Gregg Loomis - The Pegasus Secret

Jacob and Lang circled the room as Lang finished his story.

"Pegasus, Limited," Lang finally said. "The only clue I have, or at least the only one I understand. If it does business in Europe, Echelon would know."

Jacob stopped. "Echelon? Your National Security Agency doesn't share that information with any agency where I might find out."

The National Security Agency was the most secretive of the secretive. Its operatives were computer jocks, its weapons high technology. It participated in no active espionage in the conventional sense but maintained a heavily guarded satellite monitoring station just outside London which had the capability to intercept every fax, e-mail and phone call made in Europe. The information was shared only among England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Lang smiled. "Of course, your retirement. Plus Mossad naturally has no means of intercepting Echelon and would be reluctant to do so if it could. I wouldn't want to impose on our friendship by asking…"

"You cannot get this information from your former employers or their friends at MI6?"

Lang shook his head. "My former employers don't owe me a favor, particularly not the London Station. It's the plumb of the service, draws all the Harvard-Yale types, guys that wouldn't dream of being seen with someone who graduated from a state college." He wrinkled his nose, giving his very best imitation of an upper-class British accent. "As for MI6, old thing, why they're just too, too. Hardly can understand the blighters, talking through their Cambridge-oxford noses, y'know. Just too tiresome, dealing with a bloody Yank. No sense of… Well, old stick, you know what I mean."

Jacob chuckled as he held up a hand in surrender. "Okay, enough. What makes you think this Pegasus can be found by Echelon?"

"Because there are no electronic transmissions it doesn't pick up. That's how Boeing beat Airbus in the bidding for new aircraft for several Mideast countries."

"You know American intelligence agencies are forbidden to do such things, Langford. They assure us all they only use such technology to keep track of terrorists, bin Laden, North Korea, sale of missiles to certain Arab nations."

Lang rolled his eyes. "And of course diverting billions of dollars to U.S. companies would not be sufficient incentive to deviate from that policy."

Jacob glanced around, making sure no one had entered the building since the conversation began. "Even if what you say is correct, how could a single name be sorted out? There must be millions of transmissions daily."

"Done easily enough by programming keywords into the computer."

"Like 'bomb'?"

"Like. Story a few years ago was that an Irish comedian was playing on stage in Soho. Opening night, called his girlfriend in Belfast, was nervous about his act. Said he was afraid he was going to bomb out. Two blocks were cordoned off before he even got to the theater. Bomb squad, dogs, the works. MIS blamed it on that all-time favorite, the anonymous tip."

Lang could hear fingernails rasping against a heavy five o'clock shadow as Jacob scratched his chin. "So, if someone were to have the ability to intercept Echelon's product, 'Pegasus' could be a keyword, any communications concerning it gathered in. A tall order, as you say, for a small, poor operation like Mossad."

Lang chuckled. "Small, yes. Poor, perhaps. Most efficient in the world, undoubtedly."

Jacob was staring somewhere past Lang. "This is all you know about these people who have killed so many, that they are somehow connected to this Pegasus?"

"And that's only a hunch." Lang reached into a pocket and showed Jacob the medallion from the truck driver. "This is the only thing I'm certain of, that the two men who tried to kill me were wearing one of these, four triangles meeting at the center of a circle. Hardly a coincidence."

Jacob squinted at the medallion. "No, no coincidence. Not four triangles, either."

He had Lang's undivided attention. "Oh?"

"Try a Maltese cross in a circle."

"How d'you get that?"

He pointed. "There, all around you."

Lang turned, half expecting another assassin. Behind him, carved into the walls, the device was evenly spaced. The centuries had almost obliterated them and he hadn't noticed until now.

Lang felt as though his jaw was hanging open. "I don't get it."

Jacob stepped over to the wall and rubbed his fingers across one of the circled crosses. "This was a Templar church, one of only two or three in the world that haven't been destroyed, let fall into ruin or radically altered. It would seem reasonable that the design has something to do with them."

"Impossible!" Lang blurted. "The Templars were fighting monks sworn to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land from Moslems. The order was disbanded by papal decree in the fourteenth century."

Jacob pursed his lips. "Impossible or not, you see the symbol, same as you have in your hand."

This was beginning to sound like time travel out of bad sci-fi. Next, Lang would discover Richard the Lion-Hearted was the one who wanted him dead. "Why would a monastic order from seven, eight hundred years ago be interested in a painting? And if they exist, they're a holy order, not murderers. How does any of that make sense?"

Jacob shook his head. "My friend, as a Jew; I have little interest in Christian holy orders. Too many of them served their religion by killing practitioners of mine. But I do have a friend who might have an answer, a fellow at Oxford, Christ Church. He teaches medieval history. Oxford is, what, an hour's train ride?"

"Great. Except I'd just as soon stay away from train stations. I'm sure the police are watching them."

Jacob scratched his chin again. "I'll call him tonight, tell him you're coming. Stay with me and tomorrow you can have my Morris. Hopefully there won't be another truck trying to run over you. Maybe I'll have some information from Echelon by the time you return."

As they walked back to Jacob's office, Lang noticed a man on a bench reading one of London's tabloids. "Murder in the West End," the headline screamed. He couldn't be sure at that distance, but Lang thought he recognized his own picture, the one from his Agency service file.

Westminster

1650 hours

The afternoon sun was streaking the pewter gray of the. Thames with orange, or at least that part of the Thames Inspector Dylan Fitzwilliam could see from his office at Scotland Yard six floors above Broadway. He stood at the window a moment longer before returning to the papers on his desk.

After four years with the fugitive squad of the Metropolitan Police, he was fully aware how unlikely it had been that he would be able to accommodate that American chap. What was his name? Morse, yes that was it, Morse with the Atlanta police. The Met had more than enough criminals to keep it busy without larking about looking for those the Yanks had let slip through what he perceived to be rather loose fingers.

That dreadful murder of the antique dealer in the West End, Jenson. Constable had just about caught the killer in the act, red-handed, one might say if one found puns amusing. Wonder the lad hadn't slit the constable's throat as well. The description the frightened young policeman had given the artist had fit rather well with a picture in the international fugitive file in the computer if one ignored the moustache and chubby cheeks.

Overrated things, computers. Admittedly, Fitzwilliam would never have recognized the chap, not with what was a disguise making him look older, heavier. Professional job, that disguise. As it should be, turned out. The information that came from the States said that the bloke was former CIA, Yank equivalent of MI6. Didn't know what was the most surprising, that the fugitive was one of that cloak-and-dagger lot or that the CIA had admitted it. Dreadfully embarrassing that, to have one of your old mates go 'round the bend, kill two people for no apparent reason. No reason if, in fact, this Reilly chap really was no longer one of them.