Alexandria Link (20 page)

“How in the world do you know that?” She hadn’t mentioned what happened to anyone on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Only Cassiopeia, Henrik Thorvaldsen, and Malone knew.

“Ask me what you came to ask me,” Green said with a quiet resolve.

“Why’d you call off my security detail? You left me bare-ass for the Israelis. Tell me you did it.”

“I did.”

The admission surprised her. She was too accustomed to lies. “Knowing that the Saudis would try to kill me?”

“I knew that, too.”

Anger swelled inside her and she fought the urge to lash out, saying only, “I’m waiting.”

“Ms. Vitt,” Green said. “Are you available to keep an eye on this woman until this is over?”

“Why do you give a damn?” Stephanie blurted out. “You’re not my keeper.”

“Somebody has to be. Calling Heather Dixon wasn’t smart. You’re not thinking.”

“Like I need you to tell me that.”

“Look at yourself. Here you are, assaulting the chief law enforcement officer of the United States with little or no information. Your enemies, on the other hand, have access to an abundance of intelligence, which they are using to full advantage.”

“What in the hell are you babbling about? And you never did answer the question.”

“That’s true. I didn’t. You wanted to know why I called off your security detail. The answer is simple. I was asked to, so I did.”

“Who asked you?”

Green’s eyes surveyed her with the unruffled look of a Buddha.

“Henrik Thorvaldsen.”

BAINBRIDGE HALL, ENGLAND

5:20 AM

MALONE ADMIRED THE MARBLE ARBOR IN THE GARDEN. THEY’D taken a train twelve miles north from London, then a taxi from the nearby town station to Bainbridge Hall. He’d read all of Haddad’s notes stashed in the satchel and skimmed through the novel, trying to make sense of what was happening, remembering everything he and Haddad had discussed through the years. But he’d come to the conclusion that his old friend had taken the most important things with him to his grave.

Above stretched a velvet sky. A cool draft of night air chilled him. Manicured grass stretched out from the garden in a pewter sea, the bushes and shrubs islands of shadow. Water danced in a nearby fountain. He’d decided on a predawn visit as the best way to learn anything, and had obtained a flashlight from the hotel concierge.

The grounds were unfenced and, as far as he could see, not alarmed. The house itself, he assumed, would be another matter. From what he’d read in Haddad’s notes, the estate was a minor museum, one of hundreds owned by the British Crown. Several of the mansion’s ground-floor rooms were lit, and he spotted, through uncurtained panes, what appeared to be a cleaning crew.

He turned his attention back to the arbor.

The wind rustled the trees then rose to sweep the clouds. Moonlight vanished, but his eyes were fully accustomed to the eerie pall.

“You plan to tell me what this thing is?” Pam asked. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet on the trip.

He directed the light onto the image etched into the marble. “That’s from a painting called The Shepherds of Arcadia Two. Thomas Bainbridge went to a lot of trouble to have it carved.” He told her what Haddad had written concerning the image, then used the beam to trace the letters beneath.

D O.V.O.S.V.A.V.V. M

“What did he say about those?” Pam asked.

“Not a word. Only that this was a message and that there are more inside the house.”

“Which certainly explains why we’re here at five o’clock in the morning.”

He caught her irritation. “I don’t like crowds.”

Pam brought her eyes close to the arbor. “Wonder why he separated the D and the M like that?”

He had no idea. But there was one thing he did comprehend. The pastoral scene of The Shepherds of Arcadia II depicted a woman watching as three shepherds gathered around a stone tomb, each pointing at engraved letters. ET IN ARCADIA EGO. He knew the translation.

And in Arcadia I.

An enigmatic inscription that made little sense. But he’d seen those words before. In France. Contained within a sixteenth-century codex describing what the Knights Templar had secretly accomplished in the months before their mass arrest in October 1307.

Et in arcadia ego.

An anagram for I tego arcana dei.

I conceal the secrets of God.

He told Pam about the phrase.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

He shrugged. “Just telling you what I know.”

They needed to explore the house. From a safe distance in the garden, among belts of towering cedars, he studied the ground floor. Lights flicked on and off as the cleaners went about their work. Doors to the rear terrace were propped open with chairs. He watched as a man stepped outside carrying two garbage bags, which he tossed into a pile, then disappeared back inside.

