The Coptic Secret

I.

Ceske Budejovice

Czech Republic

Two Days Later

Judging by the appearance of the customs official at the door to his compartment, Lang guessed the train had crossed the Czech border. He found it as difficult to sleep on trains as on planes. Through eyes that wanted to close, he had been watching the flat countryside slide by, the Eastern European plain north of the Alps and Caucasus which pointed like a double-headed arrow toward the civilizations of northern Europe in one direction and the wealth of Byzantium in the other. Goth, Visgoth and Vandal hordes had marched in one direction; Mongols astride their diminutive ponies and the armies of Ottoman sultans in the other. Invaders from the Caesars to Hitler had come this way, leaving only flat farmlands and meandering streams as their monuments.

Although Lang spoke sparse Czech, there was little doubt what the man in uniform wanted. Lang proffered both passport and ticket and returned to his thoughts. He ran a hand across his face, trying to make his weary mind set things chronologically straight.

The morning after that no-tell motel, he had turned in the SUV, renting another from a different company. Covering tracks was part of agency tradecraft that he would never forget. In his new ride, he'd had Gurt drop him off at

the office while she and Manfred set off for one of the malls, a place where she, like most women, could entertain herself indefinitely.

Miles was as good as his word; the overnight air envelope had been waiting for him as Lang limped into the office. He shut the door before pulling the tab that opened the package. Inside were what looked like bank transfer records. From The Bank of Guernsey account of International Charities, Ltd., one of Eon's foundations, to a numbered account in the Ceska Narodni Banka of Prague account of Starozitnictvi Straov of one and a half million pounds. A relatively small amount when Echelon was usually tracking the hundreds of millions that rah through the accounts of fronts for terrorists and narco-traffickers.

Along with the transfer was a note in Miles's oh-so-fine prep school handwriting:

Lang knew that foundations and corporations had a regular banking routine just as individuals did. People paid their utility bills, for example, on a fairly regular basis along with credit cards, mortgages and the like. In a manner of speaking, so did corporations. Even charitable foundations, such as Eon's, were consistent in the amount of money spent on its good works. A computer, not having a human brain, was unable to understand anything that did not fit its programmed norm and kicked out the fact or data at variance with what it had been told, as more than one major American corporation had learned to its sorrow. For reasons Lang would never even want to understand, the gizmo had flagged this particular expenditure.

Perhaps it was related to the Nag Hammaddi volumes, perhaps not. It was, though, the closest thing Lang had to a clue as to who killed his friend and wanted Lang himself dead.

When he had proposed the trip to Prague, Gurt had wanted to come along. They had argued. Just as correct as painful, she reminded him of at least twice she had saved his life. Her agency training was not only the same as his but years more current. Besides, she spoke several European languages including a couple of Slavic dialects.

"Just what," Lang had asked, "do you suggest doing with Manfred?"

Rather than leave his son without either parent, Lang would let the killers come to him, a risky option at best.

When Lang had thought he had won past arguments with Gurt, he had subsequently learned to his chagrin the debate simply wasn't over yet.

This time her jaw snapped shut and she said nothing.

"We can't very well take him with us," Lang said. "And it's hardly fair to him to risk losing both parents."

"But, we have no place-"

"No problem," Lang said in the same soothing tone he used when urging a jury to discount testimony damaging to his clients. "We can either find a place here in Atlanta or you go back to Germany until this whole thing is over."

For once, he was reasonably certain the argument was done.

In addition to the normal poor service and indifference of the airlines, there were two other problems: First, getting the Browning and its ammunition aboard, either on his person or in his baggage, would be difficult. Second, the explosion and fire at his condo had consumed the false passport and credit card he had used so many times. The real one was in a lockbox at the bank. The reason for the distinction was now unclear. Putting his name on a passenger manifest would be tantamount to sending an engraved announcement of both his departure and his destination to anyone modestly sophisticated in hacking into poorly guarded airline computers.

There was really little choice: He had to take the Gulfstream IV registered to the Jeff and Janet Holt Foundation, the eleemosynary institution Lang had founded with funds he had extracted as compensation from the murderers of his sister and her stepchild. He was its president, implementing its declared purpose of providing pediatric medical services to underdeveloped nations. He took no salary but he did have use of the most luxurious private jet on the market.

And that jet had just happened to be flying a team of physicians to Nigeria the next day. One of them would be picked up in Munich. From there, Lang could take the train to Vienna and thence to Prague. It took far longer but rail transport required no security checks, no identification when buying a ticket. As long as only cash was used, it was untraceable.

There had been only one thing remaining before departure. As always before leaving Atlanta for an indefinite period on an uncertain mission, Lang went to the cemetery. The cab stopped at the foot of a gentle slope with a view of the city skyline. The driver left the engine and meter running as Lang pulled himself up the slight grade, floral paper in one hand, cane in the other. Dawn, Janet and Jeff, the closest people to family he had known in his adult life until now. He was never quite certain why he came here at these times; this time he was more unsure than ever. Somehow, visiting the former family seemed a betrayal of the family he now had. Was it a sense of wrongdoing that had prevented him from telling Gurt where he was going? Had he feared he would offend her? Was the thought he was doing wrong why he had refused to let Manfred come along? Dawn, ever mindful of his well-being, would be happy to know he now had the child she could not give him. Janet had nagged him regularly to seek another mate. Gurt was not one to look over her shoulder. So why the guilt trip?

Kneeling, he unwrapped the green tissue from two dozen roses and placed them in vases attached to the headstones.

Then he had stood, staring at the polished granite for a few moments before going back down the hill.

The train finally eased into the concrete cube that was the Prague railway station. The featureless, massive structure was reminiscent of the country's past as a Communist satellite, its capital city strewn with architecture Lang thought of as Stalinist empirical. Outside the dimly lit interior, he found a relatively undamaged Skoda, a Czech Audi knockoff. Guessing the sign on the roof meant "taxi," he opened the trunk and slid his single bag in next to what looked like the remains of a jack assembly and a spare tire that would have had a hard time even remembering treads.

In front, the driver put down a newspaper and took the last drag from a cigarette that smelled very much like silage. It also smelled very much like the cardboard tubes smoked by the Soviet Bloc defectors Lang had questioned. Cheap, odoriferous tobacco had apparently not vanished along with the Soviet Empire. The evil men do does, in fact, live after them.

