Ark of Fire

by C. M. Palov

  “I’m certain that the FBI is much too busy tracking jihadist terror cells to take your call, let alone give you the time of day.”

  “Ah, but like you said, I’m the sole surviving witness to a brutal execution. One that involves a well-organized art ring,” she added, laying all her cards on the table. “I think the suits at the FBI will be only too happy to spare me a few minutes of their time.”

  “How do you know we haven’t infiltrated the FBI?”

  She didn’t. And the cocky bastard knew it.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Merely to talk. To clarify the situation so as to alleviate your unwarranted fears. I have very deep pockets, Ms. Miller, and would be only too happy to triple the balance in your two bank accounts.”

  Yeah, right. Something told her she’d never see a dime of the promised blood money.

  Accelerating, she jerked the Jeep over one lane. Then another, exiting the traffic circle at Mass Avenue.

  “You want to talk? Fine. Here’s the only thing I have to say to you—” Although it was hard, she dragged out the silence for several seconds. Then, her voice at screech level, she screamed, “Go to hell!’”

  Pulling the wireless headset out of her ear, she flung it in the direction of the tote bag.

  Shaking—not like one leaf, but a whole pile—she kept her eyes glued to the road, the familiar equestrian monuments passing in a blur as she drove around Scott Circle and under Thomas Circle. She then turned right on Eleventh, drove a few blocks and made a left-hand turn onto Pennsylvania. In the distance loomed the U.S. Capitol.

  The snow started to fall a bit heavier. Driving on autopilot, she turned up the defrost.

  At Fourth Street, she turned right; the East Building of the National Gallery of Art was on her left, the West Building on her right. Not bothering to signal, she made a sharp turn into the circular drive next to the museum, pulling the Jeep into the first available parking spot she could find, right behind a snow-covered Lexus. It was a primo parking spot, mere steps from the museum entrance. It also required an NGA-issued parking decal.

  “So sue me,” she muttered. It was snowing and she didn’t have time to find a legal parking space; the Mall was crowded despite the foul weather.

  Yanking the keys out of the ignition, she tossed them into her tote bag and got out of the Jeep. The National Gallery of Art was the most public place she could think of to hide. One of the largest marble buildings in the world, it exuded a sense of strength and security. Not to mention there were guards everywhere. Tons of ’em. As she rushed toward the oversized entry doors of the West Building, she tried not to think of the two dead guards back at the Hopkins.

  Opening the glass door, she glanced at her watch. Two-thirty. The museum would be open for another two and a half hours. Enough time to figure out her next move. Hopefully, C. Aisquith had received her e-mail and was on his or her way to the museum.

  At the front guard station, Edie opened her tote bag for inspection; the guard gave the contents only a cursory glance. If he noticed the box of spinach, he gave no indication. Edie slung the tote bag back on her shoulder, unimpressed with the museum’s post-9/11 security measures.

  Well acquainted with the layout, having spent hours perusing the museum’s collection since first moving to D.C. nearly twenty years ago, Edie rode the escalator down one flight to the underground concourse that connected the two wings, east to west. Passing the Henry Moore sculpture at the base of the escalator, she headed into the museum gift shop. The muffled echo inside the concourse was nonstop. People chatting. People talking on cell phones. People waxing poetic about the beautiful boxed Christmas cards. The commingling of all those voices was a comforting sound, reassuring Edie that she was finally safe.

  Reaching the Cascade Café, the museum’s version of a food court, she took up a position next to the gushing waterfall that gave the café its name. Enclosed behind a giant screen of glass, pumped water continuously flowed over a wall of corrugated granite. One story below ground, the protective glass wall was the only source of natural light in the concourse; Edie could see the wintry gray sky above.

  For the next fifteen minutes, she carefully scrutinized every museum patron who entered the concourse. Teens garbed in Gap. Ladies-who-lunch garbed in Gucci. Museum staff garbed in drab gray. Everyone. And then she saw him: a tall redheaded man, fortyish, who had about him a discernible air of self-assurance. From the cut of the clothes—expensive navy wool jacket, cream-colored cable-knit sweater, black leather shoes paired with blue denim jeans—she pegged him for a European.

  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 wo
uld 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.”

  Cae
dmon 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.