Devil's Eye

by Al Ruksenas

  “Actually, Uncle Jonas’ theories are not unheard of. Like I said, there’s similar talk in various circles—mainly countries of the former USSR.” She took another bite of her steak and then a sip of her wine. “But no one raises such questions here.”

  “Why would that be?” He cut another piece of his filet mignon.

  “It fits too nicely into the ‘babushka’ stereotypes. Romantic, unrealistic people steeped in mysticism and superstition. People longing for a strong leader. People who can’t rule themselves.”

  Caine sensed the bitterness in her tone.

  “I don’t think the people are like that,” he declared. “I think the tyrants who ruled them fed that kind of stereotype to justify their oppression.”

  “In fact, my uncle did start looking into secret cabals after he spent time in Siberia with a secret police cellmate—a ‘Chekist’ who came under suspicion. He probably didn’t kiss Stalin’s ass enough.”

  She looked at Caine probingly. “The former secret policeman eventually told him things, crazy things. He felt betrayed by his superiors. This was his revenge.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Uncle Jonas can tell you himself. You have to meet him.”

  “I’m looking forward. He seems like a very interesting guy.”

  “I didn’t want to believe a lot of those theories. They were too much in the grand conspiracy category. Too far‐fetched. Then, when he drew that pentagram, I was jolted.” She finished her meal and drank the rest of her wine.

  “Don’t rush,” she said easing herself from the chair and taking her empty plate into the kitchen.

  Caine noticed that he had been eating slowly, just then realizing that he was absorbed by Laura’s train of thought. He took a few more bites and was finished.

  “Thanks. It was delicious.”

  “I’m glad. I’ll bet you haven’t had a real meal in the last couple of days,” she ventured, recalling Al Carruther’s words about his frequent, unscheduled assignments.

  He hesitated with an answer, since his whereabouts were top secret. “Well, I don’t always eat on a regular schedule, if that’s what you mean.” He did remember, however, the sumptuous meal with the Captain aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower enroute home from Beirut, envisioning himself then exactly as he was this night with Laura Mitchell.

  “You want to relax on the couch? It’s more comfortable.”

  “You sure, I can’t help with anything?” he answered as he started for the other room.

  “No, no. I’ll just put everything in the sink.”

  “There’s more to all this than meets the eye,” she said as she finished clearing the counter and preparing the dishes for washing.

  “What you say is very intriguing,” Caine said returning to the sofa. “But at this point, it’s conjecture. What can you do with that kind of information?”

  “There’s not much you can do, I guess,” she replied. Laura poured two more measures of the honey liqueur. “It happens to be what my uncle’s researching. If it fits into the real world—it fits. If it doesn’t—it doesn’t. That’s half the problem with this world. People ignore things they can’t understand. Or they’re afraid to believe the unconventional. They let things happen.“

  She gave him a calculated look from behind the counter. “I have to find out what’s going on at that museum.”

  He sensed she might try something that could prove dangerous.

  “I’d go in the daytime,” she continued, anticipating his reaction. “And, besides, our friend Al Carruthers is there.”

  “Just don’t go alone.”

  “Now you sound like my uncle.”

  “Tell me more about this pentagram business.”

  Laura sauntered over to him with a drink in each hand. She hovered over him, kneeling with one bare foot on the sofa, and straddling him with the other. Handing him a glass of liqueur, she began to sip her own. He held his glass in one hand and wrapped the other around the back of her thigh, looking up at her with concerned desire.

  “I’ll show you in the morning.”

  Chapter 28

  Caine woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs wafting from the kitchen. He forgot the last time he had felt such comforting domesticity. Meals were usually perfunctory, seldom finished, and often overlain with danger.

  He arose slowly, put on his trousers and looked around curiously. He glanced into the kitchen and saw Laura busying herself making breakfast wearing nothing but his blue shirt.

  He smiled. “Do you always get up this early?”

  “Usually much earlier. It’s already nine o’clock.”

  Caine nodded sheepishly.

  He joined her in the kitchen and embraced her from behind, kissing the side of her neck.

  She flexed her shoulders in response.

  “We’ll have breakfast, then we can walk the star.”

  “Walk the star?” he asked still embracing her.

  “Yes. I told you I’d show you the pentagram today. You have time?”

  “I’ll make time.”

  He began to unbutton his shirt, as if he was wearing it. “You know, ” Caine murmured, “your body is a roadmap of beauty.”

  “And yours is a roadmap of violence.” She quickly turned in his embrace, as if trying to catch her words, then wrapping her arms around his bare torso she gave him a lingering kiss.

  “I mean…” she muttered with her lips still on his.

