Ark of Fire ca-1

by C. M. Palov

  Since yesterday afternoon she’d been fighting the onslaught, and, truth be told, she was tired of fighting. Tired of being strong. She just wanted to curl up in her unmade bed, pull the pile of stiff covers over her head, and cry her eyes out. But she couldn’t. She barely knew Caedmon Aisquith and if she scared him off, she’d be left to fend for herself. Like she’d had to do so many times before. When she was a kid, her mother used to leave her untended for days on end.

  “I’m sorry for getting all emotional on you. I just—” She sank her teeth into her lower lip, struggling to hold back the tears.

  As she stood there, her back still turned to him, she heard Caedmon pad over to where she stood. Then she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

  “There’s no need to be ashamed of your emotions.”

  “Easy for you to say . . . you’re a redheaded pillar of strength.”

  “Not true.” Gently he turned her in his direction, pulling her into his arms. Because he stood somewhere in the neighborhood of six foot three, her head perfectly fit into the niche of his freckled shoulder.

  Edie closed her eyes, drinking in his warmth, his solidness. It felt so good to be held in his arms. Good in a way that made her think of the sleepless night just passed. How many times had she been tempted to climb out of her bed and get into his? Too many to count.

  Worried she might give in to those wayward urges, sex being the best balm of them all, she extricated herself from his arms.

  “I need to call the Hopkins and find out what the heck is going on,” she said, striding over to the desk that was wedged between the TV armoire and the dresser drawers.

  “Given that we’re very much in the dark, I think that’s a wise idea. Although make no mention of what you saw or witnessed yesterday at the museum.”

  Nodding, Edie dialed the main number for the Hopkins Museum. When prompted by the automated phone system, she keyed in the four-digit extension for the payroll department. Hearing a perky voice answer, “Linda Alvarez. How may I help you?” Edie motioned Caedmon to silence.

  “Hey Linda, it’s Edie Miller. I’m sorry for pestering you so early in the morning, but I really screwed up my time card yesterday . . . oh . . . really? Huh.”

  Edie placed her palm over the handset, whispering, “According to Linda, I never clocked in yesterday. But I know for a fact that I did.”

  She removed her hand from the phone. “Silly me, huh? You’d think after all these weeks I’d be able to get it right. I, um, was in and out so quick that I guess I forgot to—” Caedmon mouthed the words Ask for Padgham. “Is Dr. Padgham in his office by any chance? He asked me to take some photos for a special project and I was just . . . oh, gosh, that’s terrible. Well, um, since he’s not at the museum, would you be a dear and walk down the hall to his office for me? I spilled a cup of coffee all over his Persian carpet and I just wanted to make sure the cleaning crew took care of—Yeah, he is a bit of a priss, isn’t he? Thanks, Linda.”

  Again, Edie placed her palm over the handset. “You’re not going to believe this. She claims that Dr. Padgham’s longtime partner was killed yesterday in a hit-and-run accident and that Dr. Padgham flew to London to take care of the burial arrangements.”

  Caedmon’s blue eyes narrowed. “They’re trying to make it appear that Padge is still among the living. My, my, what a tangled web we weave.”

  A finger to her lips, she again motioned him to silence. “That’s great. Well, I, um, gotta run. Thanks a million, Linda. I’ll catch you later.”

  Edie hung up the phone, stunned.

  “What did she say about the bloodstained carpet?” Caedmon prompted.

  “Per Linda Alvarez’s eagle eye, there’s no stain on Dr. Padgham’s carpet. No bloodied bits of brain matter. No noxious pile of vomit. Nothing but a beautifully vacuumed Persian carpet.” Edie pulled out the chair in front of the desk and plopped into it. She glanced at Caedmon’s reflection in the wall mirror. “It’s a cover-up. A huge, wipe-the-slate-clean cover-up.”

  “Since the last thing that the thieves want is for the police to become involved, they’ll undoubtedly devise an accident for Padge in London. No one on this side of the Atlantic will question Padgham’s sudden death except to say that it was a tragic misfortune he didn’t see the lorry in the roundabout.”

  “I think they killed Dr. Padgham’s partner.”

