“It just so happens I do.” Zach sounded elated. “Hold on a minute. Don’t hang up.”
Chris and Daniel could hear muffled sounds as the phone was stuffed into a pocket. Then they heard running footsteps.
“Cassie!” Zach was shouting. His voice echoed off what sounded like a marble corridor. “Cassie, where are you?” the boy demanded.
From a greater distance, Daniel and Chris could hear a female voice responding. “Jeepers, Zach! What are you bellowing about? I’m in my office. The door’s open. C’mon in.”
There were more running footsteps and then a thud as the phone was slammed onto a hard surface, presumably the woman’s desk.
“Cassie.” Zach was gasping and out of breath. “You’re gonna want to take this call. You won’t believe who’s on the other end of the line.”
Chapter 5—Of Mies And Men (And One Woman)
Cassie and Griffin crossed Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago and advanced warily across the granite flagstones of Federal Plaza. It was too early in May for vendors to have set up their farmer’s market stalls so the open expanse was empty except for a few stray pedestrians taking a diagonal shortcut. Daniel had agreed to arrange a meeting between his father and the Arkana agents. After some deliberation, all the parties involved had settled on Federal Plaza as their rendezvous point. Cassie and Griffin felt reassured by the fact that the plaza offered 360-degree visibility. There were no dark corners where an attacker might lurk in order to abduct or shoot them should negotiations take a bad turn.
“I don’t see anything that looks like a trap.” Cassie scanned the surrounding high rises. “Unless there’s a sniper on a rooftop somewhere.” She immediately regretted the offhand comment.
“I must say, I’m beginning to appreciate Mies van der Rohe’s fixation on glass curtain walls.” Griffin pointed to the Federal Building to their left. It was a boxy black skyscraper much admired by fans of modernist architecture.
“Yeah, and the fact that the lobby is staffed with armed guards who can peek out the wall-to-wall windows and see everything that’s happening in the plaza,” Cassie added. “I’m finding that level of scrutiny oddly comforting today. Plus, look over there.” She pointed to the one-story, glass-walled Post Office directly ahead of them, also designed by Mies. “Security guards in there too. Not to mention a couple of postal workers who might be packing heat because they’re about to go, you know, postal.”
They both stiffened as they saw a man rounding the corner of the Post Office and heading straight toward them. It was Leroy Hunt dressed in his usual Stetson hat and matching cowboy attire. He had apparently spied them long before they were aware of his presence since he displayed no surprise. Instead, he ambled forward, clearly not in a hurry, a toothpick protruding from the corner of his mouth. Stopping a few feet away from the pair, he removed the toothpick and placed it in his jacket pocket.
Tipping his hat with elaborate mock courtesy, he said, “Miss Cassie. I see you’re still alive... for now.”
“Leroy,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“And you brought the limey,” he added, transferring his attention to the Scrivener.
“As I mentioned during our last unfortunate encounter, my name is Griffin.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right.” Leroy’s eyes narrowed. “Well, Grif, I got a bone to pick with you seein’ as how you’re still holdin’ my piece.”
“I beg your pardon.” Griffin peered at him.
“My piece, boy. My piece. You still got your hands on it.”
“What are you on about? I assure you I have no desire to place my hands on anything of yours.”
“I think he means his gun,” Cassie whispered to her partner.
The Scrivener still looked puzzled. “What gun?”
“The one you stole off me in China, that’s what gun!” Leroy muttered indignantly. “My favorite Glock too. I went to a heap of trouble to smuggle that pistol over there.”
“Oh, I see,” said Griffin with dawning recognition. “So you want me to return a weapon that you’ll most likely use to shoot us at some point in the future?”
“It ain’t like I can’t find another gun to shoot y’all with if I take a mind to.”
“He’s got a point.” Cassie shrugged. “You might as well give it back. Keeping it will just tick him off worse.”
“As if that were possible,” the Scrivener murmured. “Very well, Mr. Hunt, I’ll have it sent round to your apartment.”
“That’s more like it.” The cowboy seemed mollified by the concession.
