The Templar's Code

CHAPTER 7

“Good God!” Caedmon bellowed, shocked beyond belief.

Jason Lovett had just been felled by an assassin’s dagger.

Craning his neck, he glimpsed a dark-haired man sprinting toward the exit at the back of the reading room. A lone assassin.

Caedmon turned to Edie. “Call the police! And whatever you do, don’t leave this room until they arrive.” Orders issued, he dashed toward the rear exit.

“Where are you going?” Edie yelled at his backside.

He made no reply, the portcullis about to come crashing down. The assassin had at least a five-second lead, the man having already vanished from the reading room.

Charging through the back doorway, Caedmon burst into an interior hallway, immediately brought up short. Paneled in dark wood punctuated with elaborately framed portraits of Thirty-third Degree Freemasons, the picture gallery had about it a claustrophobic eeriness. Particularly since, other than the immortalized Masons, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

“The bastard only had two choices, right or left,” he muttered, silently cursing the fact that the killer was so fleet of foot.

Instinct told him the assassin would steer clear of the banquet hall to the right, where the nattering lecture-goers were still availing themselves of free refreshments. Why risk being tackled to the ground by an overzealous onlooker?

Hoping his instincts proved correct, he tucked into a runner’s pose, taking the road less traveled to the left.

At the end of the hall, he veered in the direction of the polished marble stairs that led to the atrium. Unless he hurried, the bastard would soon be clear of the building.

Taking the steps two at a time, he grabbed hold of the brass banister to keep from falling on his face, leather soles slipping on the smooth surface, his shoes not designed for a foot race.

At the top of the staircase, he swung to the right. Peering through the granite-columned corridor that framed either side of the spacious atrium, he sighted the front exit and the lone security guard manning his station at the door, unaware of the tragedy that had just occurred below deck.

About to summon the guard, the shout snagged in his throat, stifled as he caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye.

He pivoted just in time to see one side of a double door silently swing shut.

Is the wind in that door?

Caedmon stared at the closed door panel, wondering if a trap had just been set. Wondering if Lovett’s assassin was the wind that blew shut the swinging door.

“Only one way to find out,” he murmured, stepping forward.