by Chloe Palov
‘In the hope that Mr Hopkins will spill some gilded beans.’
‘What do I tell him? I can’t think of a single reason why Eliot Hopkins would agree to meet with us, let alone give us the straight scoop.’
‘Try coming at the problem from a different angle. Why would the venerable Mr Hopkins agree to participate in the theft of a relic he already owned?’
‘That’s easy. Insurance fraud. He intends to collect on the policy.’
‘But I suspect that the Stones of Fire was purchased on the black market.’
‘Meaning the relic wasn’t insured.’ Edie said, beating him to the punch.
‘Ergo, Eliot Hopkins had nothing to do with Padge’s murder. But I believe he had something to do with the subsequent cover-up.’
‘But why cover up the murder? It doesn’t make any sense.’
Still sitting on the edge of her bed, Cædmon crossed one jeans-clad leg over the other. ‘What would happen if the authorities discovered that the director of the Hopkins Museum had knowingly purchased a stolen relic smuggled out of its country of origin?’
‘In addition to a hefty fine, Eliot Hopkins might be sentenced to prison.’
‘And in the process, his reputation and good name would be ripped to shreds. All of which makes Eliot Hopkins a very weak link.’
‘And you want to find out who’s yanking his chain,’ Edie said, the reason for the proposed rendezvous suddenly making sense. ‘I’m guessing it’s the guys at Rosemont. Probably what’s his name? Colonel MacFarlane. Who else could it be?’
Rather than answer, Cædmon stretched out along the length of the bed, reaching for a tourist map on top of the bedside cabinet, part of the welcome-to-your-room pack. Unfolding the map, he spread it on his lap. ‘The National Zoo, the National Cathedral or the Lincoln Memorial. Which of these are you most familiar with?’
‘The zoo,’ she answered, wondering where he was headed. ‘It’s only a few blocks from my house. When the weather is nice, I like to power-walk it.’
Cædmon refolded the map. ‘Then the National Zoo it is. Tell Mr Hopkins to be there at ten a.m. Sharp. Do be sure to add that. When talking to thieves and murderers, it’s always best to speak with authority, that being the only way to deal with a playground bully.’
‘That or kick him in the nuts,’ Edie muttered as she reached for the phone.
25
Georgetown
Eliot Hopkins slowly hung up the telephone.
Just as the monsters at Rosemont Security Consultants had predicted, Edie Miller had initiated contact.
The first piece of a very complicated puzzle had fallen into place.
He sighed, a long drawn-out breath that was equal parts regret and pain. Regret because he was fond of the quirky and offbeat Miss Miller. Pain on account of the cracked rib he nursed, courtesy of a muscled behemoth with a misplaced sense of civility, the fiend having grinned and said ‘Howdy do’ after administering the unexpected blow. The men of Rosemont wanted his cooperation. And they’d gone about gaining it in a most primitive fashion.
Why negotiate when one can use fists and threats to achieve the same end?
Glancing at the imposing John Singer Sargent portrait that hung above the mantel, Eliot thought he caught the hint of a smirk on his great-grandfather’s stern visage, the coal magnate having put down more than one strike with clubs and bullets. Unlike Andrew Carnegie, who had suffered with a guilty conscious, Albert Horatio Hopkins had never lost a single night’s sleep worrying about the plight of the men who earned him his immense fortune. A true vandal, Albert Hopkins had raped the West Virginia mountains for their minerals and stripped his employees of their dignity.
Long live King Coal.
While he was the great-grandson of Albert Hopkins, he was also, and more importantly to his mind, the grandson of Oliver Hopkins. In his day and age, that being the feel-good, anything-goes frenzy before the Great Depression, Ollie Hopkins had had a well-deserved reputation as a ne’er-do-well. Turning his back on the family business, he instead supped with African chieftains, rode wild horses with Mongolian warriors and explored the licentious world of the harem with Arab potentates.
Along the way, he had spent a king’s ransom searching for the relics of the Exodus.