Changing the subject, the Pythia asked, “Where’s your boss?”
Hunt cast a glance over his shoulder. “He’ll be along with Brother Dan’l in a minute or two. Now that the old man is gettin’ on in years, it takes some doin’ to pry him out of a car. I came on ahead to make sure you two wasn’t gonna pull any funny business like you usually do.”
“We’ve got no reason to,” Cassie retorted. “Nobody’s trying to kill us today.”
“Nope, not today...” Hunt trailed off, allowing the implication to hit home. He transferred his attention to his surroundings, casually scanning the plaza until his eyes came to rest on the fifty-foot steel sculpture that dominated the public square. “What’s that piece of scrap metal called?”
“The Flamingo by Alexander Calder,” the Scrivener informed him.
The cowboy let out a whistle of disbelief. “Flamingo? The feller who slapped that thing together must of been smokin’ some powerful loco weed if he mistook that bird for a flamingo.” He stepped past the Arkana agents to study the sculpture at close range. Not satisfied, he walked to the far side to examine it further. Eventually, he returned shaking his head. “That ain’t no flamingo. That’s a ostrich spray-painted red and the poor critter sunk his head into the ground like to die from the shame of it all.”
Cassie and Griffin exchanged a dubious look.
“I tell you what.” Hunt snorted in derision. “The Windy City has got some crazy notions about what is and what ain’t art. Take this here ostrich, for example. Then a couple blocks yonder, you got the lady with the fork in her head and the cross-eyed horse. And don’t even get me started on that giant lima bean over by the lake.”
“I’m sure Calder, Miro, Picasso and Kapoor would love to hear your reductive assessment of their work,” Griffin observed archly.
“Dogs playing poker would probably be more your speed,” the Pythia quipped.
“Hell, yes!” the cowboy agreed without a hint of irony. “At least I don’t need no goddam sign to tell me what I’m lookin’ at. A body can see that the dogs is dogs, not three-eyed lizards.”
“And the fact that the dogs are playing poker doesn’t trouble you at all?” Griffin asked.
“Course not. The poker chips ain’t made to look like flyin’ saucers with beetle wings. Modern art!” he growled. “Ain’t nothin’ in nature that looks natural once a modern artist gets his paws on it.”
Griffin turned to Cassie and confided, “I can’t believe this is the same fellow who’s attempted to murder us in cold blood on more than one occasion.”
“What?” Hunt seemed offended by the comment. “I ain’t allowed to have interests outside my job?’
“Your job is killing people,” Cassie declared flatly.
“Yeah and I’m damn good at it! But that don’t mean I ain’t got opinions about other stuff.”
Cassie groaned in frustration. “Why do I bother talking to you?”
“It’s just as well if we terminate this discussion,” Griffin said. “We have company.”
All three turned toward the Clark Street side of the plaza where Daniel was ushering his father to meet them. Abraham Metcalf leaned heavily on his son’s arm and on a cane for additional support.
Cassie had never seen the Diviner of the Blessed Nephilim in person before. In her mind’s eye, she’d always pictured him as Charleton Heston parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments. The reality was far les
s impressive—a frail old man crumbling to dust with every step. As he approached and glanced dismissively at each of them in turn, his blue eyes glowed with hostile fire under heavy white eyebrows. They were the only part of the Diviner’s anatomy that exhibited any spark of life.
Abraham and Daniel came to a halt in the center of the square. An awkward silence engulfed the five as they sized one another up. Cassie found herself wondering what a good opening remark might be. “Hi, pleased to meet you. Thanks for trying to kill us every chance you get.”
Eventually Abraham spoke. “My son says you have a matter of importance to discuss with me.” He directed his comment toward Griffin but it was Cassie who replied.
“I don’t know if you noticed but we’re all after the same thing—the Sage Stone.”
Instead of acknowledging the remark, the Diviner scrutinized the Pythia. “You must be the one they call ‘Cassie’. You’re rather bold for a girl so small.”
