by C. M. Palov
Bugger! he silently cursed when the other man seized a pair of scissors from the desktop arsenal.
Mirthlessly smiling, the assassin came at him, the scissors aimed at his soft underbelly.
Tempted to go for a head shot, Caedmon, instead, swung the brass lamp at the killer’s right hand. Metal slammed against flesh, making a hideous sound. Thwack! Like a carrot snapped in two. The scissors clattered onto the floor.
“Argh!” the assassin bellowed.
Galvanized into action, Caedmon made a quick, left-handed grab, wrapping his fingers around a suede-clad arm. Snarling, his adversary parried with a vigorous knee jab. A direct hit to the kidneys.
Caedmon grunted. Swallowed back a mouthful of stomach bile. The assassin pulled free from his grasp, dashing up the staircase that led to the second-story catwalk. Gasping for breath, he gave chase, clambering up the narrow flight of steps. At the top he saw a flash of brown suede; the assassin was some twenty feet ahead of him on the catwalk. Ten feet beyond that, the catwalk dead-ended.
Tightening his grip on the brass lamp, Caedmon slowed his step, the game finally drawing to a finish. Cornered, the assassin stood with his back to him.
“Why did you kill Jason Lovett?”
The question met with a soft chuckle.
“Do you find that amusing?”
“I find this entire situation amusing,” the assassin replied—just before he vaulted over the railing.
In stunned amazement, Caedmon watched the other man sail through the air, nimbly landing on his feet.
“Bloody hell!”
Flinging the brass lamp aside, Caedmon ran down the staircase. Heart pounding in his ears, he headed for the atrium, bursting through the swinging double doors just in time to see Lovett’s killer run past the abandoned security station.
Still determined to catch the bastard, Caedmon raced across the atrium and out the front door. Too late! The assassin had already descended the flight of steps and was sprinting toward an idling bus.
I don’t bloody believe it. . . . He’s going to make his escape on a city coach.
His energy flagging, Caedmon gracelessly charged down the granite stairs.
By the time he reached the thirty-third step, the assassin was already onboard, the coach doors pneumatically closing behind him. An instant later, the vehicle pulled away from the curb. Rushing forward, he swung his arms above his head, signaling the vehicle. The stone-faced driver didn’t give him so much as a sideways glance.
“Shag it!”
Furious, Caedmon banged his palm against the side of the departing coach. In the far-off distance he heard the blare of multiple sirens.
Having seated himself at the rear of the bus, the assassin calmly turned and looked at him.
Caedmon returned the impudent stare, imprinting the man’s face on his memory—dark shoulder-length hair, wide-set brown eyes, a proud nose, slightly pouting full lips. Expecting coarse, even loutish, features, he was taken aback by the assassin’s physical beauty.
I’ve seen his face before, he realized with no small measure of surprise. At London’s National Gallery there was a painting by Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man. Jason Lovett’s assassin could have stepped right out of the fifteenth-century canvas, the resemblance uncanny.
Smiling slightly, the assassin raised his right hand to his lips, blowing Caedmon a kiss.
“Cheeky bastard,” he disgustedly muttered, the killer’s smugness the last insult. The “Young Man” well aware that he had just gotten away with murder.
CHAPTER 10
The American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.
The thought popped into Caedmon’s head as he reentered the Masonic reading room, D. H. Lawrence’s assessment strangely apropos.
Although he wasn’t altogether certain that Jason Lovett’s assassin was an American. The audacious young man had the air of a fashionable boulevardier combined with the physical beauty of a Mediterranean gigolo. Not exactly the image that came to mind when envisioning a cold-blooded American hit man.
Edie, her face streaked with tears, rushed toward him. The crimson-red shawl that was tied at her waist flared behind her like an unfurled sail.
“Thank God, you’re all right!” she exclaimed, flinging herself at his chest. “Lovett didn’t . . . he didn’t make it.”
Caedmon wrapped his arms around her quivering backside, belatedly realizing that he was shaking as well. For several moments they held each other, both of them murmuring words of comfort.
