Risking the World (29 page)

The crack of dawn found her at the lab.  Another attack with Tivaz TB was the only certainty in her life now, and she led a brainstorming session to sort through her team's ideas for new development efforts.  Don played devil's advocate, forcing them to work through every 'what if' scenario on the table, even as Roscoe argued single-mindedly for the strategy she'd put forward to him, that they use a protein kinase to smuggle a bactericidal drug through the Tivaz TB cell wall.  So ferocious was he in representing how this could be engineered, while pointing out the drawbacks of all other proposed concepts, it was obvious he'd appropriated her suggestion as his own.  Vintage Roscoe, but she didn't care as long as he took responsibility for nailing down the specifics central to her approach, which he did.  A ton of hard work lay ahead and if taking credit for the idea got it done, Roscoe could have it.

"Way to go, Claire," Roscoe complimented her as the room emptied.  "We kicked their butts and we're on to something."

She crossed her fingers.  "Only if it works."

"Cutting edge science is all a big 'if,' but our plan makes sense."

So now it was
their
plan.

He angled himself close enough to touch her before whispering, "I always said we're a good team, Claire, you and me.  My offer to get together stands.  Anytime, anyplace."

Roscoe's timing, as usual, left a lot to be desired, but she disciplined herself not to overreact.  He was a good – no, a great – bench scientist and she desperately needed his skills.  "Let's get through this first."

"Sure thing.  I'll start by nailing down our protein kinase."

And she'd start by finding that expert in nanotechnology, because before long, even if he were loath to admit it, Roscoe would be in over his head.  But Ian derailed her good intentions by telling her, "Mr. Ruskin's tried to reach you more than once.  I informed him you were in a meeting.  He agreed to wait, but asked that you ring him as soon as possible."

Calling David was a priority at the bottom of her heap unless he had news about a release of Tivaz TB, and Ian would've immediately interrupted her if that were the case.  Still, she couldn't avoid speaking to him from now on.  Maybe it was better to have that first conversation while a sense of accomplishment from the morning session buoyed her spirits.

"Ruskin," he answered.

"Claire, returning your call."

"Darling, I'm so pleased to hear from you."

I just bet.
 "What can I do for you?"

"Meet me for lunch.  You were fast asleep when I came in last night so I left you alone."

Of course, no need for me because you already got laid.  "I'm really busy today."  No lie, to be sure.

"Too busy for me?  Darling, I'm anxious to see you. Give me an hour.  I have a meeting after lunch.  I promise I shall not keep you from your work overlong."

"David, I'm in the middle of something.  I really can't leave."

"Can't or won't?"

He'd called her bluff and she refused to let him turn her into a petty liar . . . a silly female who played games.  "Okay, I'll meet you, but I must get back to the lab soon."

Ian dropped her off curbside at his club, the Athenaeum on Pall Mall.  Huge pillars framed the steps to the classical stone edifice, and a liveried doorman ushered her through the marble entrance to a seat in the grand lobby.  She sank into the deep burgundy leather wing chair, weighed down by the formality of his world compared to the easy give and take of her lab.  She didn't belong here, but was grateful she'd dressed in a black pants suit and tied her hair back in a silk scarf for this morning's meeting rather than wearing her typical lab clothes.

She had a strategy.  At lunch she'd calmly tell him she knew about Meg and bow out of the picture gracefully.  Well, bow out of his bed, at any rate.  It was the right thing to do, and would let her put everything else aside to focus exclusively on Tivaz TB.  Sharing his bed, as she had a week ago tonight, was a distraction she didn't need.

She saw the doorman greet him deferentially and point to her, but David was already smiling in her direction.

"Darling."

He looked as radiant as she'd been the morning when he'd left for Morocco after Thanksgiving.  She knew he was capable of dissembling, having seen him with Varat in Tivaz.  And she also knew he was a practiced ladies man, but it was still difficult to square his pleasure at seeing her today with yesterday's intimate exchange with Meg.

"I've missed you," he said and sounded sincere.

