by C. M. Palov
“I cannot and I will not,” Caedmon interjected, jaw tightly set, blue eyes glittering.
“Our having custody of the Emerald Tablet is wrong on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin. No, wait! How about starting with the dead man at Chow Hounds? Who, by the way, was an innocent bystander.”
“Yes, Jesus wept. Unfortunately, blood and treasure go hand in hand. Better the corpulent bystander than one of us.”
Edie gripped the stem of her champagne flute, on the verge of slinging the contents in his face.
“Christ! Did I just say that?” Wearing a stunned expression, Caedmon shook his head. Dr. Jekyll regaining his sanity. “Forgive me. But the fact of the matter still remains: The Emerald Tablet is a discovery of the first magnitude. Now that our grave concerns about the relic falling into the hands of a terrorist have been doused, there’s no reason why—”
“Listen to you! What are you going to do? Haul it back to Oxford so you can wave it in the face of all those dons at Queen’s College who dissed your dissertation? Because I’m beginning to think that’s what this deadly scavenger hunt was all about, redeeming your academic reputation. You’d love nothing more than to rub the Oxford crowd’s face in it. ‘See, I was right all along!’”
“Nothing so crass, I can assure you. And you know full well why I went to such lengths to find the relic. The horrific fate of Atlantis was never far from my mind.”
“But you do seek vindication,” she pressed.
Long moments passed, the drawn-out silence instilling a weighty sense of consequence to the unanswered accusation.
“For nearly fourteen years I’ve had to live with the disgrace of being shown the door,” he said after a lengthy pause. “Don’t you understand, Edie, the Emerald Tablet is the link between ancient Egypt and the Knights Templar. I’ve waited my entire adult life for such a discovery. So, to answer your question, yes, I seek vindication.”
The admission gave Edie no satisfaction. “How can you put your personal vanity and ambition above the concerns of mankind?”
Caedmon threw his hands up. “Ah! So now I’m Atlas, forced to bear the weight of the world on my shoulders. I’ve put too much blood, sweat, toil, and tears into this venture to back away from it.”
“Don’t go all Winston Churchill on me.”
“I seek only the truth.”
“Oh, yeah, truth . . . the coin of your realm,” she deadpanned. “And, of course, let’s not forget about knowledge. That’s your—what do they call it?—oh, yeah, your Bushidō. The code that you live by.”
“You cannot sway me. My mind is made up.”
“But you haven’t even considered the dire—” Edie stopped in midsentence. Wasted breath. She’d have better luck convincing a stranger to wire her money.
Caedmon reached for the netbook.
A few minutes later, he smiled, his good humor returned. “I’ve already received a reply from Dr. Lyon. How curious. No typed message, but he did send an attachment.”
“Great,” she muttered as he pecked at the keyboard. “Maybe after dinner we can all do a little skinny-dipping in the hidden stream of knowledge.”
His smile instantly vanished, replaced by a thunder-struck expression.
“What’s the matter?” Not giving him a chance to answer, Edie grabbed the netbook and swiveled it in her direction. A half second later, she slapped a hand over her mouth, afraid she was going to upchuck the Kir Royale. “Ohmygod!”
“Trust me, there’s no evidence of God in that.”
That being a photograph of Dr. Lyon, naked, submerged in a tub of pink bath water. Everything else was colored red: hair, cheeks, and shoulders all streaked with crimson blood. Mouth gaping. Eyes bulging. His withered face frozen in a death mask of sheer terror. Above the tub, a bloodred octogram star had been scrawled on the white ceramic tile. A horrific piece of graffiti.
Edie wrapped her arms around her waist and closed her eyes. It did no good. She could still see a frail, white-haired man peering up from his watery grave.
“Such a bloody, pointless murder . . . killing for the sake of killing.” Caedmon reached for his untouched champagne flute and took a long swig. Mauve-colored liquid sloshed in the glass, his hand visibly shaking. “We are dealing with a man without conscience. That rare breed who takes a sadistic delight in the bloodletting.”
