From the Ashes (9 page)

Greer stood abruptly and began to pace the office again. He wished Ramirez would hurry. Time was running out. For them all.

Washington, D.C.

Despite the bright daylight outside, Michael��s apartment was dark, dismal even. Or perhaps it was the eyes that Jon looked through that made it appear so gray and lifeless. Eyes that knew this was the site of one of the two great tragedies of his life, that had had their color-sensing abilities shocked into numbness. Eyes that beheld the scene through the gray-tinted lenses of sorrow.

Jon locked the door behind him, not out of safety, despite the somewhat shady neighborhood, but because he didn’t want anyone to intrude and violate his time with what lingered of his brother’s spirit. He flipped the switch by the door, and the room burst into light. The apartment looked much the same as Jon remembered it from his last visit over the Christmas holidays. A few new photographs and pieces of artwork adorned the walls and tabletops, several new books on the shelves... and
a plant
by the door? Probably Mara’s doing. Wasn’t dead yet, though, but Jon suspected Mara had probably been sneaking over to water it during Michael’s recent monomania. No, that wasn’t quite right – Michael would have had
two
great passions in the weeks before his death: his research, and Mara.

The room felt cold. At first, Jon figured this must’ve been the psychosomatic effect his feelings about this place were having on him before he realized the apartment itself was completely silent. No heater running. The cops must’ve turned it off after they left. Or a penny-pinching landlord who didn’t want to get stuck with an unpaid utility bill charged to a dead man. Jon turned to the thermostat, just to the right of the entryway, and flipped on the heat. Michael’s memory, and his home and possessions that served as reminders of the man’s life, deserved better than some cheapskate cost-cutting move that turned his home into a meat locker.

Jon’s eyes lit upon another incongruity with his last visit. Michael’s backpack sat near the door – instead of on his shoulder or by his side. He hesitated, then picked up the backpack. It was of rugged, sturdy beige cloth, and had been put to the test on many an archaeological trek in sites around the globe. Michael’s constant companion for nearly a decade, the very sight of the bag triggered a flood of memories – a grass stain from Finland, a muddy smear from Indonesia, a spot of blood from an unfortunate run-in with an antiquities thief in Peru. Adventures that the brothers had shared together. Yet another thing that could never be the same again.

Jon slid his arm through one strap, then the other, taking a deep breath as he shrugged the straps into position over his shoulders. The whole thing felt... weird. It was almost as though Jon were defiling something important to his brother, taking his most often-used possession before his body was even in the ground – the funeral having been postponed until Jon and Michael’s father could be reached at his dig in a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon. Yet at the same time, wearing the backpack felt good, as though Jon were taking on some sort of mantle that his brother had left behind – like by picking up and wearing something that was so closely associated with his brother, Michael was able to live on through him. As though Michael were passing on some sort of torch from beyond the grave. Or perhaps Jon was just being sentimental.

He took the backpack off, unzipped it and peered inside; the red notebook was there, along with the rest of his kit – camera, digital voice recorder, iPod, a smaller palm-sized notepad, and a worn paperback novel – John le Carre’s
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
Some of the other items the brothers would often take on their adventures – such as lock-picking kits and Swiss Army knives – were notably missing, probably due to Michael’s upcoming flight and the security checks through which his luggage would have to have passed. Jon closed the bag; he would have time for rifling through the notebook soon enough. Michael’s spirit still clung to this place, he felt. He needed to find out why.

Reshouldering the backpack, Jon walked through the living room toward the room he felt he most needed to visit, the room he most dreaded going into. The bedroom. The site of Michael’s violent death. And, unless he had changed the furniture around since Christmas – which seemed unlikely considering the relative similarity of the living room’s arrangement – the location of Michael’s desk – and laptop.