He glanced at his watch: 5:40 AM.

“They’re going to have to finish soon,” he said. “Once they’re gone, we should have a couple of hours before anyone arrives for work. This place doesn’t open till ten.” He’d learned that from a sign near the main gate.

“No need to say how foolish this is.”

“You always wanted to know what I did for a living, and I never could tell you. Top secret, and all that crap. Time to find out.”

“I liked it better when I didn’t know.”

“I don’t believe that. I remember how aggravated you’d get.”

“At least I didn’t have any bullet wounds.”

He smiled. “Your rite of passage.” Then he motioned her forward. “After you.”

SABRE WATCHED AS THE SHADOWY FORMS OF COTTON MALONE and his ex-wife merged with the trees behind Bainbridge Hall. Malone had come straight to Oxfordshire. Good. Everything hinged on his curiosity. His operative had also done her job. She’d hired the three extra men he’d requested and delivered him a weapon.

He drew a few long breaths and welcomed the brisk night air, then removed the Sig Sauer from his jacket pocket.

Time to meet Cotton Malone.

MALONE APPROACHED THE OPEN REAR DOOR, STAYING TO ONE side, embracing the shadows, and peered inside.

The room beyond was an elaborate parlor. Shimmering light cascaded from the vaulted ceiling, illuminating gilded furniture and paneled walls livened by tapestries and paintings. No one was in sight, but he heard the whine of a floor polisher and the blare of a radio from beyond the archways.

He motioned and they entered.

He knew nothing of the house’s geography, but a placard told him he was in the Apollo Room. He recalled what Haddad had written. In the drawing room of Bainbridge Hall is more of Bainbridge’s arrogance. Its title is particularly reflective. The Epiphany of St. Jerome. Fascinating and fitting, as great quests often begin with an epiphany.

So they needed to find the drawing room.

He led Pam to one of the exits that opened into a foyer possessing the majestic lines of a cathedral transept, arches eloquently stacked atop one another. Interesting, the abrupt change in style and architecture. Less light softened the outlines of the furniture into gray shadows. Within one of the arches he spotted a bust.

He crept across the marble floor, careful with his rubber soles, and discovered the likeness of Thomas Bainbridge. The middle-aged face was replete with furrows and curves, the jaw clenched, the nose beaklike, the eyes cold and squinty. From what he’d read in Haddad’s notes, Bainbridge was apparently a learned man of science and literature, as well as a collector—acquiring art, books, and sculptures with a calculated judgment. He’d also been an adventurer, traveling to Arabia and the Middle East at a time when both places were as familiar to the West as the moon.

“Cotton,” Pam said in a low voice.

He turned. She’d drifted to a table where brochures were stacked. “Layout of the house.”

He stepped close and grabbed one from the pile. Quickly he found a room labeled DRAWING. He oriented himself. “That way.”

The floor polisher and radio continued to duel upstairs.

They departed the dim foyer and wound their way through wide corridors until they entered a lit hall.

“Wow,” Pam said.

He, too, was impressed. The grand space was reminiscent of the vestibule to a Roman emperor’s palace. Another startling contrast to the rest of the house.

“This place is like Epcot,” he said. “Each room’s a different time and country.”

A chandelier’s rich glow illuminated white marble stairs, lined down the center with a deep maroon runner. The risers led straight up to a peristyle of fluted Ionic columns. Twists and curls of black iron railing linked the pink marble columns. Niches on both floors framed busts and statues as if in a museum gallery. He glanced up. The ceiling would not have been out of place inside St. Paul’s Cathedral.

He shook his head.

Nothing about the manor’s exterior hinted at such opulence.

“The drawing room is up those stairs,” he said.

“I feel like we’re going to meet the queen,” Pam said.

They followed the elegant runner up the unrailed risers. Paneled double doors at the top opened into a darkened room. He flicked a switch and another chandelier, fashioned from animal tusks, burned bright, displaying a crowded salon, worn and comfortable, the walls hung with velvet the color of pea soup.

“Wouldn’t have expected much less,” he said, “after that entranceway.”

