by null
Oh God, she had thought, looking at Bridget’s stunning face, perfect cheekbones, languid eyes, long lashes, perky smile. Oh my dear God… .
It was enough to make her slip a hand discreetly into her bag for her antacid tablets. This girl had the kind of looks that editors would invent stories about simply to be able to justify the use of her image. Brinkley knew Knight, of course—absolutely knew he was not the kind of man to take advantage of a young woman. Indeed, it was that strict ethical code of his that made him think it was all right to do all of the foolishly improper-looking things he was forever doing.
“Professor,” said Klein, his voice hinting that he was about to enjoy himself, “hasn’t it occurred to you to wonder why the FBI has involved itself in this matter? Let alone”—the agent moved his head slightly to the right, indicating the pair of operatives everyone else at the table had simply assumed were CIA—“some of the other interested parties assembled here today?”
“Well, I simply assumed it was because there was an explosion here in the city. One that didn’t involve a faulty gas main or the such for once.”
“That’s absolutely right, Professor,” answered Klein.
As he revealed a bit of a smile, suddenly both Knight and Brinkley felt twin stabs of apprehension. Both realized clearly that the FBI man must have been holding something back, something he had been waiting to unleash at the proper moment. In his mind, the professor cursed the agent, thinking;
Goddamn it all, I should have known. Push us for hours, pound away on every little, insignificant detail from every angle, over and over, and when we finally sigh and relax that it’s all over, then the bastards reveal that it was all to frazzle us—that they haven’t even started yet.
“And,” asked Klein, “when the government gets involved with explosions, what’s usually the reason?”
“Well, ‘usually,’ in this modern age of wonders of ours, it’s because of terrorism. Yes?”
“Very good, Professor. And so, you being so quick with the smart answers, riddle me this: What motivation would we have to be looking at this as a possibly terrorist-related incident?”
Knight paused for a moment, throwing every facet of his mind into answering the question. Perhaps there was something going on he had not considered. And then an idea so absurd it made him begin to chuckle came to the professor, one so idiotic he was certain it had to be correct. Unable to stop one side of his mouth from curling into a smile, Knight suggested;
“The Dream Stone, the piece being stolen by the thieves in question, I had come back to the museum, as I have reported more than once today, to prepare for the arrival of Dr. Ungari. Are you saying that this is all because Ungari is Egyptian?”
Sitting back in his chair, Klein enjoyed his moment. Turning his neck from side to side so that the cartilage within his spine made audible clicking noises, the agent answered;
“That was the red flag that got us digging. Remember, there’s more than one type of terrorism in this world. A lot of countries out there are still extremely resentful over the pilfering of their national treasures by the industrialized nations in the past. And what nation is the Dream Stone from, Professor?” With a sigh, Knight answered;
“Syria.”
“Yes, one of the world’s leading exporters of terrorism, no matter what our State Department says ‘officially.’ But I’ll stop wasting all our time here. We wouldn’t have bothered you over this because of Ungari. An Egyptian who moves back and forth between Syria and the United States? Please, he’s been on our radar for years. He’s squeaky clean.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem, as you put it, Professor, is one Hamid Bakur. Know him?” Knight thought for a moment, then shrugged, admitting he did not recognize the name. Smiling widely now, Klein said;
“We didn’t recognize the name, either. At first. He’s Ungari’s assistant—has been for the past five years, ever since the doctor started digging up this lost Syrian city of his. Bakur was assigned to him by the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums. No big deal—right? Except that his name is not Bakur.” As all those seated around the room stared, waiting for the FBI man to get to the point, everyone feeling some level of apprehension as to what exactly that point would turn out to be, Klein sat forward, crossing his hands on the table before him as he announced;
“His real name is Hamid Ras Morand. He has connections to some twelve different red-flag organizations, including the Golden Jihad, Bits of String, Flaming Vengeance, among others. He has fronted for all of them, has law degrees from both Iran and Great Britain. And yet he’s been digging in the sand for half a decade as if he knew something about archaeology, placed there especially by a government we wouldn’t trust to spit on us if we were on fire.”
Knight felt his mind going empty. Caught completely off-guard, he could think of nothing to say. If Klein’s information was correct, and Knight had little reason to think it was not, then things had just gone from very bad to much, much worse.
“So, Professor, care to tell us what you know about our boy Hamid … and why you invited him to come to New York?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Oh, come now, see here, Klein,” snapped Knight, his eyes narrowing as his indignation flared. “I would think you would know I did not invite this Hamid person anywhere. I didn’t even know he existed until you told me about him.”
“And I believe you, Professor,” answered the FBI man in a tone Knight accepted as one not masking any hidden purpose. As the professor calmed slightly, Klein continued, adding, “But you did invite Ungari, who is on his way here to inspect a carved rock he could just as easily have gotten the information he needed from through the phone lines. Agreed?”
Knight nodded his head, answering quietly;
“Agreed.”
“Splendid. And so, now that we’re all in agreement, what shall we do about it?”