He paused in the hall at a picture of Mara and Michael in front of Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World. A wry grin crossed his lips. Memories of happier times that never again would be. As was the next picture: Michael and Jon himself smiling and laughing in the Andes as they indulged in their favorite pastime: exploring. Growing up with renowned British archeologist and historian Sir William Rickner and the brilliant American linguist Dr. Anna Calvert Rickner as their parents, traveling across the globe as a family in search of ancient mysteries, served to strengthen their passion for adventure and discovery, as well as cementing their bond with one another.
But the great duo is no more,
Jon thought, a somber look in his eyes, a heavy feeling in his chest. Everything he loved doing with his brother, everything they would never do again. His brother, his mentor, his inspiration, his best friend – gone. Forever. And forever was just too damn long.

Pursing his lips and taking a deep breath of the stifling air through his nostrils, he turned from the pictures and continued down the hall to the bedroom door. The door hung off-kilter on its hinges, there being a slight discrepancy in the gap between door and jamb at the top and the gap at the bottom. Old door? Or... The scuffs on the door itself, as Jon inched it open – and corresponding ones on the jamb – told Jon it was damaged through force. Impacting something. Had Michael accidentally slammed it on a ladder or a chair or something? Strange. Clenching his eyes tight and taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door. Slowly, fearfully, he opened his eyes and peered into the darkened room.

And sucked in a sharp breath as he beheld the scene of horror.

To the dispassionate observer, it wasn’t much as far as scenes of horror went. The stripped and disposed-of bloody sheets where Michael had bled his last were gone, revealing only a small, dark stain at the foot of the mattress. Some blood spray was splattered on the ceiling between the door and the foot of the bed, and a few drops of crimson could still be seen on the carpet. The body was long gone, but the musty scent of death remained. For Jon, no Hollywood slasher gorefest could have been more horrifying. Not only was this one actually real, but it also cut far deeper and hit much closer to home. How he wished this nightmare would just roll credits and be over and done with, but it was not to be. This was one nightmare he couldn’t wake from.

He walked over to the window and looked outside. The closed and shuttered windows of the neighboring building were like unseeing eyes across the alleyway. The frame of the fire escape just outside the bedroom window was mostly brown with rust, a few scattered chips of the original black paint still clinging to the metal. Nothing much else to see, but Jon didn’t care. It was something other than the horror in the apartment, the sight of his brother’s lifeblood, spilled and splattered like wine from an upended glass. He opened the window, which stuck at first, then acquiesced to his tugs after a moment. The air from outside smelled... urban. Exhaust, garbage, pigeon droppings. But it masked the coppery smell of blood, the acrid stench of death he feared he’d never rid his nostrils of, so he inhaled deeply and left the window open. From the street, Jon could hear the sounds of car engines revving and horns honking, reminding him that, despite the horrible presence of death in this room, life went on.

Returning to the doorway, Jon’s eyes swept the room, squinting though they were in a futile attempt to keep out any disturbing images that might haunt him. A room with Michael’s blood sprayed on the ceiling and pooled on the bed, but without Michael himself, already held more than enough horrors to haunt Jon for a lifetime. The bloodstained bed was directly in front of where he stood in the doorway, the outside window to his right, the closet, desk, and bookcase to his left. As he glanced to the left, he saw the black trolley-style suitcase – carry-on sized – sitting next to the desk.
All packed up and nowhere to go,
Jon thought. He walked over to it and unzipped the main compartment. Underneath a weekend’s worth of clothes was Michael’s laptop, the power cord coiled next to it. Jon withdrew the computer and set it on the desk, then froze. His eyes shot to Michael’s rapier, perched slightly off-center in its case. Jon moved closer; one of the jewels from the hilt was missing. Not a large one, probably not terribly valuable. But missing nonetheless. Stolen? Then why hadn’t the whole sword been taken, or, at least, the remaining jewels? Broken off? By whom? And how? Michael surely would never have resorted to using the heirloom as a tool or a weapon.

Jon blinked. As a weapon. If it were an emergency, might Michael have-

Scritch.

Jon started, his outstretched hand hovering between his body and the display case.

Scritch scritch scritch.