“What do we do now?” she asked, barely able to get the words out.
Expression grim, Caedmon said, “We go to ground.”
CHAPTER 84
Dark-eyed night.
And a damned dreary one at that. The clear skies that prevailed earlier had given way to a pluvial close of day.
Removing his hand from the steering wheel, Caedmon flipped on the Mini’s windshield wipers, the rain coming down in blinding sheets. He cast his driving companion a sideways glance. “Since you’re treating me like a leper, I presume you’re still peeved.”
“Try outraged.” Edie shot him a mutinous glare. “How in God’s name did Rico Suave find Dr. Lyon?”
Having braved Edie’s ire more than a few times, Caedmon was determined to remain calm. To be the staid voice of British reason in the eye of an American storm.
“I suspect the bastard used an electronic listening device to eavesdrop on our conversation at Chow Hounds. If so, he would have overheard the discussion regarding Dr. Lyon. Catholic University is only two miles from the eatery. A ten-minute drive at most. No doubt the professor resided in the near vicinity.”
What he didn’t mention—why invite additional scorn?—was his suspicion that no sooner did the beautiful bastard revive from the head bashing than he went on a murderous rampage. A predator, their adversary had a marked predilection for defenseless victims.
Like Edie Miller.
The reason why they were en route to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. According to the concierge at the Willard, there was a flight for London boarding at four o’clock the next morning. Six hours hence. He’d already contacted his old group leader at Five and made arrangements for Edie to be picked up at Gatwick and taken to a safe house. Yet another reason for her ire: She didn’t like being shuttled across the Atlantic and orphaned out to strangers.
Caedmon flipped the turn signal and veered onto the northbound ramp of Rock Creek Parkway. This late at night, there were few motorists on the winding, tree-lined thoroughfare.
“If you were just tilting at windmills, I could accept that,” Edie said out of the proverbial blue. “But you actually found the Emerald Tablet and because you couldn’t keep the discovery to yourself, an innocent old man was murdered. His death is on your hands.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake! That’s total nonsense.”
“From where I’m sitting, the flame is high and your fiddle is seriously out of tune.”
Patience tried, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Rather than trade barbs, we need to take stock.”
“Just listen to you. You’re like a junkie in denial.” Accusation leveled, Edie ponderously sighed. “It’s my own damned fault. I loved the fact that you were a brainiac. An iconoclast. A Renaissance man.”
It didn’t escape his notice that Edie used the past tense for that most cherished of verbs. “And ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ ”
“Can the literary quotes.”
“Quotations.”
The instant he said it, he felt like a bastard, the conversation having devolved into a juvenile tit-for-tat. “I know that you’re angry, Edie. However, you will get on that plane tomorrow morning and you will—Christ!” he abruptly hissed, furiously pumping the brake pedal with his right foot. No resistance! None whatsoever.
His spine stiffened, levering away from the car seat. He shot Edie a quick sideways glance. “Are you securely belted into your seat?”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
Still stomping on the malfunctioning pedal, he shifted into a lower gear. “The brakes just went out on the Mini.”
&n
bsp; “But we’re going downhill!” There was no mistaking the terror in her voice. “If we crash into a tree, we’ll never survive.”
“As I’m well aware,” he grated through clenched teeth. With the wet road conditions, if he yanked on the emergency brake they’d jackknife for certain. He sucked in a loud, choppy breath.
He glanced at the speedometer. Bugger! Twenty-five hundred pounds of steel picking up speed with each passing second.
Edie frantically pointed to the right side of the windscreen. “There’s a grassy field at the bottom of the hill. That might be a good place to stop this sucker.”
“Right.” He flipped on the high beams, which enabled him to see that the grassy expanse was bordered in dense shrubbery. He could use the terrain to advantage. “Is the Mini equipped with airbags?”
“Passenger’s and driver’s side.”
Thank God. They might actually survive the ordeal. Assuming he could plow into a thick hedgerow rather than a sturdy oak.