  “More than likely they did,” Caedmon replied, his crisp accent noticeably subdued.

  “How in God’s name did the thugs at Rosemont pull off such a well organized cover-up?”

  Caedmon seated himself on the edge of the bed. “With inside help, I dare say. Who captains the ship?”

  “At the Hopkins? That would be the museum director, Eliot Hopkins.”

  “Call him. Set up a meeting for later this morning.”

  Edie cast him a long, considering glance. “Tell me why exactly I want to set up a meeting with the museum director?”

  “In the hopes that Mr. Hopkins will spill some gilded beans.”

  “You’re a fine one for wishful thinking. I can’t think of a single reason why Eliot Hopkins would agree to meet with us, let alone give us the straight scoop.”

  “Try coming at the problem from a different angle. Why would the venerable Mr. Hopkins agree to participate in the theft of a relic he already owned?”

  “That’s easy. Insurance fraud. He intends to collect on the policy.”

  “But I suspect that the Stones of Fire was purchased on the black market.”

  “Meaning the relic wasn’t insured,” Edie said, beating him to the punch.

  “Ergo, Eliot Hopkins had nothing to do with Padge’s murder. But I believe he had something to do with the subsequent cover-up.”

  “But why cover up the murder? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Caedmon crossed one jeans-clad leg over the other. “What would happen if the authorities discovered that the director of the Hopkins Museum knowingly purchased a stolen relic that was smuggled out of its country of origin?”

  “In addition to a hefty fine, Eliot Hopkins might be sentenced to prison.”

  “And in the process, his reputation and good name would be ripped to shreds. All of which makes Eliot Hopkins a very weak link.”

  “And you want to find out who’s yanking his chain,” Edie said, the reason for the proposed rendezvous suddenly making sense. “I’m guessing it’s the guys at Rosemont. Probably what’s-his-name, Colonel MacFarlane. Who else could it be?”

  Rather than answer, Caedmon stretched out along the length of the bed, reaching for a tourist map on top of the nightstand, the map part of the welcome-to-your-cookie-cutter-room package. Unfolding the map, he spread it on his lap. “The National Zoo, the National Cathedral, or the Lincoln Memorial. Which of these are you the most familiar with?”

  “The zoo,” she answered, wondering where he was headed. “It’s only a few blocks from my house. When the weather is nice, I like to power-walk it.”

  Caedmon refolded the map. “Then the National Zoo it is. Tell Mr. Hopkins to be there at ten a.m. Sharp. Do be sure to add that. When dealing with thieves and murderers, it’s always best to speak with authority, that being the only way to subjugate a schoolyard bully.”

  “That or kick him in the nuts,” Edie muttered as she reached for the phone.

  CHAPTER 25

  GEORGETOWN

  Eliot Hopkins slowly hung up the telephone.

  Just as the monsters at Rosemont Security Consultants had correctly predicted, Edie Miller had initiated contact.

  The first piece of a very complicated puzzle had fallen into place.

  He sighed, a long, drawn-out breath that was equal parts regret and pain. Regret because he was fond of the quirky and offbeat Ms. Miller. Pain on account of the cracked rib he nursed, courtesy of a muscled behemoth with a misplaced sense of civility, the fiend having grinned and said “Howdy-do” after administering the unexpected blow. The men of Rosemont w
anted his cooperation. And they’d gone about gaining it in a most primitive fashion.

  Why negotiate when one can use fists and threats to achieve the same end?

  Glancing at the imposing John Singer Sargent portrait that hung above the mantel, Eliot thought he caught the hint of a smirk on his great-grandfather’s stern visage, the coal magnate having put down more than one strike with clubs and bullets. Unlike Andrew Carnegie, who suffered from a guilty conscience, Albert Horatio Hopkins never lost a single night’s sleep worrying about the plight of the men who earned him his immense fortune. A true Hun, Albert Hopkins raped the West Virginia mountains of its minerals and raped the people of their dignity.

  Long live King Coal.

