The Coptic Secret (2 page)

Jacob's hands were restless, the idleness of a smoker denied his habit. Lang was thankful there were enough
no smoking
signs posted to keep his friend's foul-smelling pipe in his pocket. Finally, Jacob helped himself from a passing tray of champagne flutes. "How many?"

"That's just it. No one knows how many of those near- priceless books there were to begin with."

Jacob smacked his lips, satisfied with the quality of the champagne. "And the subject matter of the books we do know about?"

"Apparent copies of some of the original Gospels, including some not in the Bible, the Gospel of Judas, for instance. This particular work is known as The Secret Gospel of James' because it supposedly contains secret revelations made to James by Jesus. There's also the Book of James, or protevangelium, which in many ways parallels the gospels of Luke and Matthew."

Jacob was already searching for another tray when a tall man with collar-length silver hair pushed his way through the crowd, hand extended. "Langford Reilly! I'm truly flattered you could make it to my little party!"

"Eon!" Lang smiled with genuine pleasure as he took the hand. "Wouldn't have missed it."

Particularly since he had business in London anyway.

He turned to Jacob. "This is my friend Jacob Annulewitz. I figured one more body wouldn't matter."

"Not at all," Eon said, shaking Jacob's hand. "Just water down the champers a bit. So what have you been up to?"

"Same old, same old," Lang replied. "Running the foundation and trying to keep my hand in with the law practice."

"Still doing ... what do you call it? Ah, yes, the white- collar criminal defense. Making sure rich criminals never get their just desserts."

In a single motion, Jacob placed his empty glass on a tray and removed a full one. Eon and Lang helped themselves.

"Better to represent the rich and powerful," Lang observed good-naturedly, "than the poor and oppressed. They pay better. I didn't know you were in the antiquities business."

"Mere happenstance. I came across what might be the only existing parts of the Nag Hammadi Library not in the Coptic Egyptian Museum in Cairo." He shrugged modestly. "Seemed fitting to donate them to the British Museum."

More than fitting. Two centuries of colonialism had given the British ample opportunity to plunder the best of ancient Egyptian artifacts. For years, the Egyptian authorities had been trying to recover some of them, including the Rosetta stone and a colossus of Ramses II.

A bell tinkled behind them.

Eon turned his head. "Ah! My moment has arrived. Time to make the presentation."

"A brief one, I hope," Lang joked.

"I can promise you that, although I fear I can give no such pledge on behalf of the museum's curator."

He spun around on the heels of pumps for which at least one crocodile had perished. "The ceremony, such as it is, will take place in the special exhibit hall, room seventy, the one between here and the Reading Room."

Lang and Jacob merged with the crowd slowly filling a long, narrow room. In the center, a half moon of velvet cord separated an exhibit table covered with a white cloth. Behind the table Eon stood with a portly, bespectacled man whom Lang guessed was the potentially long-winded curator.

A smiling Eon was nodding to familiar faces in the crowd. He raised a hand. "May I have your attention, good people!"

The sound of conversation dimmed to a buzz, then there was silence.

"First, I want to thank—"

From somewhere behind him there was the unmistakable sound of a shot.

Lang and Jacob glanced at each other and began to move toward opposite sides of the room.

One of the uniformed guards stepped into the room, staggered and fell facedown across the velvet ropes. Immediately blood began to puddle from under his head.

A woman screamed.

Eon took a step back. "Bloody hell!"

Four men, two on each side of the room, appeared, each sweeping the room with pistols, each face covered with a black balaclava.

Wordlessly, they motioned the crowd back, including two helpless and unarmed guards. Eon and the curator were more than willing to step away from the draped display case.

The armed men's movements had clearly been choreographed. While two kept Eon's guests covered with their weapons, the other two snatched the cover from the case, removed the contents and slid them into a plastic trash bag before they backed toward the exit. Just before leaving the room, the two other men each took one of Eon's arms, pulling him with them.

There was a second of total silence before bedlam erupted. Everyone seemed to be shouting instructions to everyone else while a man and a woman rushed to the fallen guard. A battery of cell phones appeared. Lang doubted anyone could hear above the general clamor.

He and Jacob nodded to each other as they slid along the wall to the nearest exits in the direction the armed men had taken.

Lang peered around a corner into the Reading Room, restored to the Edwardian furnishings that had hosted the likes of Marx, Gandhi and George Bernard Shaw. Void of their daytime occupants, the empty chairs stood sentinel at the oak tables, casting rigid shadows in the faint overhead light.

At the far end, Lang saw a flicker of movement.

Jacob had seen it, too. He was moving in that direction.

Uncertain what he could do, Lang crossed the room, using the high-backed chairs for whatever cover they offered. The SIG Sauer P226 9mm, a souvenir of his agency days before the law practice, was resting uselessly in a bedside table an ocean away. Even if he had the prescience to bring it, how helpful would it have been against four armed men, with the possibility of hitting Eon? Still, he couldn't simply wring his hands and stand by doing nothing.

He wore his long-ago training like an old but much loved jacket. There were some things never forgotten. Back against the wall, careful not to give a clear target in the dim light nor present a silhouette. The dead guard was evidence that the men who had taken Eon had no reluctance to shoot. The guard had been unarmed, perhaps sacrificed to intimidate the guests. They surely wouldn't hesitate to take a shot at any pursuers.

Lang still had his back against a wall as he took a cautious peek around the next door.

