The Covenant Of The Flame

'Look out!' Hamilton's driver blurted.

Too late.

From the open window, someone threw a bottle. The bottle had a rag stuffed into its mouth.

The rag was on fire.

'Jesus!'

The bodyguard swerved toward the freeway's gravel shoulder, frantically reducing speed, but the bottle – which must have been constructed from specially designed, brittle glass – shattered on impact against the Corniche's windshield and spewed blazing gasoline over the car.

Blinded by flames -

–  on the hood! -

–  and oh, Christ, on the windshield! -

–  the driver tried desperately to control his steering. In the backseat, Hamilton gaped to the left, horrified to see the van streak sharply toward the Corniche. He felt the van slam brutally against the Corniche's side, slam it again, and again, and propel the Corniche off the freeway's shoulder.

Hamilton's stomach dropped. The Corniche, now completely engulfed with flames, crashed through a guardrail, soared through the air, and collided with…

Hamilton screamed. He never knew what the car hit. The sudden shocking force of the crash slammed him forward, catapulting him up, over, and beyond the front seat, walloping his skull against the dashboard.

But what the passengers in the minivan saw with calculated satisfaction was that the Corniche had impacted against a massive steel electrical tower. The collision burst the Corniche's fuel tank. A huge exploding fireball disintegrated the car and spewed pieces of flesh, bone, and metal for fifty yards in every direction, the flames gushing upward for a hundred feet. As the minivan sped onward, disappearing among traffic, its rear window reflected the spectacular pyre in the darkness beside the freeway.

TEN

The chameleon removed the folded front section of the New York Times from beneath a notepad on his clipboard. He held it up so the group could see the headline – FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE DIES IN FIERY FREEWAY DISASTER – then handed the newspaper to the second man. 'When you're finished, pass it around.'

'I've already read it. I didn't know the connection, but the moment you mentioned Brian Hamilton, I realized what you were getting at.'

'Well,' the third man said, 'I didn't have a chance to read the paper this morning. Let me see.'

One-by-one, the somber-faced men read the article.

'Fire,' the sixth man said with disgust. 'They're so in love with fire.' Lips curled, he set down the paper and studied the chameleon. 'You seem to have so many answers. What about this one. Why did they kill him?'

'I don't have answers exactly. What I do have are calculated assumptions,' the chameleon said. Tess Drake makes a sudden trip to see her mother. When she gets to the mansion in Alexandria, is it a coincidence that the former Secretary of State and current main adviser to the President just happens to be waiting there when she arrives? Not likely. I have to conclude that so important a man was summoned by the woman, that Hamilton – a friend of her dead father – was the person she primarily wanted to see and not her mother, that Tess Drake was using her late father's influence to enlist powerful help in discovering who Joseph Martin was and why he was killed.'

The third man shrugged. 'Assumptions, as you admit. However, I grant that they're logical.'

'And I also have to conclude that the enemy followed Tess Drake to the mansion just as our own people did,' the chameleon continued. 'When the enemy identified Hamilton's Corniche in the driveway and realized what the woman was doing, they must have decided that Hamilton's death was essential to keeping their secret. It's my belief that they wanted to prevent him from telling others what he'd learned and using his connections with the government to enlarge the scope of the investigation.'

The fifth man traced his finger along pencil engravings on the desktop of his miniature chair. 'Possibly.'

'You don't sound convinced.'

'Well, your assumptions make sense to a point, but… What I have trouble with is… If the enemy went to the trouble and took the risk of assassinating Hamilton, they still wouldn't have solved their problem, at least not completely. Their secret would not yet be fully protected. To accomplish that, they'd have to be totally, absolutely thorough, and the most important person to eliminate would be…'

The chameleon nodded. 'Precisely.'

'You're telling me…?'

'Yes.'

'Dear God!' the sixth man said.

'My thought, as well… Dear God… Last night… shortly after two…"

ELEVEN

Standing rigidly in her bedroom in the mansion in Alexandria, Tess cramped her fingers around the telephone as she listened to Craig's gravelly, urgent voice.

'I want you to promise me,' Craig said. 'Swear it. Be careful!'

'I guarantee,' Tess emphasized. 'I won't take any chances.'

'Keep your word. And promise me this as well. Swear you'll phone me tomorrow as soon as you get copies made of the photographs. Then Fed-Ex them to me as fast as possible.'

'I will. I promise,' Tess said.

'Look, I don't want to sound like a jealous lover, but I'll feel a whole lot better when you get back here.'

'Honestly,' Tess said, 'I'll be okay. Just because someone torched Joseph's apartment, it's a big leap to thinking I'm in danger.'

'Oh, yeah?' Craig raised his voice. 'Then what about the guy in the photo shop?'

Tess didn't answer. She reluctantly admitted to herself that she'd been feeling more and more uneasy.

'Okay, what's your mother's address and phone number?' Craig asked and coughed. 'I think it's a good idea… I want to be able to reach you if anything else happens that you should know about.'

Tess gave him that information.

'Good,' Craig said. 'I repeat, I wish you'd get back here.'

'Look, even if I were in Manhattan, what could you do, assuming you're right and I'm in danger? You can't stay with me all the time .'

'You never know. It might come to that.'

'Hey, don't exaggerate.' Tess quivered. 'You're scaring me.'

'Good. At last. I'm finally getting my point across.' The lieutenant's voice dropped, the long-distance static crackling. 'And anyway…' He sounded nervous. 'Would it really be so bad if I was with you all the time?'

'What?' Tess frowned. 'I'm not sure what you mean.'

'I told you yesterday on the way to Joseph's apartment. This started out as police business. Now it belongs to Homicide, not Missing Persons. But I still want to stay involved. Because of you.'

Tess frowned harder.

'No response?' Craig asked.

'I'm trying to sort this out. Are you saying what I think you're saying?'

'As far as I'm concerned, this isn't business anymore. I want to get to know you.'

'But…'

'Whatever it is, say it, Tess.'

'You're ten years older than me.'

'So what? You've got a prejudice? You don't like mature men, dependable men, guys like me who've been there and back and around some and don't have any illusions or expectations and don't make problems?'

'It's not exactly that. I mean…' Tess squirmed. 'It's just… Well, I never thought about…'

'Well, do me a favor and give it some thought. I don't want to be pushy. I know a lot's been happening, not the least of which is you've lost your friend, and I'm sorry for that, and I repeat, I don't want to make problems for you. I'm patient. But hey, I bathe every day.'

Tess couldn't help it. She laughed.

'Good,' Craig said. 'I like that. I like to hear you laugh. So think about it, would you? Or at any rate, keep it in the back of your mind? No big deal. No pressure. But maybe… damn it, I'm so… maybe, when this is over, we can talk about it.'