“Small but mighty,” she rejoined. “Just ask Leroy.”
The cowboy shuffled his feet in embarrassment, obviously remembering their previous encounters. In an effort to change the subject, he gestured toward the Scrivener. “And this here’s Grif.”
“Griffin,” the Scrivener enunciated emphatically.
Ignoring the introduction, the Diviner directed his next comment to Cassie. “You were saying something about the Sage Stone.”
“We want it. So do you. Only one side can win.”
“And you think that will be you?” Metcalf gave a mirthless bark of a laugh. “You seem quite confident for someone who doesn’t have the final artifact which points to the Sage Stone’s location.”
“As a matter of fact, we do,” Griffin averred quietly.
The old man stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying?”
“That the one you’ve got is a fake,” Cassie informed him curtly.
“Impossible! You’re a liar!” Metcalf wheeled on his son who took a step backward. “These people know nothing and they’re attempting to trick us! Why did you bring me here? This is a complete waste of my time.” The old man’s pallid complexion had flushed to an angry shade of purple.
“Take it down a notch, gramps, before you have a stroke.” Cassie eyed him dispassionately.
The old man gasped as if she’d struck him. Metcalf was obviously unused to any response other than deference.
The Pythia smiled thinly. “You’re forgetting that you’re in our world now and nobody here is scared of you.” She tilted her head slightly in Daniel’s direction. “Except maybe for him.”
The cowboy turned aside and cleared his throat, attempting to mask a chuckle.
Cassie forged ahead. “We’re not lying. We have the real relic. Yours is a copy.”
“How is that possible?” Daniel sounded baffled. “Mr. Hunt and I arrived only minutes after you entered the cave. You wouldn’t have had time to create a copy and substitute it!”
“That would be true if we’d only found the artifact minutes before you arrived.” Griffin paused to regard his bewildered listeners. “We actually retrieved it a week earlier. Just long enough for us to have a duplicate made and place it inside the cave. It was our bad luck that you arrived before we’d had time to put the replica in its hiding place.”
Leroy tilted the brim of his hat back and scratched his head. “What the hell...”
“Why would you go to such lengths?” Daniel challenged.
“Because you’d get off our backs if you thought you had the real relic,” Cassie said.
“We would have been free to conduct our own search without harassment from you,” the Scrivener added.
Turning to his son, the Diviner asked, “Does our artifact contain a complete coded message?”
“Yes, father. It’s very short but I believe complete. It says: Past the golden road of Boreas, where his islands kill the sea. Seek the great river’s mother. Her crypt holds the key.”
“Not crypt,” Griffin interjected. “Reliquary.”
“Really?” Daniel appeared intrigued.
“A minor distinction but pivotal nonetheless.”
“That’s very interesting. I—”
What difference does it make!” Metcalf stamped the ground impatiently with his cane. “Creating a replica was pointless if we have the entire clue!”
“But you don’t have the entire artifact,” Cassie countered sweetly.
All three foes stared at the Pythia in shocked disbelief.
“Gal, you’re as crazy as the feller who made that ostrich.” Hunt laughed. “I seen the doodad with my own eyes. There ain’t nothin’ missin’ from that little butterfly lady.”
“The base is missing,” Griffin informed him. “It’s a prismatic key.”
“A what now?” Hunt squinted.
“A bundle of rectangles of different lengths. They fit into a recessed lock which we presume opens the door to the Sage Stone’s hiding place.”
While the Scrivener had been speaking, Cassie produced a photo of the object. “It looks like this.” She held the picture forward for the others to see. After waiting only ten seconds, she snatched the photo back. “That’s long enough. We don’t need you trying to replicate the design from memory.”
“You might easily have fabricated this relic of yours,” the Diviner protested. “Who’s to say you didn’t concoct this scheme just to sow seeds of doubt in our minds.”
Cassie shrugged. “Well, there’s one easy way to find out. Go ahead and spend months chasing down the Sage Stone on your own. When you get to the right spot and realize you don’t have the key to open the lock, then you’ll know for sure I was telling the truth. Oh wait.” She paused, mimicking confusion. “By the time you get there, your precious Sage Stone will be long gone because we actually do have the key.”