"Hotel Continental," Lang said, wondering if the man understood.

They passed tired-looking warehouses with rusty steel doors before emerging onto a four-lane boulevard that followed the gentle sweep of the Vltava River. Ahead, Lang could see Prague Castle brooding on the landscape's only high point. The ebulliently Gothic spires of St. Vitus's Cathedral rose above the ramparts like a crown.

He grinned at a memory: The Defenestration.

In May of 1618, more than one hundred Protestant

nobles had marched into the palace to protest the succession of the notoriously intolerant Catholic Habsburg, Archduke Ferdinand. In the ensuing argument, Ferdinand's two governors were flung bodily out of a window, landing unharmed five stories below.

Intervention by angels, Catholics proclaimed. More likely by the inhabitants of the castle's stables, Protestants retorted. The defenstratees had landed in a huge pile of the morning's soft, still-steaming mucking. Thus began the Thirty Years' War, the only conflict Lang knew that, quite literally, began with horseshit.

Crossing a bridge, the cab came to a stop in front of a glass-and-steel building, just as ugly as the train station.

Lang handed the driver a number of kroner, unloaded his own bag and hobbled into a lobby paneled in light wood. To his left was a shop selling contemporary glassware. On his left, a cigar shop sold Cuban tobacco.

Lang joined a line of camera-toting Japanese at the reception desk. He turned sideways and watched the car in which he had arrived pick up another fare and pull away from the curb. He waited another few minutes before doing an about- face and exiting the way he had come. Trolling his bag behind him with one hand, leaning on his walking stick with the other, he headed south along Parzska. The hum of traffic faded behind him as Baroque buildings with shops on the first floor lined the street. To his right, the sharp angle of the roof of the Old-New Synagogue rose, marking the ghetto, a place that had seen centuries of pogroms long before the twentieth century and Adolf Hitler.

Within another block, he was facing the Old Town Square, a space enclosed by three- and four-story buildings with Baroque facades in fanciful, pastel colors. Lang crossed north to south. To his right was the Old Town Hall with its "new" tower, added in the mid-fourteenth century. A small crowd had already gathered, awaiting the performance of the mechanical figures of the astronomical clock.

Lang paused, a tourist taking in the sights, before selecting one of the crowded sidewalk cafes. He slid into a seat still warm from its former occupant and ordered a Plzensky, one of the slowly matured pilsner beers for which the Czechs are famous. In fact, Lang recalled, pilsner was first brewed only fifty miles away.

Taking his time, he surveyed his surroundings. The place probably looked pretty much the same when Franz Kafka wrote stories of people turning into cockroaches and trials where no accusations were made.

No one paid any particular attention to him. Slowly savoring his beer, he scanned a menu in English before ordering a salami chlebicky, an open-faced sandwich served on a baguette. He ate watching the crowd. Still no one seemed interested in him. By the time he had finished and dusted away the last of the crumbs, every table had turned at least once.

He had done what he could to make sure no one had followed him.

Still cautious, he left the square to walk around the block. He paused, seeming to admire toys in a shop window while he checked reflections of passersby. None of the faces were those he had seen earlier today. He returned to the square and entered the huge arched doorway of a blue- tinted building on the south side.

He stood in a cavernous, vaulted space he guessed had once been a stable. A sign at the back advertised a restaurant in the basement below with red, hot and blues! live american jazz and blues nightly. A stone staircase on his right led to the hotel whose small sign he had noted while he enjoyed his meal. He pushed the buzzer for an antique cage-style elevator. His mending legs could use a respite.

The place had clearly been a private home at one time. On each floor, rooms were angled from a center vestibule so that there had been no need for corridors. Yes, they had a vacancy, the English-speaking lady at the small office announced. It fronted right on the square. Would Lang like to see it?

Minutes later, Lang was in a modestly furnished, high- ceilinged room, poring over the free city map common to most European cities. All its advertisers' locations were prominently marked. Starozitnictvi Starov was not among them. Returning to the office, Lang had the proprietress run the name through her computer's city directory.

She looked up from the screen and pointed. "It is a dealer in old books. It is to be found in the Mala Strana, Little Quarter." She pointed as though Lang could see through the walls of the cramped space. "The area just on the other side of the Charles Bridge."

II.

Piazza dei Cavatieri di Malta

Aventine Hill

Rome

At the Same Time

The older man was looking over the shoulder of the younger, squinting at the computer screen. "You have found nothing, Antonio?"

Antonio shook his head. "Nothing, Grand Master. The American lawyer, the woman, the child-even the dog- disappeared after leaving the pawnshop" He turned to look into the face of the other man. "But I can speculate, should you permit."

"Please."

"We know this man, Reilly, has access to a private jet." He paused long enough to click several keys. A photograph of Lang at the British Museum filled the screen. "We also know that jet left for Africa the day before yesterday"

"Africa? I don't-"

Antonio held up a cautionary hand. "If I may, Grand Master?"

The older nodded. "Forgive my interruption"

"The plane made a single stop en route: Munich "

"And you think this Reilly was on it."

It was Antonio's turn to nod. "I cannot know, of course, but our brothers in Germany are to obtain copies of whatever documents the aircraft submitted to the authorities. We should know before tomorrow"

"That may well be too late. Discovery of the contents of those books would mean disaster."

Antonio was silent for a moment. "We do not know there are copies."

"It is a chance we cannot risk. It is better we eliminate this American than to find we have made a mistake. Safer yet, we must silence all but us who might know of the contents of the book. That is why the Englishman died. We must continue to observe the shop from whence they came. If he has found out anything, he will come there."

"It will be done, Grand Master."

III.

Prague

Twenty Minutes Later

The late afternoon sun had sunk enough to put the narrow streets into total shade, making it difficult for Lang to read the tiny print on the map. He was pleased to find he was not lost when he looked up and saw the Old Town Bridge Tower, a medieval defense that guarded the eastern end of the Charles Bridge. He was tempted to take a minute or two to admire the Gothic sculptural decorations of its facade, including the carved kingfisher, personal symbol of

the fourteenth-century King Wenceslas of Christmas carol fame.

Then he thought of Manfred, weeping in terror as bullets tore through the walls of the country cabin.

He had no time for historical exploration.