Hearing the shrill blare of sirens outside the building, he pulled away and awkwardly patted her shoulder. Four months ago, fate had literally thrown them together when they were both marked for execution by a religious zealot intent on finding the Ark of the Covenant. Had it not been for that dangerous episode, their paths would never have crossed. Given that he maintained a flat in Paris and Edie lived in Washington, their paths didn’t cross on a regular basis. In fact, he’d just flown in to Dulles last evening—the first time in nearly four weeks that they’d seen one another. He supposed that a bit of bumbling was to be expected.
“Yes, right.” He cleared his throat, directing his attention to Jason Lovett’s sprawled body. “Where is everyone? A brutal murder usually brings out the morbidly curious.”
“The security guard has the lecture-goers cordoned in the banquet hall.” Edie scowled at him. “I know that you got your book smarts from Oxford and your street smarts from MI5, but seeing you chase after the killer scared the bejesus out of me. Who do you think you are—Superman?”
“My apologies for scaring the lady. Unfortunately, my superpowers left something to be desired,” he confessed. Like any male of middling years, it pricked his ego that he’d been bested by a younger man. Stronger of both wind and limb. “The bastard made a clean go of it. Like chasing the Artful Dodger.”
Gnawing on her lower lips, Edie glanced over her shoulder at the dead archaeologist. “Before he died, I thought Lovett was about to pull a gun on me.” Slipping a hand into her dress pocket, she removed a small chrome-colored device, which she wielded like a hand-gun. “Bang-bang! This is what I mistook for a loaded weapon,” she said, handing him a digital voice recorder.
“How curious. Given the tragedy that just transpired, I suspect Jason Lovett wasn’t the only person actively searching for the Templar treasure. Although his unfortunate death makes me think that—” Suddenly noticing the jeweled knife hilt protruding from Lovett’s back, he stopped in midsentence.
Good God. Surely, he was seeing things.
Well aware that the authorities would arrive at any moment, Caedmon walked over to the corpse. Going down on bent knee, he examined what appeared to be a finely crafted centuries-old dagger.
“I don’t believe it.”
Clearly perplexed by his reaction, Edie stared at the jeweled hilt. “What is it?”
Taking care not to touch the murder weapon, he indicated the small inset rubies that formed a distinctive eight-pointed star.
“It’s an octogram star, the age-old symbol of creation.” Perplexed at seeing the symbol on a murder weapon, he stood upright. “In ancient Egypt, the octogram star was known as the ogdoad and was used by the creation cult that sprang up at Hermopolis. The number eight is highly significant in many esoteric traditions—the Gnostics, the Kabbalists—and, of course, there are eight points—”
“On the famous Templar cross,” Edie said, beating him to the punch. A split second later, her brow furrowed. “Do you think this star has something to do with the Knights Templar?”
“I think that Dr. Lovett’s murder has something to do with the Knights Templar. As for the star . . . I don’t know.” Caedmon shrugged, wishing he had a better answer. The eight-pointed star was one of the most complicated symbols in history. Two interlaced squares. The seven days of Creation followed by the eighth day of regeneration. Paradise regained.
Lost in thought, he glanced upward, his gaze alighting on the Egyptian hieroglyph
ics that adorned the ceiling. The unusual motif reiterated the premise of his Oxford dissertation—that the Knights Templars’ exposure to the Egyptian mysteries was at the heart of their brutal demise. And though he’d been derided for a lack of corroborating evidence, he still held firm to the belief.
The Templar treasure. The Octogram star. The Egyptian ogdoad. A dead archaeologist.
Was there a connection between the seemingly separate sine qua non?
“The Knights Templar are at the heart of this mystery. I can feel it in my blood.”
Edie waved a hand in front of his face. “Hel-lo. Jason Lovett was murdered before our very eyes. I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s an occupational hazard of being an archaeologist.” She shook her head, putting Caedmon in mind of a harried mother chiding her ill-behaved child. “Until now, I thought your obsession with the Knights Templar was relatively harmless.”
“I am not obsessed,” he replied, taking issue with her word choice.
“Well, if you aren’t obsessed, why did you chase Lovett’s killer?”
“Strangely enough, I had a great many questions to put to the brute. First and foremost, I wanted to know why he executed Jason Lovett.”