What the hell?
Jon thought. The sounds seemed to be coming from back in the living room. Like a cat scratching at a sheet of metal. No, not a full sheet, and not quite scratching. It was more like—

Click.
Several clicks actually, but they were so close together that they sounded as one.
Strange,
Jon thought, poking his head into the hallway between the bedroom and the living room,
that sounded just like a
—

The doorknob to the apartment turned. He
had
locked the door, hadn’t he? Yes, definitely, he reassured himself. Though what that ultimately meant was somewhat less than reassuring. Not only was someone coming into the apartment; someone was coming into the apartment who had no business in here, someone who had to pick the lock. A burglar who had heard about Michael’s death – and thus the unoccupied apartment and untended belongings? He closed the bedroom door to a crack, peering out to catch a glimpse of whoever was coming into the apartment unannounced. He shot a glance at the open window, his only other means of egress from the apartment. This was fight or flight time, but Jon had no intention of surrendering Michael’s sanctum to this intruder without a struggle.

His eyes darted to the sword in the case.
Had
Michael tried to use it as a weapon? Jon couldn’t see him using the heirloom, a priceless piece of family history, to fight with someone or something. Not unless it was a matter of life and death... Of course, considering what had happened, perhaps it had been. Perhaps Michael had tried to defend himself, and died in the process. But why? And against whom? Was the intruder who was now entering the apartment Michael’s killer, coming back to tidy up the scene, to collect some fiber or fingerprint left behind, to finish some part of what he had started? All these questions, and dozens more, flew through Jon’s mind in a matter of seconds as he stared at the sword. Then, as the apartment door opened, his attention was jerked back to the widening crack, and the figure that entered through it.

A Hispanic man – well-built, in his mid-thirties, and dressed in a black hooded sweatsuit – slinked through the opening, and paused immediately, tilting his head to the side slightly as though he were listening for something.
The lights!
Jon had left the lights on in the living room. That, coupled with the recently activated heating system, betrayed the recent, if not current, presence of someone else in the apartment.
Might as well have written the guy a sign,
Jon cursed himself silently.

Seemingly content that he couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, save for the heater whirring in the icy room, the intruder closed the door quietly, cautiously, behind him. And pulled a pistol from his coat pocket.

Damn!
Jon winced. Talk about bringing a knife to a gun-fight, he thought as he straightened up and padded over to the sword case, lifting the lid and soundlessly withdrawing the rapier. Despite the damage to the hilt, the sword seemed to be in working order, the balance only slightly thrown off by the new weight distribution. Jon returned to the door. As the man screwed a silencer onto the end of his weapon, his eyes probed the room, ignoring the PS3, the TV, and the other easily fenced items. He was looking for something in particular. He wasn’t some stupid crook out to make a few quick bucks off a dead guy. He was here with a purpose. And he composed himself like he had done this before. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d been here uninvited.

Silent intruder, gun-in-hand, two times in the same apartment in one weekend. What were the chances, unless it was the same guy? And immediately, Jon was filled with a rage like none he had ever known. He was certain he was looking at his brother’s killer, picking his way through Michael’s life as nonchalantly as a window shopper browsing through a store.

Jon gripped the sword’s jeweled hilt so tightly his knuckles began to turn white. Was this what the guy was after? No. if Michael had used it to defend himself, if the hilt had been damaged while attacking the intruder who had ultimately murdered him, he would’ve been swinging it for dear life, not placing it back in its case. The cops would’ve put it in evidence if it had been on the floor of the scene. The intruder must have replaced it, he realized. And now, Jon had obscured any fingerprints that might’ve been on the hilt. But no, he thought, catching a glimpse of the man’s black-gloved hands. This guy was too smart, too careful, to leave behind fingerprints. But Jon would see to it that the killer left something behind this time. His blood.

The man left the living room and began moving into the hallway. Toward the bedroom. Toward Jon. Jon took a deep breath through his nostrils, stepped behind the door just out of sight of the opening, and set his feet in a fighting stance, steeling his resolve and trying to calm his nerves and anger. He knew he was being brash by even trying to put up a fight, but Michael’s honor had to be defended, his death put to rights. He only had one shot at this, or
he
might be the one shot. It was showtime.