by Chloe Palov
Across the alleyway a garage door slowly opened. She could exit the alley without having to go past the museum. No sooner did a black BMW emerge from the underground garage than Edie broke into a run towards the door. Or at least tried to. Hobbling on her cramped leg muscles, she lurched forward. The driver turned his head and glanced at her – a wild-haired terrified woman with an ungraceful gait – then just as quickly glanced away.
‘Obviously one of the apathetic multitudes,’ Edie mumbled under her breath as she dodged into the garage.
Seeing a lift, she headed towards it. Not until she was safe inside the elevator, the doors closing with a melodic chime, did she permit herself a sigh of relief. Although in actuality it was more like a sag of relief, her body going into an old-lady slump, her legs barely able to support her weight.
A few seconds later the elevator doors opened onto what looked like an upmarket apartment building lobby. Straight ahead a pair of plate-glass doors beckoned. Overcome with a sudden burst of giddiness, she limped towards the beautiful doors with their big beautiful brass handles. Yanking the door on the right side wide open, Edie barely restrained herself from hugging a postman in the vestibule, who was busy inserting letters into rows of identical-looking mailboxes. Instead, she smiled at him. A big, toothy, glad-to-be-alive smile.
Just then a cab pulled up to the kerb in front of the apartment building.
Free at last. Thank God Almighty, free at last.
5
Rosemont Security Consultants, the Watergate Complex
Like a man who’d just been baptized in the cool waters of the Jordan, retired Marine Corps Colonel Stanford J. MacFarlane stared at the jewel-encrusted breastplate.
The Stones of Fire.
Arguably one of the most sacred of all biblical relics, third only to the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’
Stan MacFarlane knew from his Bible studies that the twelve inlaid stones had originally been entrusted to Lucifer when he was still God’s favourite. After the expulsion from heaven, the stones were retrieved by God and later given to Moses, who created the breastplate according to God’s specific instruction. Worn only by the high priest of the Jews, the breastplate came to be known as the Stones of Fire. Hidden within the sacred confines of the Jerusalem Temple, the breastplate was plundered by the Babylonians when Nebuchadnezzar’s army sacked the holy city in the sixth century BC. For the next twenty-six centuries the holy relic had remained hidden in the deserts of Babylon in what is now Iraq. More than one treasure hunter lost his head attempting to find the breastplate, learning, too late, that the caliphs, sultans and dictators who ruled Mesopotamia did not take kindly to foreign trespassers.
All that changed when the American army marched into Baghdad.
Knowing he would need an expert, Stan hired an Iraqi archaeologist more interested in making a buck than safeguarding his country’s national treasures. Before the conquest the archaeologist had been in charge of a site where a cache of ancient Hebrew objects had been uncovered. Stan was certain those were some of the holy relics stolen from the Temple and that more digging would unearth the Stones of Fire. But he wasn’t the only man searching for the breastplate. Eliot Hopkins, director of the Hopkins Museum of Near Eastern Art, beat him to the prize. Not about to let the relic elude him a second time, Stan sent his most trusted aide to retrieve the breastplate.
Except his trusted aide had made a very careless mistake.
‘ “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood,”’ he hissed to the man who stood at attention in front of him. His temper rising, he stared down his red-faced subordinate. ‘So tell me, Gunny, how did this Miller woman get away from you? Do you think she hitched a ride on Satan’s dinghy?’
The penitent, former Gunnery Sergeant Boyd Braxton, shook his head. ‘I told you, sir. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t even know that she was a woman until I found her purse in the museum.’
‘The weaker sex, yet still she eluded you.’ MacFarlane stepped towards the gunnery sergeant, jabbing him in the chest with his finger. ‘Boy, you’re not going soft on me, are you? I hate to think that you’ve been pussy-whipped.’
‘No, sir. You don’t need to worry about that, sir.’
‘You make certain of it, Gunny. Each and every day, you make certain.’
His subordinate properly chastened, Stan Mac-Farlane stepped back, such discipline necessary to keep order in the ranks. A lesson he had learned during his thirty-one years in the Corps.
