The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller Read online

  "I understand the longer it takes to find a kidnapped child, the less chance he'll be found at all," Paige said morosely as she picked at her egg foo yong. Although she was no longer sobbing, an endless stream of tears had been coursing down her face.

  Lang's thoughts were clearly not on his bowl of sizzling rice soup, which he stirred endlessly. "That depends on whether the child was abducted by, say, a family member, maybe a noncustodial parent, or by ransom seekers. Someone looking for money would likely wait until they were secure in whatever hidey-hole they might have set up before making contact. I think we're all in agreement we're not dealing with a domestic situation."

  Wynton studied Lang. Was he hearing experience or feel-good bullshit? Lang Reilly didn't seem a purveyor of the latter.

  Lang continued. "I talked to Detective Morse just before we came over here. The cops heard back from Interpol. The guy Gurt took down in the park name's Schmidt, Hans Schmidt. German national. Has a record in the Federal Republic for small-time stuff, stole a car, got caught trying to rip auto parts off from his former employer, the BMW factory in Munich. Nothing major like a kidnapping."

  Wynton pushed the General Tso's extra-spicy shrimp away. "It seems a stretch: petty larceny to kidnapping."

  "Obviously he had help," Lang observed. "And planning."

  He saw the curious look on both Paige's and Wynton's faces and held up a finger. "One, someone was obviously driving the van. They knew what kind of vehicle they wanted before they stole it." Second finger. "They knew about the DEFACS people and knew they would need credentials." Third finger. "And they were professional enough not be carrying the papers they would have needed to get into or out of this country, assuming more than one of them was foreign. They had to leave those somewhere to be picked up later."

  Paige started to ask a question and choked back sobs instead.

  Wynton guessed what she was about to say. "Why would people from Germany come over here to kidnap someone? Wouldn't it have been easier and safer to take some child in Europe?"

  Lang nodded. "Assuming ransom was the motive."

  "And you think it isn't." Wynton was stating a fact, not a question.

  Lang shrugged and took a spoonful of the soup. "No way to be sure. We'll know in a day or two when we either hear from the kidnappers or not."

  "But if not for money . . ." Wynton's voice trailed off, the thought too cruel to contemplate.

  "I—we—can't wait that long," Paige moaned. She raised her eyes toward upstairs where the FBI agents were monitoring the phone. "Can't they, somebody, find out where they've taken my child?"

  "I understand the FBI is checking the manifests of every international flight out of Atlanta. If whoever took Wynn-Three left the country, we'll know where he went," Lang said.

  "Unless they left from somewhere else," Gurt spoke for the first time.

  There was silence, an indication no one had thought of this possibility.

  "Mommy, can we go home now?" Manfred looked up from a coloring book.

  Gurt gave him a silencing glare. "Also, if ransom they want, why take the child so far away?"

  "She's right there." Lang pushed his bowl away and stood to take it into the kitchen.

  "I'll get that," Paige said, eager to do anything rather than simply sit, waiting for a phone call that might not come.

  "Makes sense," Wynton said. "If they intend to exchange Wynn-Three for money, they wouldn't take him out of the country. That means . . ."

  Paige's hand was shaking, the remainder of Lang's soup in danger of winding up on the floor.

  Lang took the bowl. "We don't know they took Wynn-Three anywhere. It just makes a lot of sense to check that possibility while the trail's still hot since the men who nabbed him might be foreign nationals. At least one of them is. For all we know, they could still be right here in Atlanta."

  Paige took the bowl back, seeming to be at least partially comforted. "Wherever they are, let's pray they haven't hurt him."

  Lang shook his head. "That's not likely. We're not talking about some random predator here. People who concocted a scheme that elaborate didn't go to the trouble just to harm the child. They want something."

  "What could they want other than money?" Wynton wanted to know.

  That, Lang mused, was an interesting question.