  Although he was the great-grandson of Albert Hopkins, he was, also, and more important to his mind, the grandson of Oliver Hopkins. In his day and age—the feel-good, anything-goes frenzy before the big crash—Ollie Hopkins had a well-deserved reputation as a ne’er-do-well adventurer. Turning his back on the family business, he instead supped with African chieftains, rode wild horses with Mongolian warriors, and explored the licentious world of the harem with Arab potentates.

  Along the way, he spent a king’s ransom searching for the relics of the Exodus.

  As a young boy, Eliot would sit for hours at his grandfather’s knee, enthralled by the exciting tales that rivaled the adventure books of his youth. His particular favorite had been the time that his grandfather, disguised as an Ottoman Turk, had tunneled into the bowels of the Temple Mount, only to be discovered by Sheikh Khalil, the hereditary guardian of the Dome of the Rock. Chased through the streets of Jerusalem by an angry mob, his grandfather made his getaway in a hijacked motor yacht harbored in the port of Jaffa.

  Considered a wastrel by his father, Oliver was eventually disinherited. Penniless when he died, Oliver left his favorite grandson the fruits of all his labors—an immense collection of artifacts and relics mined over the course of some fifty years. The collection became the cornerstone of the Hopkins Museum of Near Eastern Art, the museum founded in homage to the man who’d given Eliot the only familial affection he ever knew.

  His grandfather also bequeathed to him a magnificent obsession . . . the Stones of Fire.

  It’d taken decades of dangled carrots and very large bribes, but he finally found it.

  Only to lose it in the blink of a jaded eye.

  Had he been a religious man, he might have thought it God’s punishment for daring the unthinkable. Certainly, he’d been a fool to entrust Jonathan Padgham with the holy relic. But the man had been an expert on Near East antiquities, and Eliot needed to verify that what he’d found in the sands of Iraq was in fact the fabled Stones of Fire.

  Blinded by his obsession, he never considered that there were others even more intent on finding the treasures of the Bible. Men unfettered by the rule of law.

  Wearily, Eliot rose to his feet. There being no time to ponder the ethics of the situation, he walked over to a paneled door on the far side of the rosewood library. He pressed a hidden latch and the door swung open. He turned on the light in the small, windowless room. In turn, he surveyed each glass case, his collection of antique weaponry a private passion. Out of respect for his thirteen-year-old daughter, Olivia, who had an unnatural fear of guns, he kept his collection out of sight.

  Pausing in front of a velvet-lined case, he briefly considered the Colt revolver once owned by the gunslinger Buffalo Bill.

  In the end, he settled on the World War II-era Walther. The handgun of choice for the German SS.

  Over the years, he’d dealt with greedy dealers, ruthless brokers, and pompous curators. Last night was the first time he’d come face-to-face with religious zealots, the interaction shocking. One could not reason with such men, for they served but one master.

  One could only acquiesce.

  CHAPTER 26

  “Do you think we’re being followed?” Edie asked, glancing into the side mirror of a parked car.

  Caedmon waited until the cross light at Connecticut Avenue turned yellow. Then, cinching his hand around her elbow, he hustled her across the street toward the main entrance to the National Zoo on the opposite side of the intersection. A few seconds later they passed the two bronze lions that stood guard at the gated entrance.

  “If we are being followed, our pursuers have successfully faded into the proverbial woodwork.”

  Edie shivered, the previous day’s snow having turned into a chill-laden drizzle. She moved closer to Caedmon, the two of them huddled beneath a black umbrella they’d purchased en route. Passing the Visitor Center, she peered at the 180-degree reflection cast by the bank of glass doors. No surprise that the zoo grounds were eerily deserted; animal watching was not a big draw in December. But then, they weren’t there to see the sights. They were there to meet with the man who’d illegally purchased the Stones of Fire, setting into motion yesterday’s brutal train of events.

  “Does your family live in the area?” Caedmon conversationally inquired. Throughout their subway ride from Arlington, he’d maintained a steady stream of pleasant chitchat. On to his tricks, Edie assumed the light fare was more for her benefit than his—Caedmon’s way of alleviating her all-too-obvious dread. Little did he know that personal questions elicited a similar response.

