The Templar's Code

CHAPTER 42

“… and I happen to think our hotel is ultra-hip,” Edie remarked as she passed in front of Caedmon and scooted into a glass turnstile. Mischievously grinning, well aware that he despised modern design, particularly when fused to other styles, she pushed the revolving glass door, exiting the lobby.

“It’s hotel as grand theater,” she continued a few seconds later when he joined her on the pavement in front of the St. Martin’s Lane Hotel. “Very energetic. Kinda like this fuchsia-colored trench coat, huh?” Holding her straightened arms in front of her, Edie glanced from one brightly colored sleeve to the other. As he’d earlier mentioned, there was no risk of losing her in the crowd.

“You’re a vision,” he gallantly complimented. “The hotel, on the other hand, is…” He glanced behind him at the stark glass façade.

Given the plain, almost drab exterior, one would never suspect that the interior housed an eye-popping space filled with gold stools shaped like back molars, African art, and upholstered baroque armchairs. Catching sight of the two traditional red call boxes at the edge of the pavement, he thought it all a bit surreal. Surreal but incredibly secure. The real reason that he booked the reservation at the “energetic” hotel. Catering to celebrities and well-heeled tourists, the hotel management provided a safe sanctuary for its guests.

And security was an issue whenever he visited his homeland. Five years ago, he killed the Real Irish Republican Army ringleader responsible for a deadly terrorist act. Soon thereafter, the RIRA put a bounty on his head. His superiors at MI5, concerned for his safety, spirited him out of the United Kingdom. To this day, he maintained a residence in Paris rather than London.

He shook off the bad memory. It was an unsavory chapter that he preferred not to think about. God knows how Edie would react if she ever discovered his dark secret.

“Shall we nip across the street for a coffee? Our appointment with Rubin Woolf isn’t until three.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “There’s still twenty minutes before the clock strikes the hour.”

“How far is it to Rubin’s bookstore?”

Caedmon jutted his chin at the pedestrian passageway on the other side of the street. “His shop is located at the far end of Cecil Court. No more than a block away.” Yet another reason he’d booked the room at the St. Martin’s. The less time he spent gadding about in public, the better.

“Since I’m about to succumb to a bad case of jet lag, I think a cup of coffee is definitely in order.” As she spoke, Edie took hold of his upper arm and companion-ably leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Right. Starbucks it is.” He ushered her across the street to the coffee bar opposite, the American franchise nearly as ubiquitous in London as red double-decker buses and black hackney cabs.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to plop on the bench while you go inside and contend with the bean and the blend and the nonsensical cup sizes.” Edie gestured to a wood garden bench beneath the familiar green and white signage.

“Probably best if you join me inside.” Caedmon held open the front door. “Since we’re clearly dealing with a man one step ahead of the game, we should be on our guard,” he said in a lowered voice, not wanting to give false comfort.

“Don’t know about you, but I can’t get a handle on this Rico Suave guy.” Edie took her place in the queue. “Go-it-alone whack jobs like our Unibomber or your Jack the Ripper are pull-out-the-garlic, lock-the-car-doors creepy. But we’re dealing with someone who’s drop-dead GQ gorgeous. Emphasis on the drop dead.”

“A comely face does not connote a virtuous heart. That said, in a post-9/11 world, it’s impossible to smuggle a nail file let alone a stiletto into an international airport.”

“But everyone boards the plane with their bare hands,” Edie countered. “Weapon enough for some men.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A cappuccino?”

“Better make it a grande. And it’s kinda hard not to get ahead of myself. I mean, we don’t even know the kil—” Realizing that she was in a public place, she quickly backpedaled. “This guy’s name.”

“Or his modus operandi.” Leaning over Edie’s shoulder, he placed their order with a glum-faced, lip-studded barista.

Order placed, they obediently shuffled to the end of the counter to wait for their beverages.

“Of course, we know his motive: Rico Suave wants the Templar treasure, i.e., Yawgoog’s Stone.”

“Undoubtedly, but there may be more to the stew than that.”

“You’re thinking about the fact that our pretty boy likes to brand his handiwork with an eight-pointed star.”

Caedmon wordlessly nodded, still unable to fit the bizarre puzzle piece.

“How’s your arm doing?”

He smiled. “Still attached to my shoulder.”

Yesterday Tonto Sinclair had grudgingly taken him to an emergency care facility near the Providence airport where the wound had been cleaned and bandaged. The harried physician put him on a twice-daily regimen of antibiotics to ward off infection and gave him a prescription for a pain killer, which he declined to take. The dull ache kept his mind sharp. And given all that had transpired in the last four days, he needed to keep his wits about him.

