Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(21)

Lucas parked at the garage and walked through a four-foot-wide slot in the granite wall, up to the house. Before he had a chance to ring the doorbell, the door opened and a tall slender man, with a neat Vandyke beard, perhaps thirty-five, opened the door and asked, “Marshal Davenport?”

Lucas nodded and said, “Yes.”

“I’m Charles’s assistant. He’s in the den.”

Another assistant, Lucas thought—it must be a Washington thing.

The assistant backed up and Lucas followed him inside. Once past the entry, he found himself in an expansive living room decorated with eighteenth-century British hunting prints and paintings, mounted on pale blue plaster walls; a six-foot grand piano sat in a corner, half the size of the piano at the Winstons’ house. There was no sheet music in sight, but a crystal vase sat on the piano top, filled with yellow and pink bell-shaped flowers; the room smelled of funeral.

As they went through, Lucas asked, “What’s your name?”

The man said, “Stephen.” And after a pause, “Gibson.”

“Have you been with Mr. Lang for a while?”

“Thirteen years,” Gibson said. He was prematurely balding with close-cropped hair, and wore beige trousers, a yellow shirt open at the throat, a blue linen sport coat, and brown loafers. A pair of narrow silver-rimmed glasses hung from his neck. “About twelve years longer than I expected to, when I graduated from the university. I assist Charles with his research, in addition to . . . ordinary business chores.”

They walked through a smaller room, whose function Lucas couldn’t quite identify—maybe a more intimate meeting room, with a sideboard for drinks, and a faint odor of nicotine—to the den, another large room lined with books. There were three photos in a cluster in a niche between bookcases: a young Lang shaking hands with Ronald Reagan, a middle-aged Lang shaking with George W. Bush, and a near-elderly Lang shoulder-to-shoulder with Donald Trump.

Lang himself sat behind a walnut desk that had the look of an Early American antique: not elegant, but formidable. Another crystal vase of flowers sat on a credenza behind the desk.

He looked up from a manuscript when Gibson led Lucas into the room, and stood up to shake hands. Lang was a middle-sized man, fleshy, bald with a few strands of steel-gray hair layered over the top of his pate, a narrow nose, extra pink at the tip, and watery green eyes. His hand was soft as warm butter. He was wearing a gray suit coat and trousers, a white dress shirt, and a yellow bow tie.

“Marshal Davenport,” he said, showing small pearly teeth as he smiled through his greeting. “I’m pleased to meet you. I won’t apologize for it, but I asked Stephen to background you, and you seem to have had at least two extremely successful careers.”

“We’ll have to see how successful the current one is,” Lucas said. He took a blue-leather visitor’s chair in front of Lang’s desk, as Lang sat down again.

Gibson said, “Charles, I need to finish with that email. Would either of you like a drink before I do that? Orange juice? Lemonade?”

Lucas said, “No, thanks. I just ate breakfast.”

Lang said, “Not yet, but bring me a lemonade when you finish with the mail.” Gibson left, and Lang turned back to Lucas.

Lucas said, “You know why I asked to see you—I’ve been told that you’re one of the leading experts on these alt-right groups, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and so on. We’re looking particularly at a group called 1919.”

“1919. Extraordinarily interesting. Came out of nowhere. You’re aware of the 88 meme . . .”

“The letter ‘H’ is the eighth letter of the alphabet so ‘88’ is code for ‘HH’ which is code for ‘Heil Hitler,’” Lucas said. “1919 is SS, as in the Nazi SS.”

“Exactly right.” Lang had never stopped smiling, his eyes bright. “I’ve researched these groups for years, but I’d never encountered 1919 before, but now, it seems obvious. Not the existence of the group, but the existence of the name.”

“You wouldn’t know who might have invented it, where it might have come from . . .”

“No, no, not a clue. I’ve spoken to some of my contacts in the field and they’re asking around. I’ve put out word that I would like to speak to the 1919 folks.”

“That might be a little risky?” Lucas made it a question.

“Oh . . . some of them aren’t harmless, you know, but they generally seem to appreciate my attention,” Lang said. “The biggest problem most of these groups face is misunderstanding . . .”

“I would think their biggest problem, if you’ll excuse the language, is that they’re racist assholes and they’re widely hated,” Lucas said.

Lang’s smile faded a bit. “Let me finish my thought, if you would, Marshal. The biggest problems most of these groups face is misunderstanding. Most are extremely conservative in the traditional sense of that word, but most have no particular liking for Adolf Hitler or the German National Socialists. Yet, when they go public with their beliefs, the media immediately brands them as ‘Nazis.’ Now, you used the word ‘racist.’ Perfectly good word, until recently. Look at what’s been happening with the Democratic Party in the struggle between the so-called Progressives and the so-called moderates. All of these people are liberal by normal standards, but they accuse one another of being racist at the slightest deviation from the Progressive party line. And heaven help the poor Republicans—they’re all racists, every last man jack of them. Once accused, once labeled, there’s barely any way to escape. The same is true with these—I hate the term ‘alt-right,’ but everybody uses it—these alt-right groups. The media won’t allow them to be alt-right without being Nazis.”