by Dorian Paul
His father didn't reply immediately, and he waited. "I'm aware you face significant pressures and crises of your own. Nonetheless, estate business is a fundamental responsibility I cannot shirk any more than you can evade your responsibilities."
His father's comment broke him, like a racquets drop shot that he couldn't return. "I understand. I beg your indulgence in this instance."
"And the last one?"
Another lost point, this time from a well-aimed ball to his blind spot. He remained silent in the chill of his father's disapproval. For once he knew he deserved it.
"Your mother wishes me to invite you and Claire for Christmas."
"Thank you for the invitation, sir." He would've been pleased if it had been delivered with more warmth, but under the circumstances he scarcely deserved it. "I shall get back to mother."
"I trust you will, David."
But his father did not trust him to be true to his word, a state of affairs he was forced to accept. He had every reason not to be at Mr. Hitchens' office, and yet wasn't in a position to make excuses because he hadn't thought to phone and cancel. He'd thought of nothing save rushing out of the Athenaeum and bringing Varat's blade here, to the Wallace Collection, where his father often brought him as a boy.
Those visits had been his introduction to culture. They invariably began with a tour of paintings of the great masters, before viewing selected items from the collections of Sevres porcelain, bronze statues, and portrait miniatures. But his father always rewarded him at the end with a visit to what David most wanted to see: the hall of weapons where sets of exquisitely etched German armor stood as hollow sentinels before a room overflowing with swords whose handles sparkled with gold, silver and jewels.
The sight of those beautiful instruments of destruction never disappointed him . . . as he'd disappointed his father today. He hoped one day soon he might relate to his father all that had happened in the last month, but that must wait until he stopped Varat.
And if he couldn't stop Varat?
He shunted the thought aside and returned to the curator's office.
"Lordy, lordy," the curator chuckled. "What lengths they go to inflate the value of an artifact."
"What have you found?" If something was unusual about this dagger, then it must be an explicit message from Varat.
"They describe your scramasax as belonging to a Norse chieftain who raided the Thames in the ninth century. Claim it's the companion piece to the chieftain's legendary sword, nicknamed Woden's Thunder."
"Woden?"
"Norse god of war. Responsible for quite a bit in his day, like elevating those warriors to Valhalla. Long forgotten, of course, and most aren't aware he lent his name to one of our days – Wednesday."
Wednesday? The Paris attack took place on a Wednesday. Could the next attack be scheduled for Wednesday?
"I hope no one was taken in by this little fairy tale, but could have been. The lot went for a pretty penny."
"The lot?"
"Your scramasax was auctioned with a number of other swords. Ah, here's the reason." A curved sword filled the curator's screen. "Now this is a weapon worth owning."
"A Turkish scimitar?" David asked, inclining his head for a better view.
"No, a Persian shamshir." He zoomed in on the handle. "Beautiful horse-head." Then he shifted focus to a close-up of the blade. "Nice jawhar pattern."
"What are you looking at?"
"See those wavy lines in the blade? They call that jawhar. This is a kirk nardeban pattern by the looks of it."
"Does it mean anything specific?"
"Only that this was one of the finest blades of its era."
"This sword was the centerpiece of the lot, then?"
The curator shook his head. "It's a piece I'd be proud to display upstairs. In fact, I'd have paid more than our buyer did if we had the resources. Wait, here's what held the price down." He pointed to the on-screen catalog. "Provenance is not clearly established."
"Meaning?"
"There's a disclaimer warning the piece might have been stolen from an archeological site or removed from a country illegally. Maybe that's why our buyer's anonymous. He may plan to have this sword disappear."
"Does that happen often?"
The curator smirked. "Regularly."
"How would you find out more about where this sword came from?"
"I'd ring up some contacts. See what they know and go from there."
"How long might that take?"
"A bit of time. When do you require the information?"
