gym to remove the extra five pounds. Observing her domesticity in the kitchen amused him: the world’s only gourmet cook who had repeatedly won the Agency’s marksmanship trophy.
She rapped his knuckles with a spoon as he attempted to lift the lid of one of several pots on the stovetop. “It will be ready by the time you have a drink and watch the news,” she said in German, “unless you continue to get in the way.”
Evicted from the kitchen, Lang wandered into the library/den and opened the doors of a walnut buffet de corps to reveal a sound system and TV screen. Punching the remote, he moved to the bar and poured a liberal dose of scotch into a glass as the newscaster interviewed an official with the water department. In the third year of a drought, the city had imposed strict limits on watering lawns, washing cars or filling swimming pools. The decline in water usage had, predictably, resulted in lower water bills. The water department’s solution to declining revenue was to raise rates.
Government’s principal function: extorting money from the governed.
Lang was tempted to add more scotch.
Or turn off the news.
22:01
Manfred long asleep, Lang and Gurt were propped up in bed themselves, engrossed in separate books.
When the phone rang, Lang looked at the clock on the bedside table before picking it up. “Hi Miles. I was beginning to worry.”
There was the usual split-second delay of multiple relays. “Sorry. You have any idea what time it is where I am?”
Lang flicked his eyes to the bedroom windows, making certain the sound shields were in place. “Of course not. I have no idea where you are. What did you find out?”
“You sure this line is secure?”
“Reasonably certain. Why?”
“You’ve been keeping some pretty questionable company. The guy you wanted ID’ed goes by a number of names, Wang Jianfei being most likely his real one.”
“I’m not planning on Googling him.”
“Wouldn’t do you a lot of good. I doubt he’s on Facebook, either.”
“OK, Miles, what did you find out other than a possible name?”
“Nasty character. Works for the Guoanbu.”
“The Chinese state-security people? Last time I looked, their spooks were busy ferreting out dissenters and other troublemakers in their own country to send to the Chinese equivalent of the gulags. Why would they go extraterritorial?”
“We’d like to know that, too. In fact, it’s part of a puzzle we’re working on right now.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“Not on a line I’m not one hundred percent sure is secure. Tell you what, though: I’ll be in Atlanta day after tomorrow and I’ll buy lunch.”
“Great! Let me give you my office address.”
A dry chuckle. “We’re an intelligence agency, remember? I already have it.”
The line went dead.
Gurt lowered her book. “Chinese state security?”
“Miles thinks the guy who broke in here works for them.”
Gurt turned toward him, an elbow propping up her head. “But why. ..?”
“Same question I asked Miles.”
“He is coming here, Miles?”
“So he says.”
Gurt was staring into space. “Strange. He never came back to the States the whole time I knew him. We used to tease him that he wouldn’t come back to this country because he’s knocked some woman down, made her pregnant.”
“Knock up, not down.”
“But you knock someone down, not up.”
“Too bad Miles didn’t know the difference.”
“To come here maybe he wants something.”
“Perhaps. But what?”
The question might have been answered had Lang and Gurt been privy to the phone call Miles made after hanging up.
“Ted? It’s me, Miles.”
“Hello Miles. In case I forgot to thank you, that was great paella in San Juan last week. What’s up? But remember this isn’t a secure line.”
“Glad you liked the paella. Nice thing about San Juan is there’s plenty of it, and Puerto Rico is geographically desirable for keeping an eye on the Caribbean. Speaking of which, you recall I spoke of a fishing trip?”
Ted had to think a moment to recall the remark. “ ‘Fishing around’ for a new asset, I believe is how you put it.”
“Well, I think I have a nibble.”
Law offices of Langford Reilly
11:52 two days later
Miles had changed little in the years since Lang last saw him, his wardrobe not at all. He could have stepped out of GQ. Silk foulard peeping out the breast pocket of a tailored double-breasted blazer with brass buttons bearing the seal of Princeton University, glen plaid gray wool slacks that just caressed loafers that, if you happened to be some sort of lizard, were literally to die for. A red silk tie nestled on a pinpoint oxford shirt. His hair, cut fashionably long, was parted along a streak of premature silver.
Hands clasped behind his back, he was studying the view from the floor-to-ceiling window behind Lang’s desk. Seasonal winter weather had returned. Ragged patches of dirty gray clouds smeared the window with moisture. The mist parted occasionally to allow sights of the street twenty stories below. Pedestrians concealed by umbrellas scurried back and forth to get out of the bone-chilling drizzle that lasted days at a time, uninterrupted by sunlight. Lang had to make an effort not to let the monotonous damp and chill become depressing.
“Weather’s the same, but not quite the view of the Frankfurt Bahnhof,” Miles ventured.
“Thankfully.”
Miles turned to appraise the office’s appointments: eighteenth-century mahogany partners desk with fruitwood inlay. An elaborately carved hunt table behind it served as a credenza. A pair of leather wingback chairs with the distinctive carved-claw feet of Irish Chippendale were on either side of a small Boulle commode. To the right of the desk, a Georgian breakfront showed leather-bound books through wavy, handblown glass at least two and a half centuries old. The muted reds and blues of a Kerman rug floated on the polished wood parquet floor.
Hands still behind his back, Miles moved to study a landscape on the wall facing the desk. “Reynolds?”
Lang smiled. “Good guess. School of.”
Miles waved a hand, including the entire office. “No more government issue for you! I’ve seen lesser antiques in museums. Any chance your clients have a clue what they’re looking at?”
“Probably not, but they know they’re not in the public defender’s office.”
“Ah, well, wasn’t it Shelley or Keats who observed, ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty’?”
“Keats, in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’ Your Ivy League education is showing.”
“Never could keep those guys straight.” Miles helped himself to a seat in one of the wing chairs. “Well, the point is, you have these things here because you enjoy them.”
“I have these things here because I charge outrageous fees.”
Miles thought about that for a moment. “Nice to make money without risking your neck.”
Lang grinned. “Miles, you’re still with the Agency because that’s what you want to do. Which includes why you’re here today.”
“Touche.”
“Which raises the question…”
