Gregg Loomis - The Pegasus Secret

"And I didn't hear you say where you were yesterday," Morse added.

"I barely knew him," Lang protested.

"Musta known him fairly well: left your dog with him. And he was shot with a large-caliber automatic just like the Browning be in your bedside table."

Lang fought the urge to simply drop the phone and run.

The more he knew, the better he could refute what appeared to be absurd charges. "If you've been into my bedside table, I assume you had a warrant."

"Uh-huh. Nice and legal. Got it when your fingerprints showed up on the shell casings. Gun's been fired recently but ballistics report won't be back till tomorrow. I'm bettin' be your gun killed him." Morse was enjoying this. "You got somethin' to say, you come back here an' say it. FBI gets involved, you become a fugitive. You don't want them on your trail."

Me and Richard Kimble, Lang thought.

Lang knew he should sever the connection as quickly as possible but he couldn't, not just yet. "The dog I left with. Richard…?"

Apparently Sara could hear at least part of the conversation. Her voice was clear in the background. "I've got him, Lang, don't you…"

Lang hung up with at least one problem solved and walked away in a daze. They had done it, of course, killed Richard with his Browning – the one Lang had loaded, leaving his prints on the shells – and replacing it where it was sure to be found. Clever. Now every cop connected to the Internet anywhere in the world would be looking for him. Interpol, the Italian Policia, everyone would be doing their work for them.

How long had Lang been on the phone? Long enough for a trace? Unlike the old movies, computers could race through area switchboards with the speed of light. But an international call involved satellites, no wires connected to specific telephones. The best the computer could do was give general coordinates as to location. The bad news was that a trace would reveal Lang wasn't in the U.S. of A., something Morse would have had to wait to find out after getting the record of the Miami-Rome flight in the check of credit cards that was standard procedure in any fugitive hunt. Without a current bogus passport, Lang had had to use his real name and plastic for that leg. In today's terror conscious environment, paying cash for an international flight would have subjected him to scrutiny he had not wanted.

Atlanta

Twenty minutes later

Detective Franklin Morse stared at the fax again, although he had already studied every detail of both pages. The quality was poor, but good enough to recognize a copy of an airline ticket from Miami to Rome. The name of the passenger was clear enough: Langford Reilly. So was the transmitted photograph, grainy and streaked.

Reilly looked like he was walking past some sort of official on the other side of a booth, maybe customs or immigration in an airport. That would make sense if Reilly had fled to Rome, if that was where Reilly was when the detective had spoken to him not half an hour before.

What didn't make sense were the two pieces of paper themselves. They had arrived on the machine used exclusively by the detectives in the squad room in Atlanta's City Hall on East Ponce de Leon. Not a state secret but not exactly a published number, either. Verification of the numbers at the top of the pages led to a public facsimile machine in Rome.

Okay, so Lang Reilly was in Rome and someone wanted Morse to know that. But who and why?

A criminal warrant was a matter of public record, but not a lot of citizens scoured the court dockets. Morse had hoped to keep it quiet, not spook the lawyer. Until Reilly had fled, that is. Still, whoever had sent this fax didn't get the information from the media that there was a want out on Reilly, not yet, anyway.

That led to the conclusion that the sender had a source inside the department. Morse shot an involuntary glance around the room, gray furniture on gray carpet in gray cubicles in what had been the appliance floor of a Sears & Roebuck. People came and went, phones rang, and computers clicked in a familiar cacophony.

Not exactly high security. Anyone could have mentioned that Langford Reilly was a man the Atlanta police would like very much to speak with up close and personal.

Granting that the word had gotten out, Morse had been on the job too long to accept anonymous tips at face value. People who ratted from some sense of civic duty rarely did so without a desire for recognition. Sometimes the bad guy was given up because someone wanted to get even for some wrong, real or imagined. Most often, information came for a price, either cash or expectation of future favors.

Morse was willing to bet none of those reasons applied here. Your usual snitch didn't travel to Rome. Nor did he send anonymous tips by paying the cost of transatlantic faxes. No siree Bob, there be something else at work here.

But what?

Morse pushed back from the metal government-issue desk. No point in wasting time inspecting the dentures of free horses. For whatever reason, he had information that a suspect in a murder case was in Rome, had fled the country. Standard procedure was to notify the FBI who would then send a want to the country involved. Assuming the foreign country wasn't involved in a major war, the crime in question had no political ramifications, and the local dicks had nothing more pressing on their collective plates, the police would add the name of the wanted person to a list of criminals, known illegal aliens and other miscreants.

Once and a while, a perp actually blundered into the arms of the Poletzei, gendarmes, constabulary or whatever and got taken back, to the United States. Usually the perp got busted for another crime or was spotted in an airport or train station.

Morse was less than optimistic as he went across the room to wire the Fibbies. Reilly didn't look like a one-man crime wave. But he could have killed Halvorson because the doorman knew he had had a reason to throw that guy off his balcony. Whatever. Except for the real fruitcakes, the odds of a perp killing more than once were nil.

The detective was still thinking when he returned to his cluttered desk. Back to the question of why the anonymous informant had gone to the trouble of letting the cops in Atlanta know that Reilly was in Rome. Only reason Morse could see was that somebody wanted Reilly caught.

The interesting question was why. Answer that and you might get all sorts of helpful information.

Morse leaned back in his chair and regarded the patterns years of water stains had made on the ceiling. But where to start? Man was a lawyer, probably had more than a few people like to see him in jail. Could check the court records, see if Reilly'd lost a case or two he shouldn't have.

Nah, didn't seem right. Something told him to try Reilly's service records, one of those unexplainable, irrational hunches he had learned to trust.

Navy SEAL, the man had said. Small, elite corps. Couldn't be too many of those around. Let's see who Mr. Langford Reilly, Attorney at Law, might have pissed off in the service of his country. Morse looked around the room again, this time trying to remember who had the phone number for the military service records place in St. Louis.

Rome

1750 hours

Lang got to the Piazza Navona early, giving himself plenty of time to spot a trap if one was being set. To Lang, the Navona was the most beautiful and historic piazza in a city crammed full of beauty and history. The long elliptical shape recalled the stadium of Diocletian, which the present piazza had replaced. Ancient architecture existed harmoniously with Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque. Of Bernini's three marble fountains on the piazza, the largest was the Three Rivers in the center. It was also the easiest to locate among the mobs of tourists, artists entertainers, and natives who watched the whole scene with detached amusement.