If the next attack was planned for Wednesday, he needed to know as soon as possible. Claire must be told to ramp up her work. Every second counted should his assumptions prove correct. And then he had to call Bobby . . . but only if the evidence was irrefutable.
Chapter 37
"Fill me in on this sword-thing Varat sent you," Bobby said at the start of his teleconference with David.
"In due time," his friend answered. "Any success in Newark?"
Bobby went there to check in on his people. They were grinding through dock manifests, looking for a missing case of wine or anything less than kosher. "We're busting our butts. So far nada."
"And what of other places?"
"Newark's our best bet. Just gonna take more time we ain't got."
"Anything else?"
"Nope." One thing he wasn't going to tell David for sure was what he did afterwards when he hopped a cab to the last known address of his no-good twin Johnny, a flea bag rental in the East New York part of Brooklyn on a street littered with beat up cars.
"So thus far you've come up empty-handed," David griped.
"Yeah, empty." Johnny's apartment door wasn't locked even though nobody was there. Hey, why lock the door when there's zilch to steal? Even the refrigerator didn't have food 'cept those little packets of fast food ketchup.
"And we have no persons of interest?"
"None." Just the furry thing scurrying along the wall that was probably the only company Johnny kept while waiting for drug thugs to pay him a call. Jesus. Rats creeped him out.
"My thought is we leave no stone unturned, Bobby. Whatever effort it takes, we make it."
"Yep." Mom would agree. She'd been bugging him nonstop to check on Johnny, and now he could report back in. She must be right; Johnny's walk on the dark side finally caught up with him. It damn well caught up with Bobby. He shifted in his ergonomic chair and cradled the phone with his chin so he could massage his aching left shoulder. "Okay, time to talk about your sword."
"It's called a scramasax."
"And it showed up wrapped in a menu from that Middle East restaurant?"
"Right, the place with couscous to die for."
"What can I say, pal? You gotta be right and I was wrong."
"Apology accepted. There can be no doubt Varat sent the package. This particular scramasax is associated with the Norse God Woden and, more importantly, Wednesday got its name from Woden. I believe he's giving us a message the next attack will be on Wednesday."
"Cocky bastard to give us a full week's warning. Not sure I buy it."
"Varat never lacked for confidence."
Neither did David, but he let it pass. "You say the guy who bought the sword is cooperating?"
"He's granted full access to Varat's account. The inter-bank Swift messages for the deposits used to purchase the sword were stripped of forwarding information, but thanks to your financial people we found ghost images identifying their origination."
"And the money came from?"
"Iran. The Mossad verified the source account as one previously used to bankroll Hamas and Hezbollah."
"Yeah, well, why am I not surprised?"
"However, what is surprising is the ease with which we were able to trace the money trail. Varat knows how to cover his tracks."
"Yeah, unless he wants us to get in a bidding war for his services."
"Right, but if that were the case he would have let us know his price.
It's my belief Varat's motivation goes beyond money."
"Money's a big motivator for most folks." Spasms darted down Bobby's spine courtesy of yesterday's street thugs, eager to teach Johnny Keane what happens to wise guys who don't pay their bills. "And it makes sense for Varat to give us his bank account info so we can make a deposit before next Wednesday. Or else."
"Wealth is not at issue –"
"Maybe not for you, pal, but you're the exception."
"Listen to me, Bobby. Varat has pots of money, judging by the sums he's expended on antique weaponry over the last decade. He's assembled a museum quality collection of Persian swords."
"Okay, so Varat sees himself as 'Attila the Hun' and sees us as a way to get more dough so he can buy more swords."
"No, I do not agree. Rather, the swords themselves are a clue he's providing me for some specific reason. The question is what reason?"
"Look, I give you that the couscous restaurant panned out but you could just be spitting in the wind about this sword stuff, and it's probably not worth the time it's gonna take to look into it more."
"Bobby, Varat is sending me a message. Ours has always been a curious relationship."
