The Nassau Secret (The Lang Reilly Series Book 8) by Gregg Loomis Read Free Book Online Page B

tap at the door and a white fringed head poked in. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”
                  Alred beckoned. “Come in, Nigel, come in!”
                  Nigel Smythe’s appearance might tend toward the elfin with barely five feet in height, tiny hands and feet and a perpetual smile that seemed to say he knew a secret. As indeed he did. Quite a number of them but they were hardly the stuff of fairy tales unless one includes the Brothers Grimm.
                  Nigel had a long and storied history with MI6, including his most recent project, discovery of the hiding place of former Lybian strong man, Muammar Gaddaffi, and turning that bit of information over to the rebels who had just toppled his government, the botched attempt on the life of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 1992 And the more recent assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostfa Ahmed. Paradoxically, his “face” job, the one MI6 showed him as holding, was head of I/Ops, the office that seeks to make publicity favorable to the agency available to the press.
                  Nigel crossed the room and helped himself to a selection of tea bags and a cup that he filled from a pot on an electric ring. The MI6 building might be ultramodern but there were some of the old amenities Alred refused to surrender. Like one’s one personal tea making equipment.
                  Tea cup in one hand, Nigel produced a device resembling one of the older cell phones, a black box slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes with a stubby antenna. A series of four red lights lit in sequence as he turned slowly.
                  Alred shook his head. “You know very well this office is swept for bugs daily.”
                  Unabashed, Nigel completed his 360 degree circle and sat in a worn leather wing chair. “Quite true, old chappie but who might bug the debuggers, eh?”
                  Alred nodded his consent if not approval. “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “What news from across the sea?”
                  “Our friend met with an unfortunate accident. He has a ticket home later today.”
                  “And the source of the problem?”
                  “Even more unfortunate accident but it appears the problem is solved.”
                  “Permantly?”
                  “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

 
    12.
    All Saints Episcopal Church
    634 West Peachtree Street
    Atlanta, Georgia
    Two days Later
     
                  All Saints was established in 1901 at the northern edge of a city still struggling to rebuild from its total incineration in 1864. Even Washington DC had its private buildings spared by the British in 1814 but not Atlanta. Up to and during the mid- 1950’s the congregation was white, upper middle to upper class and well to do, including many of the City’s more prominent citizens.
                  Today the red stone, semi-Romanesque structure is in Atlanta’s eclectic Mid-Town. On Sunday mornings it is filled, not with ladies in hats and gloves escorted by men in suits but by same sex couples who tend to hold hands during the service and are dressed more for the golf course than for an ecclesiastical service. The gay, lesbian and just plain outré are joined by a smattering of Georgia Tech students from the campus two blocks away who come to hear the magnificent organ and enjoy an interior reflective of Medieval times with its bright red ceiling dotted with religious iconography.
                  The present parishioners had earned the once staid old church the sobriquet of All Sorts.             
                  This was not a Sunday but the sanctuary was filled with those who looked like they might belong, absent the Tech students. Lang Reilly drew a gentle poke in the ribs as he shifted in the hard wooden