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."
Lang picked it up. ''A BlackBerry? Thanks, I already have one."
"With built-in scrambling and a global positioning system? You set you'sef a three-digit code, you press it, an' we know not only the caca has hit the ole ventilating device but 'xactly where it struck. They're special made for us."
Lang dropped it into his pocket. "It would be your ass, the Agency finds out you let me have this."
Reavers leaned back in his chair, grinning. "Or the passports, or the ID. Hell, at my age, gittin' fired ain't much threat. Tell ya, pard'nuh, best I can, I'm committed to findin' whoever killed that li'l gal."
Lang could only imagine how Gurt would react to being referred to in the familiar diminutive. "I appreciate you getting involved."
" 'Involved'? Hell, I'm committed."
Lang stood, thinking the conversation at an end. "Involved, committed. I value any help you can give." Reavers stood also, extending a hand. "Y'know difference between 'involved' an' 'committed'?" Lang had a feeling he was going to learn. "Ever' mornin' I have Speck und Ei, bacon and eggs.
The chicken's involved, but the pig, he's committed." The Lone Star State's very own Jay Leno.