A different barista, this one tattooed rather than studded, placed two covered paper cups on the counter in front of them. Caedmon passed the larger of the two cups to Edie. They then stepped over to a different counter. Without asking, he handed his companion a stirrer and two packets of sugar.

Cups in hand, they headed for the door.

A few moments later, catching his first glimpse of Cecil Court, known locally as Booksellers’ Row, Caedmon came to a standstill. To his surprise, his heartbeat accelerated. He took a deep breath. He’d once managed an antiquarian bookshop in Cecil Court. Part of a carefully constructed MI5 legend. For nearly a year he’d assumed the identity of an unassuming bibliophile. Until that balmy summer night when the whole operation, quite literally, blew up.

“You okay? You seem, I don’t know, agitated.”

“I’m fine,” he glibly lied as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other.

Edie strolled over to an outdoor cart full of secondhand books. “Wow, what a great place to shop. This place is like its own little world, isn’t it?”

As he could attest, Cecil Court was its “own little world,” seemingly immune from London’s hustle-bustle.

Joining her at the cart, Caedmon glanced at the charming Victorian storefronts, taking in the familiar row of antiquarian and secondhand bookshops interspersed with the odd philately and antiques dealers. Although each shop sold uniquely different merchandise, they all boasted a subdued green exterior and a tastefully lettered hanging sign. Long years ago one of those signs had read PETER WILLOUGHBY-JONES. RARE BOOKS AND PRINTS.

“Ahem.” Raising a balled fist to his mouth, he cleared his throat. “There’s something that I need to caution you about before we enter Rubin’s bookshop.”

Edie returned a musty volume to the cart. Given the awkward lead-in, it was no surprise that her brows drew together in the middle.

“I met Rubin Woolf during an undercover operation,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You mean he’s a spy?”

“Er, no. What I’m trying to say is that Rubin knows me by the alias Peter Willoughby-Jones.” A rush of blood heated his cheeks. “At the time, I was posing as an antiquarian book dealer.”

Her shoulders shook with a barely contained mirth. “Not very James Bond of you.”

“The spooks at Five are a more staid lot than the chaps at Six. With my academic background, it was a believable cover. And one other thing before we go in”—he guided her to the other side of the lane—“Rubin can be difficult at times. A bit of a temperamental genius, I’m afraid.”

“An English antiquarian who comes with a warning label.” Edie reassuringly patted his chest. “Don’t worry, Big Red. Now that I’m properly caffeinated, I’m up for the challenge.” To prove her point, she pitched her coffee cup some four feet into the air, the cup squarely landing in the nearby trash receptacle.

Caedmon, not feeling nearly as athletic, disposed of his half-empty coffee from a more sedate distance.

“When the bombs drop, please remember that the alarm was duly sounded.” Warning issued, he stepped in front of Edie and opened a plate-glass door.

A tinny bell announced their entry into the small shop lined floor to ceiling with dark espresso-stained bookcases. In the middle of the shop were three glass display cabinets showcasing valuable prints and maps.

“Peter Willoughby-Jones!” a cultured female voice hailed. “At long last you’ve deigned to visit your old chums at Cecil Court.”

A chicly dressed blonde got up from an Edwardian desk and walked over to greet them.

Taking Marnie Pritchard’s outstretched hand, Caedmon leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. At one time they’d been well acquainted. The Cecil Court crowd frequently met for drinkies, and he’d been friendly with more than a few of his fellow dealers.

As they stood before each other, slowly shaking their respective heads, the way people do when they run into someone they haven’t seen in some time, he realized that the passing years had not put so much as a dent in Marnie’s confident posh-girl persona.

“The place hasn’t changed one bit. You haven’t changed one bit,” he said.

“ ‘Thank God! Cecil Court remains Cecil Court,’ ” she retorted, the Graham Greene quote a familiar refrain among the close-knit booksellers.

“Marnie Pritchard, allow me to introduce you to Edie Miller.”

“So very pleased to meet you,” Marnie said warmly as she took Edie’s hand.

“Likewise.” Edie’s brown eyes crinkled at the corners, a sure sign of mischief in the making. “So, you and Peter have known each a long time, I take it?”

“Too many years to count.” Marnie airily waved her hand, the light catching on a very expensive Baume & Mercier watch.

As he recalled, Marnie came from a moneyed background. Why she continued to work for the tetchy Rubin Woolf was a mystery.

“Rubin is still angry at you, Peter, for unceremoniously leaving the fold,” Marnie remarked, having intuited his thoughts. “Not a day goes by that he doesn’t gripe about the dodgy Moscow émigré who took over your shop. Oleg Rostov specializes in Russian literature. Although I understand that for a price, he’ll be happy to show you the religious icons that he keeps in the backroom. Very black market,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Sounds like a case for MI5.”

