“They open outward,” Malone said. “We can’t kick ‘ em in. That glass is half an inch thick.”
“Why don’t you see if they’re locked?” Pam said.
He grasped one of the handles and pulled.
The door swung open.
“I can see why your clients value your opinion.”
“Why would they lock them?” she said. “This place is a fortress. And he’s right, what is there to steal? The doors themselves are worth more than the merchandise.”
He smiled at her logic. Some of her surly attitude had returned, but he was glad. Kept him sharp.
They stepped inside. The dark, musty space reminded him of the confessional. So he swung the door out ninety degrees and locked it into position, as it would be when visitors milled in and out all day.
A quick survey told him that the shop was about twenty feet square, with three tall display cases abutting one wall, book racks on the other two, and a counter and a cash register lining the fourth. A freestanding counter loaded with books filled the center.
“We need light,” he said.
McCollum approached another pair of glass doors that led out to a blackened stairway. A set of three switches poked from the wall.
“We’re inside the monastery,” Malone said. “The light’s not going to be visible outside the walls. Still, on and off quick and let’s see what happens.”
McCollum flicked one of the switches. Four tiny halogen floods that illuminated the glass cases sprang to life. Their light was directed in tight beams downward. More than enough illumination.
“That’ll do,” he said. “Now let’s find something with pictures.”
Atop the center counter lay a stack of hardcover volumes in Portuguese and English, all titled Jerónimos Abbey of Santa Maria. Glossy pages, lots of text. Photos, too. Two thinner books stacked beside them were more pictures than words. He thumbed through the first stack, while Pam scanned the other. McCollum examined the other shelves. Three-quarters of the way through one of the books, Malone found a section on the chancel and a color image of the sacrarium’s silver door.
He walked the book over to the light. The photograph was close-up and detailed. “This is it.”
He read more about the sacrarium, trying to see if any of the information would be useful, and learned that it was crafted of wood sheathed in silver. Its placement in the chancel required that the central painting of the lower row be removed, which subsequently disappeared. The image of that lost painting had been carved on the sacrarium’s door, completing the iconographic cycle of the paintings-all of which dealt with the Epiphany. The door showed Gaspar, one of the wise men, worshiping the newborn child. The book noted that the Epiphany was regarded as the submission of the secular to the divine, the three wise men symbolic of the world as it was then known-Europe, Asia, Africa.
Then he found an interesting passage.
A strange phenomenon is reported to occur at certain times of the year, when the sun’s rays penetrate the church in an extraordinary way. For twenty days before the spring equinox, and for thirty days after the autumnal equinox, the sun’s golden rays, from the hour of Vespers until sunset, entering from the west and covering a distance of 450 paces, pass in a straight line through the choir and the church to the sacrarium, turning its silver into gold. One of Belém’s parish priests, a devoted student of the history, observed long ago that, “The sun seems to be asking its Creator for leave of absence from such an illustrious duty for a few hours of the night, promising to return again and shine at dawn.”
He read them the paragraph, then said, “The Guardians are apparently well versed.”
“And have good timing,” Pam said. “It’s two weeks since the autumnal equinox.”
He tore the picture from the book and thought about the remainder of the clue. “Find the place that forms an address with no place, where is found an other place. That’s next. And tougher.”
“Cotton, surely you’ve already seen the connection.”
He had and was pleased that her mind was working, too.
“Where a retreating star finds a rose, pierces a wooden cross, and converts silver to gold. Find the place.” She motioned at the photo from the book. “The sacrarium door. Bethlehem. The Nativity. This is Belém. Remember what we read this morning in London. Portuguese for ”Bethlehem.“ And what did Haddad write? Great journeys often start with an epiphany.”
“I think you’re going to make it to Final Jeopardy,” he said.
Glass shattered in the distance.
“That came from inside the cloister,” McCollum said.
Malone darted for the light switch and killed the halogens. Darkness again engulfed them and his eyes needed a moment to adjust.
Another crash.
He crept to the open door and identified the sound’s direction. Catty-corner across the cloister, on the far side, lower level.
He saw movement in the semi-darkness and spotted three men emerging from another set of glass doors.
Each carried a weapon.
The three fanned out into the lower gallery.
FIFTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
2:45 PM
STEPHANIE HANDED THE ATTENDANT HER TICKET AND ENTERED the National Air and Space Museum. Green had not come with them, because the attorney general’s presence in such a public place would not have gone unnoticed. Stephanie had chosen the locale for the building’s many transparent walls, reputation as the world’s most visited museum, abundance of security staff, and metal detectors. She doubted Daley would, at this point, invoke anything official that might lead to uncomfortable questions, but he could bring Heather Dixon and her new Arab associates.
They pushed through the crowds and glanced around at the museum’s three-block-long interior composed of steel, marble, and glass. Ceilings soared at nearly a hundred feet, creating a hangarlike effect, and displayed a history of flight from the Wright Brothers’ flier, to Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, to the Apollo 11 moon ship.
“Lots of people,” Cassiopeia muttered.
They passed an IMAX theater with a thick line of patrons and entered the busy Space Hall. Daley stood near a full-sized, spiderlike Lunar Module, displayed as it would have appeared on the moon, with an astronaut balanced on its landing leg ladder.
Daley looked calm, considering. Not a hair on his head had escaped its usual brilliantine hold.
“Got your clothes back on,” she said as they approached.
“I underestimated you, Stephanie. My mistake. I won’t make it again.”
“You leave all your escorts at home?” She knew Daley rarely went anywhere without bodyguards.
“All but one.”
He motioned and she and Cassiopeia turned. Heather Dixon appeared from the far side of the Skylab exhibit.
“Deal’s off, Larry,” she said.
“You want to know about the Alexandria Link? She’s the one to fill in the gaps.”
Dixon strolled through the crowd toward them. A group of noisy children congealed at the Lunar Module, hugging the wooden railing that wrapped the display. Daley led them closer to a narrow walk on its rear side that paralleled a glass wall, the museum’s busy cafeteria beyond.
“You’re still dead,” Dixon said to her.
“I didn’t come here to be threatened.”
“And I’m only here because my government ordered me.”
“First things first,” Daley said.
Dixon brought out an electronic device about the size of a cell phone and switched it on. After a few seconds, she shook her head. “They’re not wired.”
Stephanie knew how the device worked. Billet agents routinely used them. She grabbed the detector and pointed it at Dixon and Daley.
Negative, too.
She tossed it back to Dixon. “Okay, since we’re alone, talk.”