Crowds of tourists wandered back and forth or took pictures of the procession of marble saints that lined the wall along each side of the bridge. Similar to its builder's inspiration, Rome's Ponte Sant'Angelo, the bridge also seemed to be a favorite spot to photograph opposite skylines.

Lang had no time for a Bernini wannabe, either.

Almost a mile later, Lang was leaning on his cane as he stepped off the bridge and began to study the map again. The shop he was looking for should be two blocks down the Nerudova and then right on the street he was seeking, Josefska.

Unlike the Old Town, here the roads were wide enough for automotive travel if barely so because of the lines of parked cars. The pavement began a steep incline toward the castle, now invisible behind nearby rooftops. He made a right turn and stopped suddenly. Directly across from the shop two men lounged against a black Opel Astra. One was smoking a cigarette, the other reading a newspaper. The short street consisted of one or two shops and several restaurants, all closed until the dinner hour. Possibly, the men were waiting for someone, but just like the men outside the pawnshop had attracted Gurt's attention, they set off a well-tuned alarm system in Lang's head. Any anomaly, a dirty, dented car in an upscale neighborhood, a panhandler with shiny shoes, anything that didn't seem to belong where it was, brought agency training to mind like a reflex.

Realizing standing still would make him as just as obvious, Lang developed an interest in the menu posted in a restaurant window before crossing the street and resuming a leisurely stroll. If these guys were, in fact, watching Starozitnicvi Straov, he would certainly attract their attention by entering. As he passed, he noticed a neat sign in Czech, German and English. If Lang was seeing correctly through glass that appeared not to have been washed in this millennium, the latter two announced entry was by appointment.

Lang was about to turn a random corner when he caught his reflection in the side mirror of a parked Renault Megane. He saw himself clearly but also one of the men from in front of the shop, walking casually but at a clip that would shortly close the distance between them.

Lang glanced around. There was no one other than he and the two men on this stretch of street. The weight of the Browning in its small-of-the-back holster was reassuring, but gunfire in this quiet section of town would likely draw the police in a hurry. Involvement with the local cops had no upside. He would be far better off handling this quietly.

The man behind was getting closer. Lang could see sunlight reflecting from the shaved scalp and the single earring so many Czechs seemed to favor. He was big, too. Somewhere north of two hundred, Lang guessed, most of it muscle, judging by the biceps that strained against the restraints of the tight black T-shirt.

Lang increased his speed slightly, swaying like a ship under sail as he used his cane to hobble around another corner. He stopped, turned and spread his legs into a batter's stance.

He didn't have to wait long. Baldy rounded the turn, his eyes searching for Lang in the near distance. It took a millisecond for him to adjust his sight.

Not a lot of time but enough.

Lang lunged forward like a clock spring suddenly released, putting all his weight behind a major-league, go-for-the-fence swing with the walking stick. It landed where it had been aimed, at the bottom of the man's nose, bending the nasal cartilage back against and into the point it became bone. Tissue snapped with an audible pop.

The blow was neither fatal nor particularly damaging but it was one of the most disablingly agonizing Lang knew. Its recipient would be blinded by tears of pain for several seconds at the least.

Baldy's hands flew to his face as he yelped and collapsed to his knees, bringing his head into range of another home-run cut to the side of the jaw.

Baldy fell sideways, lying on the sidewalk as he emitted blood and moans in equal parts.

Looking up to make sure his victim's companion had not heard anything, Lang knelt and awkwardly rummaged through the man's clothes. His fingers closed around a switchblade, which Lang shoved into his own pocket. He had expected no identification and he found none. He was about to give up when his fingers touched paper. He pulled it out and stared.

He was looking at himself in formal garb.

The British Museum.

But how…?

He had scant time to think.

Baldy's friend rounded the corner, grunting in surprise as he saw his pal stretched out on the pavement. If anything, he was bigger than Baldy, big enough to make Lang wonder if steroids were the Czech breakfast of champions.

One thing was certain: they liked knives. Or at least, this pair did.

Another switchblade snicked open, the last of the afternoon sun dancing on a six-inch blade. Lang used his cane to push himself to his feet as the man advanced, knife extended.

He mistook Lang's steps backward for an attempted retreat. Lang didn't understand the words but the tone was clear enough: "Come here, little fish. All I want to do is gut you."

Lang was about to get his twenty-five dollars' worth along with a handsome dividend. Holding the cane in his left hand as he backpedaled as best he could on gimpy legs, he used the right to tug at the cane's knob.

His eyes never left his assailant's; they didn't have to. Instead, he watched his opponent's widened stare as Lang withdrew a good three-and-a-half-foot blade from his gentlemen's walking stick. He had recognized it as a sword cane the second he had touched the brass knob in Monk's shop.

The blade hummed evilly as Lang slashed at the air. "Not exactly what you'd expect from a cripple?"

Evidently so.

It was a lot more steel than the man facing him wanted any part of. He took a couple of steps backward before turning and fleeing.

Bastard probably parked in handicapped spaces, too.

Lang had started to trudge back to the hotel when his BlackBerry buzzed. His office number showed on the screen.

"Sara?"

"It's me, Lang."

"What's up?"

"It's Home Depot. I called like you asked me to and asked that they come get the stove, deliver the wall oven."

Jesus! She could have text messaged him; that was the point of having a BlackBerry. But then, that was Sara, resistant to new technology as a flu vaccine to the virus. When typewriters had become the next buggy whips, it had required a series of threats, promises and finally a raise to convince her to learn basic computer skills rather than retire. E-mail was suspect, subject to electronic whim just as computer files were not to be trusted nor CD's worthy of confidence; they would not cannibalize their information unlike their paper counterparts.

She picked up on the pause. Or perhaps his sigh. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No, no. I was just, er, meeting with some people. Home Depot was delivering a wall oven and…?" "The man from your condo management company called, complaining about the hall outside your unit being blocked"

"See if you can get the guy who was supposed to install the oven to move it inside."

"Not that simple. They left the stove and delivered a hood to go with it. I called the store. They said that was what you ordered."

Lang sighed. "Who did you speak to, Laurel or Hardy?"

IV.

Thirty Minutes Later

When Lang got back to his hotel, he felt as though Baldy and Co. had succeeded. The still-mending parts, which was most of his body, ached, stung or just plain hurt. He resisted the impulse to stretch out on the bed to relax sore muscles and joints. Instead, he went back to the hotel's small office.

