The Templar's Code

CHAPTER 83

Exhausted, Edie gracelessly plopped into one of the upholstered Louis VI chairs scattered about the hotel lobby. The events of the last hour had unraveled at breakneck speed.

Which was about how fast she drove down Fourteenth Street, flooring it through two red lights to get to the Willard Hotel. The marble-columned, overly plush lobby had “safety” written all over it. How could any harm come to a person in this magnificent old-world edifice? The stalwart doorman would keep the bogeyman at bay.

She glanced over her shoulder; Caedmon was still at the concierge desk on the other side of the lobby. No sooner had they pushed through the revolving door than he’d trotted off, keen to check the metal case into the hotel vault.

Self-conscious of the fact that she was underdressed for the upscale lobby — decked out in a wrinkled peacoat and stained jeans — Edie smoothed a hand over her tangled curls. I probably look like one of those big-haired women in a Gustav Klimt painting. Caedmon was equally disheveled, but speaking the Queen’s English meant that he could get away with it, Americans enamored with well-spoken Brits.

At the moment, she was far from enamored.

Hearing the melodic strains of a Chopin sonata, she peered behind the columned promenade adjacent to the lobby. A tuxedoed pianist was finessing the ivory. An image flashed across her mind’s eye. Rubin Woolf, decked out in his smoking jacket, seated at a white baby grand playing—

“Would you care for something to drink?”

Startled, Edie jerked her head. A pleasant-faced cocktail waiter, holding an empty tray, stood beside her.

“Sorry, I, um, didn’t see you,” she sputtered. “A drink? Yes. Perfect. Although I’m drawing a big blank.” She self-consciously laughed. Not only did she look like a bag lady, she was starting to sound like one.

“May I suggest a Silver Bullet? It’s a martini with—”

“No martinis!”

The waiter contemplatively tapped a finger against his chin. “You strike me as the champagne Kir Royale type.”

“Sounds wonderful. Make it two, please. Someone will be joining me.”

A few moments later, Caedmon approached. “I say, posh accommodations,” he wryly remarked, seating himself in the Louis VI chair opposite her. He ran a hand over his jaw. “Although that shave at C’est Bleu was so close, I damned near nicked myself.”

“It could have been worse — you could have had a dagger thrown at your back,” she snapped, annoyed by his facetious remark.

Caedmon lowered his hand. Head cocked to the side, he frowned. “Considering that we escaped unscathed, you’re uncharacteristically taciturn.”

Taciturn? Try terrified.

The waiter returned, setting two champagne flutes on the table. Flipping his empty tray, he unobtrusively took his leave. Caedmon raised a questioning brow.

“Champagne Kir Royale.” She shrugged. “I needed a pick-me-up.”

“The French monks who created crème de cassis thought it a curative for wretchedness.”

Edie raised her flute in mock salute. “Bring on the crème de cassis. I’ve had all the wretchedness I can handle for one day. And speaking of which, we absolutely cannot go public with the Emerald Tablet,” she blurted, deciding to lay all her cards on the table. “If the secret of creation is contained within the ancient pictograph that’s inlaid on the tablet, the ramifications are mind-boggling.”

“No need to worry. I wasn’t planning on running off half-cocked.” One side of his mouth twitched. “At least not until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Is that why you asked Professor Lyon to translate the tablet? So you’ll know what you’re dealing with. Or are you planning to perform a little alchemical mojo, see if you can replicate the Big Bang theory of creation?”

An annoyed expression flashed across his face. “I am convinced that the Emerald Tablet was the reason behind the Templars’ demise.”

“Okay, fine,” she muttered, readily conceding the point. “Isn’t it enough to know that the Emerald Tablet is real, that it does actually exist? Earlier today, we made a horrible mistake. We should never have dug it up. But it’s not too late. We can return it to—”

“I cannot and I will not,” Caedmon interjected, jaw tightly set, blue eyes glittering.

