“He’s doing well. But I didn’t get to say much.”
One of the men started moaning. They’d be conscious soon. He grabbed the leather satchel and Haddad’s gun. “Let’s go.”
“We’re leaving?”
“Unless you want to be around when they wake up.”
He saw that prospect was not appealing to her.
“You have a gun,” she reminded him.
“Which I don’t want to use. This isn’t the Wild West. We’re in a hotel, with people. So let’s do the smart thing and leave. There are plenty more hotels in this town.”
She grabbed the shawl and gently wrapped her shoulders. They left the room and quickly caught the elevator. Downstairs, they exited into a chilly night. He surveyed his surroundings and concluded it was going to be tough to know if they were being followed. Simply too much to watch. The nearest Tube station was two blocks away, so he headed for it, determined to keep a lookout.
His mind churned.
How had the man from Heathrow found them? Even more troubling, how did the man pretending to be a steward know that he wasn’t in the room?
A gentleman placed the order.
He faced Pam as they walked. “Did you tell that guy through the door that you didn’t order anything?”
She nodded. “That’s when he said you did.”
Not entirely correct. He’d said a gentleman placed the order.
But still. Lucky guess?
No way.
THIRTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
9:00 PM
STEPHANIE LED CASSIOPEIA THROUGH THE QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD. For the past few hours they’d stayed hidden in the suburbs. She’d made one call to Billet headquarters from a pay phone at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and learned that there had been no contact from Malone. Not so from the White House. Larry Daley’s office had called three times. She’d told her staff to say that she’d get back to him at her first opportunity. Aggravating, she knew. But let Daley wonder if the next time he saw her jovial face, it would be live on CNN. That fear should be enough, for now, to keep the deputy national security adviser in check. Heather Dixon and the Israelis, though, were another matter.
“Where are we going?” Cassiopeia asked.
“To deal with a problem.”
The neighborhood was heavy with beaux arts architecture that had been fashionable, she realized, with the nineteenth-century industrialists who’d first populated the tree-lined avenues. Colonial row houses and cobblestoned walks only added to the wealthy mien in the night air.
“I’m not one of your agents,” Cassiopeia said. “I like to know what I’m getting into.”
“You can leave whenever you want.”
“Nice try. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
“Then stop asking questions. You quiz Thorvaldsen like this?”
“Why don’t you like him? In France you stayed at his throat.”
“Look where I am, Cassiopeia. Cotton’s in a mess. My own people want me dead. The Israelis and Saudis are both after me. You think it’s wise I like anyone?”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
No, it wasn’t. But she couldn’t voice the truth. That through his association with her late husband, Thorvaldsen had come to know her strengths and weaknesses, and near him she felt vulnerable.
“Let’s just say that he and I are far too well acquainted with each other.”
“Henrik’s worried about you. That’s why he asked me to come. He sensed trouble.”
“And I appreciate that. But it doesn’t mean I have to like him.”
She spotted the house, another of the many symmetrical brick residences with carvings, a portico, and a mansard roof. Lights burned only in the downstairs windows. She scanned the street.
Still quiet.
“Follow me.”
ALFRED HERMANN RARELY SLEPT. HE’D CONDITIONED HIS mind long ago to operate on less than three hours’ rest.
He was not old enough to have personally experienced World War II, though he harbored vivid childhood memories of Nazis parading through the streets of Vienna. In the decades after, he’d actively battled the Soviets and challenged their puppet regimes that had dominated Austria. Hermann money dated from the Hapsburgs and had managed to survive two centuries of volatile politics. During the past fifty years the family fortune had grown tenfold, and much of that success could be traced to the Order of the Golden Fleece. To be intimately associated with such a select group from around the world came with advantages that his father and grandfather had never enjoyed. But to be in charge-that provided even greater benefits.
His tenure, though, was coming to an end.
At his death, his daughter would inherit everything. And the thought was not comforting. True, she was like him in some ways. Bold and determined, and she appreciated the past and coveted, with an enthusiasm similar to his own, that most precious of human commodities-knowledge. But she remained unpolished. A work in progress. One he feared might never be completed.
He stared at his daughter who, like him, slept little. He’d named her Margarete, after his mother. She was admiring the model of the Library of Alexandria.
“Can we find it?” she quietly asked.
He stepped close. “I believe Dominick is near.”
She appraised him with keen gray eyes. “Sabre is not to be trusted. No American should be.”
They’d had this discussion before. “I trust no one.”
“Not even me?”
He grinned. They’d had this discussion before, too. “Not even you.”
“Sabre has too much freedom.”
“Why begrudge him? We give him difficult tasks. You can’t do that and expect him to work as we see fit.”
“He’s a problem-American ingenuity and all that-you just don’t know it.”
“He’s a willful man. He needs purpose. We provide that to him. In return he furthers our goals.”
“I’ve sensed more from him lately. He tries hard to mask his ambition, but it’s there. You just have to pay attention.”
He thought he’d taunt her. “Perhaps you’re attracted to him?”
She scoffed at his question. “That’ll never happen. In fact, I’ll fire him once you’re gone.”
He wondered about her assumption that she would inherit all that he owned. “There’s no guarantee you’ll be Blue Chair. That selection is made among the Chairs.”
“I’ll be in the Circle. I assure you. It’s a simple step from there to where you are.”
But he wasn’t so sure. He knew of her contacts with the other four Chairs. He’d actually encouraged them as a test. His wealth far surpassed that of the others in age, volume, and scope. Financial institutions he controlled were heavily entangled with many members, including three of the Chairs. Never would any of them want others to know of that vulnerability, and the price of his silence had always been their loyalty. He’d manipulated their weaknesses for decades, but his daughter’s attempts had been feeble. So a word of caution was in order. “Once I’m gone, it’s true, Dominick will have to deal with you, as you will with him. But don’t be so quick. Men like him, with little emotion? No morals? A daring heart? You might find them valuable.”
He hoped she was listening but feared, as always, that her ears remained filtered. Her mother had died when she was eight and, in her youth, she’d seemed a product of him-of the rib, she liked to say-yet age had not matured that early promise. Her education had started in France, continued in England, and was completed in Austria, her business experience honed in the boardrooms of his many corporations.
But the reports from there had not been encouraging.
“What would you do if you found the library?” she asked.
He concealed his amusement. She apparently did not want to discuss Sabre or herself anymore. “It’s beyond imagining what great thoughts are there.”
“I heard you speaking yesterday about those. Tell me more.”
“Ah, the Piri Reis Map, from 1513, found in Istanbul. I was running on about that. I didn’t know you were listening.”