Ark of Fire (8 page)

Caedmon stared at the curly-haired beauty sitting across from him, resisting the urge to pull her to him, to calm the fearful quiver that had traveled from her hands to her entire upper body.

“How did you get away?”

“I climbed down the fire escape. I was hiding in the alley when I saw the killer approach a D.C. cop. And
this
is where the story takes a turn for the worse.” She looked him in the eye, her gaze disturbingly direct. “The killer and the cop were in cahoots with one another.”

By that, he assumed the two men were in collusion.

“Did these two men see you hiding in the alley?”

“No. But it didn’t much matter because the killer had already accessed the museum security logs. That’s how they found out that I was in the building at the time of the murder. That’s why they’re looking for me.”

“Would you be able to identify the assailant?”

“Murderer,” she corrected. “And, no, I didn’t see his face. He wore a ski mask. By the time he took off the mask, he was too far away to get a good look-see. Although he sported a military-style buzz cut. And he was big. Really,
really
big. Steroid big,” she added, using her hands to indicate height and width. If her measurements were to be believed, the killer had an improbable shoulder span of some four and a half feet. “That’s all I can remember.”

“I see.”

“Wait!” she exclaimed, cappuccino spilling over the brim of her cup as she excitedly jostled the table. “He wore an unusual silver ring on his right hand.” Opening her tote bag, she removed a sheet of paper. “Do you have a pen?”

He wordlessly reached into his breast pocket, obliging her request. Pen in hand, she drew an intricate pattern. Tilting her head to one side, she reviewed her handiwork before sliding the sheet of paper in his direction.

“Sorry, I’m a photographer, not an artist.”

Caedmon examined the drawing, instantly recognizing the pattern.

“How interesting . . . it’s a Jerusalem cross. Also known as the Crusader’s cross. The four tau crosses represent the Old Testament.” He pointed to the larger of the crosses. “And the four Greek crosses the New Testament. You’re certain this is the symbol that was on the, er, killer’s ring?”

She nodded. “Is that significant?”

“It was to the medieval knights who conquered the Holy Land,” he informed her, well acquainted with the topic, having had an interest in the Knights Templar when he was at Oxford. An obsessive interest, as it turned out, one that ultimately cost him his academic career. “In the twelfth century, this particular cross served as the coat of arms for the short-lived Kingdom of Jerusalem. Although the European knights—” He self-consciously cleared his throat. “I apologize. I’m rambling. Do you recall anything else?”

Edie Miller sucked her lower lip between her teeth, enabling him to see that she had slightly crooked front teeth. And plump beautiful lips.

“No, sorry. But you do believe me, don’t you? About Dr. Padgham being murdered?”

He shook his head, uncertain what to make of her fantastical tale. “Why in God’s name would this masked man kill Jonathan Padgham? Padge was as harmless as the proverbial fly. Annoying, at times, I admit, but utterly harmless.”

She stared at him, long and hard. As though he’d just asked a fool’s question.

“He was killed on account of the stolen relic.”

“ ‘Stolen relic?’ This is the first that you’ve made mention of a relic.”

A confused look crept into her eyes. A second later, shaking her head, she said, “Oh, God, I’m sorry. So much has happened. I’m getting everything mixed up. Like my brain is starting to short-circuit.”

Shock.
She was beginning to go into shock. Again, he was tempted to pull her into his arms. Although her travails might be imaginary, her fearful panic seemed real enough.

“Drink some more coffee.”

She gulped down the last of her cappuccino. Seeing a faint brown smear on her upper lip, he unthinkingly picked up a paper napkin and wiped the smudge clean. Then, guiltily aware of the trespass, he crumbled the napkin into a ball, tossing it onto the table.

“Dr. Padgham was in the process of sending you a digital photo of the relic when he was killed.”

“A digital photo? Why would he have done that?”

Opening her tote bag, she removed a camera. “He didn’t say. As a back-up, I-I saved the photograph on the camera’s internal memory. Here—” She shoved the camera at him. “That’s the relic that was stolen.”

Holding the camera within a few inches of his face, Caedmon examined the digital photo, as through a glass darkly, disbelieving what he was seeing.

His breath caught in his throat, her outlandish story suddenly making perfect sense.

“Bloody hell . . . I don’t believe it. I absolutely don’t believe it,” he whispered, unable to draw his gaze from the photo.

“I take it from your stupefied expression that the relic is valuable enough to steal.”

“Most assuredly.”

“And how about killing? Is it valuable enough that someone would kill to obtain it?”

He lowered the camera, keenly aware that Edie Miller was in very grave danger.

“Oh, I think a great many people would kill to obtain the fabled Stones of Fire.”

With reverential care, Boyd Braxton closed the gilt-edged book and replaced it in the glove compartment. The Warrior’s Bible, leather bound and emblazoned with the Rosemont Security Consultants emblem, had been personally given to him by Colonel Stanford MacFarlane. And though he was in a beaucoup hurry, the colonel always said that it was important to give the Almighty his due.

Reaching under the Bible, he removed an official police permit and placed it on the dash of the Crown Vic. The permit gave him the right to park anywhere in the city. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t on the Metropolitan Police force. He looked like a cop. And he drove a cop car. No one would think twice.

