The Julian Secret (Lang Reilly Thrillers) (8 page)

“And the cell phone?”

“Someone else’s, stolen.”

Something Spain and the United States had in common: the effectiveness of the corrective function of their respective penal systems.

Lang sat down on the bed. “Penny-ante crooks can’t afford automobiles in Europe. Unless those two stole the one they got out of, somebody hired them to follow us. Or worse.”

“Or they wanted to scare us away.”

Lang hadn’t considered that possibility. “From what?”

Gurt glanced at her purse, no doubt wondering how much grief she’d get if she lit another cigarette. “From whatever they think we are doing. Or whatever they think we might find among your friend’s papers.”

They looked at each other without speaking for a full minute before Gurt broke the silence. “That knife. He could have intended to kill you.”

“And the one that followed you?”

“I on the lighted streets remained. He had no chance to harm me before I walked the two or three blocks back here.”

Another pause.

Gurt decided to risk it. She pulled her cigarettes out of the purse. “Lang, what are we doing?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question. What
you
are doing is setting yourself up for cancer, emphysema, and tobacco-stained teeth.”

Like her favorite fictional character, Scarlett O’Hara,
Gurt apparently decided she would worry about that tomorrow. “I mean, why are we getting involved in this? Huff may have been a friend, but he was not close. I never heard you mention him before the other day. Besides, what can we do the police cannot?”

As usual, she had looked right in and seen his soul. Or at least part of it. The truth that Lang really didn’t want to admit to himself or Gurt was that he had gotten bored. You could defend only so many wealthy embezzlers, stock manipulators, and flimflam artists before they all became the same. Likewise, the ever-growing list of mendicants seeking funds from the foundation were assuming a tedious similarity.

Last year, he had set out to find the killers of his sister and nephew. It had very nearly cost him his life as well. But he had succeeded where the local authorities had failed, and the danger inherent in the enterprise had been exhilarating.

Settling a score for a man who had saved Lang’s life was only part of the reason.

And Gurt knew it.

Sometimes he thought he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her only because he dared not have someone who knew him that well on the loose.

“I care more than the police, and I owe it to Don.”

Gurt shrugged, not buying it but not willing to argue, either. “As you say. Now what?”

Lang looked at his watch. “We still have a couple of hours before dinnertime—Spanish dinnertime, anyway. I’d like to go back to Don’s house, where I can spread out these papers the inspector gave back to us. I’d also like to take another look at those index cards.”

It took less than five minutes to walk to the house on Calle Colon. As far as either could tell, no one followed.

“Who is it?” Jessica’s voice came through the speaker at the street entrance.

“So, what did you find out at the police station?” she asked as soon as the gates swung open.

“That they don’t know zip,” Lang said.

“And our help they don’t want,” Gurt added.

The iron gates closed behind them.

“The inspector, a guy named Mendezo, gave us the CD and the papers he took.” He handed her the box with the papers. “I’d like to keep the disk.”

She led the way into the house. “Sure. Did you have a chance to download the pictures?”

By unspoken consent, they sat in the same chairs they had that morning.

Lang produced another envelope, this one bulging. “I printed them out. Take a look and see if they mean anything to you.”

After Jessica had studied each one, she put them back in the envelope. “Just an old building with some guy in a uniform standing in front. I have no idea what Dad was going to do with them.”

Disappointed but not surprised, Lang stood. “In your dad’s office or work area, there was a little metal box of index cards. Could we go take another look?”

Jessica also stood. “Sure.”

Once back in Don’s office, Gurt and Lang divided the cards, A–M, N–Z. They were as enigmatic as before: names, some with addresses and phone numbers. They began reading the names out loud. To each, Jessica shook her head.

“Blake, David. Looks like New York,” Lang said, holding up a card.

Again Jessica shook her head. “Never heard of him.”

“Blucher, Franz. Heidelberg.”

“Him either.”

Lang held the card closer to the light to read the notation at the bottom. “Skorzeny?”

She shook her head, then stopped. “Say that again?”

“Skor-zain-nee.” Lang pronounced the word slowly.