"Tell that to the Israelis. See if they're willing to wait till you figure out your bizarre relationship with Varat. If Iran's shipping Tivaz TB to Hamas and Hezbollah, and that's a pretty good bet, then it ain't gonna be long before it gets released in Israeli schools."
"I have no quarrel with you, and shall certainly keep working on all fronts. I merely wanted to keep you fully in the loop."
After he hung up, Bobby squeezed a trigger point in his neck with his thumb and forefinger. God, he was sore. He took a minute more to rub his collarbone and think about the call with David. Even though the Israelis had been around the block on this kinda thing before, with kids targeted, they might not cotton to a proportional response. Somebody in Israel, or the U.S., was always looking for an excuse to go all out, especially with nukes being part of the Iran equation.
Job #1 was still figuring out how many TB canisters were in play and where Varat planned to use 'em. If David was right about Woden's blade, and Tivaz TB was here in the States too, they had to figure this out before Wednesday. The data mining turned up zip so far, but he went back to the FISA papers and double-checked the search parameters he'd requested. The judge who approved the request would let him expand the search within reason. But where to from here?
He stood up to clear his brain and a God awful pain made him catch his breath. Johnny's place. He never should 'a gone there. Having gone, he should 'a had the cabbie wait while he checked things out. Instead, he left Johnny's building and started walking toward the main drag to grab a cab to LaGuardia. Big mistake . . . and he made it worse by getting distracted thinking about him and Johnny, their phantom Dad, and a Mom who did her best to teach them how to lie and steal. He never saw the tough guys until they were on him.
The work-over by those jokers who’d mistaken him for his look-alike twin was something he could've shrugged off a few years ago. It sucked to get old, but not much he could do about it. But, he could do something about Johnny's predicament. Maybe. Like find him and tell him to pay up, or those guys he took a beating from were gonna give it to Johnny big-time and nobody was gonna be able to save him then. Nah, why should he? This was his brother's mess and he never listened to anything Bobby told him before, anyway. Besides, Johnny's problems were ant dung compared to what the world was up against with Tivaz TB.
He eased back into his chair and stared at the FISA parameters. They were already screening the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn in hopes of coming across an underemployed Russian scientist who'd gone to work for Varat. It would be a piece of cake to tweak the parameters to pick up conversations on drug deals gone awry – like the kind Johnny was mixed up in.
No, don't even go there. It's wrong . . . and against the law.
But what about the Regional DEA Director? Thanks to Bobby the man'd been able to crack the smuggling operation in human organs. Yep, that guy owed him a favor.
***
No one else was up and about when Claire slipped down the wide Sherborne House staircase. Good, she didn't want to answer questions about the small bag she carried, or justify to David her decision to stay in the lab through next Wednesday. She'd lived there day and night while Sandra fought and lost to Tivaz TB. Now she'd be on hand to work up the bactericidal nanomolecule and stockpile as much of the DNA and protein antigen vaccines as possible before the next attack came . . . probably in five days. Until Wednesday, it was best she and David remain ships passing in the night.
But no sooner did she reach the foyer than the front door opened.
"I was going to be leaving you a note today if I didn't see you, luv."
Maggie, thank goodness. "What can I do for you?"
"The Duchess rang yesterday. She's wanting the Crest china at Thorn Hall for Christmas."
Guilt stabbed her.
"When will the shop be getting the soup tureen back to you, luv?"
Too late. "Not until January."
"I'd best be ringing the man up then. He'll fix it sooner once I explain the Duchess always serves chestnut soup for Christmas."
She couldn't let Maggie do this. The tureen was her problem, and she'd make the time to take care of it. "I'll speak to the man at the shop. And if it can't be repaired before Christmas, I'll call the Duchess myself and explain."
"Oh, I'm not so sure that's the best idea. Let me tell her. The Duchess can be a bit tetchy at times."
All the more reason she should be the one to tell the Duchess instead of Maggie. "I can manage, Maggie."