  CHAPTER 43

  472 Lafayette Drive

  Thirty Minutes Later

  LANG LIKED TO WATCH HIS SON sleep. Seeing the little boy in his pajamas, eyes closed in peaceful slumber, reminded Lang of Michelangelo's putti on the Sistine ceiling. Tonight, though, he didn't have time to enjoy the sight. When Manfred had closed his eyes, Lang went downstairs, fumbled in a desk drawer until he found an old address book, and keyed in a Washington, D.C., number on his iPhone.

  Although the 202 area code was specific to the nation's capital, Lang knew this particular number was relayed through different exchanges around the world, making it impossible to trace. After two rings, a recording simply requested him to leave a name and number. Lang did so and ended the call.

  Gurt, sitting across the room, put down the magazine she had been reading. "You are calling Miles?"

  Lang nodded. "I think he may be in a position to help."

  Gurt shook her head slowly. "Help, okay. But do not forget your promise."

  How could he forget what he mentally referred to as The Covenant? When Gurt had agreed to give up her job with the Agency and settle into family life here in Atlanta, she had made a single demand: he had to promise his days of involvement in dangerous, sometimes deadly, adventures would end. The brush with a fanatical sect of the Catholic Church had put him in the hospital for months. A shadowy international corporation had tried to murder him, and a rogue Agency head of station had almost succeeded in blowing them both off a mountain in the Languedoc region of France. His car had been bombed and a rabid Jewish cult had tried to assassinate him.

  Enough was enough. Lang had had sufficient excitement for several lifetimes. Understandably, Gurt wanted a peaceful life for her child, and his father alive and well. That she had participated in most of his adventures, saving his life more than once, meant she was willing to abandon taking risks just as she had demanded he do.

  Life with his son and the woman he adored had seemed more than ample compensation. But, he admitted only to himself, he missed the thrills of his past, just as a former smoker sniffs wistfully at the smell of tobacco. There was just so much excitement the law practice could provide, and heading a charity was dull on the best of days.

  "I won't forget," he said lamely.

  Gurt was reading his mind as easily as she had the magazine in her lap, an ability that was frequently unnerving, to say the least. She gave him a stare, her eyes like blue ice. "Be certain you do not."

  Any further discussion of The Covenant was deferred as Lang's iPhone beeped. A glance at the display showed the number he had just called. Lang put the phone on speaker mode so Gurt could hear.

  "Miles?"

  There was a pause, only an instant but long enough to confirm that the call was being switched through one or more stations.

  "Right here, Lang. Haven't talked to you in a while. It must have been tough getting along without my brilliance and talent."

  A smile split Lang's face. Miles Berkley was a heavyweight champ in the bullshit department, a reason he had been so successful in his climb up the ladder with the Agency.

  "It's been difficult, Miles."

  Again the pause.

  "Hard to feel sorry for a man clever enough to confuse and confound Gurt into marrying a mere mortal."

  Gurt chuckled. She had been something of an institution. Desirable to every male agent at the Frankfurt station, but untouchable.

  "Miles, I need a favor."

  "And I thought you were calling because you missed me."

  "I do, I do, but I still need your help."

  A theatrical sigh. "What small service may I render, emphasis on small?"

&
nbsp; "A good friend has had his kid snatched. The Fibbies are on the case. You know how tight-lipped those people are. I'd like to be kept up to date on their investigation."

  "No problemo. I've got a coupla those guys who, like my good pal Lang Reilly, owe me big time. A briefing tomorrow morning your time be satisfactory?"

  "Miles, you're marvelous!"

  "I know, I know. Sometimes the adulation gets so boring!"

  There was a click and Miles was gone.

  CHAPTER 44

  Franz Josef Strauss International Airport

  Munich, Germany

  The Next Morning

  07:20 A.M. Local Time

  MOMENTS BEFORE THE PLANE LANDED, THE blond flight attendant smoothed out the wrinkles in her jacket as she bent over Friedrich Gratz to look at the little boy sleeping in the next seat. "He ate no Frühstück, breakfast? He did not eat last night, either. He is okay?"