"A favor?" he asked.

The woman nodded. "Surely. Perhaps choose a place for dinner? Call for a driver for a tour of the city tomorrow?" She grinned suggestively. "Maybe arrange for company this evening?"

"Thanks, but no." Lang pointed to what looked like a phone book. "I have a hobby, collecting old books and manuscripts. A friend referred me to a shop here in Prague…"

Certain he would never get the pronunciation anywhere near understandable, he wrote out the name. "The sign on the window said 'by appointment.' Could you…?"

She squinted, reaching for an old-fashioned rotary phone.

She spoke what Lang guessed was Czech. He only understood his name and the word "American," a frequent European synonym for "sucker" She handed the phone to him.

"Hello?" he asked tentatively.

"Mr. Reilly?"

He could not tell if the voice, slightly accented, belonged to a man or woman.

"Which of my customers was kind enough to give you my name?"

Lang made the instant decision to go with the truth. Or as much of it as seemed expedient. "Eon Weatherston-Wilby."

"A great pity. You have heard?"

Lang nodded as though the person on the other end could see. "Yes. He gave me the name of your shop shortly before he, er, died. I would very much like to see what you have that might be of interest to me."

"Is there something in particular, some certain type or time period?"

"Something similar to what you sold Sir Eon "

There was a definite pause. "I think it better if we met someplace other than my business."

"I'm a stranger in Prague. Make a suggestion."

"Do you like the food of New Orleans?"

Strange question. "Sure, but…?"

"The basement of your hotel in, say, an hour? If we are to talk, we must finish our business before twenty-one hundred hours. Thereafter, the music makes it difficult to hear."

The line went dead.

How was whoever he had just spoken to going to recognize him wherever they met? He didn't even have the name of the person he was meeting.

Then Lang recalled the sign in the huge vaulted room below the hotel: red, hot and blues! live american jazz and blues nightly.

Apparently complete with New Orleans cuisine.

New Orleans jazz, too, Lang hoped. He loved Dixieland, the music that had originated in the Crescent City, the Big Easy, that rich gumbo of spirituals, African rhythm and improvisation.

But then, the music wasn't what he had come here for.

An hour later it hadn't begun.

Lang descended a wrought-iron circular staircase to what looked like a large cave. White cloth-topped tables were arranged around a stage to his left, the location of whatever music there would be. Only when he reached the bottom of the steps did he realize the entire room had been carved into solid rock. In days long before refrigeration, such cellars had been used to keep vegetables as fresh as possible. But he had never seen one of these dimensions.

At the bottom of the stairs, a white-jacketed waiter approached.

"Mr. Reilly?"

Lang nodded.

"This way, please."

Lang was less than surprised to be shepherded to the only occupied table. An elderly man lifted watery blue eyes and smiled as he extended a hand.

"Forgive me for not rising, Mr. Reilly, but…"

Only then did Lang notice the wheelchair, an old model with a wicker back and a wooden frame that had seen recent polishing.

Lang took the hand, its skin feeling like parchment.

The old man's smile widened, exposing dingy teeth. "You like my antique?" He patted an armrest. "It is old, like me. Handmade when people took pride in the things they produced. I like to think of it as my Chippendale or Bugatti." He motioned for Lang to be seated. "I have the advantage of you, I fear. I know your name but you do not have mine."

His hand slipped from Lang's. "The English pronunciation would be Havel Klaus."

The accent was decidedly British-tinged.

"Your English is quite good"

Klaus leaned back in his seat. "As it should be. I spent most of the war in England, at least that part before Heydrich's assassination. After those brave men died in the crypt of St. Cyril and Methoious, I felt I had to do more. I parachuted in to join the partisans."

It took Lang a moment to draw up the memory. Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's fair-haired boy, had been the Nazi "Protector of Bohemia." In spite of his brutality, he fancied himself much loved by the people of occupied Czechoslovakia, so certain he drove himself to work daily in his open car. In May of 1942, the result had been an English-made bomb tossed into the passenger seat by Czechs recently dropped near Prague by the English. As intended, the event had been a morale raiser for all of German-occupied eastern Europe.

Cornered in an Orthodox church, the killers had elected to shoot themselves rather than face certain torture. The reprisal was the leveling of one of Prague's suburbs and the execution of every man, woman and child in it.

Klaus signaled the waiter. "But you did not come to Prague to hear the stories of an old man. I recommend the étouffée. Those who have traveled to your New Orleans tell me it is quite good here."

And they were right.

By the time Klaus put down his fork, the room was beginning to fill. Lang had expected the place's patrons to be a young crowd. Instead, most customers looked middle- aged or older.

Klaus was draining the last of his beer. "It would be best if we talked before the band arrives. Exactly what is it in which you have an interest?"

"Do you have anything like the book you sold Sir Eon?"

Klaus chuckled, the sound far deeper than his spare frame should have been able to accommodate. "No, and I doubt there are any more outside of museums."

Lang leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "What can you tell me about the one you sold?"

"Tell?" The old man's eyebrows made snowy arches. "Definitely part of the Nag Hammaddi Library, the Koine Greek, the Coptic Greek that was-"

Lang hated to interrupt, but he wanted to conclude this business before the tables around them were full and the music made shouting necessary to be heard. "I know. I mean, what was the subject matter and where did you get it?"

"Surely you understand my sources are secrets of my trade."

"But Coptic? All the way from Egypt to the Czech Republic?"

"I never said I got it in Prague. I will say that we have to look back in history. By the fourth century, the time these books were written, the western Roman Empire was shattering. The capital was moved to Ravenna, near Italy's east coast, more easily defendable than the ancient city. Thereafter, conquering Franks were calling themselves Caesar though they were not Roman, or even Italian. In the east, Byzantium was flourishing, the city of Constantine. Do you have any idea how long the Byzantine Empire lasted, Mr. Reilly?"

Truthfully, Lang had never given the matter a lot of thought although he considered himself a student of history.

"From, say, the rule of Constantine in mid-fourth century until the Ottoman Turks finally took the city in 1453. It was because of that city's fall that western Europe needed another route to the Orient. Columbus was seeking one when he found the Western Hemisphere."

Lang looked anxiously at the room's growing crowd. The decibel level was climbing noticeably.