A full colonel when he left the service, he’d still be in uniform had his career not been abruptly derailed two years ago by the Pentagon watchdog group FREEDOM NOW!, a godless cabal made up of left-wing lawyers and activists. They targeted him soon after he was promoted to the intelligence office of the undersecretary of defense. Hypocrites, one and all, they claimed their purpose was to protect religious freedom in the US military. Because of his strict adherence to the word of God, FREEDOM NOW! had branded him a religious fanatic bent on converting the whole of the US military to the evangelical faith.
Well, guess what, you godless hippie freaks? It was already happening.
When FREEDOM NOW! caught wind of the weekly prayer meeting he held in the Pentagon’s executive dining room, they wasted no time blowing the whistle, somehow getting their lily-white hands on a photo of him standing in a prayer circle with other uniformed officers. The photo made the front page of the Washington Post. In the accompanying article several junior officers claimed they’d been personally harassed by him, told they would eternally burn in hell if they didn’t attend the prayer meetings.
Left-wing pundits, Washington politicos and military-bashers unwilling to let the story drop had had a field day. Soon after, he’d been relieved of his command.
God, however, worked in mysterious ways.
No sooner did the furore die down than Stan founded Rosemont Security Consultants. In recent years private contractors had become the mercenary might behind the US military, tens of thousands of private fighters hired in Iraq alone. With his top-level Pentagon contacts, he was soon making money hand over balled fist. Made up entirely of former special ops soldiers, Rosemont was twenty thousand strong. As leader of this well-armed flock, Stan made certain there wasn’t a pluralist or atheist or agnostic among them. Holy warriors, each and every one.
‘Sir, what do you want me to do about the woman?’
MacFarlane glanced at his subordinate, the former gunnery sergeant a member of his handpicked Praetorian Guard. His eyes and ears in the nation’s capital, this elite team were embedded in law enforcement agencies all over the city. Contemplating how best to clean up the mess, he opened the satchel that had been retrieved from the museum and removed a leather wallet. For several seconds he stared at the driver’s licence photo of a thirty-seven-year-old curly-haired woman.
‘You heard Gunny… What shall we do with you, Eloise Darlene Miller?’ he contemplatively murmured.
A quick background check had uncovered the fact that the Miller woman had been arrested in 1991 for protesting against the First Gulf War. In Stan’s book that made her a Chardonnay-sipping left-wing tree hugger. Like the bastards who had derailed his military career.
Nothing like a ‘terrible swift sword’ to keep an unruly woman in her place.
‘Any word on the whereabouts of –’ Stan glanced at the name scrawled on a sheet of paper ‘– Cædmon Aisquith?’ A similar background check had turned up a noticeable dearth of information, prompting Stan to order his intelligence team to dig deeper.
‘Aisquith managed to slip out of the bookstore undetected. We’re keeping a close watch on his hotel, but he’s yet to show up,’ the sergeant informed him.
‘Hmm.’ Stan MacFarlane contemplatively rolled the silver ring that he wore on his right hand, the intertwined crosses worn smooth over the years. ‘This
man Aisquith is another loose end we can’t afford to let dangle.’
‘I hear ya, Colonel.’
‘Then hear this.’ Stanford MacFarlane looked his subordinate straight in the eye so there would be no misunderstanding. ‘You will search. You will find. And you will destroy.’
The order clearly to his liking, the gunnery sergeant smiled. ‘By day’s end, sir.’
6
Feeling like she’d gone fifteen rounds with the heavyweight champ, Edie Miller dragged herself out of the cab. From her skirt pocket she removed a crumpled ten-dollar bill. She handed it to the driver. If the dark-skinned man with the turban thought it odd that she’d made him pull into the alley behind her terraced house rather than dropping her at the front, he gave no indication.
Relieved to be back on familiar terrain, Edie raised a weary hand, letting the cabbie know that no change was necessary. Small recompense for whisking her to safety, the driver of the plum-coloured cab a godsend. Her Mini Cooper, her purse and her keys had all been left behind at the museum. But she’d got out with her life and the digital camera she’d stuffed in her waistcoat pocket right before Jonathan Padgham had been killed. And that’s all that mattered.