The professor sat back down slowly, his eyes seeing nothing, his entire manner that of one lost in thought. Klein had not spent as many years as he had in the bureau without learning something about reading people’s body language. It was obvious to him that Knight was wrestling with a decision. Rather than interrupt the professor’s thought processes, the agent decided to wait and see at exactly what decision the academic arrived. It was only a handful of seconds afterward when Knight finally looked up, focusing his attention on the FBI man as he said;
“Last night, when I was being interrogated at the police station, this same idea about the Dream Stone was put forth. I have to admit, even after thinking upon it for quite some time now, I still have no idea how to answer it. When I first spoke yesterday to Ungari about the damn thing, it didn’t dawn on me to question his coming to America.”
“It didn’t seem odd to you,” asked Brinkley, her tone more curious than challenging, “at all?”
“No, ma’am,” snapped the professor, somewhat annoyed at being attacked by a member of his own team. “Not really.” Turning away from the director to the others around the table, the curator softened his tone, explaining;
“In the way of giving some background, understand, everyone, that I haven’t seen Ashur in quite some time. I believe the answer is simply that I was merely excited over the prospect. Old friends, reunited in triumph. Something to celebrate. At that moment, I was only seeing the affair as a grand coup for the museum. First relics released from the world’s oldest city, one of our artifacts helping solve the puzzle, providing a translation for the written language of mankind’s first great civilization. Beyond that, the sudden validation for the Dream Stone also meant the same for my great-great-grandfather, the man who discovered it. The family name, restored, made whole …”
Knight’s voice trailed off into a regretful whisper. Sitting stock-still for only a moment, the professor sighed, then turned his attention back to the FBI man.
“You must forgive the academic mind-set, Agent Klein, but no, I’m forced to admit I was
n’t thinking much of terrorism when I asked an old colleague to come here. I was thinking only of my predecessor, and of the prestige an exhibit of Memak’torian artifacts would generate for the museum. If anything—”
Despite the level of overwhelming boredom that had set in around the long table in Conference Room A, all eyes turned to stare at Knight as he suddenly went silent. The professor had thrown himself off into some random thought, abandoning those in the room in mid-sentence to follow whatever notion had flashed within his mind through to its conclusion. After several seconds, he blinked hard, then told the others;
“Forgive me, but something important just dawned on me… .”
“Yes … ?” asked Klein and Brinkley at the same moment.
“Stereo,” joked Knight, pausing only to give the pair a moment to register sour looks, then said, “It may be nothing, but it’s just come back to me that I did not actually invite Dr. Ungari to come here.”
“No?” Klein leaned forward. “Then who did?”
“I remember it quite clearly. He invited himself. Said he deserved a vacation, and that I deserved a chance to bask in his ‘all-encompassing radiance.’ That’s why I brushed it aside, didn’t think of it. He was joking; we discussed hitting the town—it was like we were planning a party. I just—”
“Forget it, Professor,” responded the FBI man sympathetically. “This is the way of things. It’s not your job to be suspecting every little thing. And besides, not only did you not know about Bakur; it’s quite possible Ungari doesn’t know anything about the man’s background as well.”
“Really?” The surprise in Brinkley’s voice prompted a response from one of the other FBI agents present.
“Bakur was assigned to Ungari by the Syrians, ma’am,” the woman said. “Back in the day, the Soviets would assign a KGB agent to every American scientist, politician, or even entertainer that found themselves traveling within any of their territories. The agents served in the roles of translators, travel coordinators, drivers, whatever, but they always had their eyes and ears in place. Bakur most likely is simply keeping tabs on a non-Syrian for the government.”
“And, as it’s a non-Syrian with an acceptable excuse to be traveling in and out of the U.S.,” added Klein, “as well as one for shipping large crates here, Ungari is certainly someone they would have covered.”
“Which leaves us still with the question,” said Knight, “of why Ungari would want to personally inspect the Dream Stone.”
“That is, as they say, the question, Professor,” agreed Klein. “What do you think—got any answers?”
“NO, DAMN IT—I MISSED IT BY THIRTY SECONDS … ?”
“Less, looks like.”
“It’s just not fair.”
The speaker was a Ms. Danielle Green, one of the secretaries working under Judith in the museum’s human resources department. She had picked the time slot designated “15 to 20 minutes” in the department’s current pool. Bridget quickly came to the realization that the betting had something to do with her, or more specifically, something to do with her and the question she had asked about the professor. She was having more than a little trouble, however, determining how people could be betting on something as trivial as that.
“Confused?” When Bridget agreed with Judith’s assessment, the department head smiled, then explained. “Our pool was on how many minutes it would take you to ask someone how old Professor Knight is. And to save you makin’ another inquiry, I’ve been in this department longer than anyone here—okay? And that’s how I knew we could bet on such a thing because there hasn’t been a female who’s worked for this place in all the time I’ve been here that hasn’t wanted to know the same thing.”
“Don’t feel embarrassed,” offered Danielle. Placing her index finger to her chin, the woman scrunched her shoulders coyly, saying, “You’re not the first pretty face to fall for the professor’s smooth satchel of charm.”