As a young boy, Eliot would sit for hours at his grandfather’s knee, enthralled by his exciting tales, which rivalled any adventure book. His particular favourite had been the time that his grandfather, disguised as a Turk, had tunnelled into the bowels of the Temple Mount, only to be discovered by Sheik Khalil, the hereditary guardian of the Dome of the Rock. Chased through the streets of Jerusalem by an angry mob, his grandfather made his getaway in a motor yacht hijacked from the port of Jaffa.
Considered a wastrel by his father, Oliver was eventually disinherited. Penniless when he died, he had left his favourite grandson the fruits of all his labours – an immense collection of artefacts and relics mined over the course of some fifty years. The collection became the cornerstone of the Hopkins Museum of Near Eastern Art, the museum founded in homage to the man who had given Eliot the only familial affection he ever knew.
His grandfather had also bequeathed to him a magnificent obsession – the Stones of Fire.
It had taken decades of dangled carrots and very large bribes, but he had finally found it.
Only to lose it in the blink of a jaded eye.
Had he been a religious man, he might have thought it God’s punishment for daring the unthinkable. Certainly, he’d been a fool to entrust Jonathan Padgham with the holy relic. But the man had been an expert on Near East antiquities and Eliot needed to verify that what he’d found in the sands of Iraq was in fact the fabled Stones of Fire. Blinded by his obsession, he had never considered that there might be others even more intent on finding the treasures of the Bible. Men unfettered by the rule of law.
Wearily, Eliot rose to his feet. There being no time to ponder the ethics of the situation, he walked over to a panelled door on the far side of the rosewood-lined library. Pressing a hidden latch, the door swung open. He turned on the light, the small room windowless. In turn, he surveyed each glass case, his collection of antique weaponry a private passion. Out of respect for his thirteen-year-old daughter Olivia, who had an unnatural fear of guns, he kept his collection out of sight.
Pausing in front of a velvet-lined case, he briefly considered the Colt revolver once owned by gunslinger Buffalo Bill, but in the end settled on a World War II-era Walther PPK. The handgun of choice for the German SS.
Over the years, he’d dealt with greedy dealers, ruthless brokers and pompous curators. Last night was the first time he’d come face to face with religious zealots, the interaction shocking. One could not reason with such men for they served but one master.
One could only acquiesce.
26
‘Do you think we’re being followed?’ Edie asked, glancing into the wing mirror of a parked car.
Cædmon waited until the crossing light at Connecticut Avenue turned yellow. Then, taking her by the elbow, he hustled her across the street towards the main entrance to the National Zoo on the opposite side of the intersection. A few seconds later they passed the two bronze lions that stood guard at the gated entrance.
‘If we are being followed, our pursuers have successfully faded into the proverbial woodwork.’
Edie shivered, the previous day’s snow having turned into a chill-laden drizzle. She moved closer to Cædmon, the two of them huddled beneath a black umbrella they’d purchased en route. Passing the Visitor Center, she peered at the grounds reflected in the bank of glass doors. No surprise that the zoo was eerily deserted, animal-watching not a big draw in December. But then, they weren’t there to see the sights; they were there to meet the man who had illegally purchased the Stones of Fire, setting into motion yesterday’s brutal train of events.
‘Does your family live in the area?’ Cædmon enquired casually. Throughout their subway ride from Arlington, he’d mainta
ined a steady stream of pleasant chit-chat. On to his tricks, Edie assumed the light conversation was more for her benefit than his; Cædmon’s way of alleviating her all-too-obvious anxiety. Little did he know that personal questions elicited a similar response.
‘My mother and father were both killed in a boating accident off the coast of Florida,’ she answered, the lie well honed from twenty-five years of sharpening. Approaching the Small Mammal House, she gestured to the walkway on the right, the zoo grounds a maze of pathways that wound through what was surprisingly hilly terrain. ‘It was Labor Day weekend and a drunk in a speedboat rammed right into them. I was only eleven years old when it happened.’
