Gregg Loomis - The Julian secret

She thought for a moment, either trying to get the English phraseology right or deciding exactly what to say. By now, they were outside the room.

He put the key in the lock but blocked her entrance.

"Well?"

Again the sly smile. "Would you believe women's intuition?"

"No."

She sighed theatrically. "Very well, deprive from me the illus… illus…"

"Illusion?"

"Illusion of feminine mystery."

He was still holding the door open, standing in her path. "Gurt

…"

She shook her head. "I heard you tell Reavers how you thought it out, bow you had guessed that Skorzeny was one of the Germans the Americans brought over after the war and that man Straight was the son of Skorzeny. If you can pull that hare out of your cap, you tell me how I knew."

Lang stepped back outside to join her in the narrow hall. This wasn't a conversation he wanted overheard. He pulled her inside and shut the door. They sat on the bed.

"Okay. I'd guess it went something like this." He thought for a second, arranging his suppositions in much the same way he had lined up theorems in high school geometry. "You knew I was trying to track down whatever Skorzeny took from Montsegur. The only clue we had before that helicopter showed up was Julian's inscription, the one about the palace of the single god."

She ruffled his hair with her fingers. "So far, so bad. Just before the helicopter flew over us, you were talking about Julian and a palace of some sort."

He shrugged. "Okay, so tell me."

''You will not like what you hear."

"I can stand it."

This time it was Gurt who shrugged. " 'Palace of the one god.' What could that be but the Vatican?"

It took a moment to sink in. "Palace of the sale god and you immediately knew what Julian meant?"

"I was there, was I not?"

He nodded slowly, absorbed by what she was saying. "It took Francis and me a while to be certain that was what was meant. You figured it out in minutes."

She grinned, fishing in her bag for a cigarette. Just before she lit it, she chuckled. "I told you, you would not like it. I called a friend in the Rome station."

"A friend posted with the Agency? You knew the lines would be secure."

"Exactly. I asked this friend where Reavers was because I knew if what I had guessed was true, he would be trying to kill you, too."

Lang stared at her with uncomprehending eyes. "Asked where he was? You know that's need-to-know only."

"As I said, I asked a friend."

"A former lover, you mean."

"I said you would not like this. You have no reason to be, er, angry. We were through before 'you came to Rome last year."

What she said made irritatingly good sense. Lang had no possible reason to care what Gurt had done since they had broken up before he married Dawn ten years ago.

That, however, did absolutely nothing to stop more than a twinge of jealousy.

Lang pretended he was only interested in how she had found him. "So you found out Reavers was in Rome. Then?"

"I got the nun's dress and hung down…"

"Hung around."

"Stayed around the Rome station."

''You were conducting surveillance of the Agency's Rome station and nobody noticed?"

"I was stationed in Rome, remember? I knew what 'was covered by cameras and what was not. Besides, I convinced a nice man to rent me a room just down the street for only a few days."

The green-eyed monster stirred again. ''A nice man?"

She shook her head impatiently. ''A nice man who must have been at least seventy. Do you want to interrogate me, or shall I complete?"

Lang's curiosity outweighed any irrational jealousy. "Go on."

"So, when I saw Reavers come out, I followed him."

Lang was incredulous. ''You managed to follow a station chief?"

"No one is as cautious as we were in the old days. Reavers has been around so long, he probably forgets women now work there."

It had taken a threat of congressional intervention to bring that about, if Lang remembered correctly.

"Anyway, while I was observing him, he was observing what I took to be a priest, you. I didn't contact you because I might have been watched myself. I was also afraid to call your hotel. I just waited until I saw Reavers and his men follow you into the bottom of the Vatican."

Lang nodded, digesting the information. Then: "The gun-how did you get that?"

"I told you, I had a friend in the Frankfurt office."

Must be some kind of a friend to violate a couple of dozen regs concerning firearms as well as information, Lang thought sourly. If the bastard didn't get summarily fired, he would have spent the rest of his career counting printer cartridges in some place infected with rats smaller only than the scorpions. But he said, "I guess l owe you a 'Thank you.' "

She stood, unzipping her blouse. "It is late and you have had hours since this afternoon to recover. You owe me more than 'Thank you.' "

It was early the next afternoon when reality stuck its ugly head into paradise. Sara's daily call warned of decisions that had to be made for the foundation and clients who were getting restless at the unavailability of their lawyer.

It was time to go home.

"We can fly Naples-Paris-Atlanta," Lang said, taking the phone from his ear. "Or we can drive to Rome and fly direct."

Gurt gave her head a slight shake, a gesture that always implied something negative. "I will be staying in Rome."

Lang forgot the airline reservationist on the other end of the line as well as the per-minute profit the hotel was making. "You're what?"

She took the receiver from him and hung it up with one hand while she caressed his cheek with the other. "It is something I cannot do, Liebchen. I cannot live on your char… er, char…"

"Charity."

"Your charity forever."

"But you're not," he protested. ''You have a job teaching…"

She waved a dismissive hand. "And after what I have done for the last fifteen years or so, you think teaching rich kids to mangle the German language is going to fascinate me?"

Lang had known her long enough to know she was slow to make up her mind and implacable once she had.

He had thought he had lost her once, and now he was about to lose her for real.

He turned and went into the bathroom to collect his toilette articles so she could not see the misery he knew was on his face. "I wish you well. I'll miss you."

When he returned from the bathroom, she was gone.

Berlin

May of the same year

Jochim Stern, Ph. D., was puzzled. He had been summoned from his archaeology class at the university to examine some very interesting pottery shards. Interesting because of their location, not quality. One would expect such things to be unearthed every time Rome worked on its underground metro or Cairo began a new sewer line. In fact, the Herr Doktor had consulted with a number of cities with classical Greco-Roman pasts.

But Berlin?

As far as he knew, neither Greek nor Roman had ever set foot in the area that was Germany's historical capital. In fact, the Germanic tribes had served up one of Rome's few defeats, routing Augustus Caesar's army at Teutoburg Forest in the first century. As a result, Rome had turned elsewhere for conquest and trade. That being so, what about these pieces of pottery he was holding in his hands as he squatted in the raw dirt?

No doubt they were ancient in origin, highly likely part of a Greek-style amphora. A large one, the sort of vessel used to store wine or oil.

The Herr Doktor looked up from the excavation of a new U-Bahn line. This was the area where Hitler had had his bunker, wasn't it? Hard to be sure. In their fury, the Russians had not only demolished whatever was left of the Fuhrer's redoubt and everything in it, filling it in, they had made a sort of park surrounding the place so that it was difficult if not impossible to ascertain exactly where Hitler's last hours had been spent. Probably the only green space the Russians had contributed to East Berlin, and now far too valuable to the expanding city to leave untouched.