  Gratz cursed himself for not somehow disposing of at least part of the meals served to the child. Now he and the boy would stick to the meddlesome woman's memory like a fly on flypaper. "Okay," he replied in English, "only tired. He was too excited to sleep much while we visited in America."

  Weak, but the best he could think of on short notice.

  The woman arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Are you sure he is well?"

  "He has no fever, but I'm sure his mother will make sure when we get home." Gratz grinned weakly like a man unused to being the sole caretaker of small children.

  The flight attendant was about to say something else when the pilot's announcement of imminent arrival dragged her away to check seat belts, seat backs, and seat-back trays.

  Fifteen minutes later, Gratz's arms were getting tired of carrying the small boy, but he didn't have much farther to go. He showed a weary smile to the gray uniformed customs and immigration officer manning the European Union entrance into the terminal as he held up two German passports. As he'd assumed, the official was much more interested in the man behind him. The bureaucrat swiped the barcode of the documents across the glass of the reading machine and, without so much as a glance, nodded Gratz through.

  It was no accident the passenger just after Gratz was a dark-skinned, bearded man clad in a thaub, with a checkered headpiece and black band to hold it in place. The immigration officials would study his papers with care. Gratz had picked him out hours before landing as the person he wanted immediately behind him in the passport line. Unlike in the U.S., where gray-haired grandmothers were as likely to be searched as meticulously as anyone of obvious foreign extraction, Germany was more concerned with a flood of illegal African, Eastern European, and Arab immigrants than with possible claims of racial profiling.

  For these reasons, Gratz knew the Arabic passenger would provide a distraction to any overly zealous official. The fact that the man had not appeared at the baggage carousel by the time Gratz retrieved his single bag validated his choice.

  Outside, Gratz waved to a man smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a "Taxi Only" sign. Minutes later, a green Opel's tires hissed through gray slush that had been last night's snow and pulled to the curb. The door opened.

  So far, Gratz's plan was still working.

  CHAPTER 45

  Federal Bureau of Investigation

  Atlanta Regional Office

  2635 Century Parkway

  Atlanta

  9:08 A.M. Local Time

  THE RED RIMS OF WYNTON'S EYES told Lang his neighbor had slept little, if any. He had not shaved recently and the jeans he wore showed wrinkles of continuous wear. Lang guessed he would look worse than Wynton were it Manfred who had been snatched.

  "I want you to know how much we appreciate this," Wynton began as they exited the elevator. "And I can't tell you how much Paige wanted to come."

  Lang shrugged. "I'm sure, but the Fibbies are right: one of the two of you needs to be home in case there's a ransom call. Let's just hope they have a positive development for us."

  Lang turned right and headed down a short corridor to a door marked only with a number.

  Following, Wynton said, "I thought the FBI never discussed an on-going investigation."

  Lang tapped on the door. "They don't, not with the media, anyway. They're giving us a special briefing as a favor."

  Wynton was awed. "The FBI owes you a favor?"

  Lang smiled at the woman who opened the door. He ushered Wynton inside. "Let's just say someone owes me a favor who's in a position to request the briefing." He turned to the woman. "Good morning. Lang Reilly and Wynton Charles. I believe someone is expecting us."

  They were guided directly to a small conference room where a tall black man in a three-piece suit stood behind a table.

  He extended his hand. "Special Agent Graves. Which one of you is Mr. Reilly?"

  Lang shook the hand, noting the grip. Firm handshakes must be taught at the FBI Academy; he had never gotten a limp one from an agent. "This is Wynton Charles."

  The two shook before Graves motioned them to be seated.

  There was no preliminary small talk, no offer of coffee. Instead, Graves came straight to business, opening a thin manila folder as carefully as one might remove the top of a box possibly containing a bomb. Lang caught a glimpse of the photograph of Wynn-Three that Paige had supplied the day before.

