I have no idea what this is about. Why couldn't he just say what he means, for once? She read the next quatrain.
That one was clearer. The eagle, the star and the crescent. America was the eagle. The star was probably Israel. She couldn't think of another country so identified with a star, except maybe North Korea. The crescent had to refer to a Muslim nation. Iran? Saudi Arabia? All of them?
Troop withdrawals were underway in Afghanistan. Returning from far lands. She felt a shiver run down her spine. It was as if Nostradamus was standing behind her, looking over her shoulder. If he was right, if she understood the prophecy correctly, then a new war was waiting to happen.
There were more quatrains. It would take time to translate them. Selena decided to take the manuscript to Project headquarters so she could work on it with Stephanie. Elizabeth and the others needed to know about this. But before she did that, she thought she might as well make a copy for studying here.
She took the document over to her computer and scanner and began transferring it to electronic files. Ten minutes later she was finished. She copied it to her email and sent it to Stephanie. She turned off the computer and put the manuscript back in the file folder. She put the folder in a black leather briefcase. She clipped her holster back on, closed the door behind her and walked to the elevator.
Selena watched the numbers change as the elevator rose to her floor, thinking about the quatrains. The doors of the elevator opened. She got in and pressed the button for the ground floor. The elevator descended, smooth, efficient.
The doors opened onto the lobby. It took a second to notice that the guard was not at his station. A tiny alarm went off in her head. There's always someone at the desk, she thought. Always.
Instinct and training saved her. As she stepped from the elevator someone swung a club at her from the right. She moved and took the blow on her shoulder. Her arm went numb. The briefcase was in her left hand. She swung it around in a fast arc, more to distract than injure. The man grunted and blocked the blow. Selena bent and kicked and landed a solid hit on his chest. He grunted again and swung the club at her. She dodged, let go of the briefcase, spun and threw her left elbow into his face, followed with a knee to the groin, slammed the hardened edge of her left hand against the side of his neck. She felt bone break under the blow.
He went down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two more men coming for her. Her right arm was still numb and useless. She couldn't draw her pistol. She ran for the stairwell door on the side of the lobby and pushed it open. The body of the guard lay crumpled at the foot of the stairs. She ran up three steps and turned as one of the men came through the door. She launched herself from the steps and caught him with both feet under his chin. His head snapped backward. She heard the bones crack. She fell hard onto her back on the cement floor. It knocked the breath out of her. Gasping, she climbed to her feet.
The door to the lobby stayed closed. Feeling came back in her arm. Her fingers tingled, but she had control again. She drew her pistol and took a deep breath. She stepped over the body of the guard and pulled open the door.
The lobby was empty. The man who had clubbed her lay partway in the elevator, his head at an odd angle. There was a two foot length of pipe lying on the lobby floor next to him. Must be what he hit me with. The elevator doors were cycling, trying to close against his body. The third man was gone.
So was her briefcase with the Nostradamus file.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
"The men who went after you were both in the system," Elizabeth said. "Convictions for assault and burglary. One of them just got out after doing five years for armed robbery."
Selena, Ronnie, Nick and Stephanie were in Harker's office. The cat lay sleeping in the sun outside the garden doors.
"Only five?" Ronnie said.
"He got paroled. Good behavior."
"A boy scout," Ronnie said.
"I'm following up with his parole officer. Known connections, all that. I don't expect to find much. We're not cops. We can't track down every low life he might have known."
"Be nice if we could turn up the third guy," Nick said.
"Selena, I'm sending you over to the Metro Police HQ to look at mug shots, on the off chance we can ID him. You'll liaise with a Detective Mark Hanson over there."
"All right."
"How's your arm?"
She flexed her shoulder. "I'm okay. The shoulder's sore."
"You're lucky he didn't break something," Nick said.
"He wasn't fast enough."
Nick smiled.
"This is starting to feel personal," Elizabeth said. "We need to get this resolved."
"Maybe the new Nostradamus material will help," Selena said.
Elizabeth nodded. "It's a good thing you copied it. They want it that badly, there has to be something in it."
"I printed it out," Stephanie said. She handed copies around.
"There are five quatrains that might have something to do with the Ark," Selena said. "I haven't finished all of the rest them yet but these five are grouped together. They could be relevant."
"How many more are there?"
"Another seventeen."
They looked at the quatrains.
"Under a broken sword," Ronnie read aloud. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't know," Selena said. "Someone's dead, that much is clear. And there are eight others with him."
"So it's about nine dead guys."
"Not just any nine dead guys," she said. "Probably nine dead knights."
"How do you get that?"
"The sword. They used to decorate the tombs of medieval knights with a figure of the knight in his armor, with his sword on top."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Nick said.
Selena nodded. "One of the Knights Templar. After finding those Templar symbols in Jordan, that's the only thing that makes sense."
"That narrows it down some," Elizabeth said. "How many Templar tombs are there?"
"A lot. Even if we find the right one, we still have to make sense of the quatrain. It's like chasing the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland."
"How does a man speak from his grave?" Nick asked.
"Through writing, or something left behind. I think there might be something inside the tomb itself. Under the sword."
"That's great," Nick said. "First we have to find the right tomb, then we have to open it up on a million to one chance there's something there except bones."
"Do you have a better idea?"
Harker leaned back in her chair. "What about the other quatrains?"
"Nostradamus is predicting a war."
"Eagle, star and crescent. America, Israel and the Muslim world."
"War in the Middle East?" Ronnie said.
"Not again," Nick groaned.
"Our troops are coming back from Afghanistan. It's today he's talking about, right now."