woman decided she would bed a man when she first met him, playing out the event like some sort of drama. Lang never knew the answer, but he had come to recognize the signals when a decision had been made to implement the choice. Tonight, as the saying went, he would get lucky.
The meal, fish poached in a wine sauce with steamed vegetables, would be act one.
Lang sipped a glass of chilled white wine. 'A California chardonnay?'
Alicia was peering over her glass. 'You can't tell me the vineyard and vintage?'
'I'm not that much of an oenophile.'
She put her glass down. 'Oh? Then how did you know…?'
'I saw the bottle as we came through the kitchen.'
She studied his face a moment. 'Do you always notice the details?'
Lang was looking back at her. 'I try. You know as well as I do that winning a case often depends on it.'
'I have a confession to make.'
'I have a friend who hears them professionally.'
She shook her head, sending a wave of red hair flying. 'You're going to hear this one.'
'Do I get to choose the penance?'
'Depends.'
'On what?'
'On whether I want to serve it or not.'
Lang pretended to gravely consider this for a moment. 'So, confess.'
'I had a conference call this afternoon, a really boring one with the Justice Department in Washington.'
'A bunch of Department of Justice lawyers are tedious? That's not a confession; it's fact.'
She waved him silent. 'I had nothing better to do than an occasional 'uh-huh' or 'uh-uh' and to play with the computer. So I looked you up on the bar's Web site. There's a big gap of time between college and law school.'
Lang tried not to let her know he was getting uncomfortable. 'Lots of people try to earn an honest living before they become lawyers.'
'True. But I thought about that… that bit of excitement in Underground. Made me wonder if you were involved in something… something shady.'
'What criminal lawyer isn't?'
She grew serious. 'I used my DOJ creds to get into lists of former government employees. At various times you were listed as being a trade attache, a charge d'affaires, diplomatic researcher, and in charge of cultural exchanges.'
'Job instability: It's one of my less attractive features. Besides, I was never in charge of anyone's affairs. They did it all on their own.'
She was staring at him as though he had suddenly dropped out of the sky. 'Lang, I've been with the government long enough to know those positions are phony, usually used as cover-albeit thin cover-for intelligence agencies. You were some kind of spy.'
He held up three fingers. 'Scout's honor, I never spied on anyone.'
'Would you tell me if you still were?'
'I wouldn't be much of a spy if I did, would I?' He saw her face fall. 'But I'm not.'
'Sure would explain someone taking a shot at you.'
'So would a jealous husband.'
Her mouth twitched, and she failed to straighten it before breaking into laughter. 'Do you take anything seriously?'
'Only those things that deserve it.'
'Do I? No, wait, I don't think I want the answer.'
'Hear it anyway. Yes, Ms. Warner, very seriously. Now, do I get to set your penance?'
'As I said, it depends.'
'How 'bout we have dessert in bed?'
She stood. 'Direct, aren't you?' 'I try.'
'I suppose I should worry that you won't respect me in the morning.' She was already moving inside.
He stood. 'Don't forget 'I don't know you well enough.''
She turned with a malicious grin. 'Why is it I feel that if I knew you better, I wouldn't do this?'
Lang didn't leave the town house until the next morning.
His mind was too occupied with promises unspoken and consequences just now considered to notice that the landscape crew paring already manicured grass was the only one he had seen in years that included no Hispanics.
It was only after he was almost a mile away that the workers, four large, muscular men who acted with the concert of military personnel, packed up their equipment and crossed the street to Alicia's residence.
THIRTY-NINE
Near Intersection of Hassan Sabry and Sharia
26th of July
Zamalek District
Garden City
Cairo, Egypt
0920, Two Days Later
Gezira had been a mere sandbar in the Nile until it was built up as an island site for a royal palace. The northern part, Zamalek, was now a leafy, upscale residential district much like those found in Paris, London, or Rome. It was far enough away that little of the noxious air and even less of the noise of the Central City invaded its neat, palm-lined streets. Lang's first impression of the Egyptian capital had been seemingly random traffic, the stench of animal offal combined with exhaust fumes, and air so dirty it made Los Angeles's worst days seem pristine.
He sat on a rickety stool at the bar in Simonds, one of the oldest European-style cafes in Cairo, trying to ignore eyes stinging from both lack of sleep and pollution. He munched a croissant that rivaled any he had enjoyed in Paris. He hoped the bitter, black Turkish coffee would help clear a head still dusty with two days of jet lag, even if it was stripping away his stomach lining.
Atlanta-Dallas-New York-London-Cairo, all with tight connections. If anyone had been following him, they would have been obvious as he passed briskly through one terminal after another.
At least he had been lucky. Only one screaming child, and no seatmates exhibiting what might be the symptoms of a terminal and highly contagious disease. Not bad, considering each aircraft had contained, what, one hundred and fifty-plus passengers? All those people, with the only commonality being that no two of them had paid the same price for their ticket.
The Couch passport, multiple reservations, and having the Gulfstream fly to Stockholm had reduced to negligible the chances of his being followed to Egypt.
Before leaving Atlanta, he had used an Internet cafe to e-mail Amid bin Hamish to confirm that he had the right man, the name given him by Dr. Shaffer, and made an appointment. Bin Hamish had suggested meeting here.
Lang glanced around the dimly lit interior. Although the savage desert sun had not yet risen completely above the cluster of modern office buildings across the river, the cafe's lowered blinds were already lowered, giving a zebra effect to the newspapers of the few remaining breakfast patrons. Dust motes spun for seconds in the streaks of light before disappearing into darkness like planets out of orbit. The hum of air- conditioning muted but did not block the cries of muezzin, recorded, amplified, and blasted from the minaret of a nearby mosque, calling the faithful to the second prayer of the day.
As far as he could tell, Lang was just one more European in the most Westernized part of a Muslim city.
That was precisely as he wanted it.