Usually she embroidered the tale, going into great detail as to how the non-existent boater only had to spend two years in prison. But today, for some inexplicable reason, she felt guilty about the fabrication. Although why she should feel any guilt was a mystery. Shame, yes. Guilt, no. After all it wasn’t her fault that her father was listed on her birth certificate as ‘Unknown’ or that her mother had been a junkie, never able to lose her taste for smack. When her mother fatally OD’d, Edie had been forced to spend two and a half years in the Florida foster care system, until a kind-hearted social worker had taken an interest in her case, going the extra two miles to track down her maternal grandparents in Cheraw, South Carolina. Edie never spoke of the thirty nightmarish months spent on the foster care merry-go-round. Not to anyone. There were some things a person couldn’t, or shouldn’t, share with another human being.
Seeing a vaporous cloud approach, Cædmon waited until a red-faced man decked out in winter Lycra jogged past. A few moments later, he solicitously took her by the elbow, steering her clear of an icy patch. ‘Who took care of you?’
‘Oh, I, um, went to live with my grandparents in South Carolina. Pops and Gran were great. Really, really great,’ she said with a big fake smile. Uncomfortable with the lie, she feigned a sudden interest in the leafless shrubs planted along a low retaining wall. Winter had its claws dug deep, the nearby trees and plantings covered in a crystal shroud. Most of the animals had gone to ground. As they passed the tamarin cage, there wasn’t a primate in sight.
‘South Carolina… How interesting. One would think you’d have a more pronounced accent. And you’ve been in Washington for how long?’
Wishing he’d cease and desist, she said, ‘It’s coming up on the twenty-year mark. What anniversary is that? Crystal? I’m not sure.’
‘I believe that would be china,’ he replied, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
Edie cleared her throat, wondering if she’d laid it on too thick about Pops and Gran. As happened with all new acquaintances, she feared that he was on to her.
Hearing a branch snap, Cædmon momentarily paused, the silence filled with several unidentified screeches. Evidently satisfied that the noises were not man made, he said, ‘I’m curious. Why did you choose a degree in women’s studies?’
‘Why do you want to know? You’re not a closet chauvinist, are you?’
‘Not in the least.’
Satisfied with his reply, Edie shrugged. ‘Since someone else was footing the bill for my education, I studied what interested me. At the time I was interested in the role of women in American society.’ What she didn’t tell him was that she had wanted to find out why women made the choices they did. ‘I had an internship at a non-profit organization, but because of budget constraints it didn’t pan into a paying gig. Luckily, I found a job at a downtown photo shop.’ At the time she hadn’t known squat about photography, having charmed her way into the job. But she learned quickly, enamoured with the way that photography could be used to manipulate the real world, to erase the ugliness.
‘And how long have you been working as a photographer?’
‘Gees, what are you, a Spanish Inquisitor?’ Edie retorted, determined to end the personal interrogation. ‘You know, I usually love the zoo, but today it’s got creepy written all over it.’
Cædmon slowed his step as they wound their way through what looked to be an impenetrable chasm, huge buff-coloured boulders, a full storey in height, lining the pathway. She wondered if the man at her side was thinking what she was thinking – that this would be an excellent place for a gunman to hide.
A few moments later they emerged from the stone-lined path and approached the caged hillside set aside for the Mexican wolves, that being the designated meeting place with Eliot Hopkins. To the right of the enclosure a lone man bundled in an overcoat sat on a bench, a cup of Starbucks coffee clutched in his gloved hand.
‘There he is,’ Edie said in hushed whisper, fearful her voice might carry. ‘I don’t know about you, but I fully intend to give the SOB a grilling.’
Cædmon’s head jerked in her direction.
‘What? Why are you looking at me like that? It’s called good cop/bad cop.’
Grabbing her by the upper arm, Cædmon drew her to his side. ‘Now is not the time for us to be out of step with one another,’ he hissed in her ear. ‘We merely want to tickle the man.’
‘Yeah, before we move in for the kill.’
27
‘Figuratively speaking,’ Edie amended.
‘I most certainly hope so.’ Concerned his companion may have watched too many police dramas on TV, Cædmon tightened his grip on her arm. Like a harried parent with an unruly child.
