32
They fed him a Cobb salad lunch at noon and came for him at five to one. A pair of Katherine Sinclair's goons escorted him down to the Dining Hall on the main floor, an immense, high-ceilinged and narrow room that looked more like the nave of a cathedral than a place to enjoy a meal.
There were three tall, arched stained-glass windows at the curving far end of the chamber and a long refectory table capable of seating at least twenty but only set for sixteen.
The triptych of stained-glass windows had a sword-bearing St. Michael in the center flanked on either side with knights in thirteenth-century armor, their shields emblazoned with the engrailed Saint-Clair cross. Today the Dining Hall was being used as a conference room, place settings replaced with glasses and water carafes and pads for taking notes.
Holliday was led into the churchlike room, the sudden focus of everyone's attention. Katherine Sinclair was seated in the exact center of the table on the right, flanked by Meg Sinclair on one side and a handsome auburn-haired man on the other. The resemblance to both Katherine and Meg was obvious, so presumably he was Meg's brother, Richard Pierce Sinclair, the presidential hopeful.
He had a suitably somber expression for the job and temples shot with gray, so at least he looked right for the part. To Meg Sinclair's right was an empty chair, the only one at the table. The two goons led him to the vacant seat and then withdrew. Holliday sat and looked around.
Of the twelve other people at the table Holliday recognized some but not all. There was a four-star general he recognized from his years at the Pentagon, now a member of the Joint Chiefs, several congressmen and congresswomen, Miles Bainbridge with Ronald Reagan shoe polish hair and his hatchet- faced Shirley Jones clone wife, Beth, owners of the Gifts from God Prosperity Church and dispensers of its franchises.
GGPC was a billion-dollar business with churches in twenty-seven countries and with seven hundred and fifty thousand "partners" following the church's simple credo: The best way to get God to give you money is to give some money to the Bainbridges first. Among other things the message had got them half a dozen houses spread across the nation and a Cessna Citation XLS to get to them in.
Beside the Bainbridges was a well-known real estate tycoon who, among other things, owned the biggest casino in Las Vegas, and beside him was the lady CEO of the biggest combined tobacco, agribusiness and soft drink company in the world. There were others at the table whom Holliday didn't recognize, but recognizable or not they all exuded self-confidence, utter assurance of their own worth and immutable power.
And there wasn't a Timex in the room. Every wrist was decorated with Rolex, Omega, Patek Philippe or at the very least Cartier. Miles Bainbridge and his wife took the prize wearing his-and-hers matching Jules Audemars-Piguet Grande Complication platinum-cased watches at seven hundred thousand dollars a pop. If nothing else, God had answered their prayers at least.
With Holliday finally seated, Katherine Sinclair stilled the muted chatter by rapping her knuckles on the old scarred walnut table.
"Before we start I'd like to express my condolences to all the members of the family of our late leader and brother in the order, William Henry Adams. He will be greatly missed.
"In light of his passing, by the rules and Constitution of the Order, we are required to immediately call for conclave to elect a new leader, which is the reason we have all been called together as heads of all the surviving Rex Deus families.
"However, before we begin the voting procedures, I would like to introduce my daughter, Margaret Sinclair, who, as you all know, is a biblical archaeologist of some note. For the last two years and recently with the help of Lieutenant Colonel Dr. John Holliday, well-known medieval historian, Margaret has been on a quest for nothing less than the True Ark, which all of us here are aware of, I'm sure. I'll let Margaret make her announcement."
Meg stood up. She was dressed in a dark, expensive-looking pantsuit, her bright red hair up in a businesslike French twist. She was wearing cat's-eye librarian glasses around her neck on a velvet cord, an added touch that gave her a serious, no-nonsense look even though Holliday was fairly sure she didn't need them.
"As all of you know," she began, "the True Ark is a central component of the Rex Deus mythology, a reliquary or box containing the Holy Grail, the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Shroud, and the Ring of Christ. Some of you I'm sure think the ark really is just a myth; others follow the theory that the ark is contained within the much larger golden Reliquary of the Three Kings, now on the high altar of the Cathedral in Cologne in Germany, also thought to contain the bones of the three magi who brought the infant Christ their holy offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
"The more cynical among you may well believe that the True Ark and its journey to the New World is no more than a story, a hoax invented by Jonathan Edwards, the founder of our organization, represented at this very table by our sister in the order Jane Campbell Edwards, his descendant." She nodded toward the Big Tobacco CEO seated beside the florid- faced real estate tycoon with the extravagant hairpiece.
"The short answer is that all of you are wrong. I know this to a certainty because after a long and sometimes dangerous journey, I and my good friend and colleague Dr. John Holliday, lately a professor of military history at the National Military Academy at West Point, both located the True Ark and excavated it from its hiding place on Sable Island, buried almost seven hundred years ago by Sir Jean de Saint-Clair and the Blessed Juliana of Navarre, Abbess of the St. Agnes of Bohemia Convent and the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene in Prague. We did this in the face of an oncoming hurricane, I might add, but that's a story for another day." Here Meg paused for the appropriate chuckles and laughter.
Somewhere in the middle distance, muffled by the incessant driving rain, Holliday thought he heard the thrumming chug of a helicopter's rotors… a serious enough accident in Frankfort to require a medevac? Not really surprising considering the weather. He turned his attention back to Meg's suitably edited set piece about their adventures, combining her research into the Blessed Juliana and Holliday's interest in Jean de Saint-Clair.
At the end of her speech she raised her voice slightly and in a breathless tone announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the True Ark, at last returned to its rightful heirs and owners, the gathered Brothers and Sisters of Rex Deus, last remaining members of the Desposyni in America."
Someone must have had their ear to the door, or more likely the room was bugged, because at almost that instant two of Katherine Sinclair's dark-suited thugs brought in the ark, wrapped in a pale blue moving blanket, followed by a third man carrying the mini-torch and box cutter that Holliday had requested.
The three men set the box down in front of both Meg Sinclair and Holliday, then silently withdrew. Meg Sinclair pulled the quilted blanket off the box and tilted the entire lead-sheathed artifact toward the assembled people at the table.
Meg put on her scholarly eyeglasses. "As you can see," she said, "the ark is still sealed. The lid bears the ancient engrailed cross crest of the Saint-Clairs and the inscription in Greek that translates as In hoc signo vinces-By this you shall conquer-the motto of the Knights Templar."
She looked around the table. "We kept the lid sealed so all of you here could see the opening firsthand." She nodded in Holliday's direction and he dutifully stood up. With Meg Sinclair still standing at his side he picked up the mini-torch. It was a little BernzOmatic with a burner that looked like a miniature nozzle from a service station gas pump.
There was an automatic spark ignition in the little handle that he fitted between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. With his left hand he turned the tiny valve release knob to start the gas and squeezed the ignition trigger. He was rewarded by a hissing sound and an instant burst of bright blue flame.