Gregg Loomis - The Coptic Secret

He was about to make one more attempt when a voice crackled from the speaker. The words were unintelligible, but the tone indicated a question.

"Viktor, it's Lang Reilly," he said, his mouth close to the speaker to avoid having to shout. "You and I did business years ago."

There was a heavy metallic thump as a bolt slid back and Lang stepped inside. The marble foyer was only large enough to contain doors to the two lower apartments and a staircase. There was no elevator. Renovation had not reached this far yet.

Leaning heavily on the stair rail to take as much weight as possible off protesting muscles and joints, Lang climbed to the top, the third floor, and knocked on a worn wooden door.

The door swung open and Lang was looking at an elfin little man whose long white hair reached below his slumped shoulders. Inside, klieg lights, lamps, reflective umbrellas, tripods and camera gear occupied every horizontal surface.

The man was still working, although he had to be well into his nineties. Even more amazing than handheld worldwide communication.

Lang knew Viktor Benscare had lived and worked as a professional photographer in this same apartment since 1922, the same year a certain lantern-jawed Fascist named Benito Mussolini had come to power. During the war years, Viktor had developed a profitable sideline: forgery. He had created passports for partisans as well as for Jews seeking to escape deportation to the death camps while the nearby Vatican inexplicably had not even murmured a protest. Due to the Italians' lack of fervor in enforcing their German comrades' racial edicts, his semicelebrity status as Rome's most famous portrait photographer, a non-Semitic name and, no doubt, well-placed bribes allowing him to tinker with birth records, Viktor had survived the Holocaust. With the fall of the Axis powers, his sideline boomed. He provided identities for those displaced persons who had lost theirs and for those who could not afford to retain their own in view of the Allied war crimes tribunals. When Europe settled down to its usual semipeaceful bickering, he had worked for the Camorra, the Neopolitan crime families, a loosely knit organization far exceeding in size, power and wealth its Sicilian counterpart.

During the Cold War, Viktor had been steadfastly neutral, equally happy to create a Russian driver's license or a British national health card. Several times, Lang had arranged for passports and supporting documents for a recent refugee from one of the workers' paradises when, for whatever reason, the agency was unable to do so.

Lang pushed the door closed behind him. "Viktor! You haven't aged a bit!"

The Italian smiled with teeth far too perfect and white to have originated in a mouth that old. "The quality of your sheet of the bool has no diminished, either." He led the way to a pair of chairs and began removing camera lenses from the seat of one. "An' you no come here causa you wanna you pi'ture made. Still, good to see one mora ol' frien' not dead." He motioned to the now empty chair. "Come, seet an' hava a glass a Barolo."

Lang was far too tired to be drinking anything alcoholic, but he acceded rather than wound feelings. When Viktor returned with a bottle and two glasses, he cleared another chair, sat and lit a cigarette. The smell was slightly better than the caustic odor of chemicals that pervaded the apartment. Lang watched the cigarette as he and his host discussed the relative merits of the wines of Tuscany versus those of Piemonte. Once the tobacco was stubbed out, the appropriate amount of time would have passed for the banter that precedes business in Italy.

As anticipated, Viktor cleared his throat as he ground out the butt. "So, you wanna what?"

"A passport."

The forger nodded. "OK."

"How much?"

The forger shrugged, a matter of such little consequence it was hardly worth discussing. "Thousand euro."

The old fox had raised his prices quite a bit since Lang had done business with him. "I'll pay when I pick it up."

Viktor shook his head. "Same as usual. Half now, half when you get."

Lang pretended to consider. "All right, but only if you can do one more thing."

The Italian waited, making no commitment.

"A gun. With ammo."

The old man's eyes widened, sending thick white brows into a single arch. "A gun? Canna do! You know-"

"I know you have connections and I'm willing to pay well."

That put a different complexion on the matter.

"How well?"

"Depends on the gun. A pistol, preferably an automatic I can carry in my belt."

"You coma back tomorrow, meybbe…"

Lang didn't even consider returning to the Vatican unarmed. "Today for the gun or we have no deal, Viktor. Of course, if you don't want the business…" Lang stood as* if to leave.

Viktor was on his feet with an agility surprising for his age. "No, no! You go outside, meybbe see a church, old temple. The Colosseum. You come back…"

"In two hours," Lang finished for him.

Outside, Lang's stomach growled loudly, a reminder it had been a long time since his last meal. At the same time, he caught the aroma of a nearby restaurant. An hour and a half later, he had enjoyed zucchini blossoms, stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies and fried in yeast batter. He hadn't had the peculiarly Roman/Jewish dish in years. Tired or not, he had permitted himself a beer, piccolo, small.

Now he needed cash, probably more than his limit at an ATM.

Crossing a little piazza, he looked around. An old woman pushing a baby pram, two priests. He entered a bank just before it closed for the afternoon hours when most businesses, museums, even churches in Rome, and most of Italy, shut down until four o'clock. It took a few minutes with personnel irritated at being detained from lunch to work his way up to someone with authority to phone the States and arrange for a cash transfer. Lang was aware the transaction was likely to be picked up by Echelon. It was unlikely, though, that a transfer this small would draw notice. Pocketing a roll of Euros, less fees, Lang checked his watch, noted that two hours and sixteen minutes had elapsed and returned to Viktor's apartment.

This time he was buzzed in on the first try.

Viktor was grinning as he handed Lang a paper bag. "Eet is as you weesh!"

Lang nearly dropped it from the unanticipated weight. He peered inside and blinked, uncertain he was really seeing what he thought: an M1911.45 Colt, the standard US military sidearm for nearly sixty years.

"Ees automatic as you weesh!" Viktor was beaming. He held up an extra magazine. "An' have extra boolits!"

"Yeah, but I didn't want something used by George Custer."

"Who Custer?"

"Man who couldn't count Indians."

The gun was as heavy as it was notoriously inaccurate. With its box clip holding only seven rounds, it was also short on firepower. On the positive side, the Colt's large caliber reputedly could stop an elephant. If the shooter could hit it. The gun was much sought by collectors but hardly by anyone whose life might depend on it.

Lang pulled the slide back, checking the barrel. At least the grooves were distinct, unworn. The thing must have been left over from the occupation of Rome in 1944 when some GI traded it for booze or sex, the two major incentives of soldiers in all wars.

"Untraceable, also," Viktor noted.

"I don't care if it's registered to the pope," Lang replied, knowing that touting the weapon's few attributes was a means of gaining advantage in the oncoming haggle about price. "How much?"

"Onlies two thousand euro."

Lang shrugged and handed the gun back to Viktor. "Too much."

Happily, the forger had no idea of how badly Lang needed a weapon immediately. Also in Lang's favor was the fact that Viktor's supplier would expect immediate payment, not a return. An anonymous tip to the police by the gun's former owner that Viktor possessed a prohibited firearm would be certain if the.45 wasn't sold as promised.