  "We usually don't discuss ongoing investigations," he said, resentment heavy in the tone, "but I've been ordered to share whatever information we have to date."

  Wynton leaned forward, looking like he was about to say "thank you," thought better of it, and kept quiet.

  "As you know," Graves continued, "we've been operating under the possibility the kidnappers are German, the nationality of the one in custody. He says there are two other men involved, the driver of the van and another. He swears he only knows them by first names, that they hired him in Munich, told him one of the men was the kid's father and that the mother had illegally taken the boy out of Germany. The father wanted to get his son back and was willing to pay a lot of money simply to put the boy in the vehicle."

  "You believe him?" Lang asked.

  Frowning at the interruption, Graves shook his head. "About one of the kidnappers being the boy's father? Hardly."

  Lang shook his head. "No, that he doesn't know the names of the others."

  The frown deepened into a scowl. "Hard to say. He knows he's looking at some serious time and cooperation is his only hope. Anyway, like I said, we moved up on any possible German connection. We know the perp didn't fly out of Atlanta, at least not to Germany. We have an interesting lead out of Miami, though."

  Both Lang and Wynton moved a little closer to the table as Graves ran his finger down a piece of paper.

  "We queried every airline that has had a flight from the U.S. to Germany since the approximate time of the kidnapping. At 7:36 Munich time this morning a man and a child went through immigration at Munich's international airport. One of the passports, the child's, didn't register properly. Turned out, the number belonged to a passport of a minor of four or five who died in a traffic accident a year or so ago. It had just been canceled a few weeks prior."

  Lang closed his eyes. It was an old trick: take the name from a tombstone or obituary bearing a birth date close to the age needed for the bogus papers. A little research and the state identity number could be found in the local records. Put the two together and you have enough information to apply for or forge a credible passport in the deceased's name. Until countries cross-referenced death and birth records more promptly, false passports would continue to be easily obtained.

  But then, most governments were more interested in serving living potential voters, not dead ones.

  "Any idea why the immigration guy didn't catch it immediately?" Lang asked.

  Graves shrugged, well familiar with the incompetence of government. "German immigration says he was distracted by a possible illegal alien. As soon as the error was realized, the authorities began an investigation. Within an hour, they found that th
e passport that did have a valid number, the adult's, belonged to a seventy-year-old woman too sick to travel, obviously not the man coming off the plane. They interviewed the flight crew and . . ."

  He was interrupted again, this time by a knock on the door. The woman who had admitted Lang and Wynton handed Graves a sheet of paper and withdrew without a word.

  The ghost of a smile hovered around Graves's face. "And one of the flight attendants has definitely ID'd the child. We sent the authorities in the Federal Republic a picture and it's your son, Mr. Charles."

  Wynton leaned across the table, reaching for the paper. "Is he . . . is he all right?"

  Graves tucked the paper into his file. "Nothing to the contrary other than the fact the woman remembered he slept during the entire flight. I'd guess he was drugged."

  "Drugged?" The idea seemed to horrify Wynton.

  "Now what?" Lang asked. "What's the next step?"

  "You find out where the guy went and go get my son, right?"

  Graves gave Wynton a weary stare. "Not quite that easy, Mr. Charles. We've already spoken to the Munich Police. They'll issue the German equivalent of an Amber Alert as well as notifying the national authorities and Interpol."

  Like many Americans, Wynton didn't grasp the niceties of international borders. "But that could take time! They, the kidnappers, could . . ."

  The FBI man raised a hand, palm outward—stop. "The Bureau has no jurisdiction outside of the country, Mr. Charles, not any more than the Germans would if a kidnapped German child had been brought to the United States." He dropped the hand back onto the table. "Rest assured, we'll be in hourly contact."

  Wynton placed both hands flat on the table as though ready to vault to his feet and gave Lang a pleading look. "But Wynn-Three is an American citizen!"