They hit the bottom of the hill going 42 mph. A snail’s pace by Formula 1 standards. A potentially deadly speed without brakes. Spotting a clearing between the trees, he forcefully yanked on the steering wheel. The Mini jumped the concrete curb, momentarily airborne. A split second later, the car shook on its frame, hitting the grassy expanse with a bone-jarring impact. Caedmon immediately jerked on the steering wheel, first one direction, then the other, trying to create enough friction to slow the Mini.
“Damn!”
He’d yanked too hard, the car whirling into a dizzying spin.
“We’re going to crash!” Edie shrieked—right before she leaned over and pulled on the emergency brake.
All four tires instantly locked, the Mini skidding sideways. On a crash course with a cluster of saplings.
“Brace for impact!” he hollered as the vehicle smashed into the spindly grove of young trees, both airbags exploding on contact.
The collision happened too quickly to process. Shattered glass. Sheared wood. Crunched metal. An ear-splitting scream. As the engine stalled, the Mini came to a shuddering halt.
“Edie, are you all right?”
“I . . . I think so,” she feebly replied, her voice muffled by the airbag.
His eyes filled with grateful tears. “If I can remove the ignition key, I might be able to punch a hole in the—”
Without warning, the driver’s-side door flew open. An instant later, his airbag deflated with a loud whoosh. Movements slowed by pain, he turned to the Good Samaritan who’d come to their assistance.
Christ!
Battered face illuminated by a piercing beam of light, his nemesis leaned into the car.
“Surprise,” the once beautiful bastard intoned in a slurred voice, dragging the word out to three syllables. While the right side of his face was still comely, the left side was disfigured by a bruised jaw and an ugly gash on his upper cheek. A malevolent two-faced Janus.
Caedmon made a quick grab for the ignition keys.
Only to stop in mid-motion when he felt the barrel of a revolver shoved against his left temple. Uncomprehending at first, it suddenly dawned on him that the bastard was responsible for the brake failure.
“Very slowly, remove the car keys and hand them to me.”
Forced to acquiesce, a loaded gun an effective means of ensuring compliance, Caedmon did as ordered.
“What’s going on?” Edie asked, her inflated airbag obstructing the view.
Still holding the revolver to Caedmon’s head, the other man punctured a hole in Edie’s airbag with the sharp blade that he had clutched in his left hand. That done, he stepped back from the open door.
Beside him, Caedmon heard a terrified gasp.
Whatever you do, Edie, don’t give the bastard a reason to pull the trigger.
“Englishman, out!” The other man roughly gestured, using his gun like a traffic baton.
Biting back a groan, Caedmon slowly hoisted himself out of the wrecked vehicle, every muscle in his body protesting the movement. Breathing heavily, he stood beside the demolished front end, his knees unsteadily wobbling, hit with a nauseating bolt of pain. The pouring rain felt like tiny shards of glass pelting him in the face.
He surreptitiously glanced about. Parked behind the mangled Mini was an Audi A6. The engine still running, its halogen headlamps illuminated the crash scene, the ethereal glow revealing wisps of smoke and saw-toothed saplings.
Revolver held at the ready, the bastard walked over to Edie’s side of the Mini and yanked open the door. “Give me the leather bag at your feet.”
Edie wordlessly complied, handing over the satchel. The contents were riffled through. Moments later, he shoved the bag at her chest. Muttering a curse, the bastard stormed to the back of the Mini and opened the trunk. He removed two soft-sided pieces of luggage, which he unzipped and impolitely dumped onto the ground, strewing the contents all over the wet grass.
“Where is it?”
Taking a deep breath, Caedmon hoped to God the answer didn’t sound their death knell. “The relic is in the vault of the Willard Hotel.” Then, applying a whitewash, he said, “I’m the only one who can access the code to retrieve it. And I will only do so provided no harm comes to Miss Miller.”
“The woman can retrieve the relic.”
“Not true.”
The other man’s eyes narrowed. “You lie.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he removed a mobile phone, which he tossed onto Edie’s lap. “The woman will retrieve the relic from the safe. She will then call the number programmed on the phone. She will not call the police. She will do only as she is instructed.” Although he referred to Edie in the third person, the bastard bent slightly at the waist so he could peer at her.
“If she disobeys, I will kill the Englishman.”
CHAPTER 85
Caedmon examined the windowless room.
The décor consisted of two wooden chairs, one of which he was seated in, a metal desk, a heavy steel door, and a bare lightbulb in a ceiling socket. The sturdy concrete walls were painted an uninspiring shade of dun, the concrete floor a dark green, the paint peeling from both surfaces in ragged strips. Overhead, an exposed pipe dripped rusty water in a continuous and annoying plonk-plonk.
There was one other pipe in the room—a solid metal pipe securely attached to the concrete wall with heavy-duty straps. He knew it was securely attached because he was handcuffed to the blasted thing and had had no luck yanking it free from the wall.
I don’t see any electrodes, Caedmon thought with a measure of relief, so how bad can it get?
Earlier, gun barrel pressed to the back of his head, he’d been “ushered” into the basement of a nineteenth-century bank building currently undergoing renovation. Scaffolding, sawhorses, and plastic sheeting were strewn about the gutted upstairs interior. A negligent workman had been kind enough to leave a string of electric lights turned on. So they wouldn’t break their bloody necks as they trespassed. Since he’d been forced to drive the Audi, Caedmon knew the bank was located in the vicinity of Catholic University. The bastard probably reconnoitered the site earlier in the evening en route to his murderous rendezvous with the unfortunate Professor Lyon.
Thank God the bastard has taken me hostage instead of Edie.
Even in her distraught state, Edie had to know that if she handed over the Emerald Tablet to their nemesis, she would be rewarded with a bullet to the brain. Caedmon prayed that her sense of survival was strong. That she used the cell phone to call a taxi. And that she took the taxi directly to BWI airport. He didn’t care which plane she boarded so long as she left the D.C. area.
On the other side of the room, the steel door suddenly swung open with a jarring reverberation. A jaunty hitch in his step, the once handsome man strolled through the metal door frame, the bare bulb casting an unflattering light on his hideously swollen jaw.
He calmly placed a hammer with curved claw and a pair of slip joint pliers on top of the metal table. “The upstairs is being completely refurbished to make way for a discotheque. I’m not entirely certain, but I believe it will be called La Banque.”
“How unoriginal,” Caedmon muttered, taking silent note of the hardware. It ominously implied that he would be “put to the question.” The quaint medieval euphemism for torture.
As though he were a mind reader, his captor forcefully shoved the metal table in his direction, butting the short end against his waist. Caedmon grunted, the wind knocked out of him.
“How careless. My apologies.” Placing a hand over his heart, the bastard insincerely smiled. A grotesque parody given his battered left side. “I have yet to introduce myself. I am Saviour Panos.”