“That’s him!”

She had both Lang’s and Gurt’s attention. “Who?” they asked in unison.

“The man Dad was writing about. One of them, anyway. He was a German, some kinda big deal in the war.”

“What about Blucher, Franz?” Lang wanted to know.

Again Jessica shook her head. “Still never heard of him.”

Gurt moved to look over Lang’s shoulder. “Lang, you said you used cards like that in high school to write papers, put separate facts on each one.”

Lang didn’t remember telling her, but obviously he had. “Yes, I did. It was before computers made note cards obsolete.”

“Suppose your friend Don did his research the same way.”

Lang had no idea where she was going. “Okay, let’s assume he did.”

“What if . . .” She went to her stack of cards and extracted one, reading from it. “ ‘Skorzeny, Otto.’ At the bottom, it says, ‘Blucher, Franz.’ The reverse of your card, cross-referencing. Suppose this Blucher was Don’s authority for whatever he was writing about Skorzeny?”

“Or the other way ‘round,” Lang said.

This time it was Gurt who shook her head. “I think not. Jessica says he was
writing
about Skorzeny. Besides, there’s no address for Skorzeny.”

It made sense.

Or at least as much sense as anything else.

“Okay. Would you please call the number on the card?”

Gurt returned the card to the box. “This is your show, Lang. You call.”

“Last time I looked, Heidelberg was in Germany. I seem to remember something about you speaking the language.”

Gurt sighed theatrically, giving Jessica the same expression she gave Lang when he did something stupid around the house. Like putting laundry detergent in the dishwasher, resulting in a wall of suds taking over the kitchen.

The sort of thing any undomesticated man might do.

Jessica pointed. “There’s the phone.”

Instead, Gurt fished a cell phone from her bag. Lang recognized it as Agency issue, capable of operating on all but the polar continents. Lang watched as she punched in the three-digit country code and the number. After what he guessed were three or four rings, she gave Don’s name, hers, her number, and a request her call be returned. Obviously, Herr Blucher was not in or not answering.

Gurt returned the device to her purse. “What now?”

Lang pointed to the packet of papers the police had returned. “I guess we divide those up and see what we can find.”

In less than a minute, Jessica looked up. “These are just lists of stuff. Here’s a list of books, and this one’s got places on it. Makes no sense.”

Lang was already beginning to agree. “This one has only one word on it: Montsegur.”

Gurt put her papers down. “That’s in France, the Languedoc. I saw a road sign with that on it when we were . . . when we were there last year.”

She and Lang exchanged looks. It had been in the
southwest of France that Lang had first confronted the powerful Pegasus organization in the search for the killers of his sister and nephew. The encounter had been very near fatal. It was a region to which he was not eager to return.

Before he could reply, his cell phone chirped. There were only three people who had the number, and two of them were present.

“Yes, Sara?” Lang asked while calculating it was four o’clock in the afternoon back in Atlanta.

The voice was as clear as though it were crossing a room rather than an ocean. “Judge Henderson’s put Wiley on next month’s trial calendar. Thought you’d like to know.”

Lang groaned. Wiley was the civil counterpart to Lang’s criminal defense of the originator of a multitiered sales/financial services scam. Not only was the U.S. Justice Department prosecuting Lang’s client for a laundry list of security violations, the SEC was suing to regain investors’ money. Mr. Wiley had already been forced to sell his vintage Ferrari and one of his Rolls Royces just to continue his lavish lifestyle. An adverse verdict in the civil case would bankrupt him. Worse, he would be unable to pay the rest of his lawyer’s fees. The complexity of the case would require Lang’s attention every day between now and the time Mr. Wiley faced a jury of his peers.

Lang snapped the phone shut. “Jessica, I’m afraid something’s come up back home. We, Gurt and I, need to leave immediately.” He noted the look on her face, that of someone about to lose their last friend. “We can keep trying to contact this guy in Heidelberg. When I finish what I’ve got to do, I’ll be in touch to see if the local cops have made any progress.”

From her appearance, Jessica wasn’t comforted, but
she gamely extended a hand. “I can’t thank you enough for coming all the way to Spain to help.”