Hearing that, Caedmon inwardly groaned, suspecting that Edie intended to have a bit of fun at his expense.

“Maybe you could go undercover and help take down the Russian smuggling ring,” she added a split second later, pushing the envelope right out the plate-glass door.

“How utterly exciting,” Marnie trilled with a deep-throated chuckle. “I’ve always wanted to be a femme fatale.” Still chuckling, she gestured to the staircase at the back of the shop. “Rubin’s upstairs in his boudoir anxiously awaiting your arrival. And it was very nice to make your acquaintance, Miss Miller.”

“Please call me Edie.”

Caedmon waited until he and his companion were halfway up the stairs, and out of earshot, before laying into her. “I will have a great deal of explaining to do to a great many people if you continue in this vein. So please tone it down,” he hissed. Then, realizing he’d come at her like a boulder on a butterfly, he softened the rhetoric. “This is an awkward situation for me. I never thought I’d see these people again.”

“And you feel guilty because you lied to them,” Edie astutely deduced.

“Yes, I do feel guilty.”

“Sorry, Peter.” Rising up on her tiptoes, Edie gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Won’t happen again.”

A shadow suddenly fell across the two of them. Glancing up, Caedmon saw a rotund bespectacled man garbed in a bespoke three-piece Nevis Tweed suit, the conservative attire completely at odds with the gelled spiky white hair and royal-blue polka-dot bow tie.

“A bit old for shagging in the shadows, aren’t you?”

“One is never too old for stolen pleasures,” he called out. Taking Edie by the hand, he led the way upstairs.

When they reached the top, Rubin had already retreated to “the boudoir.”

“Where’s Tweedy Bird?” Edie whispered in his ear.

“Shhh.”

Admonishment given, he ushered her through an open doorway; Rubin stood inside the small foyer beside a heavily carved court cupboard. Beyond his tweed-clad shoulder, Caedmon glimpsed their host’s pride and joy — an authentic sixteenth-century paneled bedroom that had been painstakingly deconstructed and reassembled on site. The room included a massive Tudor four-poster bed that doubled as Rubin’s desk, the top covered with books. The only two things that stood out as not belonging in the historically accurate re-creation were the framed photographs on top of the court cupboard and the nineteenth-century German cuckoo clock that hung above it.

“Rubin Woolf, may I present Miss Edie Miller.”

“Nice to meet you.” Edie held out her right hand.

Pulling a long face, Rubin shook hands with her. “An American? Well, well. Haven’t met one yet who didn’t consider the Bible the only book worth reading. ‘Get thee to a nunnery,’ ” he extolled, pointing to the open doorway behind them.

Proving that she could ably roll with Rubin’s well-aimed punches, Edie stepped over to the court cupboard. “Wow. Are these people who I think they are?” She pointed to a framed group photograph. The leather, chains, and general disheveled appearance of all four people in the grainy shot instantly dated the picture. Vintage punk rock. Rubin, thin to the point of emaciation, sported the same spiky coif, the only difference being that three decades ago it was platinum blond.

Wearing a bored expression, Rubin nodded. “Sid Vicious, Nancy Spungen, and Johnny Rotten.” He jutted his chin at the shirtless pixie who defiantly glared at the camera. “And, of course, yours truly. Back in ’77 we were all vying to get into Nancy’s pantsies.” He chortled nastily. “She was an American, you know, so no coaxing required. God, what a frightful night.” Shuddering, he glanced heavenward. “She had the smelliest feet imaginable.”

“Didn’t you guys in the seventies ever eat?” Still studying the photograph, Edie glanced over her shoulder at Rubin.

“ ‘There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportions.’ ”

Caedmon put a hand on Edie’s shoulder. “Our host has a marked proclivity for bardolatry. And how is Regina?” he politely inquired.

“The cow left me for a younger man.” Rubin turned to Edie. Wearing a practiced punk-rock sneer, he said, “ ‘Unsex me here,’ faithless woman.”

“Sorry about the breakup. Unrequited love sucks.”

Hearing that, Caedmon bit back a smile, punk-rock swagger checked by Gen X candor.

“Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, we’ve come to inquire about the Right Honourable Sir Francis Bacon. Without question, Rubin, you are London’s foremost Baconian scholar.”

“You flatter me, Peter.”

“The truth and you know it.”

“And what has brought on this sudden fascination with—”

Just then the hand-carved bird that nested within the German cuckoo clock popped through a pair of wood shutters, alerting them to the new hour.

“Ah! Three o’clock,” Rubin theatrically announced. “A most portentous hour of the day. For it was at three o’clock in the afternoon that your savior died for your sins. And, worthless lot, how did you repay the sacrifice? By slaughtering defenseless Jews and heretics in his good name.”