This wasn't going to be easy and it took an effort to return his smile and let him escort her toward the coatroom.  He told her something of club lore on the way, and she feigned interest at learning the Athenaeum was home club to Charles Dickens.  When he revealed his family's connection dated back even further she felt the complete outsider and couldn't wait to say her piece at lunch and go back to her own world in the lab.

"I know you're chock-a-block.  Me as well.  We'll go directly to the dining room."

Good.  But before they could, a man came forward to say the club was holding a package addressed to him, and asked if he wished to take it now or after lunch.

"Afterwards, Mr. Burns," David said with easy grace.  "I'm meeting with my father this afternoon and I expect his solicitor has forwarded papers for me to review."

"Mr. Hitchens?  I know his stationery as he regularly sends to your father here.  This is not from him."

"Forwarding address?"

"I don't believe so, sir."

"And you received it how?"

"Courier, within the last hour."

"Mr. Burns.  Do not allow anyone near that package. Its contents may be dangerous."

The man recoiled.  "Shall I institute the IRA bomb protocol and clear the club?"

She broke in, "David, no."  She lowered her voice and spoke to David.  "If it's Tivaz TB, we must quarantine everyone."

"The virus from Paris?" Mr. Burns asked, having managed to listen in, and turn paler than pale.

"Right.  Which means we cannot allow anyone to enter or leave the club," David answered.

Mr. Burns twitched and rounded on David.  "Begging your pardon sir, but what if it should be a bomb, not the TB?"

"Is a bomb likely?" she asked David.

"It is always a distinct possibility."

"But Tivaz TB –"

"Is most harmful to children and those who are ill, two groups not likely to be present in this club, Claire."

She balked.  "But still –"

"You are correct, Varat may wish to expose us to Tivaz TB for the fear factor alone.  Yet, the possibility also exists he has suborned the IRA, whose experience lies with explosives."  He turned to the club manager. "Mr. Burns, we must begin preparations for either possibility.  Everyone should take shelter in the basement rooms, and those who have come in contact with the package must be sequestered separately, no exceptions.  The bomb squad and biohazard team shall each be summoned.  I will assist.  We haven't a second to waste, man.  Move."

Chapter 36

"You've been given a scramasax, Mr. Ruskin."  The weapons curator at the Wallace Collection lightly stroked the ragged dagger using a pair of soft cotton gloves.  "Ninth century, judging by the shape of it."

What in bloody hell was a scramasax?

"Think of it as a Viking utility knife," the curator explained.

"It's a household tool?" David asked.  How like Varat, connoisseur of fine things, to toy with him by bequeathing a common blade.

"Norsemen used it to skin animals, slice their food, or to kill a man."

Naturally, whatever the situation required.

"Every free man possessed one."  The antique weapons expert drew his hand in a line parallel to his belt.  "Worn in a horizontal sheath at the waist."

"Anything out of the ordinary about this specific dagger?"  Other than the complete pandemonium it caused earlier at the Athenaeum Club?

"Not particularly.  We've found similar in grave sites throughout England."  He continued to hold the blade and rotated his wrist to demonstrate its balance.  "Viking warriors were buried with their weapons so they'd be armed upon arrival in Valhalla."

Was Varat's confidence sufficient to give him a funeral gift?

"Let's see if your knife has been out in public before." The curator laid the knife on his desk.  He snapped a quick digital image of the dagger and uploaded it to his computer.  "Database has four scramasax that share this shape.  Now we narrow it down."  Images were resized and superimposed until the man tapped his finger on the screen.  "Here we are.  What do you know?  This little fellow just sold at Christie's."

"Who purchased it?"

"An agent acting for an anonymous buyer."  The curator hit a button to print the purchaser's details, and adjusted his spectacles before he leaned in to read the fine print.  "Shall we see what the catalog tells us?"

While David keyed the purchasing agent's address into his handheld, it signaled an incoming call.  Damn.  Rather than risk another run-in with James and Bobby over what they saw as his need to stalk Varat's ghost, he'd undertaken this research mission on his own and off the books.  They must be tracking him down.  He excused himself and stepped into a vacant office to take the call.

"You're en route, I presume?"

