incident in Venice.”
Or the Chinese involvement in Haiti, Lang thought. “You’re right, but I have to start somewhere. If Venice is the reason my house was burglarized, then whatever was in Saint Mark’s tomb had something to do with it. Since those guys made off with Saint Mark’s relics, or whatever, I’m not going to find out what it was by going back to Italy. If you have another idea, now is the time to share it.”
Francis held up his hands as though to demonstrate they were empty. “No ideas here. If you plan to work Chugg’s theory, where will you start?”
“Well, I think we can assume Chugg was wrong about Alexander in Venice. The Chinese are still trying to find Alexander’s relics. Or at least trying to prevent me from interfering. If they’d succeeded or quit, I wouldn’t need the security detail.”
Francis smiled. “You’re making assumptions based on negatives.”
“Sometimes that’s all there is to base them on.”
“And you accuse religion of being illogical.”
Lang had no intent of renewing that debate at the moment. “The foundation is flying a pair of immunologists to Sudan next week. I figure the Gulfstream can make a stop in Alexandria. That seems a logical place to begin, since the only thing we know for sure is that Alexander was, in fact, entombed there.”
“So you figure if you find the relics first, you can put them beyond the Chinese’s reach and that will be the end of the matter, they will simply go away? Spes sibi quisque.”
Lang took a long sip from his glass. “Virgil would agree I am relying on myself. It’s for sure no one else’s family is at risk.”
“And Gurt?”
“Under the circumstances, we can hardly leave Manfred with the neighbors.”
“Then why not send Gurt, and you take care of your son?”
Lang stared across the table in disbelief. “I hope you are kidding! Gurt would no more leave that child while we are all in danger than…”
The simile failed him.
472 Lafayette Drive, Atlanta
04:12 the next morning
For an instant Lang thought he was dreaming. Then he realized the sound of shattering glass followed by the squeal of tires and a pair of gunshots were not part of a vanishing dream, but what had awakened him. His hand closed around the 9 mm Browning HP automatic in the bedside table as his feet hit the floor. Gurt was already pulling a sweatshirt over her head as Manfred’s frightened voice came down the hall.
Lang almost collided with the little boy, followed by Grumps, as he threw the bedroom door open and lunged into the hall.
“Window downstairs broke,” Manfred announced.
Lang squatted, his face at the same level as his son’s. “You go into Mommy and Daddy’s room, shut the door and stay there until we come back.”
Manfred’s lips began to tremble. “But…”
Lang lifted the child up and placed him across the threshold. In the tone that meant the order was not subject to negotiation, he repeated, “I said, stay there.”
Gurt was beside him. “Lang, the child is terrified.”
Lang was halfway down the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Then you stay with him.”
Any answer was lost as he hit the floor of the foyer. Immediately, he smelled smoke. A quick glance around told him the fire was not inside the house. Not yet, anyway. He reached for the double dead-bolt locks on the front door, his hand stopping in midair. What better way to lure him out into the open, making a clear target, than the possibility of fire?
During the second of indecision, a heavy knock came from outside. “Mr. Reilly? It’s Jake with Executive Security. Open up.”
All the bodyguards looked pretty much alike, varying only in race and height. They all had that military bearing, so he wasn’t sure which one of them was Jake. The voice, though, was familiar. He unlocked and opened the door.
The first thing he saw was a man silhouetted against dying flames. The front yard’s winter-dry grass was smouldering, cinder black.
Jake opened the door wide enough to squeeze in and shut it. Lang noted the M16 automatic rifle grasped in one hand. “Somebody threw the equivalent of a Molotov cocktail from a passing car. Pretty primitive. But if it had exploded inside, I’d guess the whole house would have been a furnace in a second or two. But it hit a window, broke the glass and bounced onto the lawn.” He stopped, puzzled. “You got steel shutters inside the windows?”
“Seemed like a reasonable precaution when we redid the house. Did you get a tag number?”
“Nope, had his lights out. Cooked off a couple of rounds through the rear windshield, though, before I had to hold off for fear of sending ordnance through your neighbors’ windows. Might’ve been two of them. A pickup truck parked across the street took off right behind the one that tossed the firebomb.”
More likely the truck was one of Miles’s men. Although Lang had seen no obvious watchers from the Agency, it would make sense that as Miles had promised, they would keep an eye on things.
Lang pointed to the back of the house. “Come on in and I’ll brew a pot of coffee.”
Jake shook his head. “No thanks. If I’m inside, I’m not doing much good keeping watch.”
“There’s supposed to be a team of two. Where’s your partner?”
“I’d guess he’s somewhere in the backyard, watching the rear of the premises.”
Gurt, holding the hand of a pale and shaken Manfred, came down the stairs. Even Grumps seemed wary. “What…?”
Lang repeated what he had been told.
Jake touched a finger to his forehead, an informal salute. “Guess I better get back to my post. You aren’t paying me to be a houseguest.”
As Lang pulled the door open, he caught a glimpse of a dozen or so people in the street in varying stages of undress despite the chill of the winter night. Bathrobes, housecoats, pajamas under jackets. Although it was too dark to see their faces, he was sure they were gaping. He heard a siren rapidly approaching.
The timely appearance of the Atlanta police could be depended upon when they were no longer needed.
Lang turned toward the kitchen. “Guess I’ll brew that coffee anyway. I expect we’ll need it.”
“Lang?” Gurt asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“You don’t need a weapon to make coffee.”
For the first time, he became aware he was still carrying the Browning. He stuck it in the drawer of an end table. “I guess not.”
An hour later, the police had run out of questions and the pot out of coffee. Wearily, Lang was shutting the front door as the eighteenth-century Birely amp; Sons grandfather clock chimed six times. With Manfred asleep in her arms, Gurt had a foot on the front stairs when the phone rang.
“Who the hell…?”
“Answering it could well provide an answer.”
At first Lang thought the caller had a wrong number. There was that instant’s pause before the anticipated hang-up.
But there was no hang-up. Instead, Miles’s voice, disgustingly cheery, boomed through the line. “Lang! Understand there was a little excitement around the Reilly household this morning!”
Lang was wondering how anyone could be so damn chipper at this hour before he realized it probably wasn’t this hour wherever Miles was. “You could say that.”
“My, but aren’t you the sourpuss, for someone who has just cheated death! Thought you’d like to know: one of our guys followed the car that tossed the Molotov cocktail. Got the license plate.”
“Let me guess-the plate, the car or both were stolen.”
“How perceptive for one so grouchy at being awoken from his slumbers!”
Lang picked up his coffee cup from the a table, confirming it was empty. “You didn’t call just to tell me that
