Ark of Fire ca-1

by C. M. Palov

  The redheaded man came to a stop in the middle of the crowded concourse. Turning his head, he glanced at her, held her gaze, then looked away.

  Edie stepped away from her post and purposefully strode toward him. Having spent a summer selling timeshares in Florida, she wasn’t afraid of approaching strangers.

  The redheaded man swerved his gaze back in her direction, a questioning look on his face.

  “C Aisquith at lycos dot com?”

  He nodded, blue eyes narrowing. “And you must be Edie one-oh-three at earthlink dot com. I would normally say ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ but given the dire content of your electronic missive, that may be a bit premature.” Like Jonathan Padgham, he had a cultured English accent. “I’m curious. How did you recognize me? There must be a hundred people milling about.”

  “Lucky guess,” she replied, shrugging. “That and the fact that you have the same British ‘I’m so superior’ air about you that Dr. Padgham had.”

  One side of the man’s mouth quirked upward. “Had? I can’t imagine old Padge has changed all that much.”

  Edie swallowed, the moment of truth having arrived much too abruptly.

  “I said ‘had’ for a reason . . . he’s dead. Jonathan Padgham was killed a little over an hour ago. And just my luck, I’m the only witness to the murder.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “. . . And if they find us, we’re both going to wish we’d had the foresight to prepurchase a headstone and burial plot.”

  For several moments Caedmon Aisquith stared at the paranoid, Pre-Raphaelite beauty standing before him. Like a raving-mad maestro, she used her hands to punctuate the nonsensical words issuing from her chapped, bloodstained lips.

  “Why contact me? Why not go to the authorities?” He spoke calmly, not wanting to tip the scales from raving mad to stark-raving mad.

  “Because ‘the authorities’ were in on the kill, that’s why. As in dirty cops and FBI infiltrators. They mistakenly believe that Dr. Padgham sent you an e-mail right before he died,” she answered, clearly unable to speak in coherent sentences. “That’s why they want to kill you. And trust me, killing you would be child’s play for these guys. Like the Grim Reaper pulling the Energizer Bunny right out of the ol’ top hat.”

  “Mmmm.” He wondered if she had taken some sort of hallucinatory drug.

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “I could say that you have a penchant for mixed metaphor.”

  “Look, I’m dead serious. Emphasis on the word dead, just in case you’re too dense to get the message. You still don’t believe me? Fine. I’ve got the proof right here.”

  “Indeed.”

  She began to rummage through the tote bag hanging off her leather-clad shoulder. Peering inside, Caedmon caught sight of what looked to be a manila file folder and a box of frozen vegetables.

  It was plain as a pikestaff; the woman was absolutely bonkers.

  With a determined look on her face, she removed a khaki-colored waistcoat from the tote bag and brandished the garment in front of his face. “I was wearing this when Dr. Padgham was murdered. When I had to crawl over his body”—her chest visibly heaved—“that’s his blood smeared on the front of my vest.”

  “May I?” Caedmon touched the bloodstain, surprised to discover that it was wet.

  Were it not for the still-damp bloodstain and the faint smell of vomit, he would have dismissed the woman outright. Instead, he removed his mobile phone from his breast pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Edie Miller frantically grabbed him by the arm, preventing him from raising the mobile to his ear. “If you call the police, we’re as good as dead.”

  “If you would be so kind as to unhand me, I’m going to ring Padgham.” And, hopefully, get to the bottom of this lunacy.

  “Be my guest,” she muttered, releasing her hellion’s grip.

  He let the phone ring five times, disconnecting when an automated message began to play.

  “It appears that the old boy has turned off his mobile.”

  “Wrong!” Edie Miller screeched at him, garnering several sideways glances from passersby. “The old boy is lying under his desk in a pool of his own blood.”

  Worried that she might continue to draw unwanted attention, he motioned to the cluster of nearby tables. “I’m willing to hear you out, provided you keep calm. Understood?”

  She nodded, actually managing to look contrite.

  “Very well, then. Do be seated while I get us some coffee. Unless, of course, you prefer tea.”

  “No. Coffee is fine.” She glanced at the nearby espresso bar. “A cappuccino would be better.”

  “Duly noted. I won’t be but a moment.”

