"—the odds are it didn't even originate in Rome," Tess chimed in. "Especially not if it's Templar."
Edmondson smiled. "Exactly."
Tess hesitated. "Do you think I'm onto something or am I clutching at straws here?"
"No, I think there could definitely be something there. But.. . Templars aren't exactly within your area of expertise, are they?"
"Only by a couple of thousand years, give or take a continent." She grinned. Her expertise was in Assyrian history. The Templars were way off her radar.
"You need to talk to a Templar geek. The ones I know of that are knowledgeable enough to be of use to you are Marty Falkner, William Vance, and Jeb Simmons. Falkner must be eighty-something by now and probably a bit of a handful to deal with. Vance I haven't come across for ages, but I know Simmons is around—"
"Bill Vance?"
"Yes. You know him?"
William Vance had dropped in on one of her father's digs while she was there. It was around ten years ago, she remembered. She'd been working with her father in northeastern Turkey, as close as the military would allow them to get to Mount Ararat. She recalled how, rare for her father, Oliver Chaykin had treated Vance as an equal. She could visualize him clearly. A tall, handsome man, maybe fifteen years her senior.
Vance had been charming and very helpful and encouraging to her. It had been a rotten time for her.
Lousy conditions in the field. Uncomfortably pregnant. And yet, although he barely knew her, Vance had seemed to sense her unhappiness and discomfort and had treated her so kindly that he made her feel good when she felt awful, attractive when she knew she looked terrible. And there had never been the slightest hint that he had an ulterior motive. She felt mildly embarrassed now to think that she had been a little bit disappointed at his obviously platonic attitude toward her, because she had been rather attracted to him. And, toward the end of his brief stay at the camp, she had sensed that maybe, just maybe, he had started to feel the same way about her, though just how attractive a seven-months-pregnant woman could be was, in her mind, highly questionable.
"I met him once, with my dad." She paused. "But I thought his specialty was Phoenician history."
"It is, but you know how it is with the Templars. It's like archaeological porn, it's virtually academic suicide to be interested in them. It's gotten to the point where no one wants it known that they take the subject seriously. Too many crackpots obsessed with all kinds of conspiracy theories about their history. You know what Umberto Eco said, right?"
"No."
" 'A sure sign of a lunatic is that sooner or later, he brings up the Templars.' "
"I'm struggling to take that as a compliment here."
"Look, I'm on your side on this. They're eminently worthy of academic research." Edmondson shrugged. "But like I said, I haven't heard from Vance in years. Last I know he was at Columbia, but, if I were you, I'd go for Simmons. I can hook you up with him pretty easily."
"Okay, great." Tess smiled.
A nurse popped her head around the door. "Tests. Five minutes."
"Wonderful," Clive groaned.
"Will you let me know?" Tess asked.
"You bet. And when I'm out of here, how about I buy you dinner and you can tell me how it's panning out?"
She remembered the last time she'd had dinner with Edmondson. In Egypt, after they'd dived together on a Phoenician shipwreck off Alexandria. He'd got drunk on arak, made a halfhearted pass, which she had gently rebuffed, and then he'd fallen asleep in the restaurant.
"Sure," she said, thinking that she had lots of time in which to come up with excuses and then felt guilty at her unkind thought.
Chapter 13
L ucien Boussard paced cautiously across the floor of his gallery. He reached the window and peered out from behind a fake ormolu clock. He stayed there for several minutes, thinking hard.
Part of his brain registered that the clock was in need of cleaning and he carried it back to the table and stood it on the newspaper.
The one with the pictures of the Met raid, staring up at him.
He ran his finger over the photographs, smoothing the newspaper's folds.
There's no way I'm getting involved in this.
But he couldn't simply do nothing. Gus would kill him for doing nothing just as easily as he would kill him for doing something wrong.
There was only one way out and he'd already been thinking about it while Gus was standing there in his gallery threatening him. Turning Gus in, especially knowing what he had done at the museum, was dangerous. But given Gus's swordplay outside the museum, Lucien felt reasonably sure he would be safe. There was no way the big man would be coming out of prison to take revenge on him one day. If they didn't change the law and give him the needle, Gus was looking at life without parole. Had to be.
Just as important, Lucien had problems of his own. He had a cop on his back. A relentless salopard who'd been after him for years and was showing no signs of going away or even easing off. All because of a goddamn Dogon statuette from Mali that turned out to be more recent than Lucien had said it was and that was, consequently, worth a fraction of what he'd sold it for. Its septuagenarian buyer had, luckily for Lucien, died of a heart attack before the lawyers got their act together. Lucien had wormed his way out of a very tight spot, but Detective Steve Buchinski didn't let go of it. It was almost like a personal crusade. Lucien had tried feeding the cop a few tips, but they hadn't been enough. Nothing would ever be enough.
But this was different. Feed him Gus Waldron and maybe, just maybe, the leech would let go.
He looked at his watch. It was half past one.
Sliding open a drawer, Lucien rummaged through a box of cards until he found the one he wanted.
Then he reached for the phone and dialed.
Chapter 14
Poised outside the heavy, paneled door to a fifth-floor apartment on Central Park West, the leader of the FBI tactical unit held up one hand, all fingers splayed, and glanced at his team. His number two reached out a cautious arm and waited. On the opposite side of the hallway, another man brought a pump-action shotgun up to his shoulder. The fourth man in the team flicked the safety off a stun grenade. The remaining pair who completed the unit gently eased the safety catches on their Heckler & Koch MP5 machine guns.
"Go!"
The agent nearest the door rapped firmly with his fist and yelled, "FBI. Open up!"
The reaction was virtually instantaneous. Gunshots ripped out through the door, spitting splinters of teak across the hallway.
The FBI shotgunner returned the compliment, racking his weapon in a blur of action, blasting away until he had torn several head-sized holes through the door panel. Even with the earplugs she wore, Amelia Gaines felt the jarring shock waves in the confined space.
More shots erupted from inside, splintering the door jambs and punching through the plasterboards across the hallway. The fourth man moved forward, flicking the stun grenade through the opening blown in the door. Then the shotgun took out the rest of the central door panel and moments later the two men with the H&Ks were inside.
A momentary pause. Echoing silence. A single shot. Another pause. A voice called out, "Clear!"
More "Clears" followed. Then a casual voice said, "Okay, party's over."