What a nightmare, she thought, still in a daze. What a surreal, unbelievable nightmare. The cops were actually in on the murder. Moreover she had no idea how many other people were involved in the theft of the breastplate. All she knew was that they had no inhibitions about resorting to murder to achieve their objective. And right now their objective was to ‘get things tidied up’.
Shuddering, she bent down and lifted a long-dead chrysanthemum out of a terracotta pot. Holding it by the stem, she shook a key out of the clump of brown compost. With a quick backward glance, she scurried up the patio steps. Unlocking the back door, she stepped inside her kitchen.
Spirulina. Barley grass. Pysllium husks. She glanced at the worktop and the neatly lined-up containers of vile-tasting health concoctions that were supposed to ensure a long life and laughed aloud. A waste of time if the grim reaper, dressed in grey overalls, came a-calling. Although all she wanted to do was stuff her face with Häagen-Dazs ice cream, she couldn’t afford the time. She had to quickly gather her things and get out. Before they found her. Before they did to her what they had done to Jonathan Padgham.
Edie snatched a canvas shopping bag from a peg on the back of the kitchen door. Bag in hand, she opened the freezer and removed a box of spinach. Not bothering to open the box, she tossed it into the bag. Having learned at a tender age the importance of having a ready supply of cash on hand, she always kept five thousand dollars hidden in the freezer. Money stowed, she grabbed a vintage motorcycle jacket from the next peg. Pulling off her bloodstained khaki fisherman’s waistcoat, she stuffed it into the bag. Hurriedly she donned the jacket.
Next she strode down the hall into the small home office at the front of the house. Yanking open a filing cabinet, she thumbed through the dog-eared folders until she found the one marked ‘Personal Documents’. Inside was her passport, her birth certificate, the deeds to the house, the results of her last cervical smear and an official copy of her college transcripts. She unceremoniously dumped the contents of the file into the canvas bag.
About to head upstairs to get her toiletries, Edie stopped at a sound outside. Peering through the window, she saw a dark blue Ford saloon pull up in front of the house. Behind the wheel was the buzzcut killer. At his side, the bent cop.
Quickly she ducked away from the window.
The killer must have found her satchel.
Knowing she only had a few seconds to escape through the back door, Edie closed the filing cabinet. She slung the canvas bag over her shoulder and retreated to the kitchen, where she grabbed her BlackBerry out of its charger. She then snatched a set of keys out of a brightly coloured ceramic fruit bowl, souvenir of a fun-filled vacation in Morocco.
Keys in hand, she let herself out the back door, taking a second to lock the dead bolt. She didn’t want anyone to know she’d been home. She then tiptoed down the circular staircase that led to the alley below. She paused a moment, listening. She heard Spanish music emanating from the apartment building opposite. But no voices from her house. So far, so good.
Not knowing how long her luck would last, Edie squeezed past her neighbour’s parked Jeep Wrangler and hurried up the adjoining set of stairs to his house. Garrett was in Chicago on business. He was frequently in Chicago on business. And when he was, she watered his plants and fed his cat. Good friends, they each kept a set of keys to the other’s house.
Grateful for the well-oiled lock, she opened the back door and rushed inside, ignoring the huge marmalade cat asleep on the kitchen counter. She then ran down the hall to the living room, taking up a position at the sash window that overlooked the street.
Standing in the crease of a full-length velvet curtain, she pulled back the purple fabric a scant halfinch, giving herself a sliver of a peephole.
The two men were already out of the Ford, the cop halfway to her front porch.
Edie held her breath as he banged on the door.
‘Open up! DC police!’
When he got no response, he banged again.
Then he did exactly what Edie expected him to do – he unlocked her front door using the keys the killer had undoubtedly found in her satchel at the museum.
Since the two residences shared a common wall, Edie could hear the soft reverberations as the cop charged up her wooden staircase. That was followed by the slamming of several doors. Then he stomped back down the stairs. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard the back door open. All the while, the killer stood sentry beside the Ford.