“I, I didn’t … I mean …”
As Bridget flushed, the other women’s responses ranged from small grins to full-bodied laughter. Putting a sympathetic hand to the redhead’s shoulder, Judith told her;
“Don’t take it the wrong way. That man, damn, he’s simply got the Devil’s charm about him, leakin’ out of every pore. Don’t you think, ladies?”
The five other women gathered in the central area of the human resources department all made noises of approval running from nasty smirks to deeply suggestive groans accompanied by some rather explicit hand gestures. As the giggling among the group began to get out of hand, meaning loud enough for people outside the office to overhear, Judith clapped her hands together and brought an end to the disturbance. Claiming they as a group had wasted enough time, the department head declared that she needed to get Bridget to fill out all her necessary paperwork and that everyone else needed to get back to their jobs. Once she had Bridget safely in her office and behind a closed door, Judith said;
“Forty-three.”
“Excuse me … ?”
“Professor Knight, that’s how old he is. At least, that’s what the records we have on file here say. If you can believe that.” As the department head walked around her desk to her chair, Bridget took a centrally located one on the other side. Then, as she settled her ample self into her swivel chair, Judith added;
“I mean, you’ve seen him … you tell me—you think that man could possibly be forty-three?”
“I have to admit, he … but then, he doesn’t look any older.”
“Is that what I asked you?”
The younger woman took a deep breath in through her nose. Her mouth was a thin straight line, clamped tight, her eyes hooded. She was avoiding looking at the woman on the other side of the desk, remaining silent not because she wished to avoid the conversation but because she was trying to really be a part of it—to offer some contribution that would make her sound not quite as silly as a few of the other women in the office. Finally, she looked up and answered;
“I’m a country girl, all right? I did just finish my undergraduate work at the University of Chicago, so I know a little bit about cities and the people that live in them, but I’m probably not as sophisticated as the rest of you.”
“Hedgin’ your bets here?”
“No,” Bridget said slowly, “just trying to be honest. I’m admitting that I can’t even pretend to know everything. So, if the records say he’s forty-three, then, all right, I guess he must be. But he just seems so … oh, I don’t know what the word would be, I mean, mature, wise, but he’s funny, and playful, do you know what I mean?”
“All too well,” agreed Judith with a sigh. The younger woman could not tell if the department head was referring to all the other women whom the professor had apparently enthralled or maybe to her own feelings. Curious, Bridget asked, “What do you think of him?”
“Child, I don’t know how any man that young got that smart and that sexy, but if he came in a darker shade I’d be on him like lies on a politician’s résumé. And,” she added with a chuckle, “if my husband would conveniently disappear for a while. I mean, even after all this time I can’t tell you what it is that man has, but I certainly would like the chance to lick some of it off him.”
When Bridget’s eyes went somewhat wide with surprise, Judith scoffed, adding in a low whisper;
“Oh, like your brain hasn’t been flirtin’ with the idea of givin’ him a wink and sayin’, ‘Come hither.’ ”
Blushing, the redhead admitted;
“The thought had crossed my mind, if I remember correctly.”
“I’ll bet it did,” answered Judith, laughing softly as she did so. Reaching for the forms she did need the professor’s new intern to fill out, Judith added, “And let me just wish you good luck tryin’. I’ll tell you this much, the man ain’t gay, but he ain’t escorted no one from here home as of yet. And believe me, more than a few have tried.”
“It’s a shame,” said Bridget, not thinking about what she was saying. “He
really does have a charming home.”
Judith’s eyes went wide to the point of comic exaggeration. Her one hand clutching the now-forgotten forms, she held her other out to point at the younger woman on the opposite side of her desk. Her eyes suddenly narrowing to coldly suspicious slits, she asked;
“You’ve been in this city one day, and you’ve seen the inside of Professor Piers Never-Does-Anything-But-Eat-Sleep-and-Work Knight’s home? Exactly which rooms did you see?”
“Nothing happened,” answered Bridget, her tone revealing she was slightly shocked that someone would think so.
Not ready to leave things at just the registering of the younger woman’s indignation, Judith demanded the whole story. Her insistence on getting all the details of the evening before was born more out of disbelief than anything else. By the time Bridget had explained the set of circumstances that had led to her sleeping on the professor’s couch, the department head had been placated. Oddly enough, Bridget thought the older woman might actually have been relieved to hear the entire story.
As she finally settled into filling out the half-dozen various forms required to be on file in the museum’s human resources department, Bridget’s mind reviewed the past twenty-four hours of her life. Since her arrival in New York City, she had seen one of the greatest cities in the world from its highest point. After that she had enjoyed one of the finest meals she could have ever imagined in one of the most wonderful restaurants she had ever known.
She had also seen a man levitate, watched men get shot and then destroyed by an explosion, seen a walking wraith, been interrogated by the police, escaped the clutches of a being made of fire, learned that magic very possibly might be real, and slept in the home of a man many of her new coworkers apparently fantasized about on a daily basis.
