Gregg Loomis - The Pegasus Secret

In 1989, Lang had seen his future in the Agency shrunk by the much-heralded Peace Dividend and changed by shifting priorities. Even the grime-encrusted office with a view of the Bahnhofin Frankfurt would be a source of nostalgia when he was forced to learn Arabic or Farsi and stationed in some place where a hundred-degree day seemed balmy. Dawn, his new bride, had drawn the line at including a floor-length burka in her trousseau.

He had taken his retirement benefits and retreated to law school.

Gurt, an East German refugee, had been a valued linguist, analyst and expert on the German Democratic Republic, who was also stuck in the Agency's Third Directorate.

Gurt and Lang had joined several couples for a ski weekend in Garmish-Partenkirchen. In his mind, Gurt would always be associated with the Post Hotel, Bavarian food, and the slopes of the Zugspitze. The resulting affair had been hot enough to burn out a few months later when he met Dawn on a brief trip back to the States.

To Lang's surprise and chagrin, Gurt had seemed more relieved than jilted. They had shared a friendship ever since, though, a relationship renewed as scheduling and posting allowed: an occasional drink in Frankfurt, a dinner in Lisbon until his resignation. By that time she was due a promotion to management, a result of the Agency's begrudging and Congressionally mandated sexual egalitarianism more than her acknowledged abilities. Her talents were not limited to language but ranged from cryptography on the computer to marksmanship on the firing range.

On mature reflection, perhaps it was just as well Gurt did not take the end of their romance too seriously.

When Saint Peter's was only a couple of blocks away, Michelangelo's dome filling the northern horizon, Lang looked for a pay phone. He was thankful he wasn't in one of those European countries where public phones are hoarded like treasures, available only in branches of the national postal system. In Rome, pay phones were plentiful if functioning ones were not. He had chosen this part of the city from which to phone. A trace of any call made from here would lead to one of the most heavily visited places in the world. Though not impossible, it would be difficult to pinpoint the specific location of anyone phone quickly enough to catch someone involved in a conversation of only a couple of minutes.

If anyone were tracing the call.

He dialed the embassy number and listened to the creaks, groans and buzzing of the system.

When a voice answered in Italian, Lang asked for Ms. Fuchs in the trade section.

The voice smoothly transitioned to English. "May I tell her who is calling?"

"Tell her Lang Reilly's in town and would like to buy her dinner."

"Lang!" Gurt shouted moments later. If she wasn't happy to hear from him, she had added acting to her list of achievements. "What carries you to Rome?"

Gurt still had not totally mastered the English idiom.

"What brought me here was seeing you again."

She gave a giggle almost girlish in tone. "Still the Shiest…, er, thrower of bullshit, Lang." He could imagine her cocking an eyebrow. "And have you brought your wife with you to see me?"

No way to explain without staying on the line a lot longer than he intended. "Not married anymore. You free for dinner?"

"For you, if not free, at least inexpensive."

She had mastered lines that died with vaudeville.

They had no common history in Rome, no place he could designate by reference in case someone was monitoring the perpetual tap on all Agency lines. Lang's choices were a secluded place where he could be sure neither had been followed or a very crowded spot where they would be more difficult to spot. The more potential witnesses would also mean more safety.

Crowds won.

"The Piazza Navona, you know it?"

"Of course. It is one of the most famous…"

"Fountain of the Three Rivers. Say about eighteen hundred hours?"

"Isn't that a bit early for dinner?"

Most Italians don't even think about the evening meal until nine o'clock, 2100 on the twenty-four-hour clock common in Europe. They do, however, begin to consume aperitifs long before.

"Want to see you in the sunlight, Gurt. You always looked best in the light."

He hung up before she could reply.

Like most lawyers, Lang was connected to the womb of his office by the umbilical cord of the telephone. He could have no more failed to call in than a fetus could fail to take sustenance. He had not had the time to purchase an international calling card, so the call was going to require considerable patience in dealing with an overseas operator whose English might be marginal.

Sara answered on the second ring. "Mr. Reilly's office."

Lang glanced at his watch and subtracted five hours. It was shortly after nine A.M. in Atlanta.

"Me, Sara. Anything I need to know, any problems?"

"Lang?" Her voice was brittle with tension. "Mr. Chen called."

Chen? Lang didn't have any client… Wait. He had had a client, Lo Chen, several years ago. The man had been accused of involvement with the growing number of Asian mobs in the Atlanta area. Not believing any authority would be stupid enough not to tap the line of the lawyer representing a man accused of a crime, Chen had insisted Lang use pay phones to call him at a rotating list of phone booths. Complying with his client's wishes, Lang used one of the phones in the lobby of the building.

What did Sara mean?

"Do you remember Mr. Chen's number?" Sara sounded as though she was about to cry.

"I'm not sure…"

Sara said something, words directed away from the phone. A man's voice asked, "Mr. Reilly?"

"Who the hell are you?" Lang demanded, angry that someone would interrupt a call to his own office. There was a mirthless chuckle. "Surprised you didn't recognize me, Mr. Reilly." Lang felt his lunch sink. There had to be something wrong, terribly wrong. "Morse?"

"The same, Mr. Reilly. Now, where be you?"

"What the hell are you doing in my office?"

"Trying to find you, Mr. Reilly."

"You got more questions, I'll answer ' em when I get home. Or on your dime."

"And just when might you be coming home?" There was something in the tone, a come-here-little-fish-all-I-want-to-do-is-gut-you quality to the question that activated Lang's paranoia like a tripped burglar alarm.

"You're asking so you can meet my plane with a brass band, right?"

There was a pause, one of those moments the writers of bodice-rippers described as pregnant. Lang would have called this one plain ominous.

Then Sara apparently took the phone back. "They're here to arrest you, Lang!"

"Arrest? Lemme talk to Morse."

When the detective was back on the line, Lang's concern was beginning to outweigh anger. "What is this B.S.? You sure as hell can't begin to prove I've obstructed your investigation."

In fact, with the Fulton County prosecutor's conviction rate, it was doubtful he could convince a jury of Hannibal Lecter's violation of the Pure Food and Drug Act.

There was another dry chuckle, the sound of wind through dead leaves. "Proovin' not be my job, Mr. Reilly. Arrestin'is. Shouldn't come as any big surprise I got a murder warrant here with your name on it. Where were you 'round noon yesterday?"

On my way to Dallas with a false passport as!D, Lang thought sourly. There would be no record that Lang Reilly had been on that plane.

"Murder?" Lang asked. "Of who, er, whom?"

Even stress doesn't excuse poor grammar.

"Richard Halvorson."

"Who is he?"

"Was. He was the doorman at that fancy highrise of yours."

Lang had never asked Richard's last name. 'That's absurd! Why would I kill the doorman?"

"Not for me to say. Mebbe he didn't get your car fast enough."

Just what the world needed: another Lennie Briscoe.