  “I know.” He pressed his lips more fully on hers, stifling unnecessary explanations.

  “Do you want breakfast to burn?” she murmured between passionate kisses in a roaming, blissful embrace.

  “I won’t blame you,” he muttered stroking her body beneath his shirt.

  ***

  An hour later they were strolling along Wisconsin Avenue several streets from Laura’s townhouse. Gray pinstriped slacks snugly contouring her hips, a tan leather suit jacket and a dark blouse elicited a commanding, confident air. She looked up and down the busy street. Laura thought she saw a figure in a suit jacket lingering about a block away.

  “Did you ever think you were being followed?”

  “All the time,” he replied lightly.

  “No, I mean, really,” she persisted.

  “Really.”

  “You see that man down the block? I think he’s following us.”

  “Possibly. But is he following you or me?”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “No, Laura, I’m not,” he replied seriously. “Why do you think I drive a race car?”

  He smiled at her reassuringly. “We’re just out for a stroll. He’ll probably be confused by what we’re doing.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said and turned theatrically to the southeast. She stretched out her hand.

  “Okay, as you know,” she said pointing her finger, as a tourist might. “Wisconsin Avenue ends at M Street, then jogs to Pennsylvania Avenue and on to the White House and beyond. Farther down is the Mall with the various monuments and the Smithsonian Institution— particularly the Natural History Museum.”

  “Okay,” he answered expectantly.

  “That’s one leg of a pentagram, if you center it on the Museum of Natural History.”

  Laura turned, pointing animatedly in a southwesterly direction. “Okay. The George Washington Parkway –down that way—is within the pentagram’s axis going southwest, past the Tidal Basin, the Jefferson Memorial and beyond. That’s where General Starr’s accident happened. And then, going northeast”— she turned again as she pointed—”with the museum as the center—Secretary Stack’s car was crushed by that falling construction beam. That was somewhere in a line towards Union Station.”

  Caine listened with focused curiosity.

  “Then, we turn northwest up along Wisconsin and we have Cathedral Heights.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s where Secretary Stack’s funeral is going to be.”

  His eyes nar
rowed, an eyebrow raised quizzically.

  “Half of Washington will be there,” she declared. “If my uncle is right…”

  “You don’t have to say it,” he interjected. “Nothing should happen. What about this ‘walking the star’?”

  “Practitioners nurturing the purpose of the pentagram. They keep its energy active.”

  “Can you find me one?”

  “I hope so.”

  They walked along Wisconsin Avenue heading towards Cathedral Heights. Pedestrian traffic seemed routine, but vehicular traffic was growing perceptibly in the direction they walked with noticeable numbers of limousines.

  At an intersection not far from the Naval Observatory they came upon a street vendor who had two card tables lined up along the curb. Arrayed on a black velvet tablecloth were various trinkets and favors. Standing next to the tables along the curb were gaudily painted plaster cobras poised to strike and several snarling plaster tigers. They were meant to be ashtrays. A dark skinned man in a flowing white robe and fez stood sullen watch over the tables. He ignored Laura when she glanced at the wares and fingered several metal pendants with various symbols.

  “Look at these. How intricate they are,” she exclaimed to Caine.

  “Interesting,” he replied, not wanting to offend the eccentric vendor, who he concluded had absolutely no sense of artistic taste.

  “How much are these?”

  “They are not for sale,” the man said coldly.

  “What do you mean they’re not for sale?” Laura challenged. “Isn’t everything here for sale?”

  “Take this,” the vendor replied impatiently as he pointed to a tinny set of earrings.

  Laura gave Colonel Caine an emphatic stare, then addressed the vendor again.

  “But I wanted that pendant with the interesting design.”

  “Someone has bought it,” the vendor snapped.

  “What about this other one?” she persisted.

  “That too!” The man grabbed a small wooden elephant and thrust it towards Laura. “Here! Buy this! A nice souvenir.”

  “Well, I never….!” Laura feigned when Caine interrupted.

  “You won’t sell her this nice pendant?” He fingered the silvery symbol soldered into a square. Actually, it looked quite mundane and artless to him.

  The man stared at him wordlessly.

  “Even though you have a dozen more just like it?”

  “It’s a free country,” the man replied belligerently.

  “It’s not nice to turn away customers. Bad for business,” Caine said sarcastically with emphasis on business. The man’s face froze into a sullen, challenging sneer. “I do what I have to do.”

  Similar words played in Caine’s memory.

  Laura tugged at his arm and led him quickly away. They turned at the nearby corner.

  “He’s one of them!” she declared breathlessly. “Those pendants he wouldn’t sell are symbols in necromancy!”

