Gregg Loomis - The Coptic Secret

"If you prefer," the older man said, "we can handcuff you and have you bodily carried to a proper place to ask you questions. The grand master has kindly consented to give us an office for the purpose."

Hardly good news.

At the moment, there were only three possibilities, none attractive: Either he would be inside the building when Jacob's contraption went off or he was about to meet the grand master himself. Or both. Lang doubted he would be greeted with anything resembling traditional hospitality.

"And what did you have in mind, Mr. Reilly?" the voice on Jacob's cell phone asked. "I'm not sure I know why you called."

"I think you have a bleeding good notion," Jacob said as he managed to insert a thumbnail into the seam between the two plastic parts of the door opener's plastic casing. Taking care not to drop it again, or dislodge the battery, he pried the two halves apart and blew gently. If condensation on the contact point had been the problem, that should take care of it. If not, Lang was in for a spot of bother.

"What's that you say?" The grand master's temper was getting shorter and shorter.

As slowly as he could manage, Lang let himself be pushed through the gates. The piazza was tastefully lit, hidden lights accenting a number of monuments as well as the facades of buildings. A double file of cypress trees were columns reaching into infinity. In the distance, Rome's lights sparkled like a handful of jewels.

He was being taken to the building he and Jacob had entered that morning.

"I said, we have something to talk about." Jacob fumbled in the dark, trying to get the two halves back together. Across the street, those formidable doors were beginning to swing shut.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. Somewhere there was a catch. He ran fingers made clumsy by anxiety around the edge, found the protruding piece of plastic.

With a snap, the device closed.

Lang and the police were less than fifty yards away from the building.

"Ah, Mr. Reilly?" A man was standing in the open door. "Then who is the grand master talking to…?"

He turned to dash inside.

"I'm curious how the grand master of the Knights of Malta knew who you were," one of the policemen said.

Lang wondered. Did the order's power reach into the police, too?

He would never know.

At that moment, night became day, a day with the light of a dozen suns. A wall of heat knocked Lang over as an explosion clapped silencing hands over his ears.

Groggy, he got to his knees, able to see only streaks of light as though someone had fired a flashbulb in his face. His ears felt pressure as if he were in a rapidly descending aircraft. The grip on his arms was gone. He could only guess at the direction of the way out of the piazza and stumbled that way.

Blurs of vision were returning as he reached the gates and squeezed through before they completely shut.

He felt a hand on his arm. "This way, lad!"

His last sight of the piazza was of blazing rubble where the building had been. The flames reflected from the windows of the nearby church. Not a one had been damaged. Then the gates clicked shut, sealing off pursuit.

Lang's sight and hearing had returned by the time they reached the bottom of the hill, just in time to hear the wail of fire trucks on the way. He turned and looked behind him to see a flickering glow that turned the Aventine into a contemporary Vesuvius. The curious, singly and in small groups, were already filling the street as they hurried uphill to see what had happened.

Minutes later, Lang and Jacob were on the metro again.

"You destroyed the entire building," Lang finally said in wonderment, "but I saw not even a crack in the church's windows."

Jacob was sucking on an empty pipe. Public transportation was one of the few places in Rome where smoking bans were actually enforced. "Better bomb than I thought. Artistry is not confined to painting and sculpture."

Lang believed him.

They got off at different stations, since the police, if the two inspectors reacted in time, would be looking for two men rather a single traveler. Jacob at Termini, where they had paid a porter to keep a watchful eye on their suitcases. Lang went on to Tiburtina, from where he would take an Appian Line bus to Venice, cross over into Slovenia and, eventually, to Vienna and a flight to Paris and then home.

Excerpt from the next day's International Herald Tribune:

Explosion Rocks Rome Landmark

ROME-A building at the headquarters of the Order of St. James, internationally known as the Knights of Malta, was destroyed yesterday in a blast that killed the grand master and a number of full-time rank-and-file members.

The order's headquarters, known as a "priory," was filled with members visiting Rome for the every-fifth-year election of leadership and members of the supreme council. Fortunately, all the visiting members were attending a function at the Vatican at the time of the explosion or the casualty list would have been far greater, according to a spokesman for the order who declined to be identified.

Also unharmed were three members of Rome's police force who were on the premises at the time. The police declined to state why they were present.

The same spokesman for the order attributed the explosion to a leaking gas main.

The Order of St. James became known as the Knights of Malta…

472 LaFayette Drive

Atlanta

A Month Later

Lang and Gurt stood on a grassy lawn, looking at the house. Lang thought it had vaguely Victorian lines; Gurt saw something slightly more contemporary. Either way, it was typical of Ansley Park, Atlanta's upscale, midtown neighborhood where mansions of frame and shingle were as common as Craftsman cottages. Built in the first decades of the last century, The Park, as it was known to its residents, featured towering oaks, winding streets, a number of parks and grassy squares and a small-town atmosphere. You always knew your neighbors and they always knew your business.

Lang had spent a lot of time at his sister's home only a short distance away. Janice and Jeff, her adopted son, had loved the area. Lang had often thought if he ever had a child of his own, this would be a good place to live. Now he had a son who had already made himself at home on the swing set in the backyard before the final papers had been signed.

The condominium at Park Place had sold for somewhat more than Lang had anticipated. The new buyer loved the fixtures, those that had actually been paid for and installed. The deliveries from Home Depot, as far as Lang knew, continued. Lang suspected the decline in the price of the company's stock might well be attributable to the sizable inventory overflowing Park Place's storage space. For certain, any needs for his future residence would be fulfilled by Sears, Lowe's or some other vendor that did not view itself as a cornucopia of unordered and unwanted merchandise.

"It is good, no?" Gurt said.

Lang reached out to take her hand. "It is good, yes. Manfred seems to like it."

"Few European children have a room and bath of their own."

"Neither does Manfred, not unless he can get Grumps to sleep elsewhere."

Neither spoke, enjoying the euphoria of travelers who have finally managed to return from a long and perilous journey. The homely shingled two-story was surrounded on three sides by a porch, the roof of which ran just below the upstairs windows. The effect was of the house having the beetle-browed expression of the genetically witless. But then, the sheer ugliness of most of the neighboring houses gave the area its unique character. Still, it had a certain cozy charm that had infected both Lang and Gurt. They had not debated buying it; they both knew this was home the minute they walked in.