of both dinners.
Lang checked his watch. Early for Vienna, where few dined before 2100 hours, nine o'clock. He could get a sausage at one of the mobile Wurstelstand and enjoy one of the city's more attractive sights a few blocks over.
Closed to most vehicular traffic, Stephansplatz and the adjacent bars and restaurants on Backerstrasse and Schonlaterngasse were in full party mode. In front of the church, acrobats in white tights performed flips and midair spins for tips. Nearby a mime held several small children spellbound. Winding his way through the crowd, Lang briefly stood in line to get a beer and what closely resembled an American hot dog.
He retreated to one of the public benches to enjoy both his meal and the spectacular cathedral, spotlighted as bright as any day could illuminate it. It was built in the thirteenth century, but all that remained of the original structure were the Giant's Door and the twin Heathen Towers, so called because they had replaced an earlier pagan shrine The main Steff, tower, a fourteenth-century Gothic addition, stabbed four hundred fifty feet into the night's belly. Lang was particularly enchanted by the roof, a mosaic of over a million glazed tiles displaying the doubleheaded Hapsburg eagle
He resolved to visit the church again in daylight. From years ago he remembered the twisting passages of the crypt, where the bodies of centuries of Hapsburgs were entombed under iron statuary that could have been designed by Stephen King. The helmeted skulls and contorted forms were made all the more grisly by the knowledge that the corpses below had been eviscerated so that heart and entrails might grace two other churches, a gory custom of the times not peculiar to Austrian royalty.
Hardly thoughts for enjoying his sausage, Lang thought as he stood to toss his empty beer bottle and paper napkin into a nearby receptacle. He had taken a single step when he felt cold steel against his neck.
'Just sit back down, Mr. Reilly.'
The voice behind him was low and accentless.
Lang sat slowly, eyes darting from left to right. Two men, one on his left, the other on his right, seemed interested in what was happening. They looked very much like the type, if hot the actual men, who had shanghaied him in Brussels.
They moved closer as he sat.
A man in a windbreaker slid around the edge of the bench, letting the weapon he held reflect the square's light for the briefest of moments before covering it with his jacket. One of the other two circled behind, reached over the top of the seat, and removed the SIG Sauer from its holster in the small of Lang's back.
'That's better,' the man beside him said. 'Now you will come with us.'
'My mama told me never to go with strangers,' Lang said, not moving.
Stall. Stall for time; stall for opportunity. Basic Agency training years ago. These people had demonstrated what they would do given the chance. Let time pass and watch for a break.
If it didn't arrive soon, though, he was in deep shit.
Getting into a vehicle with them or walking to some dark alley was like driving his own hearse.
'We only want answers to a few questions,' the man said amiably. 'That is all.'
'You'll forgive me if I choose to stay here.' Lang was trying not to be obvious as he searched the square for a cop, one of the olive-drab uniforms of the Polizei. No doubt they were all busy handing out parking tickets.
'We can go peacefully or forcibly. I fear I cannot be responsible if you anger my comrades by being uncooperative.'
Lang shifted and put his hand in a pocket. 'Try another bluff. You're no more going to drag me off kicking and screaming in front of all those people than you're gonna jump over the church there.'
He was touching the BlackBerry, trying to remember…
The man beside him sighed and nodded to one of his comrades. The second man's hand came out of a pocket. Something twinkled briefly, something… like a hypodermic needle. 'If you insist…'
One-three-three! One-three-three was the police emergency number in Vienna. Lang hoped his touch was not betraying him, that he was pushing the right keys. He thumbed the thing to silent, fearful these men might hear its dial tone and guess what he was doing.
'I'm highly allergic to a lot of medication. If that kills me, you'll never get your answers.'
Stall, delay.
'A risk I fear we'll have to take.' He nodded to the man with the needle to proceed.
Lang stood, edging toward the center of the square. 'C'mon, man. I hate needles. Surely we can do something…'
One of the men standing shoved him roughly back onto the bench! The man with the needle held it up, squirting silver liquid into the air to make sure there were no bubbles.
Lang took small comfort from the precaution. They weren't going to kill him right now, right here.
Lang had run out of stall tactics. 'Look, I'll come along; just put that thing away.'
He never knew if the local cops had the world's quickest response time or he was just lucky. A pair of white BMW motorcycles rounded the church, heading slowly toward them. Flashing blue lights reflected from the cobblestones.
The man next to Lang muttered something Lang understood only as unlikely to be a blessing, and stood. 'Nothing funny, now, Mr. Reilly. My men are armed and have no problem dealing with the police. Unless you want to get innocent people hurt, you will let me speak.'
Lang was certainly attentive to the safety of the ever 'innocent' people, but even more so to his own welfare. If he was going to make a move, now was the time.
He rose slowly, as though to meet the approaching officers. He still had the beer bottle in hand. The instant the man beside him shifted his gaze to the oncoming motorcycles, Lang jerked erect, smashing the glass on the edge of the bench.
The man in the windbreaker saw what was coming and tried to raise his weapon. With his empty hand Lang shoved the gun's muzzle down while his other brought the jagged stump of the bottle up in a slashing motion.
The man screamed, the gun dropping as he threw both hands to his face to stanch a river of blood from shredded cheeks and nose.
Lang was certain he had seen teeth through the ripped flesh.
Lang scooped up the dropped weapon and threw himself over the bench. Something tugged at his sleeve as he heard the coughs of sound-suppressed weapons followed by shouts in German.
More sputters, two loud shots, and the clatter of motorcycles falling onto the street.
By now Lang was at the edge of the square's light. A brief glance over his shoulder showed two policemen sprawled beside their bikes and two men headed straight for him.
He did not take the time to place the one he had attacked. The man would be hors de combat for some time.
Lang sprinted into the darkness, the sound of footsteps in his ears.
In his hurry he was aware only that he was running in an easterly direction. The white walls of the Hofburg Complex, the area of palaces of Austria's nobility-now largely offices, embassies, and fashionable apartments- as well as the Stallburg, once a royal residence, home to the Spanish Riding School.
He was walking now, the hand with the gun in it under his jacket as he looked over his shoulder. A brief glance told him he was on Kohl Markt, which, he could see, dead-ended into a small platz in front of a domed building he recognized from the neoclassic facade as the Michaelerkirche, the Hapsburgs' parish church.
One of the city's main streets should be only a block or so to his left, an avenue that, even at this hour, would be crowded enough for him to disappear among the evening's diners and strollers.
The thought had barely formed when his two pursuers emerged from the shadows, one on his left, the other to his right.
There was nothing in front but the church.
THIRTY
Sonnenfelsgasse 39
