Gregg Loomis - The Sinai Secret

But about what?

Peachtree Center

227 Peachtree Street

Atlanta, Georgia

1:42 p.m. EST

Lang's day deteriorated further.

He suspected it would as soon as he entered his suite of offices and saw Sara's face.

"Louis deVille called from Brussels. The Belgian police contacted him to confirm that Benjamin Yadish worked for us. He was murdered in Belgium last night," she announced.

It took Lang a moment to recall the name. "Isn't he one of the physiochemists working on the foundation's alternatives-to-fossil-fuel program?"

"That's him. He was in Brussels to meet with the European project manger. Apparently he decided to drive to Bruges for some reason. That's where he was shot."

"Any information, like who or why?"

"None yet."

Lang had never met the man, but his credentials were emerging from his memory. "Lived in Amsterdam, didn't he?"

Sara had a file open in front of her. She nodded. "Wife, no children."

Lang put down the stack of pink callback slips he had picked up from her desk. "He's the one who has a degree from just about every university in Western Europe, right?"

"That's the one."

Lang went into his office and closed the door before he reached for the phone and punched 011 for international, 32 for Belgium, 2 for Brussels, and seven numbers for the person. He checked his watch as the line bleeped and peeped. Well after 1900-seven p.m.-on the other end of the line, but he was calling one of the few remaining European countries where employees worked with both eyes on the task at hand rather than one on the clock.

"'Allo?"

Relieved, Lang sat back in his chair. "Louis, it's Lang Reilly."

The voice, heavily French accented, sounded pleased to hear from Lang so soon. Perhaps deVille had forgotten Americans had no aversion to work, either. "Oui, Monsieur Reilly. Your secretary has told you of the terrible thing that has happened, no?"

Louis deVille was in charge of the foundation's European research and operations. An administrator rather than a scientist, he had the ability to unwind the varying degrees of red tape spun by individual countries. He also had a talent for recruiting the better minds in whatever field the foundation sought at any given time. Since Brussels was the seat of the European Union's economic and political arms as well as the site of the European office of hundreds of multinational corporations, locating the foundation's overseas office there had seemed natural.

"Sara said he was in Bruges and was shot. What else can you tell me?"

"The police have told me nothing more."

"Okay, get hold of his wife in Amsterdam, find out if we can be of any help, maybe expedite the return of the body, funeral expenses, any cash shortage, stuff like that."

Lang thought for a moment, dark clouds forming a pattern he could see only vaguely. "And I'll be in Brussels no later than the day after tomorrow."

First Yadish, then Lewis, followed by a clear threat. The foundation's research was making someone unhappy. Very unhappy.

But who?

It had been two years since Lang had faced real danger, two years of defending those who could afford to pay to evade justice, two years of administering a foundation that did tremendous good but offered little in the way of excitement. Even if Lang was no longer a member of the shadowy intelligence community, he wasn't without experience and assets, either. Whoever had killed those two men hadn't known that; he was sure.

They were about to find out.

"Sara, I'm taking a few days off. Tell whoever calls that I should be back in a week."

She looked up. "And the mayor?"

"Particularly the mayor."

Westview Cemetery

Atlanta, Georgia

That Afternoon

Lang supposed others might find the ritual macabre, but he really didn't care. He rarely left the country without coming here to the oak-shaded knoll where three marble stones faced a city skyline already blurred by summer's smog. He was never sure if the trip to say good-bye again to the three people he had so loved was a habit or some ritual to ensure a safe journey.

It didn't matter; he came.

Dawn, his wife; Janice, his sister; and Jeff, her adopted son and Lang's best ten-year-old buddy. There had been times when the tears flowed on a daily basis at the thought of his wife dying as she was devoured by cancer, or of the murderous explosion that had taken the other two. Now there was a certain peace to be had here among the silent inhabitants, a few moments to think without intrusion. It was the only place where he was immune to the demands of his profession and those of the foundation.

There had been a time when the two newer graves had commanded him to seek out an organization of killers. He had known he would know no rest until he did.

Beside two of the headstones he had placed the customary dozen roses like sacrifices on a pagan altar. By Jeff's marker were sunflowers. The kid had been fascinated by the gold petals around a face as brown as his own. It had never occurred to Lang that they would serve as Jeff's funerary decoration.

He sat On the dry grass, momentarily thinking of the uncertainties that constituted life. He watched an elderly woman in black lean on a cane as she hobbled up the hill followed by a chauffeur carrying gardening tools. He guessed she was headed for the azalea bushes a few plots over.

He stayed a few more minutes, until the clacking of hedge clippers and the woman's voice reached him. Then he stood, facing the three stones, saying farewell to the only family he had had. He turned and walked down the gentle slope where the Porsche waited on the narrow curving road.

He swiveled his head for a last look up the hill before he drove away.

Brussels International Airport

Zaventem, Belgium

The Next Morning

Lang Reilly stretched and yawned as he sat up on the double bed in the main suite of the foundation's Gulfstream IV. Despite a dinner served on fine china along with a bottle of a fine old Bordeaux, despite a first-run comedy on DVD for after-dining entertainment and several brandies, he doubted he had had two hours of sleep. Lang simply did not sleep well on airplanes. The time when the very spooling up of engines lulled him had been replaced by an irrational fear of not having control of his environment. He had told himself the odds were better of being crushed in the Porsche by an SUV-driving, cell phone-talking soccer mom than of dying in the finest private jet yet produced, equipped with the most modern avionics.

Still, his stubborn phobia whispered, flying was an unnatural act.

Like submitting to a colonoscopy.

His irrational and rational minds had battled the issue while he tossed and turned. They had reached a temporary truce only minutes away from the destination.

Pulling aside the curtain over the bedroom's window, Lang saw a huge arched glass structure. Concourses extended both left and right, half of which were suckling aircraft from a potpourri of nations.

"We'll be at customs in about five minutes, Mr. Reilly." The pilot's tinny voice echoed through the plane's speaker system.

Lang scrambled into the tiny head and squeezed into the shower. He was tying his shoes when the twin Pratt amp; Whitneys whined down and stopped.

He could have taken a commercial carrier at considerably less expense. Considerably less privacy, too. It took little talent to hack into the airlines' reservations systems and ascertain the arrival time and destination of a flight. Although the same could be done with the flight plans of private aircraft, the task could be complicated by filing a separate plan for multiple legs of the journey, exactly why Lang had insisted on intermediate stops in New York and London, even though the Gulfstream was capable of making the trip nonstop.