Surreptitiously, he glanced around. Rock-strewn, treed and hilly, the surrounding terrain could easily conceal a hunter on the prowl. Attired in her red and purple plaid skirt, Edie made an easy target. While warning bells were not yet clanging, they did tinkle, the place having about it a sinister air.
As they approached the bareheaded man seated on the bench, Cædmon closed the black brolly he’d been holding aloft, the wintry rain having dwindled to a faint drizzle. He hooked the curved handle over his bent arm.
‘A most interesting place to meet, betwixt and between these two beautiful creatures of prey,’ Eliot Hopkins remarked, slowly rising to his feet. He gestured first to a lone wolf warily prowling the fenced hillside beside them. Then he pointed a gloved hand to the bald eagle perched on the opposite hillock. ‘Did you know that the eagle has been a symbol of war since Babylonian times?’
With his thatch of wavy white hair, patrician features and ruddy red cheeks, Cædmon thought Eliot Hopkins a grandfatherly-looking man. Dressed in English tweed, he could have passed for a country squire, a harmless dolt who, if prompted, could natter for hours on end about shifting weather patterns and the breeding of Leicester Longwool sheep.
‘How about canning the bullshit,’ Edie retorted, ignoring Cædmon’s admonition. ‘Because of you, and your boundless greed, Jonathan Padgham is dead! And don’t give me any bunk about him going to London to take care of funeral arrangements. I know what happened yesterday at the museum.’
‘Jonathan’s death is most unfortunate and, I am sad to say, entirely my fault,’ the museum director readily confessed, a morose look in his rheumy grey eyes. ‘I had no idea that Jonathan was in danger. Although once the deed was done, I had no choice but to assist in the cover-up.’
‘I’m curious to know how you became involved with such a bloodthirsty gang,’ Cædmon remarked. ‘You don’t strike me as moving in the same circles.’
Smiling ever so slightly, Hopkins nodded. ‘Shortly after I acquired the Stones of Fire I was approached by a private consortium interested in buying the breastplate at an exorbitant price. When I refused to sell the relic, the consortium resorted to blackmail, demanding that I relinquish custody of the breastplate or they would alert the IARC.’
‘Who or what is the IARC?’ Edie asked.
‘That would be the Illicit Antiquities Research Center. They monitor the international trade in stolen or secretly excavated antiquities.’
‘And that would have created quite the public scandal,’ she correctly deduced. ‘So, why didn’t you give the consortium the Stones of Fire? Why take the risk of being exposed?’
‘I called their bluff, knowing full well that if the IARC became involved, the consortium would lose all chance of getting their hands on my precious relic. A tragic miscalculation as it turned out.’
‘Proving that one cannot trump the devil,’ Cædmon muttered, infuriated that this deadly game had cost his old friend his life.
‘I can assure you that if I had known several weeks ago what I know now, I would have –’
‘Oh, puh-lease!’ Edie interjected. ‘You sound like someone running for public office.’ She folded her arms over her chest, a stern headmistress in black leather. ‘I just don’t get it. Why would this so-called consortium resort to cold-blooded murder to get the Stones of Fire? It’s just a bit of gold with twelve gemstones.’
A drawn-out pause ensued, the museum director evidently debating whether or not to answer. ‘In and of itself, you’re probably correct,’ he finally replied. ‘But when used in concert with another holy relic, the Stones of Fire becomes a conduit to God. Thus making it a prerequisite for the larger prize.’
… another holy relic… a prerequisite for the larger prize.
Cædmon’s mouth slackened, the realization hitting him like a bunch of fives to the belly.
‘I don’t believe it… They’re actually going after the Ark.’
‘The Ark?’ Edie’s gaze ricocheted between him and Eliot Hopkins. ‘As in the Ark of the Covenant?’
‘None other,’ Hopkins confirmed.
Still in a state of shock, Cædmon pressed harder. ‘How do you know that the consortium is searching for the Ark?’
‘I know because I was searching for it. Two days before the theft at the museum, my Georgetown home was burglarized. Imagine my surprise when the only thing stolen was my research notes. For some thirty years I’ve hunted down clues, sent excavation teams into remote areas of the Middle East, continuing the work my grandfather began but could not finish.’