"Look, luv, I've a better idea. Davvy can ring the Duchess if need be. She's always tickled to hear from him, no matter what the boy has to say. He can smooth the way."
Yes, he definitely has a way with women, and she was tempted to use it to her advantage, but she'd broken the tureen. "No. I'll take care of it."
"Sure?" Maggie asked. "You're awfully busy."
She hesitated but not because she was busy. The receipt from the shop was upstairs. If David came out of his rooms, she'd have to face him.
***
David found Maggie in the midst of breakfast preparations, and Claire already gone. Had she stopped eating, for God's sake? He missed sharing her bed and wanted to tell her he loved her. But when? After botching things in Paris and on the phone during his Morocco trip, he concluded timing was everything with women. He planned to tell her over lunch at the Athenaeum, but Varat put an end to that. And since then neither of them had time to spare.
And what little time was left after chasing down all obvious leads, he spent researching Varat's collection of Persian weapons. Those weapons exhibited the taste of an arms dealer with an unerring eye. Varat had always known which automatic rifles were least likely to jam and which rocket grenades flew truest, and the swords he'd chosen for his collection were the best for their time period. The watered steel in these swords was created through a secret process known only to a handful of armorers who, it was said, Persian kings prized above virgin princesses. The closest approximation David knew of was the magical blade Merlin forged for King Arthur.
Omar Messina and Claire Ashe were the armorers of today, dueling with deadly microbes. Really then, it should be no surprise Varat was drawn to acquire Tivaz TB – a stellar example of the modern arsenal. The only issue was why he had graduated from merely providing arms to becoming one who wielded them.
The answer must lie in Varat's past, and David checked his messages once more for word from Brun about Lycée Rue Barthel students from the years of the missing records. If only he might speak to someone who knew Varat the boy, he might be able to peer inside Varat the man. Didn't the boy Davvy, who played risky antics behind his father's back, sit here today as David Ruskin, calculating Varat's next moves in their deadly chess game?
But there was nothing from Brun and he resumed reading the epic Persian poem Shahnameh. It b
rought to life the Persian Pahlawan warrior who, like the Japanese Samurai, followed a code replete with honorific rituals and oaths to a liege lord. A Pahlawan warrior proclaimed himself before striking a blow against his opponent, just as Varat proclaimed himself with the restaurant circular and scramasax.
He was looking for other parallels when one of his people interrupted without invitation.
"I've got a feed on its way to you now, sir. Take a look."
He flipped to the secure channel, where a news report from the recent scene at the Chelsea play school was being re-broadcast.
"Like you said, sir, we did full analysis so as not to miss anything, in the event they orchestrated the steam explosion to test our response."
The video zeroed in on an average man who looked, perhaps, to be in his fifties. "Who is he?"
"Dr. Berger's lodger, Israeli activist, known Zionist, on a one year sabbatical at the Hampstead campus of University College London."
Same campus as Claire's lab.
"Take note of who's speaking to him, sir."
The camera zoomed in once more. Bloody hell. "Let's go."
Chapter 38
"I must have a word with you."
"I'll be with you shortly, David."
"Claire, this is important."
She wouldn't be bullied. Unless he knew where or when Tivaz TB would be released next, what could be more important than the development of the bactericidal nanomolecule? "Roscoe and I are discussing something crucial."
"This is urgent."
"All right, then," she relented.
"It's best said in private."
Roscoe stood up. "Looks like your government boyfriend wants me to leave."
"There's no need for you to go. If Mr. Ruskin has information about timing and location of the next attack, you need to know as much as I do."
"Oh, I think I'll go get some coffee while you have your tete-e-tete. Get you one, Claire?"
Roscoe left, but David scowled at his back. The antics of both men irritated her. David shoved aside the papers on her desk to make room for his laptop, and she moved as far away from him as her tiny office allowed. Then he shut her door. Where was her bodyguard when she really needed him?