  Like an obedient child, she shuffled over to a small bistro table adjacent to the espresso bar. Seating herself in a chair, she removed the tote bag from her shoulder and clutched it to her breast. Though the mass of dark brown corkscrew curls was her crowning glory, it was the deep-set brown eyes that drew and held his attention. Attenuated by straight brows, the combination gave her a somber, almost sad air wholly at odds with her forceful personality. And wholly at odds with her eccentric attire: a black leather motorcycle jacket, clunky black boots, and a long purple and red tartan skirt.

  “God help me for coming to the crazed damsel’s rescue,” he muttered under his breath. Mistakenly thinking her e-mail had something to do with his earlier suspicions regarding an RIRA reprisal, he’d decided at the last to don his armor and go to battle. He couldn’t have been more off the mark.

  After placing his order for a cappuccino and a hazelnut coffee, he removed several notes from his wallet and handed them to the cashier. Moving away from the queue, he grabbed sugar packets, dairy creamers, plastic stirrers, and paper napkins, stuffing them into his jacket pocket. A few seconds later, a coffee cup clutched in each hand, he made his way to the bistro table.

  “Not knowing how you take your coffee, I rather overdid it.” He plunked the treasure trove onto the middle of the round table.

  His noticeably subdued companion reached for two of the sugar packets. “I always sweeten the deal with a couple of sugars,” she remarked, snapping the paper packets to and fro as she spoke. Ripping them open, she poured the contents into her cup. “You know, it’s just occurred to me that I don’t even know your first name.”

  “Caedmon,” he replied, watching her brow wrinkle when she heard the Old English moniker, the unusual name his father’s way of making a man of him, forcing him to face the bully boys at a tender age.

  “I thought the English were all tea drinkers.”

  “Rumor has it I’m something of an iconoclast.” Opening a creamer, he poured a dollop into his cup. That done, he began the inquiry. “How is it that you came to witness this supposed murder?”

  “You’re a hard sell, aren’t you? Although I suppose if the boot were on the other foot, I would be as well. To answer your question, I’m a freelance photographer at the Hopkins Museum. That’s how I came to witness the murder.” About to raise the cup to her lips, she suddenly lowered it to the table. “Before I tell you what happened, I need to know in what capacity you knew Dr. Padgham,” she abruptly demanded, her lack of subtlety disarming.

  “We played cricket together at Oxford. As so often happens with youthful friendships, we eventually lost touch with one another. When Padge learned that I was in Washington on the last leg of a book tour, he rang me up. Suggested we meet for drinks. Talk over old times, that sort of rubbish. Satisfied?” When she nodded, he said, “It’s now your turn, Miss Miller.”

  “A month ago I was hired by Eliot Hopkins to photograph and digitally archive the entire museum collection. I work on Mondays because that’s when the museum is closed to the public.”

  “Enabling you to take your photographs unimpeded,” he intuited.

  “Exactly. But today was unusual.”

  “How so?”

  “Dr. Padgham was in his office. He’s never in the office on
Mondays.”

  “Was there anyone else in the museum?”

  “Per usual, there were two guards downstairs in the main lobby.” She shot him a penetrating glance. “You’re following all this, right?”

  “Yes, yes,” he assured her. “Please continue.”

  “Sometime around one thirty, Dr. Padgham called and asked if I would come upstairs to the administration offices.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “He wanted me to take some photographs for him. I got the idea that he was working on some kind of special project. That’s why he was in the office on his day off. Obedient minion that I am, I went up to the fourth floor and took the photos.” As she spoke, Caedmon detected a note of sarcasm in her voice. “I was about to leave Dr. Padgham’s office when a cable came loose on his computer. Dr. Padgham conned me into climbing under the desk to tighten the connection.”

  Caedmon nodded. “Now that sounds like the Padge I know and love.”

  “You knew and loved. I told you, he’s—”

  “I know, he’s dearly departed. No need to belabor the point.”

  “No need to be so crabby,” she countered, proving she was no shrinking violet. “Anyway, I was still crouched under the desk when a man walked into Dr. Padgham’s office and shot him in the head point-blank.” As she spoke, her hands began to tremble. She wrapped both of them around her cup. “He was killed instantly. The killer had no idea that I was under the desk . . . that I witnessed the whole thing.”

  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.”

  Cahoots?

  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.”

  CHAPTER 10

  There will be in these last days many deceivers and false prophets and many who will follow them: For many deceivers are entered into the world.

  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 un
derbelly. 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?”