He closed the doors.

“What are we looking for?” Pam asked.

He studied the wall paintings, most portraits of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century figures. No one he recognized. Maple bookcases stood in rows below the portraits. His bibliophile’s eye quickly noticed that the volumes were innocuous, only for show, with no historical or literary value. Bronze busts topped the cases. Again, no familiar image.

“The Epiphany of St. Jerome,” he said. “Maybe one of those portraits.”

Pam rounded the room, studying each image. He counted them. Fourteen. Most were of women, elaborately dressed, or men adorned in wigs and flowing robes common three hundred years ago. Two sofas and four chairs formed a U before a stone hearth. He imagined this was where Thomas Bainbridge may have spent a lot of time.

“None of these,” Pam said, “has anything to do with a St. Jerome.”

He was puzzled. “George said it was here.”

“Maybe so. But it’s not now.”

WASHINGTON, DC

STEPHANIE STARED AT BRENT GREEN AND HER IMPASSIVE EXPRESSION gave way to a look of astonishment. “Thorvaldsen told you to call off my backup? How do you even know the man?”

“I know a great many people.” He motioned to his bindings. “Though at the moment I find myself at your mercy.”

“Calling off her protection was foolish,” Cassiopeia said. “What if I hadn’t been there?”

“Henrik said you were, and that you could handle things.”

Stephanie worked to control her rage. “It was my ass.”

“Which you so foolishly placed on the line.”

“I had no idea Dixon was going to attack me.”

“Which is my point exactly. You’re not thinking.” Green again motioned with his head at his bindings. “This is another example of foolishness. Contrary to what you might think, a security detail will check in here shortly. They always do. I may crave my privacy but, unlike you, I’m not reckless.”

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Why are you in this? Are you working with Daley? Was all that earlier between you and him just a dog-and-pony show for my benefit?”

“I have neither the time nor the patience for dog-and-pony shows.”

Stephanie was not impressed. “I’ve had my fill of lies. Malone’s boy was taken because of me. Cotton is in London right now with an Israeli assassination squad. I can’t find him, so I can’t warn him. George Haddad’s life may be at stake. Then I learn that my boss leaves me bare-ass to the wind, knowing the Saudis want to kill me? What am I supposed to think?”

“That your friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen, thought enough to send you help. That your other friend, me, decided the help needed to work alone. How about that? Make sense?”

She considered his words.

“And one other thing,” Green said.

She glared at him.

“This friend particularly cares what happens to you.”

MALONE WAS ANNOYED. HE’D COME TO BAINBRIDGE HALL hoping for answers. Haddad’s notes had pointed them straight here. Yet nothing.

“Maybe there’s another drawing room?” Pam said.

But he checked the brochure and determined that this was the only space so labeled. What was he missing? Then he spotted something. Adjacent to one of the window alcoves, where elaborate stained-glass panes waited for the morning sun, a section of wall shone bare. Portraits filled every other available space. But not there. And the faint outline of a rectangle loomed clear on the wall covering.

He hurried to the bare spot. “One’s gone.”

“Cotton, I’m not trying to be difficult, but this could have been a wild goose chase.”

He shook his head. “George wanted us here.”

He paced the room in thought and realized they couldn’t linger. One of the cleaning crew might come this way. Though he carried Haddad’s and String Bean’s guns, he didn’t want to use either.

Pam was examining the tables that backed the two sofas. Books and magazines were decoratively stacked amid sculptures and potted plants. She was studying one of the small bronzes—an older man, his skin wizened, his body muscular, dressed in a waist cloth. The figure was perched on a rock, his bearded face concentrating on a book.

“You need to see this,” she said.

He approached and saw what was etched at the statue’s base.

ST. JEROME

DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

He’d been so busy trying to find complicated pieces that the obvious had escaped him. Pam motioned to a book just beneath the sculpture.

“The Epiphany of St. Jerome,” she said.

He examined the spine. “Good eye.”

She smiled. “I can be useful.”

He gripped the heavy bronze and lifted. “So be useful and grab the book.”

STEPHANIE WASN’T SURE HOW TO TAKE BRENT GREEN’S REMARK. “What do you mean? This particular friend?”