The taxi arrived at the hotel slightly ahead of schedule, two-twenty-five, about when Craig had predicted to Tess that he'd reach the rendezvous site.
A uniformed doorman approached Craig while he paid the driver and the taxi pulled away. The doorman seemed puzzled that Craig had no luggage. 'Are you checking in, sir?'
'No. I'm expecting someone.'
The doorman frowned and stepped backward. 'Yes. Very good, sir.'
Craig nervously scanned the busy highway, watching for a black Porsche 911. The car wouldn't be hard to recognize. Anytime now, Tess would steer off the highway and stop before him. Craig would dart into the passenger seat. They'd speed away.
Sure. Anytime now.
Craig coughed from the smog and began to pace. He glanced at his watch.
Two-thirty.
Two thirty-five.
Two-forty.
She must be having problems with traffic.
Any minute now, I'll see her.
As solemn men with rings in their pockets watched from a replica of a UPS truck in a parking lot across the street…
As gray-eyed men stared with vicious resolve from the window of a restaurant farther along the street…
Craig's muscles hardened.
Two forty-five.
He breathed heavily.
Tess!
For God's sake, what happened? Where the hell are you?
FIVE
'You said you saw the sculpture in a bedroom of a friend?' Priscilla asked.
Tess hesitated, again unsure how much to reveal for fear that the Hardings would be in danger if the people hunting her found out that she'd come here. 'Yes, the statue was on a bookshelf.'
'From the rigid expression on your face, it's obvious something else troubles you.'
Tess made her decision. Urgency compelled her. She had to know. 'The bedroom…'
'What about it?'
'… looked strange.'
Priscilla leaned suddenly forward. 'How?'
'There weren't any lamps. The overhead bulb didn't work. The floor was covered with candles. And next to the statue, on each side, there were other candles.'
'Candles? Of course. And one pointed upward, the other downward?' Priscilla asked at once.
Tess jerked her head back in surprise. 'Yes. How did you know?'
'The photograph of the sculpture. The torch bearers flanking Mithras. One torch is raised, the other inverted. Tess, I very much suspect that what you saw was a makeshift version of a Mithraic altar. What else haven't you told me?'
With a shiver, Tess relented completely, prepared to tell Priscilla everything. Rapidly she explained, from the start, a week ago Wednesday – could it have been only that recently?-the first time she'd met Joseph. The gold Cross pen she'd dropped in the elevator.
Joseph had studied the pen and murmured its name almost with reverence.
Gold Cross.
Tess now knew what those words had meant to Joseph.
The symbol for the sun god.
SIX
Near Washington National Airport, the smog became thicker. In the replica of the UPS truck that stood in a parking lot across from the Marriott hotel, a man with a ring in his pocket spoke to a phone equipped with a scrambler to prevent anyone from overhearing his conversation. 'No, he just keeps pacing in front of the hotel. Every thirty seconds, he checks his watch. It's obvious he's waiting for someone. This has to be the rendezvous site. Anytime now, the woman ought to arrive.'
A voice on the other end of the line said, 'But you're sure he doesn't know you followed him from the airport?'
'As certain as I can be,' the man in the truck said. The moment the target left the plane and got into a taxi, one of my operatives used a portable phone to warn me. We were parked at the exit from the airport. When we saw the cab that the bait had hired, we pulled out ahead of him. He went directly to the hotel. We parked across the street.'
'And the enemy? the voice on the other end demanded. 'Have you seen any evidence of the vermin?'
'Not yet. But we have to assume that they followed the detective just as we did. If the woman's as great a danger to them as we suspect they fear, he's the only way for them to locate her.'
'Keep watching! Keep searching for them!'
'We're trying. I've got another team patrolling the highway. But this area's extremely congested. Unless you get up close to the vermin and happen to notice the color of their eyes… We won't know for certain until the enemy makes its move. Wait a…! Hold it!'
'What?' the voice on the other end said fiercely.
'Something's happening! In front of the hotel. I don't understand! The bait just-!'
SEVEN
Craig kept pacing. With greater tension, he suddenly noticed movement to his right and spun, apprehensive, his hand beneath his suitcoat, grasping his revolver. He relaxed only slightly when he saw that the movement was the hotel's thin-lipped doorman walking toward him, frowning harder.
Don't tell me he's going to insist I check in or stop loitering outside the hotel! Craig quickly removed his hand from his weapon and reached toward a pocket inside his suitcoat, ready to pull out his police ID, anything to appease the doorman.
But what the doorman said was so unexpected that Craig restrained his gesture, paralyzed with bewilderment.
'Is your name Craig, sir?'
Craig felt a chill. 'Yes. But how did you know that?
'Sir, the clerk at the check-in desk just received a phone call. From a woman who, to say the least, is upset. She demanded that someone hurry outside and see if a man was waiting. She said if the man's name was Craig, she had to talk to him at once.'
Tess, Craig thought. It had to be! What had happened? What was wrong?
'The phone!' Craig said. 'Where is it? Is she still on the line?' He hurried toward the hotel's entrance.
'Yes, sir,' the doorman said, following briskly, troubled. 'She insisted that we not hang up.'
Craig pushed open the hotel's front door, lunging in. His eyes struggled to adjust to the shadows after the smoggy sunlight. The check-in desk was directly across from him. Hurrying toward it, Craig fumbled into one of his trouser pockets, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and handed it toward the doorman.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate your-'
'Don't go far. I might need your help. I've got more money.' Craig reached the desk. 'My name is Craig. There's a call for-'
'Definitely.' A clerk straightened, picking up a phone, extending it across the counter.
'Tess?' Craig's hand cramped around the phone as he pressed it against his ear. 'Where are you? What happened!'
'Thank God, you waited,' she said.
Craig exhaled at the sound of her voice.
'I was worried,' she said, 'that you might have-'
'Left? No way! I promised I'd wait! Answer my question. What happened?'
'Don't worry. I'm safe. At least, as safe as I can be until you get here.'
'Where?
'Craig, I think I've found out what's been happening, and it makes me even more terrified. I don't have time to explain, and this isn't something we can talk about on the phone. Write down this address.'
Distraught, Craig glanced toward the counter, grabbed a pen and a pad, and frantically printed the information she gave him.
'It's important,' Tess said. 'Get here as fast as you can.'
'Count on it.' Craig tore off the sheet of paper, shoved the phone toward the clerk, and blurted, Thank you.'
In distress, he spun toward the doorman, thrusting twenty dollars at him. 'Get me a taxi. Now.'
EIGHT
In the parking lot across the street from the hotel, the solemn man with a ring in his pocket straightened behind the steering wheel in the replica of the UPS truck.