Gregg Loomis - The Julian secret

More important, a person standing at a baggage carousel was a fixed target, vulnerable to a point-blank shot or the stab of a knife. The Agency had discouraged any bag that could not be carried aboard.

He had never been in Paris's Charles de Gaulle air terminal when it was not mobbed. Africans in bright colored cotton robes mixed with the pastel Hindi saris, while mustachioed men in caftans herded their wives and children along. Overhead speakers kept up a stream of unintelligible announcements that blended with a hundred different languages in a re-creation of Babel.

Little had changed since his last visit.

Without further communication, Gurt ducked into the ladies' toilet, leaving Lang to guard her bag. When she reappeared, he headed for the men's while Gurt strained to recognize anyone from their flight. When Lang emerged, he feigned interest-in a magazine rack while Gurt disappeared into the crowded exits. Lang kept an unobtrusive surveillance of reflections of passengers scurrying by the glass of the newsstand. He noticed no one purposely hovering nearby. In exactly five minutes, he hurried after, Gurt.

At the bottom of a steep escalator, he fed coins into a machine, took a ticket, and boarded a train headed into the city. En route, he changed cars twice and trains once, disembarking just across the Seine from the Ile St. Louis. He was fairly certain he had not been followed, but the sparse foot traffic across the nearby bridge would reveal any tail he had missed.

Across the river, he waited patiently on the narrow Rue Louis until he succeeded in getting a cab. The driver mumbled unhappily when Lang gave him the destination, less than a mile away. No one got into the following taxi, and Lang finally gave a sigh of relief despite the cabbie's continuing expression of displeasure at so short a fare.

Oh well, the French were always displeased about something: the wine, the food, or lesser things such as politics or the economy. Lang's pronunciation of the destination must have revealed him as an American, for the cabbie turned to complaints of U.S. involvement in Iraq, although Lang was unable to see why a French citizen would be concerned. France had, after all, opted out.

The French: Our national flag is the tricolor; our battle flag a single color: white.

Minutes later, he was paying the still-protesting driver in front of a pizzeria on the Left Bank along the Quai d'Orsay, one with a view of both Notre Dame and the statue of Michael. Gurt was sipping a cup of coffee at one of the tables lining the curb.

Lang took the one other chair at the table. "All clear?" Gurt looked at him over the rim of her cup. "I saw no one."

In minutes, they were descending another escalator, this one to the St. Germain station. They went directly to Orly, the airport for most of Paris's European flights. Lang used a credit card to buy two one-way tickets on different flights to Frankfurt and used the time before the first to arrange for a car.

"The card is traceable," Gurt said as they sank into seats at his departure gate.

Lang shrugged. "I know, but all my bogus IDs expired years ago. We'll just have to hope if someone's tracking us, they're still looking in Paris or they won't have the resources to meet both Paris-Frankfurt flights."

"They won't have to look, just check the files of your card company."

"Maybe the Agency office in Frankfurt can help, give us some ID we can use." Gurt shook her head slowly. "Neither of us are actively employed there now."

She was right. Ever fearful of one more wave of unfavorable publicity, the Agency wasn't likely to furnish bogus papers to a former employee and one on an. indefinite leave. Lang mentally kicked himself. In an age when teenage hackers were capable of multimillion dollar identity thefts, it would have been a simple matter to create his own false -persona. In spite of the ease of access to information, few government agencies ever bothered to cross-check. The death of someone around the desirable age appeared in the obituaries and, with the readily available date of birth, a request in that name could be made for replacement of a lost Social Security card. The card could be used to obtain a driver's license, and both to obtain a certified copy of a birth certificate to be parlayed into a passport. Assuming the deceased had even modest credit, the banks were only too happy to ship their plastic, one and a half percent interest for the first six months.

Lang consoled himself with the speed at which the bureaucratic wheels turned. Establishing a good false identity with real documents took months. How many more attempts on his and Gurt's lives could be mounted in that time? Lang didn't want to even guess.

They would have to go with what they had.

Frankfurt Flughof "Three hours later

Miraculously, Lang had napped on the short flight, the first sleep he had gotten on an aircraft since his days with the Agency. He had watched water bead against the adjacent window as the plane descended through clouds dirty with moisture. The runway and taxiway were shiny with rain. Before deplaning the 717, he checked his watch. Gurt should be landing in the next forty-five minutes.

As an arrival from a fellow European Union country, Lang bypassed a line of Japanese tourists at the immigration stations and walked through the nothing-to-declare gate into the terminal. The main area was nowhere as large, multinational, nor loud as de Gaulle, a fact for which Lang was thankful. It would have been pure luck to find

Gurt in the crowded main terminal. Not that he had to. Knowing the tenuous relation between schedule and reality in the world of the airlines, they had agreed to meet in the city at a small bierstube near the Agency's location. Lang was already anticipating a liter of truly fine beer served with the fattest bratwurst he had ever had.

The thought of epicurean delights may have been what momentarily distracted him. He had not noticed the man in the rain-splotched coat who seemed unusually interested in shop displays a regular ten feet from wherever Lang paused.

Lang moved a few feet away, intent on duty-free tobacco products. The man acquired an interest in the ladies' shoes in the window of the adjoining shop. As Lang inspected confectionery, his companion was checking out the spirits and wine next door.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you. It had taken less time than Lang had hoped for someone to find the credit-card transaction.

Lang made it a point to gaze around randomly, a tourist overawed by one of Europe's least interesting air terminals. He could go to the rental counter, claim his car, and let the man follow as best he could until the opportunity to take action arose. Or he could take evasive action and, unless the guy was a real pro, lose him.

Neither option was satisfactory.

If the man was simply following Lang to learn what he might have stumbled onto in Spain, fine. But blowing up the Porsche was hardly the act of someone merely inquisitive. Besides, there could well be someone waiting for Gurt, too. Lang was not particularly worried at the possibility. Not only was Gurt far more current than he in the more deadly aspects of hand-to-hand combat, she had been the Agency's female champion in four straight women's target competitions, rifle as well as pistol. Not satisfied with this accolade, she had nagged her way into competition with the men. She had beaten them, too. The word around the station was that pissing Gurt Fuchs off was both unwise and unhealthy.

Lang was also certain she would be wary of possible followers. No one who had been with the Agency ever completely forgot to be -aware of their surroundings at all times, to know how to reach the nearest exit and where it led, to use available storefront glass to look behind you, to have clearly in mind what fields of fire were usable if gunplay became necessary. Lang used to fantasize the peculiar behavior all that might engender. at family gatherings, cocktail parties, or other social events.