As they raced toward the bottom of the hill, the trees that lined the parkway passed in a dizzying blur. The downshifting had slowed the Mini a bit, but not enough that he could safely engage the emergency brake.
They hit the bottom of the hill going 42 mph. A snail’s pace by Formula 1 standards. A potentially deadly speed without brakes. Spotting a clearing between the trees, he forcefully yanked on the steering wheel. The Mini jumped the concrete curb, momentarily airborne. A split second later, the car shook on its frame, hitting the grassy expanse with a bone-jarring impact. Caedmon immediately jerked on the steering wheel, first one direction, then the other, trying to create enough friction to slow the Mini.
“Damn!”
He’d yanked too hard, the car whirling into a dizzying spin.
“We’re going to crash!” Edie shrieked—right before she leaned over and pulled on the emergency brake.
All four tires instantly locked, the Mini skidding sideways. On a crash course with a cluster of saplings.
“Brace for impact!” he hollered as the vehicle smashed into the spindly grove of young trees, both airbags exploding on contact.
The collision happened too quickly to process. Shattered glass. Sheared wood. Crunched metal. An ear-splitting scream. As the engine stalled, the Mini came to a shuddering halt.
“Edie, are you all right?”
“I . . . I think so,” she feebly replied, her voice muffled by the airbag.
His eyes filled with grateful tears. “If I can remove the ignition key, I might be able to punch a hole in the—”
Without warning, the driver’s-side door flew open. An instant later, his airbag deflated with a loud whoosh. Movements slowed by pain, he turned to the Good Samaritan who’d come to their assistance.
Christ!
Battered face illuminated by a piercing beam of light, his nemesis leaned into the car.
“Surprise,” the once beautiful bastard intoned in a slurred voice, dragging the word out to three syllables. While the right side of his face was still comely, the left side was disfigured by a bruised jaw and an ugly gash on his upper cheek. A malevolent two-faced Janus.
Caedmon made a quick grab for the ignition keys.
Only to stop in mid-motion when he felt the barrel of a revolver shoved against his left temple. Uncomprehending at first, it suddenly dawned on him that the bastard was responsible for the brake failure.
“Very slowly, remove the car keys and hand them to me.”
Forced to acquiesce, a loaded gun an effective means of ensuring compliance, Caedmon did as ordered.
“What’s going on?” Edie asked, her inflated airbag obstructing the view.
Still holding the revolver to Caedmon’s head, the other man punctured a hole in Edie’s airbag with the sharp blade that he had clutched in his left hand. That done, he stepped back from the open door.
Beside him, Caedmon heard a terrified gasp.
Whatever you do, Edie, don’t give the bastard a reason to pull the trigger.
“Englishman, out!” The other man roughly gestured, using his gun like a traffic baton.
Biting back a groan, Caedmon slowly hoisted himself out of the wrecked vehicle, every muscle in his body protesting the movement. Breathing heavily, he stood beside the demolished front end, his knees unsteadily wobbling, hit with a nauseating bolt of pain. The pouring rain felt like tiny shards of glass pelting him in the face.
He surreptitiously glanced about. Parked behind the mangled Mini was an Audi A6. The engine still running, its halogen headlamps illuminated the crash scene, the ethereal glow revealing wisps of smoke and saw-toothed saplings.
Revolver held at the ready, the bastard walked over to Edie’s side of the Mini and yanked open the door. “Give me the leather bag at your feet.”
Edie wordlessly complied, handing over the satchel. The contents were riffled through. Moments later, he shoved the bag at her chest. Muttering a curse, the bastard stormed to the back of the Mini and opened the trunk. He removed two soft-sided pieces of luggage, which he unzipped and impolitely dumped onto the ground, strewing the contents all over the wet grass.
“Where is it?”
Taking a deep breath, Caedmon hoped to God the answer didn’t sound their death knell. “The relic is in the vault of the Willard Hotel.” Then, applying a whitewash, he said, “I’m the only one who can access the code to retrieve it. And I will only do so provided no harm comes to Miss Miller.”