Metcalf turned angrily toward his son. “I still say they’re lying.”
Daniel shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so, father. The clue itself makes mention of a key. Besides, we stand a much better chance of finding the relic with their cooperation.”
“In fact, we’re willing to retrieve the Sage Stone on your behalf and deliver it to you,” Griffin offered.
The Diviner said nothing for a full minute as he assessed the situation. Eventually, he let out a deep sigh. Focusing on the Arkana agents, he asked, “In exchange for what?”
“Hannah,” the Pythia answered.
“That’s preposterous!” Metcalf exclaimed sharply. “Why would you want my wife?”
“To protect ourselves,” Cassie said. “This whole treasure hunt has gotten way too dangerous. Once you have the Sage Stone you might consider coming after us. If we have Hannah, then you won’t.”
“Just like I told you before, boss,” Leroy chimed in. “They was keepin’ the little gal at that farmhouse as insurance.”
“Surely you don’t expect me to agree to let you hold her hostage permanently,” the old man protested.
“Just long enough for us to cover our tracks,” Cassie explained.
“Once we’re out of harm’s way, we’ll tell you the location where she can be found,” Griffin said.
“And why should I believe you’ll keep your word and not murder her instead?” Metcalf retorted.
“Because the whole point of this deal is to get you out of our hair once and for all,” Cassie said. “It wouldn’t make any sense for us to give you a bigger reason to keep hating on us.”
Metcalf stared down at the granite tiles beneath his feet and tapped his cane absently, considering the proposition.
Cassie and Griffin waited tensely for his decision.
After what seemed like an eternity, the old man raised his head and glowered at them. “I have two conditions.”
“Name them,” the Scrivener said.
“Firstly, you won’t bring the Sage Stone to me. I will be at the site when you retrieve it. You are merely to locate the spot and tell me where to meet you.”
“OK.” Cassi
e nodded. “What else?”
“My son Daniel will accompany you on your quest.”
“What?” Griffin, Cassie and Daniel cried in unison.
“If my son goes along, then I can be certain you won’t try to deceive us.”
Now it was the Arkana agents who hesitated.
Griffin shrugged. Addressing Cassie, he said regretfully, “I don’t think we have any choice.” Turning to Metcalf, he conceded, “Very well. We’ll perform our research here and when we’ve targeted a potential location overseas, we’ll notify Daniel. We know where to find him.”
“Now hold on a minute, boss,” Hunt protested.
The others turned toward him in surprise.
“I been part of this operation from Day One. I’d kind of like to see how it all pans out.”
“Never fear, Mr. Hunt. You will be at my side when the Sage Stone is recovered.” In a lower voice the Diviner added, “I have other ways to occupy your time before that day arrives.”
“Just so’s I’m there for the big finish,” the cowboy assented half-heartedly. He clearly wasn’t pleased about being left behind.
The Diviner listed to one side, apparently weakened by the effort of standing so long. Daniel hastened to catch his elbow. “I believe that concludes our business for the moment?” Metcalf looked at the Arkana agents searchingly.
“We’ll be in touch with Daniel once we’ve figured out a starting point,” Cassie informed him.
Hunt tipped his hat. “Adios, Miss Cassie.” He gave a cursory nod toward the Scrivener. “Grif.”
He then turned and shepherded the other two across the plaza.
Their progress was slow as the Diviner stopped every few paces to catch his breath.
Cassie waited until their foes were out of earshot before confiding, “Is it just me or did Metcalf throw Hannah under the bus way too fast? He really didn’t balk at the idea of letting us take her hostage.”
Griffin took a few moments to consider her question. “Given the extreme lengths to which he went to retrieve her, it does seem odd that he’d relinquish her again so easily.”
They silently watched as the trio paused at the Adams Street stoplight a block away.
The Sage Stone Prophecy (Arkana Archaeology Adventure Series Book 7) Page 3
