The Julian secret

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Rome

Hotel Hassler

The next morning

"Mr. Couch!" the desk clerk called across the lobby.

Lang was so intent on what he had to do that morning' he had almost forgotten the name under which he was registered. He stopped just short of the door leading outside and retraced his steps.

Lang noted the morning coat, gray vest, and striped pants. Staff at Italy's better and aspiring hotels dressed like they were attending a wedding. Except the doormen. They dressed as bit players in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. He exchanged a euro for an envelope. Inside was a note from an unfamiliar number:

Your package has arrived.

Lang nodded as he wadded the paper and tossed it into one of the brass ashtray stands that populated the lobby. Before his departure, he had told Sara to let him know when a parcel arrived from George Hemphill. She was to go to the UPS store in the lobby of the office building across the street and fax Couch here. He had seen the question in her eyes but declined an explanation. To try to convince someone that he was dealing with an unknown but powerful organization, and that organization might well have the capability to intercept phone calls came too close to a myriad of conspiracy theories. There was no good reason to explain that faxes, like any other telephonic communication, were subject to interception, particularly those transmitted by satellite, as almost all transatlantic calls were these days. If his number was being observed by one of the machines that could easily monitor thousands of calls at once, using computer technology to flag certain preprogrammed words, any call from his office could draw unwanted attention.

Using an unrelated phone number utilized the Achilles' heel of the mass intercepts made possible by RAPTOR: The capability to listen and record almost any conversation or fax existed. The technology to separate the electronic wheat from the mass of chaff did not.

Sara had long accepted what she viewed as Lang's harmless idiosyncrasies. Sending a message to someone she had never heard of in Rome was no more abnormal than overnighting a package to general delivery in the same city. In fact, her message denoted that the parcel had already been sent.

One more item on Lang's list.

As he passed the concierge's desk, he stopped, his attention diverted by a stack of the day's newspapers. Under banner headlines, the same chubby, well-dressed man he had seen yesterday smiled out at the world.

Unable to either read the Italian or resist his curiosity, Lang approached the desk. ''Your prime minister…?"

The concierge shrugged, a matter of no consequence. "He has gotten a law requiring bribery to be persecuted…"

"Prosecuted?"

''Yes, requiring the crime of bribery to be prosecuted within a year, six months too late to prosecute him."

Italy: If not honest politics, entertaining politics. Louisiana residents should feel right at home.

He walked to the Trastevere District, that area of Rome south of the Tiber that, during the Renaissance, had housed masons, bricklayers, and other laborers as well as a number of the era's most famous. Rafael, it was said, kept a mistress in the rooms over a tavernare there. Long ago, laborers' humble rooms and lofts had been converted to trendy apartments for those who could afford to live in an area now fashionable.

Even so, the locale's more humble origins were still visible, if one knew where to look. An example was a simple doorway between a trattoria and a shop displaying the. highest end in women's shoes. A hallway led between the two establishments until it widened into a series of rooms offering tools and equipment for sale. There had been no exterior sign. As is often the case in Rome, the proprietor relied on trade from residents who knew the location of his emporium anyway.

Such logic, Lang thought, would drive American ad agencies into therapy if not bankruptcy.

Lang selected two flashlights, batteries, and a short crowbar. Paying for his purchases, he walked northeasterly along the Tiber, enjoying the shade of massive plane trees. In front of him, two teenaged girls clad in identical low-rider, epidural jeans giggled as they looked in shop windows. He would eventually arrive at the post office to which Sara should have sent his package, but for the moment, he was enjoying the sights and sounds of the Ghetto, the area occupied by Rome's Jews since antiquity. It had been almost emptied during the German occupation.

World War II.

As he walked, carrying his purchases, he tried to imagine a connection between a Roman emperor's, Julian's, idea of a prank, what an SS officer, Skorzeny, might have found in an ancient fortress and the murder of Don Huff. He rethought the procedure he was following. Find the indictment of Christ, or at least its hiding place, and hope whatever was there would lead him to the truckloads of whatever Skorzeny had removed from Montsegur and hope whatever it was, it pointed to the killer.

The whole thing seemed like some sort of intellectual Raggedy Ann, poorly stitched together with seams fully exposed. Raggedy Ann or Barbie, it was all he had, the only trail to Don's murderer. More important, his only hope of finding whoever was responsible for Gurt.

He stopped in the post office. In Italy, as in most European countries, traditional telephone service is' administered by the postal department, possibly accounting for the· inefficiency of both. With the advent of cell phones, provided by private carriers, the stuff of legend and jokes at the government's expense were coming to an end. Still, a woman was shouting into a receiver, her hands gesticulating as only the Italians can. Lang would have guessed her weight at a svelte two hundred; and, from the few words Lang caught, that she was expecting money from someone in Naples. From the tone of her voice, Lang would not have bet on her receiving it.

He stood in line before the single window, impatiently shifting his weight as one postal customer after another exchanged pleasantries and the daily neighborhood gossip with the clerk, a female petite only in comparison with the one on the phone.

In Italy, years of pasta consumption and middle age often, combine to produce a condition not adequately described as "middle-age spread."

Holding up the Couch passport, Lang's meager Italian succeeded in having the clerk produce an envelope with Mr. Couch's name on it. Lang turned it over, making sure the small bit of red tape he had asked Sara to affix to the back was there. It had not been opened. He hefted its lightness. He had expected it to be somewhat thicker.

It is common, he supposed, that we imagine important documents to be bulky, weight added by significance. The woman was still screaming into the phone when he left.

Back at his hotel, Lang emptied his pockets. He may as well stretch out on the bed. He looked at the stuff from his pants: passport, keys, change, his cell phone.

Where…?

The device Reavers had given him-he had forgotten it, leaving it on the dresser. Uneasily, he looked around the room. No, housekeeping hadn't made it here yet. The contraption hadn't been compromised. Not that chambermaids were likely to show a lot of interest in something that resembled a BlackBerry, anyway.

He took off his trousers and lay down on the bed, taking a long moment to examine the envelope. Perhaps it contained answers, perhaps a waste of time.

With a sigh, he opened it.

Two pages, clearly produced by typewriter, not computer. But then, the information would predate the common use of computers. Other than what was written on them, the pages were blank, no headings, no clue as to a return address. Lang would have been surprised had there been any hint as to the origin of these sheets of paper.

A list of numbers on the left side, a single word on the right, the same word, starting with 24-4-60 and ending with 5-8-74. The word was the same, "Madrid."