His father.  Bloody hell.  He'd missed the meeting with the solicitor.  Again.  "I've been detained."

"I've completed my other business with Mr. Hitchens."

"Right.  Afraid I can't make the meeting, sir."

"David."

The displeasure his father conveyed in that single word, his name, pained him.  "My apologies to you both, sir.  I shall reschedule before Christmas, you can be sure."

His father didn't reply immediately, and he waited.  "I'm aware you face significant pressures and crises of your own.  Nonetheless, estate business is a fundamental responsibility I cannot shirk any more than you can evade your responsibilities."

His father's comment broke him, like a racquets drop shot that he couldn't return.  "I understand.  I beg your indulgence in this instance."

"And the last one?"

Another lost point, this time from a well-aimed ball to his blind spot.  He remained silent in the chill of his father's disapproval.  For once he knew he deserved it.

"Your mother wishes me to invite you and Claire for Christmas."

"Thank you for the invitation, sir."  He would've been pleased if it had been delivered with more warmth, but under the circumstances he scarcely deserved it.  "I shall get back to mother."

"I trust you will, David."

But his father did not trust him to be true to his word, a state of affairs he was forced to accept.  He had every reason not to be at Mr. Hitchens' office, and yet wasn't in a position to make excuses because he hadn't thought to phone and cancel.  He'd thought of nothing save rushing out of the Athenaeum and bringing Varat's blade here, to the Wallace Collection, where his father often brought him as a boy.

Those visits had been his introduction to culture.  They invariably began with a tour of paintings of the great masters, before viewing selected items from the collections of Sevres porcelain, bronze statues, and portrait miniatures.  But his father always rewarded him at the end with a visit to what David most wanted to see:  the hall of weapons where sets of exquisitely etched German armor stood as hollow sentinels before a room overflowing with swords whose handles sparkled with gold, silver and jewels.

The sight of those beautiful instruments of destruction never disappointed him . . . as he'd disappointed his father today.  He hoped one day soon he might relate to his father all that had happened in the last month, but that must wait until he stopped Varat.

And if he couldn't stop Varat?

He shunted the thought aside and returned to the curator's office.

"Lordy, lordy," the curator chuckled.  "What lengths they go to inflate the value of an artifact."

"What have you found?"  If something was unusual about this dagger, then it must be an explicit message from Varat.

"They describe your scramasax as belonging to a Norse chieftain who raided the Thames in the ninth century.  Claim it's the companion piece to the chieftain's legendary sword, nicknamed Woden's Thunder."

"Woden?"

"Norse god of war.  Responsible for quite a bit in his day, like elevating those warriors to Valhalla.  Long forgotten, of course, and most aren't aware he lent his name to one of our days – Wednesday."

Wednesday?  The Paris attack took place on a Wednesday. Could the next attack be scheduled for Wednesday?

"I hope no one was taken in by this little fairy tale, but could have been.  The lot went for a pretty penny."

"The lot?"

"Your scramasax was auctioned with a number of other swords.  Ah, here's the reason."  A curved sword filled the curator's screen.  "Now this is a weapon worth owning."

"A Turkish scimitar?" David asked, inclining his head for a better view.

"No, a Persian shamshir."  He zoomed in on the handle.  "Beautiful horse-head."  Then he shifted focus to a close-up of the blade.  "Nice jawhar pattern."

"What are you looking at?"

"See those wavy lines in the blade?  They call that jawhar.  This is a kirk nardeban pattern by the looks of it."

"Does it mean anything specific?"

"Only that this was one of the finest blades of its era."

"This sword was the centerpiece of the lot, then?"

The curator shook his head.  "It's a piece I'd be proud to display upstairs.  In fact, I'd have paid more than our buyer did if we had the resources.  Wait, here's what held the price down."  He pointed to the on-screen catalog.  "Provenance is not clearly established."

"Meaning?"

"There's a disclaimer warning the piece might have been stolen from an archeological site or removed from a country illegally.  Maybe that's why our buyer's anonymous.  He may plan to have this sword disappear."

"Does that happen often?"

The curator smirked.  "Regularly."

"How would you find out more about where this sword came from?"