device that will tell you the latitude and longitude of the location of that particular BlackBerry anywhere on the face of the earth, give or take thirty meters. See that you use it well.”
The meeting was over. Ng felt a weight lift from his shoulders, a reprieve he was lucky to receive. “I will not fail, Comrade General.”
The general was already looking at another file. He dismissed Ng with the wave of a hand. “See that you don’t.”
From the diary of Louis Etienne Saint Denis No. 6 rue Victoire, ^ 1 Paris January 2, 1803 Leclerc is dead of the Siamese fever! ^ 2 There was no means by which we could have known of the tragedy until the news arrived via a fast packet from the Indies to Cherbourg and then by horse courier to Paris. It was not until December 28 the frigate Swiftsure arrived at the Hyeres Islands carrying Pauline, her and Leclerc’s four-year-old son, Dermide, and the lead coffin encased in cedar bearing the general’s body. ^ 3 Pauline, distraught and clad in the dreariest of widow’s garb, appeared here three days later. With sobs, she fell into the arms of her brother, the First Consul. He greeted her affectionately but within seconds escorted her into the house’s library, closing the door behind them. The last words I heard before the doors were pulled to were not those of consolation, but query as to the location of a certain box with which Leclerc had been entrusted. I could not but wonder if this was the selfsame box that my employer had taken from Egypt.
1 When Napoleon first lived in the house in 1797, the street was rue Chanterine. After his victory in Italy, the departement de la Seine, Paris’s municipal governing body, changed the name.
2 Yellow fever. It killed more French military than did the rebels. The slaves had an immunity derived from their origins in Africa.
3 As was the contemporary custom, a separate lead box contained an urn with his heart and brain.
CHAPTER FOUR
Law offices of Langford Reilly
Two days later
Sara made a less than subtle effort not to stare at Lang’s face. If possible, it looked worse than it had when he and Gurt boarded the private charter from Santo Domingo to Atlanta. His nose, broken, was a peak of white bandage between the two black valleys under his all-but-swollen-shut eyes. The bruising had turned a grotesque green and yellow. Lang was grateful she could not see the angry red sores on his chest that just today had ceased suppurating and begun to scab over.
He hoped waterboarding was the most gentle of the enhanced interrogation techniques Dow experienced at the hands of the Dominican security people.
He sat behind his desk gingerly. His legs and groin ached from muscles still protesting his time on horseback. Sinking gratefully into the embracing confines of his Relax the Back desk chair, he looked sourly at the stack of pink call-back slips. There had to be some way to respond using the computer. His nose, packed with gauze, gave his voice a tone too close to a cartoon character’s to be taken seriously by anyone above the age of ten.
The phone on his desk buzzed.
“Yeah?”
“The Reverend Bishop Groom on two. You in?”
Lang sighed. Even that had a nasal sound. “I’ll take it.”
He picked up the receiver. “Good morning, Reverend. What might I do for you today?”
“Mr. Reilly? Is this Mr. Reilly?”
It sure as hell isn’t Donald Duck, no matter how it sounds.
“I, er, had an accident, broke my nose. It affects my voice.”
“You should be more careful,” the reverend reproached. “I’ll pray for your speedy recovery.”
“Any intervention of friends in high places greatly appreciated.”
There was a pause. Among his client’s multitude of failings was a lack of a sense of humor.
“I called two days ago, hadn’t heard back…” There was a note of rebuke.
Lang thumbed the call-back slips. “Yeah, I see you did. I’ve been out of the office. What’s up?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I mean, have we heard anything?”
Lang drew a momentary blank before he realized to what Groom referred. “The feds? No, not a peep.”
“I was hoping perhaps you were negotiating with them, maybe a suspended sentence or something.”
Fat chance. Lang couldn’t remember the last time he had even heard of a suspended sentence in a federal case. Unlike the states, the U.S. government had endless resources to build prisons as needed. Overcrowding was not a problem. There was no need to make bargains in which the perpetrator did no time. Reduced sentences in exchange for guilty pleas saving the time and expense of a trial, yes. No time at all, unlikely. But there was no reason to screw up the reverend’s day with this factoid just yet.
“Initiating negotiations is frequently viewed as having a weak defense.”
“Perhaps, but I need to know what to expect, have time to get my affairs in order.”
Read: before the government seized all assets it could find for restitution to the man’s victims, get as much cash as possible offshore in banks whose depositors received secrecy rather than interest.
Groom continued. “Why don’t you give the U.S. attorney a call just to see what’s on his mind?”
“It’s a her. ” Lang knew what was probably on her mind: ten to twenty. But he said, “If that’s what you want.”
Minutes later, Lang was dialing a number he was surprised he remembered. It had been two or three years since he had called it. Tactical considerations had not been the only reason he had been hesitant to contact the assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the case.
“Ms. Warner’s office,” announced a disembodied voice.
“Er, is she in? Langford Reilly calling.”
The line went temporarily dead, leaving Lang with his thoughts. In one of Gurt’s several premarital absences from his life, he had briefly dated Alicia Warner. The relationship had never gotten serious and had peacefully wilted rather than died in the acrimony that frequently marks such endings.
“Well, Lang, long time no see,” Alicia’s voice chirped. “How’s married life treating you? I understand you’ve got a little boy.”
She could at least pretend not be so damn happy he was no longer eligible.
“Swell. And you?”
“Just fine, thanks. I must admit, though, nothing like the excitement you showed me. Haven’t been shot at or kidnapped lately.”
She referred to an abduction by a fanatical group of kibbutzniks who had taken her to Israel during what Lang thought of as the Sinai Affair.
“Well, yeah, I can see how that might make things a little dull.”
She tinkled a laugh. “Dull I’ll take.”
There was a brief, uncomfortable pause.
Lang wriggled in his desk chair, one of the few times in his life he wasn’t sure what to say. “Er, Alicia, I was calling about a case you have, the Reverend Bishop Groom…”
“Well, damn! And here I was hoping you were going to boost my ego by soliciting a sordid extramarital affair.”
The wit and sarcasm he recalled was melting his uneasiness like ice on a summer day. “Maybe after the case is over.”
“Maybe by the time the case is over I’ll be married to the king of Siam. Oh, wait a minute. Siam doesn’t have a king anymore. In fact, it isn’t even Siam.”
Lang felt compelled to play along. “The British have two unmarried princes.”
“I couldn’t take the scandals. Besides, I don’t care for Eurotrash.” There was a pause. “Now, what was it you were calling about?”
Lang laughed out loud. “The Reverend Bishop Groom.”
“Oh, yeah. A different species of trash. Hold on.”