“Our having custody of the Emerald Tablet is wrong on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin. No, wait! How about starting with the dead man at Chow Hounds? Who, by the way, was an innocent bystander.”

“Yes, Jesus wept. Unfortunately, blood and treasure go hand in hand. Better the corpulent bystander than one of us.”

Edie gripped the stem of her champagne flute, on the verge of slinging the contents in his face.

“Christ! Did I just say that?” Wearing a stunned expression, Caedmon shook his head. Dr. Jekyll regaining his sanity. “Forgive me. But the fact of the matter still remains: The Emerald Tablet is a discovery of the first magnitude. Now that our grave concerns about the relic falling into the hands of a terrorist have been doused, there’s no reason why—”

“Listen to you! What are you going to do? Haul it back to Oxford so you can wave it in the face of all those dons at Queen’s College who dissed your dissertation? Because I’m beginning to think that’s what this deadly scavenger hunt was all about, redeeming your academic reputation. You’d love nothing more than to rub the Oxford crowd’s face in it. ‘See, I was right all along!’”

“Nothing so crass, I can assure you. And you know full well why I went to such lengths to find the relic. The horrific fate of Atlantis was never far from my mind.”

“But you do seek vindication,” she pressed.

Long moments passed, the drawn-out silence instilling a weighty sense of consequence to the unanswered accusation.

“For nearly fourteen years I’ve had to live with the disgrace of being shown the door,” he said after a lengthy pause. “Don’t you understand, Edie, the Emerald Tablet is the link between ancient Egypt and the Knights Templar. I’ve waited my entire adult life for such a discovery. So, to answer your question, yes, I seek vindication.”

The admission gave Edie no satisfaction. “How can you put your personal vanity and ambition above the concerns of mankind?”

Caedmon threw his hands up. “Ah! So now I’m Atlas, forced to bear the weight of the world on my shoulders. I’ve put too much blood, sweat, toil, and tears into this venture to back away from it.”

“Don’t go all Winston Churchill on me.”

“I seek only the truth.”

“Oh, yeah, truth… the coin of your realm,” she deadpanned. “And, of course, let’s not forget about knowledge. That’s your — what do they call it? — oh, yeah, your Bushidō. The code that you live by.”

“You cannot sway me. My mind is made up.”

“But you haven’t even considered the dire—” Edie stopped in midsentence. Wasted breath. She’d have better luck convincing a stranger to wire her money.

Caedmon reached for the netbook.

A few minutes later, he smiled, his good humor returned. “I’ve already received a reply from Dr. Lyon. How curious. No typed message, but he did send an attachment.”

“Great,” she muttered as he pecked at the keyboard. “Maybe after dinner we can all do a little skinny-dipping in the hidden stream of knowledge.”

His smile instantly vanished, replaced by a thunder-struck expression.

“What’s the matter?” Not giving him a chance to answer, Edie grabbed the netbook and swiveled it in her direction. A half second later, she slapped a hand over her mouth, afraid she was going to upchuck the Kir Royale. “Ohmygod!”

“Trust me, there’s no evidence of God in that.”

That being a photograph of Dr. Lyon, naked, submerged in a tub of pink bath water. Everything else was colored red: hair, cheeks, and shoulders all streaked with crimson blood. Mouth gaping. Eyes bulging. His withered face frozen in a death mask of sheer terror. Above the tub, a bloodred octogram star had been scrawled on the white ceramic tile. A horrific piece of graffiti.

Edie wrapped her arms around her waist and closed her eyes. It did no good. She could still see a frail, white-haired man peering up from his watery grave.

“Such a bloody, pointless murder… killing for the sake of killing.” Caedmon reached for his untouched champagne flute and took a long swig. Mauve-colored liquid sloshed in the glass, his hand visibly shaking. “We are dealing with a man without conscience. That rare breed who takes a sadistic delight in the bloodletting.”

“What do we do now?” she asked, barely able to get the words out.

Expression grim, Caedmon said, “We go to ground.”