Klaus sensed Lang's impatience. "To make it brief, Mr. Reilly, Byzantium, the city we knew once as Constantinople, now Istanbul, was at the center of an empire for a very long time. As the western part of the Roman Empire declined, the east flourished, much more Greek in culture than Roman. Since the pre-Roman rulers of Egypt had been Greek since Alexander's conquest, there was a cultural if not political tie between that country and the Byzantine Empire, an empire that was much of today's Eastern Europe including what is now the Czech Republic. When various parts of the books went on the antiquities black market back at the time of their discovery, it would seem natural to peddle them to some wealthy collector in what, at one time, had been essentially a Greek empire, particularly if that place was not a party to any international treaties regarding the buying and selling of another country's antiquities." He shrugged. "That's only a theory but it is as good a guess as you will hear as to how Sir Eon's book came into my hands."

He continued. "The Nag Hammaddi texts were written by Coptic, Egyptian, Greek Christians, probably a sect we know today as the Gnostics. In AD 367, the pope Athanasius circulated a pastoral letter declaring Gospels not chosen by the Nicene Council of 325 to be heretical. As you know, only four were chosen. The rest were ordered destroyed. Apparently, the Gnostics, or some of them, decided to bury, rather than burn, their copies."

Having explained it to Jacob the night at the British Museum, little of all this was news to Lang. Still, the subject was no less interesting. He forgot the increasing noise level. "Which was the gospel you sold?"

"The Gospel of James."

"James?"

"James, called The Just. He was the first bishop of Jerusalem and the brother of Jesus."

Two questions immediately came to mind. "Brother? I didn't know Jesus had a brother."

Klaus's face wrinkled in a smile. "Then you haven't read your Bible. He had a number of siblings. Mark refers to them in chapter six, verse six."

"I never knew that, either. But then, I grew up Episcopalian."

"You were not supposed to know. The existence of siblings presents a problem for the church. First, the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. Multiple children contradict that idea. Second, having brothers and sisters of the Son of God running about is a bit inconvenient."

Lang forgot the background noise and leaned closer. "How do they explain away what the Bible says?"

"The church, particularly the early church, was a master of… what do you Americans call it? Spin. Yes, they were spin masters. I think the standard argument goes something like this: Joseph, Mary's husband, is not mentioned in any gospel by the time Jesus reaches maturity, most likely died. He was, therefore, considerably older than Mary, a man who outlived his first wife who was the actual mother of all of Jesus's half siblings."

"Pretty lame. My next question is, what did the Gospel of James say?"

A shrug. "I do not know. As I said, it was written by Coptic Greeks and I do not read Greek nor understand Egyptian."

"Then how did you…?"

Klaus held his empty glass up to a passing waiter. "How did I know what I sold Weatherston-Wilby was genuine? I assure you, he had it vetted thoroughly before the transaction was complete. The provenance was impeccable if…" He searched for a word. "Not entirely normal."

Lang was silent for a moment, pressing circles into the tablecloth with the bottom of his glass. "I sure would have liked to know what it said."

The old man smiled again, this time creating enough wrinkles to make him resemble one of those Chinese dogs, a shar-pei. "Then I am a fortunate man. I thought the copy I made would have no value other than the satisfaction of having it translated so I, too, would know its contents."

Lang simply stared at him, remembering Gurt's admonition about closing his mouth.

Klaus laughed, a sound like footsteps crunching in dry leaves. "You are surprised, yes?"

"Astounded would be more like it."

"And how much is your astonishment worth?" He saw the expression on Lang's face. "I am, after all, in the business of selling old books and manuscripts."

"Certainly not as much Sir Eon paid. And I'd like to come to your shop, see how legible your copy is."

The old man shook his head slowly. "Only those patrons I know well visit my shop." He waved a blue-veined hand in the air. "Much of my merchandise is… well, of difficult pedigree."

"Provenance, you mean?"

Klaus nodded.

Swell.

Lang was doing business with a dealer in stolen rare books.

"But I am a reasonable man. Selling the copy is like, like…"

"Finding money on the street."

"Yes, money on the street, say finding five thousand US dollars."

Lang folded his arms. "I'm not that curious."

Klaus nodded again, acknowledging the haggling had begun. "And just how curious are you?"

"About a thousand dollars."

"I have enjoyed the supper, Mr. Reilly." He pushed back from the table and swung the wheelchair around toward the elevator, stopping only to offer over a shoulder, "Many museums will want a reasonably priced copy."

The copy had gone from being self-educational only to a desirable museum exhibit. The prospect of money had been known to work even bigger transformations.

As Lang had suspected, the old man had intended to

make additional dollars with a copying machine all along.

Lang motioned for the check, studiously ignoring the wheelchair rolling across the dining area. He was almost ready to get up and go after Klaus when the old man folded first.

He spun around and rolled back to the table. "We Czechs have a saying: Stubbornness deprives all of a fair bargain."

Lang grinned. "We Americans also have a saying: A fool and his money are soon parted."

"Thirty-five hundred."

"Fifteen hundred."

At two thousand dollars, the two shook hands.

"Give me the money and I will see that your copy is delivered to you."

What had he just said about a fool and money?

Lang shook his head. "Tell me where to meet you so I can look it over and the cash is yours. As soon as I can get it out of an ATM."

Klaus looked puzzled, then brightened. "ATM? Here we have Bankomat. Bring it to my shop in the morning. With two thousand dollars, you will have become one of my customers I know well."

Lang went to his room with the vision of Klaus hunched over a Xerox machine all night.

As the waiter deftly snatched the cloth from the table Lang and Klaus had vacated, he stopped and removed an object not much larger than a penny from the bottom of the table. He walked to the men's room and opened the door to the sole stall. Inside was a man who exchanged a wad of kroner for the thing from under the table.

V.

A Few Minutes Later

Once in his room, Lang used his BlackBerry to call Gurt. Ostensibly, he was calling to make sure she and the little boy were keeping on the move. He really wanted to speak to his son. He had thought he had experienced Loneliness before but never had he suffered an absence as he did being away from little Manfred. Surely, he told himself, he would finish his business here in Prague in time to be home tomorrow night. His conversation might well be picked up by a tap on Echelon, but whoever wanted him out of the way probably already knew he was in the Czech Republic.

"Lang?" Gurt could have been in the next room, not an ocean and half a continent away.