  “Um, my mother and father were both killed in a boating accident off the coast of Florida,” she answered, the lie well honed from twenty-five years of sharpening. Approaching the Small Mammal House, she gestured to the walkway on the right, the zoo grounds a maze of pathways that wound through what was surprisingly hilly terrain. “It was Labor Day weekend and a drunk in a speedboat rammed right into them. I was only eleven years old when it happened.”

  Usually she embroidered the tale, going into great detail as to how the nonexistent boater only had to spend two years in prison. But today, for some inexplicable reason, she felt guilty about the fabrication. Although why she should feel any guilt was a mystery. Shame, yes. Guilt, no. After all, it wasn’t her fault that her father was listed on her birth certificate as Unknown or that her mother had been a junkie, never able to lose her taste for smack. When her mother OD’d, Edie had been forced to spend two and a half years in the Florida foster care system. A kindhearted social worker had taken an interest in her case, going the extra two miles to track down her maternal grandparents in Cheraw, South Carolina. Edie never spoke of the thirty nightmarish months spent on the foster care merry-go-round. Not to anyone. Some things a person couldn’t, or shouldn’t, share with another human being.

  Seeing a vaporous cloud approach, Caedmon waited until a red-faced man decked out in winter Lycra jogged past. A few moments later, he solicitously took her by the elbow, steering her clear of an icy patch. “Who took care of you?”

  “Oh, I, um, went to live with my grandparents in South Carolina. Pops and Gran were great. Really, really great,” she said with a big fake smile. Uncomfortable with the lie, she feigned a sudden interest in the leafless shrubbery planted along the low-slung retaining wall. Winter had its claws dug deep; the nearby trees and plantings were covered in a crystal shroud. Most of the animals had taken to ground. As they passed the tamarin cage, there wasn’t a primate in sight.

  “South Carolina . . . how interesting. One would think you’d have a more pronounced accent. And you’ve been in Washington for how long?”

  Wishing he’d cease and desist, she said, “It’s coming up on the twenty-year mark. What anniversary is that? Crystal? I’m not sure.”

  “I believe that would be china,” he replied, intently watching her out of the corner of his eye.

  Edie cleared her throat, wondering if she’d laid it on too thick about Pops and Gran. As happened with all new acquaintances, she feared that he was on to her.

  Hearing a branch suddenly snap, Caedmon momentarily paused as the silence filled with several unidentified screeches. Evidently satisfied that the noises were not man-made, he said. “I’m curious . . . why did you get a de
gree in women’s studies?”

  “Why do you want to know? You’re not a closet chauvinist, are you?”

  “Not in the least.”

  Satisfied with his reply, Edie shrugged. “Since someone else was footing the bill for my education, I studied what interested me. At the time I was interested in the role of women in American society.” What she didn’t tell him was that, given her background, she wanted to find out why women made the choices they did. “I had an internship at a nonprofit, but because of budget constraints it didn’t pan into a paying gig. Luckily, I found gainful employment at a downtown photo shop.” At the time she hadn’t known squat about photography, having charmed her way into the job. But she learned quickly, enamored with the way that photography could be used to manipulate the real world, to erase the ugliness.

  “And how long have you been working as a photographer?”

  “Gees, what are you, a Spanish inquisitor?” Edie retorted, determined to end the personal interrogation. “You know, I usually love the zoo, but today it’s got creepy written all over it.”

  Caedmon slowed his step as they wound their way through what looked to be an impenetrable chasm, with huge buff-colored boulders, a full story in height, lining the pathway. She wondered if the man at her side was thinking what she was thinking, that this would be an excellent place for a gunman to hide.

  A few moments later, they emerged from the stone-lined walkway and approached the caged hillside set aside for the Mexican wolves, the designated meeting place with Eliot Hopkins. To the right side of the outdoor exhibit, a lone man bundled in a wool topcoat sat on a park bench, a cup of Starbucks coffee clutched in his gloved hand.

  “There he is,” Edie said in hushed whisper, fearful her voice might carry. “I don’t know about you, but I fully intend to give the SOB a grilling.”

  At hearing that, Caedmon jerked his head in her direction.

  “What? Why are you looking at me like that? It’s called good cop/bad cop.”