“The woman can retrieve the relic.”
“Not true.”
The other man’s eyes narrowed. “You lie.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he removed a mobile phone, which he tossed onto Edie’s lap. “The woman will retrieve the relic from the safe. She will then call the number programmed on the phone. She will not call the police. She will do only as she is instructed.” Although he referred to Edie in the third person, the bastard bent slightly at the waist so he could peer at her.
“If she disobeys, I will kill the Englishman.”
CHAPTER 85
Caedmon examined the windowless room.
The décor consisted of two wooden chairs, one of which he was seated in, a metal desk, a heavy steel door, and a bare lightbulb in a ceiling socket. The sturdy concrete walls were painted an uninspiring shade of dun, the concrete floor a dark green, the paint peeling from both surfaces in ragged strips. Overhead, an exposed pipe dripped rusty water in a continuous and annoying plonk-plonk.
There was one other pipe in the room—a solid metal pipe securely attached to the concrete wall with heavy-duty straps. He knew it was securely attached because he was handcuffed to the blasted thing and had had no luck yanking it free from the wall.
I don’t see any electrodes, Caedmon thought with a measure of relief, so how bad can it get?
Earlier, gun barrel pressed to the back of his head, he’d been “ushered” into the basement of a nineteenth-century bank building currently undergoing renovation. Scaffolding, sawhorses, and plastic sheeting were strewn about the gutted upstairs interior. A negligent workman had been kind enough to leave a string of electric lights turned on. So they wouldn’t break their bloody necks as they trespassed. Since he’d been forced to drive the Audi, Caedmon knew the bank was located in the vicinity of Catholic University. The bastard probably reconnoitered the site earlier in the evening en route to his murderous rendezvous with the unfortunate Professor Lyon.
Thank God the bastard has taken me hostage instead of Edie.
Even in her distraught state, Edie had to know that if she handed over the Emerald Tablet to their nemesis, she would be rewarded with a bullet to the brain. Caedmon prayed that her sense of survival was strong. That she used the cell phone to call a taxi. And that she took the taxi directly to BWI airport. He didn’t care which plane she boarded so long as she left the D.C. area.
On the other side of the room, the steel door suddenly swung open with a jarring reverberation. A jaunty hitch in his step, the once handsome man strolled through the metal door fram
e, the bare bulb casting an unflattering light on his hideously swollen jaw.
He calmly placed a hammer with curved claw and a pair of slip joint pliers on top of the metal table. “The upstairs is being completely refurbished to make way for a discotheque. I’m not entirely certain, but I believe it will be called La Banque.”
“How unoriginal,” Caedmon muttered, taking silent note of the hardware. It ominously implied that he would be “put to the question.” The quaint medieval euphemism for torture.
As though he were a mind reader, his captor forcefully shoved the metal table in his direction, butting the short end against his waist. Caedmon grunted, the wind knocked out of him.
“How careless. My apologies.” Placing a hand over his heart, the bastard insincerely smiled. A grotesque parody given his battered left side. “I have yet to introduce myself. I am Saviour Panos.”
Saviour. Caedmon caustically snorted. The bastard’s mother certainly played a cruel joke on the world the day she bestowed that name upon her son.
Panos seated himself kitty-corner, presenting Caedmon with a view of his still-beautiful right side. “Did you know that you have me to thank for the successful retrieval of the Emerald Tablet?”
“Indeed?”
“There was a police officer in Meridian Hill Park. Probably still is.” Panos punctuated the addendum with another insincere smile. “Unless someone has found him.” Reaching behind him, he removed a heavy revolver from his waistband and set it next to the hammer and pliers.
Belatedly realizing that the weapon Panos had been brandishing was the dead policeman’s service revolver, his belly painfully tightened.
“Good God.”
“That depends on which god one prays to—the god of Light or the god of Darkness.”
Caedmon wondered if his captor obliquely referred to the octogram star, which comprised two perfect squares. Light and Darkness. The union of opposites.