"We are weary of this all the time moving. I have decided to visit Manfred's Grossvater"

Grandfather, Gerhardt Fuchs, a former East German official and the subject of Lang's only venture into Soviet territory while with the agency. Few people knew Fuchs was now living in the resort town of Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. Gurt, also aware of Echelon and the possibility of its being compromised, didn't mention the location.

"Do you need to? I was just getting acquainted with my son."

Lang regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them. If anyone was qualified to gauge how safe remaining in Atlanta was, Gurt was that person.

"Our son," Gurt corrected. "It is more without danger if we leave."

How do you argue with that?

"Let me speak to him."

Manfred gave a thorough description of his exploits with Grumps and his latest visit to the local International House of Pancakes, a place the child equated with heaven itself Lang had to admire his mother's courage in taking an active three-year-old to a place where containers of sticky, multicolored syrup were not only within reach but easily opened as well. As the child stopped for breath in his excited narrative, Lang was convinced his son was intelligent and mature beyond his years, an observation which uniformly drew his skepticism when voiced by other parents. The inconsistency never occurred to him.

Gurt took the phone back from a reluctant Manfred. "We were having lunch with Uncle Fancy when you called."

Uncle Fancy. The conjunction of the hard and soft consonants of the priest's name defeated the three-year-old tongue, hence the sobriquet, one Francis bore with good humor.

"Put him on."

"On what?"

Gurt's Teutonically literal mind and her difficulty with the American idiom was both one of her most endearing and annoying qualities.

"Let me speak to him."

"How's my favorite heretic?" Francis's bass boomed through the ether.

"Fine," Lang replied. "I hope to be home soon. I need your advice."

"Tell me you've seen the light, Paul on the road to Damascus. Veritas praevalebit"

"More like Demosthenes holding the light in search of a single honest man. Don't fire up the incense yet. The truth I'm looking for is more church history than religious… I think."

"You know I'm available anytime – particularly if single malt scotch is involved." He became serious. "I've learned not to ask, but Gurt really believes she and the child are in some sort of danger."

It was an invitation to explain. Doing so might well expose the priest to the same people who had employed Baldy and Co.

Lang said nothing.

Francis began again. "You might be interested to know I've been summoned to Rome for a convocation of African and African American priests. Church business, but I thought you and Gurt, Manfred, too, for that matter, might want to come along. As well as you know the city…"

"Thanks but no, not at the moment. Gurt's leaving to visit with her father for a few days."

"Perfect! That leaves you free to come along. I think she might trust me with your behavior."

Lang didn't want to hurt his friend's feelings, but he couldn't very well explain why he didn't have time for optional travel. "I'm pretty busy right now, Francis. We can talk about it when I get back, probably tomorrow."

Francis didn't do so well hiding disappointment. "It's not for another week. Perhaps then."

Lang had gotten what he sought: affirmation the priest was going to be available to answer questions about James the Just, reputed brother of Jesus. "Let's hope. Now, let me speak to Gurt again."

The additional conversation did little but make him aware of the hole in his life that was the absence from Manfred and Gurt. He could not remember ever being so impatient to get home. He fell asleep almost immediately after terminating the call, but not before mentally marking the toy store he had passed. There were a number of items in the window that might interest an exceptional three- year-old.

VI.

Josefska

Mala Strana

Prague

0812

The Next Morning

Old Town Square was empty of yesterday's tourists. Anyone following Lang would have been obvious. The sole traffic on the Charles Bridge was a woman with a head scarf on a bicycle, its handlebar basket full of baguettes that still had a freshly baked aroma.

Ignoring leg muscles still in denial from yesterday's excursion, Lang took a circuitous route to the bookseller's shop. The neighborhood was just awakening to the new day. A few merchants were rolling up steel mesh blinds as restauranteurs swept already spotless sidewalks. A woman exited from somewhere down the row of Baroque buildings, pushing a pram. No Baldy. Unwilling to take unnecessary risks, Lang took another lap around the block, this time trying not to be obvious as he scanned windows and doorways.

He finally stopped in front of Klaus's business, taking a final glance left and right. Pushing a button beside the door, Lang was rewarded with the sound of pealing bells from within. A minute passed, then another. Lang tried again with the same lack of result. He took a step back and looked at the upper-story windows. European shopkeepers frequently lived above their stores. Perhaps the old man was still upstairs, unable to hear.

More from frustration than because he expected success, he used the head of his cane to rap on the door. To his surprise, it swung open a couple of inches.

Klaus had not impressed him as a careless man, the sort who might forget to lock up. Holding the cane in his left hand, Lang used it to push the door wide, his right hand on the butt of the Browning in the small of his back.

The only available light was that coming through the shop's filthy display window, a light filtered by an accumulation of dust. He could make out silhouettes: a table, a counter running the length of one wall, but little else. His left hand searched the wall until he found a switch. The single overhead bulb did little more than chase the pervasive shadows into corners where they waited sullenly. Startled, Lang snatched the Browning up only to grin sheepishly at his own reflection in a dozen or so old-fashioned glass bookcases, each crammed with leather-backed tomes. The room had an overlaying musty smell of prolonged disuse. But there was something else, too, an odor that was familiar yet not quite remembered clearly enough to identify.

Lang went to the foot of a staircase and peered into the darkness that inhabited the area above the fifth step. There must be an elevator here somewhere, the means of a wheelchair-bound man to ascend to the floors above.

But he saw none.

Instead, as he looked closer, he could make out the faint impression of a shoe's print in the dust that coated the stairs.

But how…?

Lang went to the doorway of the shop and looked outside. Next to the store, massive oak doors were flanked by a brass plaque with names and individual buttons. That was it, of course. The shop had a street entrance, but also access to the apartments above by an elevator that served all units from a common foyer. Klaus, if he lived above, could enter his apartment by elevator or his shop from the street.

OK, so how did a cripple leave a footprint?

Lang went back to the stairway, wishing he had thought to bring a flashlight. He placed a tentative foot on the first step and, using the cane, brought the other up to the next.

Progress was slow and got even slower when he ran out of what poor light there was and had to feel his way with the hand holding the pistol while using his cane to push upward. Each riser sent an ache from hip to ankle.

