He had been grateful when the taxi had made it to Francis's church downtown. The following Chevy parked across the street before Lang could get out.
After paying the fare, he had entered the church, walked through to the rectory and then to Francis's bedroom. There he found the Browning he had concealed before departing for Rome. He helped himself to the key to the aging Toyota the diocese provided his friend and exited to the garage behind the church.
The Chevy had still been parked as he drove away in the anonymous Toyota.
He could only hope Gurt had shaken whatever tail might have been assigned to her.
The next morning he had rented a car and driven to Macon. On the way, he stopped in Barnesville, the county seat, and made arrangements to rent office space from a law school acquaintance. He was now a country lawyer with a single client.
His thoughts returning to the present, he walked back to the house. He listened with half an ear to his son's chatter, mostly soliciting assurances that a fishing expedition to the pond was on tomorrow's agenda. Making only the vaguest of promises, Lang examined what few facts he had.
There was something in the Gospel of James that someone very much wanted suppressed, wanted enough to kill anybody who might reveal it. His only lead to who that someone might be was the gospel itself. The longer he waited to get it translated, the greater the possibility his mysterious assailants would find him. Worse, the greater the chance they would find his son.
But where to get the documents put into readable form? A search had shown no more than a handful of universities listed someone knowledgeable in Coptic Greek. As a consequence, any trip to one of these schools would be both obvious and transparent. He didn't want some unknown professor to be the next victim.
Reaching into a pocket, he produced his BlackBerry and called up a schedule of foundation travel for the next two weeks. He scanned past the usual European and South American destinations. Damascus, Karachi, Istanbul.
Istanbul What did he recall about Istanbul?
That it was, had been, the place whose Orthodox patriarch had sent Father Strentenoplis to Rome. There had been, Lang vaguely remembered, patriarchs in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire. But today? He started to call Francis before realizing the priest would be somewhere between Rome and Atlanta at the moment. Instead, he took the device in both hands, using thumbs to enter an e-mail to Sara.
An hour later, he lay in the four-poster beside Gurt. Her restlessness told him she was not asleep.
"You sure Darleen doesn't mind us camping out with her?" he asked.
"She will have disappointment when we leave. Correction, she will have disappointment when Manfred leaves."
Superficially, Lang found it perfectly understandable that anyone would be delighted to have the little boy around. Realistically, he found it difficult to accept that a middle-aged woman would want a small child underfoot.
As if reading his mind, something she did with disturbing regularity, Gurt rolled over to face him. "With her husband in jail, she is quite happy to have company. She has not been alone since she was seventeen. It has been a long time since she had a child in the house."
Perhaps Lang had underestimated the maternal instinct.
By the dim light from under the door, he could see Gurt's outline resting her elbow on the bed, her head in her hand. "She would be happy to keep him here…"
The slow curveball.
"… so I may help you find those who would harm his father."
The fast break, down and away.
"Are you sure that's smart, leaving a three-year-old with a woman you hardly know?"
Gurt took a moment, composing an answer. "We talk, Darleen and I. She is a good woman. She was not, I would know it. Besides, did you not say there are federal agents nearby?"
"US Marshals, I'd guess. But they're not here to guard Manfred."
Gurt moved her arm, placing her head on the pillow. "How long would we be gone?"
Lang noted the plural Gurt had already made the decision that his son would be fine in Darleen's care. He let it pass. "I'm not sure. I'll know more tomorrow. I've got a doctor's appointment and I'll drop by the office. Between Sara and Francis, I should have some idea then."
Long after her regular breathing told him Gurt was asleep, Lang wondered how she could be so certain his son would be fine left with Darleen. His only consolation was that the child's mother had done without his input for the last three years. That thought was less than comforting for more than one reason.
IV.
Buyukada
Princes' Islands
Sea of Marmara
Turkey
A Week Later
The call of the muezzin from the balconies of a dozen minarets were clearly audible across the water even though the mosques themselves were no more than needles against the silhouette of the shrinking Anatolian shoreline. The electronic enhancement of the five-times-a-day summons to prayer had increased their range if done little to give the flesh-creeping wails any melodic quality.
From his position at the stern of the ferry, Lang had watched as the ship passed Seraglio Point with its Topkapi Palace, home of the Ottoman sultans. And what a view those rulers of the near east for four and half centuries had enjoyed: the mouth of the Golden Horn to the Bosphorus, separating Europe from Asia. One city, two continents. Idly, he noted a Russian supertanker, high in the water as it made its way north back to the oil fields of the Black Sea.
He recalled the international friction these crafts had caused for years. The Russians, unwilling to hire a local pilot, would not suffer the oil spill resulting from one of the ships going aground less than a mile from Turkish shores on either side.
The foundation's Gulfstream had deposited Gurt and Lang at the customs house behind the main terminal at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, where they had purchased visas for sixty dollars (euro or New Turkish lira would have been equally acceptable) and been welcomed to Turkey. As anticipated, there had been no customs. Both Lang and Gurt's weapons were available if needed and the copy of the Book of James was inside his shirt. A taxi, equally ambivalent as to currency, had taken them to Karakoy, the swarming anthill of piers from which ferries departed. Travel by water was Istanbul's preference when possible, avoiding the crowded streets and confining alleyways. Lang had noticed about half the women covered their heads; half of those with gaily colored scarfs, others with the full-length, long-sleeved black dress, their heads and faces covered by the traditional burka from which only the eyes were visible.
"Roaches!" Gurt had hissed, making no effort to conceal her scorn for women submitting to a male-dominated society.
Turkey was about 90 percent Islamic, mostly Sunni. Its constitution, however, mandated a secular government, freedom of religion and abolishing the fez and other religious dress in its universities. It was the only Islamic democracy in the world. This was beginning to slip, bit by bit. The country's new president, devoutly religious-
A tug at his sleeve. "Come see!"
Lang followed Gurt to the bow section just as the ship's whistle announced its arrival. Lang saw white two- and three-story buildings ringing a small harbor sheltering hundreds of small boats, a number of them scooting across the sapphire surface like so many bugs. Towering over the activity were green hills with houses stacked along the edges like merchandise on store shelves.
"I don't see any cars," Lang said.
"Motor vehicles are forbidden," Gurt replied. "Other than police or garbage trucks."