Lang shook. “I couldn’t do enough for your dad. He saved my life. I’ll be back if you need me.” Lang left with the dissatisfaction of a job not completed.

Southwest France
Montsegur
September 1940

Only ropes and pitons hammered into crevices had allowed the men to climb the mountain’s north face. Even so, it had taken over seven hours. All five were close to exhaustion. Had they been mere sport climbers, they would have savored the water in their canteens, smoked a cigarette, and admired the view their efforts had given them.

But they were not amateurs.

A close look would have revealed that, under his Alpine hat, each man’s hair was cut so close that the scalp was visible. They all wore identical short-sleeved shirts and lederhosen, which revealed tightly bunched arm and leg muscles.

Although they were dressed the same, one was clearly the leader. A tall, blond man with a scar bisecting his right
cheek, he spoke in the accent of his native Austria rather than the harsher German of his companions. While four of the climbers stretched out on the rocky surface, he scanned the countryside a thousand feet below with a pair of binoculars.

He smiled when he saw a cloud of dust moving down the road at the foot of the mountain. The trucks were right on time.

The men groused good-naturedly when he coaxed, rather than ordered, them back onto weary feet. Each man shook off the small pack in which climbing equipment had been stored. It would have no further use, and each man needed to get rid of unnecessary weight. Out of the packs came long lengths of rope, the finest hemp available. Each man stepped into an open harness that fed the rope under one thigh, across the body, and over the opposite shoulder. From each pack came a light grappling hook to which the other end of the rope was secured.

As one, each man jumped into empty space and began to rappel down the sheer southern face of white rock.

About halfway down, the straight drop ended in what to the casual observer appeared to be a mound of rubble and scree. Closer inspection would have shown that the rocks were carved into squares and rectangles, many of which were still in their original position of what had been, centuries ago, the wall of a castle encircling the mouth of a huge cave.

As each man’s feet touched the ground, he unclipped his harness and stood, awaiting orders. They came quickly, for there was a sense of urgency. Although they no more believed the fiction of Vichy France’s independence from the German conquerors than did the rest of the world, there would be complaints if French historians and archaeologists knew what they were doing.

The men fanned out, searching every square foot of ground before entering the cave. Their leader was the last to leave the sunlight, standing on the edge of the cliff and admiring the location. Perfect for defense, as evidenced by the fact that the place had withstood siege after siege by medieval France’s finest armies. The occupants had surrendered only to hunger and left the protection of these walls. The castle itself had never been taken. Its location was largely forgotten, both because memory of its few surviving defenders had dimmed with the centuries and because it was inaccessible since the ancient staircase carved into the rock had disappeared with the exfoliation, the peeling off of layers of rock, caused by changing seasons over the centuries.

Before he had taken a half-dozen steps, excited shouts quickened his pace into the cave. Inside, the inky dark was split by four flashlights concentrated on what might once have been a wooden chest, long since collapsed into a collection of splinters and rusted iron fittings. Also on the cave’s floor was a clay vessel of some sort, a cylinder sealed at both ends. Pressed into the clay were a number of letters or symbols that none of the men recognized.

Another shout registered another find. Before long, a stack of earthenware jugs and plates was growing at the cave’s mouth. A length of iron was so corroded with rust that it crumbled in one man’s hand. Possibly the blade of a sword or the haft of a spear. The leader warned the others to be more careful.

It was by accident that the writing was found, the most significant discovery of the day. One of the men stumbled over a rock, his light flying from his hand as he tried to break his fall. The flashlight fell at an angle, illuminating previously undetected marks carved into the cave wall. The commander, standing in front of the in
scription to give it scale, had several photographs taken with flash equipment.

An hour later, crates were being lowered by rope to four trucks waiting below. When the last was loaded, all but the leader rappelled down to the trucks, eager to stretch out among the big boxes and thankful they had nothing more to do today but ride. The leader remained behind for a minute or two, surveying the remains of the walls and the cave’s opening, a gaping mouth in the shadows of the setting sun.