Gratefully, Lang took the forms and began. "Don't worry. I wouldn't be an attorney if I'd been convicted of a felony."
Monk looked at him, deadpan. "Bein' a lawyer don't mean you haven't been committed to a mental institution or any of those other things."
Lang peeled off an extra fifty after counting off three one-hundred-dollar bills. "To compensate for losing all that sleep."
Then he stopped beside the door, fascinated. He picked up a brass-headed cane, an old-fashioned gentlemen's walking stick. "How much?"
"I'll throw it in f 'nother twenty-five."
Lang examined it more carefully, noting the head could be detached from the cane itself. "Done!"
Monk stuffed the bills into a pocket without counting. "Say, know the bes' way to get a lawyer down from a tree?"
Here it came.
"Cut the rope."
Whatever happened to blonde jokes?
Browning in one pocket, a box of ammunition in the other, Lang limped outside leaning on his cane and used his arms to pull himself into the passenger seat of the SUV. "OK, got my business done. Let's go."
Gurt didn't turn her head. "As soon as I parked here, the white Chevrolet parked in front of the place that advertises ribs."
Lang was tugging at his shoulder harness. "So? Lots of people like barbecue for lunch."
"No one has gotten out."
Without turning his head, Lang could see two men in the front seat. Neither seemed to be doing anything.
Lang struggled back out of the car. "Wait a minute."
Monk was fading back into the shadows as Lang reentered. "You unhappy already?"
Lang shook his head. "Need another favor."
He told the pawnbroker what he wanted.
Once Lang was back in the SUV, Gurt continued watching the Chevrolet. "And now?"
"We wait."
But not for long.
A bilious green Caddy convertible eased out from behind the strip of businesses. From the size and gigantic tail fins, Lang would have guessed its origins lay somewhere in the late fifties. Monk had had the car ever since Lang had known him.
The huge automobile stopped just behind the Chevy, blocking it in its perpendicular space. Monk got out and started to go into the barbeque joint.
"Now," Lang said.
Oblivious to the shouts from the barricaded Chevrolet, Monk was entering the rib shack, a man making a quick stop to pick up a take-out lunch. Lang memorized the Chevy's license plate, although he was certain it would lead to a dead end.
Gurt was about to say something when Lang's cell phone pealed. It was Miles.
"What took you so long to get back to me?" Lang asked.
Miles snorted. "I didn't exactly have the full resources of the company behind me, y'know."
"But you did the best you could."
"As always. Where do you want the info sent?"
Lang thought a moment. Miles's reluctance to pass anything along over the phone was understandable. Worldwide, all electronic transmissions sent by satellite were monitored. Since this included well over 90 percent of all communications, Echelon, as the program was named, literally eavesdropped on that part of the world that no longer used wires to transmit messages. It was located in northern England and shared only by the English-speaking nations. The Achilles' heel of the project was the sheer volume of communications. Thousands of computers were programmed to record each message to be searched by other machines for keywords or phrases in a hundred or more languages. Still, the process took a day or so, and "bursts," those messages condensed into a single electronic beep, were not translatable into words.
Keywords or not, Miles was wise to take no chances. Passing oat information to the unauthorized was at best a firable offense. At worst, it could lead to criminal prosecution.
"Overnight air to my office." Lang gave him the address.
x.
Magnolia Motel
US Highway 41
Marietta, Georgia
That Evening
Not the Disneyland Hotel, it wasn't a lot to look at: a room whose faint odor of cheap perfume hinted at a usage by persons who would be acquainted for a short period of time rather than by families. The suggestion was enforced by the fly-specked sign behind the sole desk clerk, in god we trust, all others pay cash. The room's scruffy shag carpet, the tattered spreads on the two sagging double beds gave mute testimony that the Magnolia, located on what had once been a main thoroughfare between Marietta and Atlanta, had seen better days.
But the positive aspects outweighed the pervasive atmosphere of sleaze: The proprietor clearly expected cash, a necessity in the hot-pillow trade, thereby leaving no credit card trail for Lang's pursuers to follow. Parking behind the cinder block building lessened discovery of the marital infidelities and indiscretions that Lang guessed were the place's stock in trade. If the moans piercing the thin walls were any indication, business was good.
Lang had produced his money clip and peeled off several bills. The proprietor leered at Gurt with such lust, he seemed surprised when he noticed the child holding on to her hand.
No doubt assuming some sort of perversion was about to take place, he turned his attention back to Lang. "Don' 'low any loud noises. No dope 'lowed on th' premises. Unnerstan?"
Lang assured him he did.
The first thing Gurt had done after entering the room was to put down a suitcase and began stripping one of the beds.
"Now what?" Lang asked.
She was shaking a sheet as Manfred watched. "I wish to rid the bedclothes of any life-forms other than ones I can speak to."
Lang hadn't considered this possibility.
Grumps apparently thought this was some kind of game. He began to bark. The noise next door continued unabated.
Lang kneeled to quiet the dog. He doubted the Magnolia would eject any paying guest but there was no sense taking chances.
When Gurt had made sure the linen was free of unwanted fauna, she put her hands on her hips and gazed around the room. "With you is always first-class, no?"
Lang was in the tiny bathroom, trying to decide if the shower was hygienic enough for Manfred's use. A colony of mildew was prospering nicely on the plastic curtain and a circle of rust decorated the drain. "When you're on the run, you can't always be choosy."
Gurt stuck her head in the door. "And how long on the run' will we be?"
Lang wished he knew.
Chapter Three
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.