More than once, he was tempted to shout upward, to tell the antique-book dealer he was here. After all, Klaus had seemed eager enough for the money. Something else, perhaps his agency training or some sixth sense gained by experience, told him he did not want to announce his presence to everyone in the building any more than he wanted to confine himself in an elevator.

He reached a small landing. Light leaked around three edges of a door. Lang put his head next to it and listened. The only sound was of an occasional automobile passing in the street below.

Lang gently pushed the door open. The smell from downstairs grew stronger.

With the door halfway opened, Lang could see into a short hallway, its stone floor partially covered by an Oriental runner.

In a single motion, he was in the hall. He pulled back the slide, cocking his weapon as he swept right and left.

"Mr. Klaus?" he called in a low conversational tone. "Mr. Klaus, dobry den?"

His answer was a silence that seemed to intensify the longer he waited.

The first door off the hallway was to his left. He nudged it open and looked into a bathroom from the last century. A claw-footed tub with the usual European shower hose filled one wall across from a toilet with an overhead water tank. He eased the door shut and tried the next one up the hall. A tiny kitchen contained a small box of a refrigerator, a two-eyed gas range and a microwave. There was barely room for a short wooden countertop and a doorless cabinet filled with mismatched dishes. Through the kitchen, he was looking into part of the dining/living room. A floor-to-ceiling window allowed cheerless sunlight through gauzy curtains.

If Klaus made the sort of money Eon had paid him, he certainly didn't spend it on luxurious living.

Browning held in an extended hand, Lang stepped across the kitchen's cracked linoleum and into the room. Klaus was seated near a corner. Now Lang recognized the odor he had been unable to identify: blood.

Blood soaked the old antiquarian's shirt, blood filled his lap. Blood was puddled on the worn carpet. Blood that was already turning brown and dried into a crust along the jaw-to-jaw slit in the neck.

Lang swept the room with his weapon. Books, manuscripts, scrolls and stacks of loose paper occupied every horizontal surface. And dust.

Either in an unsuccessful defense or death throes as Klaus suffocated or bled to death, the wheelchair had smashed into a sturdy, tufted sofa, knocking a wheel off the axle. It was wedged between the dead man and the upholstery.

Lang surveyed the room. The copy he had come for could be in plain sight and still invisible. It would take hours if not days to sort through the material in this room alone, not even contemplating the shop downstairs and the remaining room at the end of the hall, a room he guessed had been the old man's bedroom. And Lang was fairly certain he didn't have hours. Sooner or later an unanswered phone, a missed appointment, something would result in a visit to this apartment and a grisly discovery.

Lang stepped to a battered end table and looked down on what appeared to be an atlas in a language he couldn't identify. Under it were two rolls of parchment held together by a rubber band.

He was so intent on making at least a cursory search, he barely heard the creak of a floorboard.

Gun outstretched, he whirled.

Too late.

The heel of a hand from behind him hit his wrist, sending the Browning spinning across the room.

A forearm was around his neck, closing his air passage. Another hand held a knife, a long switchblade. Like Baldy's. Probably like the one that had killed Klaus. His attacker's body was jammed against his, making it impossible to use the sword in the cane.

With one hand, Lang dug and clawed at the forearm that was squeezing off his air. With the other, he held off the knife. It was an unequal contest; his assailant was too strong.

Letting go of the choking arm for an instant, Lang drove his elbow backward, jamming the point into a stomach rigid with muscle. There was a grunt and an exhalation of air, but the grip around Lang's neck grew tighter.

A gray fog was growing at the periphery of Lang's vision, a sure sign of oxygen deprivation. The only real question was whether Lang's throat was going to be cut like Klaus's before his air-starved brain went blank.

Unless he did something and did it quick.

But what?

VII.

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport

Atlanta, Georgia

8:31 pm EST

The Previous Evening

Gurt was watching the man who was watching her.

She was quite accustomed to men staring before hitting on her. But this one was pretending to be engrossed in a newspaper, so engrossed that he had been holding up the same page for the last twenty minutes.

She had first noticed him when she and Manfred had arrived at the gate. Not the gate from which they would actually depart, but one chosen almost randomly as a precautionary measure. Just in case someone like the man with the newspaper showed up. She had little doubt he would hang around the departure area until she boarded the flight to… She flicked her eyes to the electronic board behind the check-in booth. To Paris.

That was, of course, one of any number of places she and her son were not going tonight.

The flight to the City of Light was scheduled to push back from the gate in seventeen more minutes. She had deliberately chosen Atlanta's leading airline, knowing its storied inability to make an on-time international departure. She supposed that, being a company based in the languid South, posted arrival and departure times were informational only; that is, the plane would definitely not depart or arrive before the time given. How long thereafter was slightly less predictable than the stock market, future interest rates or the next professional athlete to be accused of steroid use. Experience had taught her that taking an international flight on this airline to connect with a foreign carrier's schedule was a guarantee of time to be spent in unplanned places.

But she was not connecting and what she had in mind would work only with a dominant if inefficient airline.

Between scratchy announcements of varied reasons the Paris flight would be predictably delayed, she attempted to keep a wide-eyed Manfred entertained. Or at least from becoming a nuisance to passengers already irritated by the airline's endless supply of excuses. Walks up and down the concourse or following the lights of planes until they disappeared into the night sky worked for the moment. Whenever she left the gate area, her watcher moved to a position where he could see. Several times he muttered into a cell phone.

She surmised she was not the person her minder's superiors were really interested in. They wanted Lang. She was merely someone who might be going to meet him and therefore worth keeping under observation in case Lang slipped his tether. Perhaps they didn't actually know where he was, a fact she doubted. For all she knew, whatever organization the news reader was working for had already hacked into the airline's reservation system. If so, no wonder they had a man to see where she was going after periodic and less-than-subtle tails for the last few days, tails she had regularly evaded. She booked the flight under her own name. The agency's paranoia as to possible adverse publicity regarding unnecessary pseudonymous travel required it when not on agency business.

Excuses finally exhausted, first-class boarding for the Paris flight was announced. Holding Manfred's hand in one of hers, Gurt rolled her suitcase on board with the other. As anticipated, the flight attendant barely glanced at the two boarding passes before both Gurt and her son were ensconced in large, comfortable seats with leg room large enough for an normal adult. It only took a few minutes before a man stood in the aisle, looking from Gurt to his boarding pass and back again.

