped from the cab. ''A pleasure to see you again, Detective.'
Rouse grinned maliciously, motioning to the armed men. 'Pleasure's all mine, believe me, Mr. Reilly. This time you ain' gonna wiseass yo' way outta trouble. Us Keystone Kops been holding an international want on you, jes' waitin' fo' you to come home. Sho nuff, heah you come, struttin' through the airport like you owned the place.'
Lang kicked 4imselfin his mental rear end. As soon as he had presented his passport to Immigration, he had removed his disguise of eye glasses, jowls made with cotton balls, and a stuffed corset that added twenty or thirty pounds to his appearance. The blond hair alone wasn't enough to fool the surveillance cameras.
Two of the policemen roughly spun Lang around, pulling his arms behind him and snapping on the cuffs.
Reilly gave the black detective a smile he certainly didn't feel as he was quickly patted down. 'I'll always have you to thank for the lovely trip to Germany I'm about to take.'