The Egyptian Room. Jewelry, Coptic art, even a reconstruction of a chariot, its metal dully reflecting the indistinct low-wattage night-lights above. The thing was complete with reins and a quiver of javelins. Only the horses and men were missing.

Lang slid into the room.

The chamber reverberated with a shot and plaster inches from his head burst into shards that buzzed past like an angry swarm of bees, stinging his face.

Lang dived under the chariot just as another shot placed his assailant at the far end of the room.

Lang wished the Egyptians had been less efficient in constructing war machines. The cab of the chariot was barely large enough for a driver and archer or spearman. The front was mere framework. The ancient vehicle was constructed to be light and, therefore, fast. The corollary of the design was that it gave little or no cover.

And the man with the gun knew it.

There wasn't enough light to see the gunman but Lang could clearly hear footsteps on the marble floor, footsteps that reached the other side of Lang's scanty hiding place.

He searched what he could see of the exhibit hail for an escape route that would not make him a clear target.

There was none.

He was going to have to do something and do it now.

The footsteps paused and Lang moved.

Rolling from under the chariot, Lang sprang to his knees and shoved. The fragile cart tipped over.

Lang had a blurred vision of a man instinctively throwing a protective hand across his face.

The hand had a gun in it.

Just before the display shattered on the floor, Lang snatched at the quiver, grabbing one of the sharp-tipped spears with his left hand. After quickly transferring the weapon to his right, he drew his arm back to its full length then slung the shaft, shimmering and whining, through the air.

The gunman had risen to his knees, leveling his weapon when the bronze tip hit him squarely in the stomach. Lang heard two things: a shocked grunt and the sound of a butcher's cleaver hacking meat from a carcass.

The gunman dropped his pistol and staggered to his feet, using both hands to grasp the long shaft. He had an expression of total disbelief as he sank back to the floor as though in prayer before pitching forward, snapping the lance's haft with the crack of old dry wood.

Lang made a dive for the gun, clutching it as he rolled over into darker shadows in case one of the man's companions was nearby.

There was silence for perhaps a second.

Then Jacob appeared, holding a curved sword with a notched tip peculiar to ancient Egypt. He looked down at the crumpled form and turned it over with his foot. "Dare say th' poor sod's the first to die from one of Pharaohs spears in the last millennium or so."

Lang got to his feet. "Likely, but we need to find the others." He held up the gun, for the first time recognizing it as a Walther PPK, James Bond's weapon of choice. Dated and comparatively small bore but easily concealed. "At least we aren't unarmed anymore. Let's go!"

Jacob put a cautionary hand on Lang's arm. "Don't be so bloody hasty. The odds are still in those blokes' favor."

As quickly as caution would permit, they crossed the Egyptian exhibit and entered a large, empty room. A ceiling-high lifting door identified it as loading space. When he pushed on a smaller door under a lighted
exit
sign, Lang was surprised to find it unlocked.

Perhaps the way the gunmen had entered?

He stared out into Montague Place, the street at the rear of the museum. The sound of a car speeding away from the curb drew his attention to the outlines of the trees in Russell Square.

It was too dark to identify the make or model, but it had its lights out.

Lang exhaled heavily, like someone coming down from the adrenaline high of a losing race.

"They got the sodding book," Jacob said through teeth now clenched around the forbidden pipe. "What th' bleedin' hell did they want with your friend Eon?"

Lang turned to go back into the building. He planned to check the body on the floor for identification, even though he was certain he would find none.

"I'm afraid we'll know soon enough," he said.

The body was, as anticipated, bare of identity.

Almost.

One packet contained a small wadded bit of paper. The dead man probably was unaware it was there. Lang spread it out on the cold marble of the floor next to the body, squinting in the stingy light.

"I suppose you found the lad's driving permit. Maybe his national health card." Jacob was peering over his shoulder.

Lang held it up. "Too faded to read, some kind of a card. A receipt, perhaps?"

Jacob sniffed. "Not likely the chit from the dining room at the Dorchester." He leaned closer, taking it in his hand. "Looks like ... like part of a boarding pass."

"A boarding pass?"

"Yes." He turned to catch a different angle of light. "See, you can make out a date and a flight number."

"Swell. Now all we have to do is match an airline with it. Should be no more than a thousand or so scheduled carriers to check."

Jacob handed it back to Lang. "Your bleedin' gratitude is humbling. It's a sight better than nothing."

But not much.

II.

#17
Paul Street

Wapping

London

1906 Hours

Inspector Dylan Fitzwilliam had expected the call ever since the immigration people had called him yesterday.

The American, Langford Reilly, was back in London. Every time Mr. Reilly had visited London, some sort of mayhem followed as surely as a contrail behind a jet aircraft. That was why the inspector had a standing request to be notified when Mr. Reilly's passport was swiped through the machine at Heathrow or Gatwick or he appeared under some other name on the face-recognition technology. Admittedly, Mr. Reilly had always been cleared of any crime but he bore watching just the same.

And now, like the bad penny, he was back.

Someone was going to die.

After finishing dinner and settling in front of the telly, Fitzwilliam had dared hope this once Mr. Reilly would depart the UK without coming to the attention of the police. After all, Reilly had been observed visiting some medical supply houses, no doubt on behalf of his foundation, and tonight seemed harmless enough, some affair at the British Museum. With any luck at all, the damn Yank would go back to wherever it was he came from before the bodies started piling up.