Parked directly in front of him, covered in a light layer of newly fallen snow, was a black Jeep Wrangler. Just as he figured, no sooner did he leave her pad than the bitch crept out of her hidey-hole.

“Stupid cunt,” he muttered, getting out of the Crown Vic. Walking over to the Jeep, he slapped a magnetic tracking device on the metal underbelly. He could now monitor the vehicle’s every move on his cell phone, the tracking device programmed with an automatic call-out feature.

“You, bitch, damned near cost me my job,” he muttered as he walked toward the museum.

And being Colonel Stan MacFarlane’s right-hand man at Rosemont Security Consultants was a job he took real seriously. Just like he’d taken his stint in the Marine Corps real seriously. A former jarhead, he still wore his hair high and tight, having served fifteen years in the Green Machine. Now he served Stan MacFarlane. If it hadn’t been for the colonel, he’d be eating institutional slop and lifting weights alongside the brothers in the state penitentiary. No chance of parole.

Juries didn’t look kindly upon gunnery sergeants who’d murdered their wife and child.

A lot like that dark day four years ago, he’d fucked up royally today at the Hopkins Museum.

But soon enough, he’d make it right, proving to the colonel that he was still a hard charger. That he was still worthy of his trust. That he was still a holy warrior.

Swinging open the glass door that fronted the Fourth Street Entrance, Boyd entered the National Gallery of Art.

Beautiful.
Not a metal detector in sight. The Ka-Bar knife and Mark 23 pistol would pass undetected.

Like he was a cop on official business, he strode over to the guard station. Which was a joke because the guard station didn’t amount to much more than a cloth-covered table manned by a pair of rent-a-pogues. Opening the flap of his leather coat, he removed a very official-looking Metropolitan Police badge.

“Is there a problem, Detective Wilson?” the gray-haired guard inquired, straightening his shoulders as he spoke.

“I’m looking for someone. Have you seen this woman?” Boyd held up a photograph of one Eloise Darlene Miller.

The guard reached for the pair of reading glasses hanging from his neck. After several seconds of careful scrutiny, he said, “Yeah, not too long ago, as a matter of fact. If I’m not mistaken, she headed down to the concourse.”

Never having been inside the National Gallery of Art, Boyd glanced around the cavernous marble-walled lobby. “Where’s the concourse?”

“At the bottom of the escalator,” the guard said, pointing to the other side of the hall. “You want me to alert the museum security team?”

“No need. She’s not dangerous,” he assured the guard. “We just need to ask her a few questions.” Returning the photo to his coat pocket, Boyd headed toward the escalator.

At the bottom of the escalator, he took note of the white sculpture, unimpressed.

“If that’s art, I’m Pablo Pick-my-ass Picasso,” he muttered. The sculpture looked a lot like the molar he’d once knocked out of a drunken swabbie’s head. For years he’d kept that tooth as a good-luck charm, a souvenir of his first bar fight of any real note.

Entering a dimly lit gift shop, Boyd saw that the place was overrun with people pushing wheelchairs, people dragging toddlers, and people yakking on cell phones. Everyone he looked, people were mindlessly meandering about, like so many lost sheep.
Perfect.
No one would later be able to recall who did what when; large crowds were the best camouflage a hunter could have.

As he passed a stack of cards with a Nativity scene, he made a mental note that this might be a classy place to do his Christmas shopping. Not that these godless people would even know the meaning of Christmas. Or any other event described in the Bible. Nowadays people put a popular spin on the Word of God, forgetting that biblical text was not subject to New Age feel-good interpretations.

Only a deluded fool would paraphrase the Word of God.

The colonel had taught him that. The colonel had taught him a lot of things since that day four years ago when he’d ordered him to get down on his knees before the Almighty. Never having prayed before, Boyd had been wary, but once he got over the initial embarrassment, he discovered it was an easy thing to beg God’s forgiveness. And just like that, in one life-altering moment, he was forgiven all of his sins, past and present. The bars, the brothels, the brawls, all forgiven. So, too, the murder of wife and child.

Although it was a daily struggle, he tried mightily to be a perfect holy warrior. He didn’t drink. Didn’t smoke. Kept his body a temple unto the Lord. He wished that he didn’t cuss, but as he’d entered the Corps at age seventeen, that was proving a hard habit to break.

Always room for improvement,
he thought as he left the gift shop and entered the food court.

Coming to a standstill, he scanned the chow hall.

She was here, somewhere in the crowd; fear made a person stand out, having an energy all its own. Its own stink, as it were. Like a bull’s-eye, her fear would lead him right to her.

But first he had to cover his ass.

Catching sight of a tall, big-gutted custodial worker lackadaisically pushing a yellow bucket on wheels, Boyd knew he’d found his man. For ten years, his father had pushed a similar bucket. Which was why Boyd knew that custodial workers of every stripe were invisible to the rest of the world. Most people didn’t favor them with a polite hello, let alone a sideways glance. Pleased that the op was going so smoothly, he followed the janitor through a door marked
Custodial Staff
.

In fact, he was thinking about his daddy—a mean, drunken bastard till the day he died—when he cold-cocked the unsuspecting janitor, knocking him to the floor with one well-aimed punch.