A few moments later the cop emerged from the house.
‘She hasn’t been here,’ he announced to his partner, who joined him on the porch. Standing side by side, Edie could see that the two men were near equal in height, giants both of them.
‘You certain?’
The cop nodded. ‘Nothing’s been touched in the bathroom. I can’t imagine a chick hitting the road without her electric razor and make-up bag.’
‘Fuck! Where the hell is she?’
‘Dunno. According to the background search, she has no living relatives and there doesn’t appear to be a significant other in the picture.’
Edie tightened her hold on the curtain, disbelieving what she’d just heard. They’d done a background check on her. They knew all about her. Her friends. Her family. Or lack thereof. Everything. They held all the cards and she… she was about to pee her pants.
Even if she hid in Garrett’s house – and the thought was awfully tempting – she figured that sooner or later they’d come banging on the front door. Not having a key, they’d probably kick it in when no one answered.
‘Where the fuck is she?’ the killer again snarled.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll find her. Without a wallet she’s not going to get very far.’
‘Don’t be so sure. She got out of the museum, didn’t she?’
Smirking, the cop said, ‘Hey, don’t pin that on me. As I recall, that happened on your watch, not mine.’
The killer countered with a glare. Of the two, he was definitely the more frightening. ‘You’ve got the first watch. I want to know the second the bitch shows up,’ he growled before stomping down the steps. The cop, relegated to guard duty, stayed behind on the porch.
Moments later, seeing a plume of white smoke rise from the Ford’s exhaust, Edie let go of the curtain.
Time suddenly a precious commodity, she rushed into the kitchen, threw open a cabinet door and grabbed a roasting pan off the shelf. Filling it with dried cat food, she placed it on the floor. She then got a large mixing bowl from the same cabinet, filled it with tap water and placed it beside the food. She figured it would do until Garrett returned at the weekend.
As she locked the back door behind her, she prayed that Garrett had filled up his Jeep before leaving for Chicago. Along with the keys to his house, she had
the keys to his wheels. And those wheels were her ticket out of town.
Unlocking the driver’s door of the black Wrangler, she slid behind the steering column. As she did so, she slung her bag onto the passenger seat. Seeing the big wet spot on the bag from the melting spinach, she was hit with an onslaught of memories. Of leaving in the middle of the night to escape the landlord. The bill collector. The abusive boyfriend. The junkie in need of a fix. On any given day, those had been the bit players in her mother’s poorly acted psychodrama. Like she had just been dunked in a cold tank of water, the memories crashed in on her. Thirty years had come and gone and she was still that scared little girl huddled in the back seat of her mother’s old Buick Le Sabre.
Her hands violently shaking, Edie stared at the steering wheel. She tried to put the key in the ignition, but couldn’t, the metal repeatedly sliding off the steering column. She hadn’t known how to deal with the fear then. She couldn’t deal with it now.
Breathe, Edie, breathe. In and out. Long, slow, deep breaths. It won’t conquer the fear, but it will mask it. Just enough so you can put the key in the ignition and start the car.
A lost soul, she obeyed the voice in her head. Breathing deeply, she told herself that she could do this. She could escape the bastards. She’d escaped four different juvenile centres in the span of two years. This was no different.
By the fourth exhalation, she was able to start the Jeep.
She glanced at the fuel gauge.
Thank you, Garrett. I owe you big time.
Driving to the end of the alley, she turned left. Not too fast. Not so slow. She didn’t want anyone to later recall having seen the Jeep. As light snow began to dot the windscreen, she reached over and turned on the wipers, still taking deep measured breaths.
At the corner of 18th and Columbia she braked, the light turning red. As though she were an escaped felon, Edie nervously glanced from side to side. On the street corner nearest the Jeep a group of Latino men was huddled in front of a cheque cashing joint. On the opposite corner the owner of the quaint Salvadorian café La Flora was busy opening the shutters on the plate-glass windows that fronted the street. Edie was a frequent patron, having stopped in just that morning for a quick breakfast of frijoles and eggs.