Lang screamed a ·warning, knowing what was about to happen. For what seemed forever, nothing did.
Then the helicopter dissolved into a fiery orange ball that reached all the way to the ground. The force of the explosion knocked Lang onto his back. The last thing he remembered before everything went dark was the transformation of flame in the sky to a greasy, roiling black cloud.
Lang reckoned he had been unconscious only a few seconds. He sat up and looked around. The blast had knocked him flat and out of the hailstorm of flying debris. Unidentifiable pieces of metal, still smoking, surrounded him. Shakily, he got to his feet and realized that not all the wreckage was inorganic. Bile rose in his throat as he stepped over the charred remains of a human hand, wedding ring still attached.
"Gurt!"
There was no answer.
Trying to swallow both nausea and growing panic, he forced himself to make an orderly search of concentric circles. After a couple of minutes, hope flickered like a candle in a breeze. After twenty, it died.
Explosions can do weird things, he told himself. Stories of victims of World War II's bombing of London were replete with women dashing into the streets after a direct hit, unharmed other than the fact that their clothing had been completely blown off, of men finding themselves buried under rubble blocks away from where they had been when the bomb had hit.
No doubt true, but there was no Gurt, bomb-denuded or otherwise.
Despair became fear-fear he would find her, or, worse, some grisly part of her. The thought finally overcame his resistance to the urge. '-He knelt and vomited his breakfast.
He staggered to his feet, swaying like a drunk as his empty stomach continued to cramp and convulse. His view of the cave and of the surrounding white hills blurred with tears. He had never felt so alone as on this hilltop an ocean away from home. Not even when Dawn died. At least then he had had ample time to prepare. Gurt had been snatched away in an instant.
He lifted his chin, looking into a sky so innocently blue it was hard to believe that, just minutes before, it had been filled with death. He forced his mounting grief aside for the moment, thinking as he had been trained to do so many years ago.
Even as remote as this area was, someone had most likely heard the series of explosions, possibly seen the fireball of the helicopter. He must assume the authorities were on their way. With only fragments, it would take months to even establish the number of people who had perished here, if in fact it could be ascertained at all by time-consuming comparisons of DNA. Unless that DNA had been previously recorded, it would serve only to number the dead, not identify them.
Lang moved mechanically, straining to keep his mind concentrated on the tasks at hand. He stooped to retrieve the camera from where it had fallen when the blast had knocked him down. Surprisingly, it was unbroken. Using the rope still in place, he descended through the shaft. Unlocking the car's trunk, he took out Gurt's purse. His control momentarily slipped as a rogue memory of how he had teased her about its size interrupted the routine and tears wet his cheeks. Checking the bag's contents to make certain it contained nothing of significance, he returned it to the trunk. Sliding into the front seat, he opened the glove box, pocketing only Gurt's passport. No need to involve her now.
The rented car would be traced to Joel Couch. His passport and the few human remains on the mountain should make Lang Reilly officially dead at least until DNA proved otherwise. That should keep the Frankfurt Police, if not all of Interpol, quiet for the time being.
Joel Couch would seek revenge.
He took a final look at the hilltop, from which smoke was still rising. Fists clenched, he spoke aloud through gritted teeth. "You bastards, you fucking bastards! No matter who you-are, this world is too small for both of us, and I don't plan on leaving."
He took some small comfort from the fact that the threat was not idle. He had tracked the killers of his sister and nephew, and, if necessary, he would end his days in pursuit of whoever was responsible for Gurt.
His hand involuntarily went to the pocket where he had put the paper with the Latin phrases on it. He'd get them this time, too. At least now he had a starting point.
Pocketing the car keys, he turned his back on the Mercedes and began to trudge along the narrow country road.
He had gone less than a mile before a pair of police cars, sirens wailing, blurred past, headed in the direction from which he had come. Minutes later, he hitched a ride in a tractor-towed wagon dusty with remains of winter wheat. Turning his back to the machine's driver, he released the tight grip on his emotions and sobbed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Frankfurt am Main 141 Mosel Strasse
The next day
Reavers put, both hands flat on the desk and stared at them. "Gurt dead? You sure?". Lang nodded wearily. "There wasn't enough left to ID anybody without DNA."
Reavers glanced up without moving his head, a move that made his eyes look even more like those of a raptor. "But you searched anyway?"
Lang knew it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't shake the feeling there had been something he could have done. "Other than the cave, there wasn't any place to hide. If she'd been there, I would have seen her."
''And you're going to continue to try to find the sum'bitches who killed Huff." It was not a question. "God knows them cheap bastards in Washington aren't going to give us the budget to do it. Just once, I'd like to think the security of the United States and our agents is worth more than funding some turnip museum in Iowa."
"Damn right I am. When I know that, I'll know who's responsible for Gurt."
"Tell me again what I can do."
Lang shrugged, the trivial nature of his requests overshadowed by Gurt's death. "I'd like to keep the Couch identity, maybe acquire one other, preferably a citizen of an ED country. As for the credit cards, I can guarantee payment-"
The CIA chief of station made a dismissive gesture. "Forgit paying the credit cards, pard'nuh. Budget cutbacks or not, we don' chintz when it comes to trackin' down people who hurt our people, you remember?"
Lang remembered the Agency of the eighties probably destroying countless forests with the paperwork required to justify any remotely unusual expense in anticipation of periodic congressional inquiries. Apparently, there really had been a peace dividend after all.
Or politicians occupied with other matters. " 'Xactly how you plannin' on finding whoever you're lookin' for?"
Lang sat back 'in his chair and shrugged. "There was an inscription on the cave wall, something about an indictment and the palace of the sole God."
''You plannin' on trackin' a bunch o' killers from some sorta religious claptrap?"
Lang sighed deeply, all too aware of the task ahead.
"That carving dates back to the fourth century; they would have been there when Skorzeny looted whatever was there. He must have seen the same words."
"So?"
"I can read them, know what the words say. I need to figure out what they mean. I'd guess the Germans did. If I follow wherever they lead, maybe I'll find out who wants me not to."
Reavers picked a pen from a cup on his desk, working it through his fingers like a magician about to perform a trick. ''You're guessing the sum'bitches killed Huff an' Gurt are tryin' to protect some religious secret sixteen hundred years old?"
"It's the only lead I've got."
Lang felt no need to point out he had nearly been killed a year ago by people trying to keep an even older secret. "It's either that or some organization trying to prevent identifying old Nazis."
The Agency man returned the pen to the cup and gave Lang pretty much the same look-he might have given someone seriously delusional. "I don' see it, but okay." He opened a drawer and fumbled through it. "One more thing…" He slid a square object across the desktop. "Take it."