Edie’s brown eyes opened wide, as though he’d just made the most outlandish of statements. “Man’s greed knows no bounds. Money is the root of all evil. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me. Take your pick.”
Before he could reply, a bevy of uniformed police officers and a medical emergency team, stretcher in tow, rushed into the reading room.
“What about the digital voice recorder? Should we turn it over to the police?” Edie worriedly inquired.
Caedmon glanced at the uniformed policemen shoving their way through the crowd. Then he glanced at the small digital voice recorder that he still held in his right hand. Finally his gaze landed on the open book that was on the floor beside the dead archaeologist.
The Templars brought the Ark to the New World in the fourteenth century. I have the proof!
“Mention the digital recorder to no one. Our slain acquaintance bequeathed it to us for a reason.” With the tip of his shoe, he closed the book.
Hopefully, no one would think to open it.
CHAPTER 11
Saviour exited the city bus.
At a glance he could see that he was in a Latino neighborhood, the shop signs all in Spanish, the pedestrians darkly hued.
Still in a heightened state of exultation, he strode toward a cantina a half block away. Admittedly, he enjoyed being pursued, finding it highly erotic. Although in the early years he’d done his share of chasing. Begging. Pleading.
Pick me. I can pleasure you better than those other boys.
In need of an espresso, he entered the run-down cantina. Almost immediately, he was assaulted with the combined scents of cinnamon, jalapeño peppers, and heated lard. Confidently striding to the back of the establishment, he seated himself at a table covered with a stained white cloth. In the center of the table, there was a vase of plastic flowers, a pitiful attempt to beautify what was essentially a very ugly café.
A squat woman with dark eyes and even darker hair approached the table.
Assuming she spoke no English, he initiated the exchange. “Un café exprés, por favor,” he told her. Having spent a summer on the Costa del Sol, he knew enough Spanish to satisfy most of his physical needs.
Stone-faced, the waitress returned a few moments later, placing a demitasse and chipped saucer in front of him. Raising the cup to his lips, Saviour immediately felt a stab of pain in his right hand. His pursuer had scored a direct hit with the brass lamp, the surge of adrenaline having masked the injury.
Grimacing, he took a sip of the bitter brew, the pain causing his thoughts to turn to the red-haired man who’d given chase. Did Lovett tell him about the excavation? If he did, it meant that Caedmon Aisquith knew about the massacre and the treasure that initiated the bloodbath. As God was his witness, he wouldn’t have shared that information with his own mother. The bitch.
An unmarried woman, Iphigenia Argyros earned the condemnation of her family and neighbors when she was raped by a Libyan refugee. Like hundreds of his countrymen seeking asylum, Saviour’s father arrived on the island of Chios in a rickety fishing boat, having braved the treacherous seas to get there. Apprehended by the Greek coast guard, he was transferred to a detention center in Thessaloniki, managing to escape in short order. First he satisfied his hunger. Then he slaked his lust.
Saddled with an unwelcome bastard, whom she named Saviour out of spite, Iphigenia blamed her miserable lot in life on the child born of that violent union. The fact that his father was a “filthy, dirty Muslim” made Saviour subhuman in his mother’s eyes.
On his thirteenth birthday, enraged that his mother had refused to mark the occasion, Saviour stormed out of the two-bedroom flat in Vardalis Square. It had been the only home he’d ever known.
The first night of his newfound freedom had been terrifying. Curled in a fetal position, he’d slept in a doorway. The second night, he sneaked into the Agía Sophía. The Church of Holy Wisdom. Lulled to sleep by the soft glow of devotional candles and the strangely erotic scent of incense, he’d been rudely awakened the next morning by a bearded priest who dragged him across the tiled floor, bodily tossing him through the ornately carved church doors. Holy wisdom obviously did not include Christian charity.
His belly aching from hunger, he’d had no choice but to steal food from the Modiano market. A fiasco, as it turned out, a furious fruit vendor beating him with a rose switch. Sobbing, his backside a mass of raised welts, he feared what would happen to him come nightfall. As fate would have it, that’s when he met Ari, a street-smart fourteen-year-old who’d been homeless for nearly five years.