"You sure you're in the right seat?" he asked, his tone indicating the answer he expected.

Gurt took a long look at the slip she held in her hand. "Flight one seventeen, two A and B."

By this time the flight attendant had arrived. "Wrong flight, honey. This one goes to Paris."

Gurt stood, feigning both surprise and embarrassment. "I am so sorry." She bent over to unbuckle Manfred's seat belt before retrieving her bag from the overhead compartment. "I hope I have not caused…"

The displaced passenger's eyes were fixed on the place the top button of her blouse was fastened. "No trouble at all. Hope you make your flight."

Gurt took her time, standing aside as the other passengers trooped aboard like cattle into a pen. When the last one was through the door, she led Manfred up the passageway to the gate area. As she had expected, the man with the newspaper was gone.

She calmly walked down the concourse to the flight she had planned to take all along. She had also planned on the fact its departure would be delayed.

There was something to be said for predictability as a substitute for punctuality.

VIII.

Prague

Lang felt weakness in his knees as he struggled to gasp air through the stranglehold. The knife's blade was inexorably moving toward his throat. He was smaller than his opponent to begin with; his partially healed injuries had tipped the scales even further.

He leaned backward.

The man behind him reflexively took a step forward, the better to balance dead weight.

That was when Lang brought the heel of his shoe smashing into the arch of the other man's foot.

Metatarsal bones crunched like dry twigs.

Simultaneous with a yelp of pain, the grip around Lang's throat relaxed slightly and he went totally limp. The sudden gravitational pull against the loosened grasp dropped Lang to the floor like a sack of concrete.

Fighting the urge to stop long enough to fill his lungs, Lang rolled across the planks and the worn carpet toward where he had last seen the Browning when it was knocked from his hand.

A bellow of rage made him glance backward. Baldy, his ruined nose covered in a dirty bandage, glared through a pig's bloodshot eyes. He was unable to put weight on his crushed foot. He was padding across the floor on his knees, the switchblade extended.

He swiped at Lang, the blade glittering like a streaking comet in the window's light. As Lang jerked back, before Baldy could draw back again, Lang was on his feet, delivering the hardest kick he could muster to the side of his enemy's head.

He may as well have used a pillow. Baldy wagged that shiny, shaved head like a boxer shaking off a hard right cross and came on, muttering something Lang was happy he could not understand. The intent was clear enough.

Lang gave ground, his eyes searching for his missing weapon, until he felt the wall at his back. His hand touched the top of a chair. Baldy made no effort to dodge as Lang raised it above his own head to bring it crashing down on Baldy's.

Unlike the brittle furniture of cinema, the wood did not shatter or even crack. It did, however, lay Baldy out flat for about a two count before he used a table to struggle to his one good foot and came on, dragging his other.

Talk about hardheaded determination.

Lang slid along the wall as Baldy continued, the knife making small circles in the air. Lang stopped. He waited until his assailant was almost within striking range. Then, leaning back on his left leg, he swung his right in an arc, the foot-sweep common to judo, jujitsu and any other number of martial arts. His foot knocked Baldy's out from under him.

The man crashed like a felled oak, the hand not holding the knife swiping at Klaus's wheelchair as though for support. The wheelchair did, in fact, shatter like furniture in the barroom fight scene of a B-movie Western.

The old man's body was dumped unceremoniously on the floor like a discarded doll.

Lang had no time to observe the niceties. His seemingly invincible opponent was struggling to his feet once more. He considered a retreat to the kitchen in hopes of finding a knife of his own, but Baldy was between him and the doorway. From its location, Lang guessed the only other exit led into Klaus's bedroom. Baldy could simply wait in the hallway and dispose of Lang at his leisure.

The he saw it: the Browning's butt half hidden under the folds of a carpet kicked over in the present struggle.

Baldy saw it, too, and he was closer.

But with his injured foot, he was also slower.

Lang was going to bet his life on it.

Reaching behind him, Lang picked a book from the table and threw it as hard as he could at the right side of Baldy's head. There was nothing wrong with the man's reflexes. He ducked to his left; away from the pistol. Lang dove for it, a swimmer's racing dive onto a hardwood floor.

The impact knocked the breath out of him and sent colored spots spinning in front of his eyes as partially healed bones and muscles protested the impact.

Gun in both hands, Lang rolled onto his back just as Baldy leapt at him, knife outstretched.

The Browning jumped in Lang's hands and he forced its muzzle down for a second shot.

He saw the brass shells spin through the air, reflecting the light; he smelled burned gunpowder. But he never recalled hearing the shots, some sort of reaction of the mind to block out some sensations while magnifying others.

He also saw Baldy, sitting splay-legged on the floor. The knife was beside him but the man was intently inspecting two growing red Rorschach blots on his chest that could be seen even against the black of his T-shirt. Shakily, he got to his feet, glaring at Lang with unmistakable hatred. He said something Lang guessed was in Czech, took a half step and did a face-plant on the floor.

Lang circled warily. He fully expected the man to get up and come at him again.

Pressing the gun's muzzle against the shiny scalp, Lang listened for breath for a moment before feeling for the carotid artery. There was no pulse.

Lang felt nausea rising in his throat. He could not ignore the irony: In all the years he had spent with the agency, he trained in the art of killing but never had. Since then, he had been forced to take perhaps a half dozen lives in defense of his own, Justifiable or not, he would never get used to it.

Swallowing pure bile, he hastily looked around the room. The sound of the struggle and the gunshots surely had caused someone to call the police. It was definitely time to leave. He started for the door when two things stopped him in his tracks.

Among the wreckage of Klaus's wheelchair was a purse, the old-fashioned cloth kind that snapped shut, the sort of thing in which a woman might keep in her handbag with her change in it. Lang did not recall seeing it; but, then, he hadn't had a lot of time to look around. Either way, it was empty.

There was another item, one he was sure had not been there before: a sheaf of papers in one of the shattered arms of the wheelchair. The arm was hollow. A quick inspection showed a series of characters Lang recognized as Greek. The old fox had likely had the copy of the Book of James with him last night, concealed all along, no doubt planning to make more.

Lang took one last gaze around before he left the room to the growing sound of sirens. He stepped over Baldy's body. Distasteful or not, Lang was thankful a couple of 9mm slugs finally stopped him.

He was fresh out of sharpened wooden stakes.