  “Necromancy?”

  “The black arts. Divination to call up the devil. Through a dead body.”

  “I’ve heard of it, but—“

  Caine turned back around the corner. The vendor was gone. Only the card tables with the black velvet tablecloth stood empty on the curb. Next to them a brown and black dog was sniffing at one of the plaster cobras.

  “Uncle Jonas is right! Different vendors around Washington have those pendants! I remember seeing them. All of them are different— different symbols—and none are for sale! I’ll bet we find more and I’ll bet they’re on the axes uncle talks about!”

  Caine nodded assent, but thought, “Then what?” He eyed the dog, which was now sitting next to a plaster tiger. He suspected it might be the one at Laura’s door the night before. It wasn’t worth provoking on a busy sidewalk.

  “First, I want to meet your uncle.”

  Before she could say, “He’s at the Library of Congress,” they were already hurrying towards his roadster.

  “We can catch a late breakfast on the way,” he offered.

  She tapped his arm in playful reproach.

  Chapter 29

  Within twenty minutes they were driving along 17th Street N.W. past the White House grounds and around the Ellipse to Connecticut Avenue. Laura kept her eyes peeled for anyone she thought might look like a devotee of the occult. She noticed nothing among a number of people along the way, particularly those lingering in the vicinity of the Ellipse and Lafayette Park.

  The Colonel sped along Connecticut Avenue to 2nd Street and turning south approached a guarded entrance booth for one of several parking areas around the Library of Congress. He showed the attendant special identification and was waved through.

  “Good morning, Professor Mitchell,” the attendant said smiling to Laura.

  Caine glanced at her with a bemused smile. “I guess you’re pretty regular around here?”

  “Oh, yes,” she replied matter‐of‐factly.

  Inside Caine displayed his special identification again, the guard recognizing that he could carry a weapon into the building. “Good morning, Laura,” the guard said as he gestured them past the security desk.

  She led him to her uncle’s basement office tucked beyond shelves out of the way and rarely used. The door was open to add visual space to the cramped, but cozy quarters.

  “Uncle Jonas!”

  Jonas Mitchell had already heard footsteps and was at the door. He eyed Caine as he hugged his niece. “And you must be the handsome young officer she spoke about.”

  “Uncle Jonas,” she chided.

  “At my age, I have to take shortcuts. I can’t be as presumptuous about time as you can. Besides, I haven’t seen such a sparkle in your eyes for a long while.”

  “Uncle Jonas!”

  He hustled to his desk and opened a bottom drawer. “This is an occasion. You’re the only man she’s ever brought down here. It’s Mr. Caine, isn’t it? Christopher Caine?”

  “Yes, it is. I’m very pleased to meet you. Your niece has told me a lot about you.”

  “Well, I hope she hasn’t exposed me as a paranoid crackpot,” he said as he pulled a bottle of bourbon from the drawer.

  “No,” the Colonel said slowly viewing the bottle with a hint of a smile. “Quite the contrary.”

  Jonas Mitchell placed the bottle unerringly on a rare uncluttered spot on his desk, then felt around the drawer and pulled out three crystal shot glasses.

  “Uncle Jonas. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, Laura. Nothing. This calls for a celebration.” He poured three measures.

  “First and foremost, I want to thank you for the other night—the night you held off those hoodlums at the museum. I can’t imagine what would have happened otherwise.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I did it for both of us.”

  “Nevertheless,” Mitchell replied and raised his glass in a toast.

  “Uncle!” Laura started.

  “I believe it’s not polite to turn down a toast in one’s honor.” The Colonel picked up the glass and looked at her.

  She shrugged her shoulders, satisfied that Caine did not appear affected by her uncle’s forwardness. They both looked at her expectantly.

  “Oh, I guess. Just this one.” She picked up the remaining glass. “Just because you’re toasting Chris.”

  The two men downed their bourbon in a gulp while Laura took a tentative sip, then downed the rest. She grimaced.

  “You’re absolutely scandalous!” she declared. “In the Library of Congress, no less!” Her voice betrayed solicitous affection for her uncle.

  “We came here to tell you we found one!” she declared.

  “Found what?” he asked absentmindedly.

  “The sentinels along the axis! The occultists!”

  “Of course. Of course! I knew you would!”

  “Yes. And Chris wants to know more.”

  The elderly man picked up the bottle again and slowly poured two more measures of bourbon, his thoughts seemingly elsewher
e.

  “Well,” he started as he sat down at his desk. “Laura’s probably told you that I’ve been doing research of many years—obsessing is more the word—about the influence of folk stories and legends in real life.”

  “She has mentioned it.”