Putting a brotherly arm around his shoulders, Ari shared a loaf of bread and a bottle of Coca-Cola with him. Then he invited him to the abandoned cannery that was home to a half dozen runaway boys. Ranging in age from ten to fourteen, they were a close-knit family, Ari the acknowledged leader.
To earn money, the older “brothers” hit the wharf each morning just after dawn, giving blow jobs to the dockworkers arriving for their day’s labor, jockeying for business with other homeless runaways. Using a banana, the two of them laughing uproariously, Ari had showed him how to arouse a man in record time so that he was on his knees only a minute or two.
Soon his days fell into a pattern. Morning “wages” in hand, he and Ari would buy a pack of cigarettes and a box of kadaifi, a nut pastry drizzled in lemon syrup. They would then spend the next few hours lounging on the beach, mocking the dockworkers who, like donkeys, had earlier grunted and brayed as their hips spasmodically jerked. He and Ari had names for them. Hairy Ass. Scrunch Balls. Blowtorch. Little Stump. Late afternoon ushered in another round of blow jobs when the fishermen came in with their daily catch, the boys often paid with fresh mackerel. Pooling their meager funds, the brothers would buy several bottles of retsina to wash down the fish they grilled on an open fire pit.
While it was far from a perfect life, it was a vast improvement over the one he’d had. With Ari at his side, no one dared to call him a bastard.
About to lift the demitasse to his lips, Saviour felt a soft vibration against his waist. Lowering the cup, he gingerly reached for his mobile phone, the pain in his right hand having intensified in the last few minutes. He didn’t have to look at the caller ID to know that it was his beloved Mercurius.
“Did you use the dagger?”
“As instructed,” Saviour answered, annoyed that the question had even been asked.
“I assume that it went well?”
For a brief moment, Saviour contemplated lying. Thinking better of it at the last, he truthfully replied, “I dealt with the archaeologist. However, there was an unforeseen complication. The archaeologist may have revealed his findings to a man and woman whom he met here in Washington.”
“Their names,” Mercurius demanded, uncharacteristically b
rusque.
“The woman’s identity is unknown. The man is named Caedmon Aisquith.” He spelled the unusual name.
On the other end of the line, Saviour could hear the soft peck of fingertips striking a computer keyboard. He assumed Mercurius just keyed the name Caedmon Aisquith into an Internet search engine.
“Who is he?” Saviour inquired, curious about the red-haired man.
On the other end of the line, he heard a ponderous sigh.
“A dangerous threat.”
CHAPTER 12
A dangerous threat, indeed, the man known as Mercurius thought as he hung up the kitchen phone and walked over to the stove. He peered into the cezve, the Turkish coffee-pot; the brew had started to froth. Using a small spoon, he skimmed the light brown crema into a small cup.
As he knew all too well, the world was full of dangerous threats. Always lurking. Ready to spring forth when one least expected, a knife to the throat. A gun to the temple. Such was the nature of our earthly existence. And though he felt deep remorse over the archaeologist’s demise, Mercurius knew that Jason Lovett would have sold the sacred relic to the highest bidder. An action that would have prolonged the misery, the relic mankind’s only hope for escaping this wretched world.
Turning off the gas burner, Mercurius carefully poured the hot coffee as close to the side of the cup as possible, the froth slowly rising to the top. That done, he opened a tin, removed a sugared candy and placed it on the saucer beside the diminutive cup. A piece of rosewater-flavored Turkish Delight to cleanse his palate. Mercurius carried the cup and saucer to the study, his olfactory senses assailed by the rich aroma that wafted through the air.
As always, the pungent scent reminded him of that long-ago night in 1943. How could it not?
Cybele, their aged housekeeper, had just set a large tray of Turkish coffee and powdered sweets on the table in the elegantly appointed drawing room. All of the furnishings—the elaborately carved cabinets, the gilt mirrors, the upholstered settees—had been imported from France and at no small expense, as Thessaloniki was a lengthy sea journey from Marseille. His mother, lounging on a velvet-covered divan, was in the process of smoking a lemon-scented cigarette. His grandmother plied her hand to a piece of petit-point embroidery. His two sisters played cards at a table specifically designed for that purpose. And his father sat in a tufted leather armchair, deep in conversation with his best friend of more than forty years.
