Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

He crept across the marble floor, careful with his rubber soles, and discovered the likeness of Thomas Bainbridge. The middle-aged face was replete with furrows and curves, the jaw clenched, the nose beaklike, the eyes cold and squinty. From what he’d read in Haddad’s notes, Bainbridge was apparently a learned man of science and literature, as well as a collector-acquiring art, books, and sculptures with a calculated judgment. He’d also been an adventurer, traveling to Arabia and the Middle East at a time when both places were as familiar to the West as the moon.

“Cotton,” Pam said in a low voice.

He turned. She’d drifted to a table where brochures were stacked. “Layout of the house.”

He stepped close and grabbed one from the pile. Quickly he found a room labeled DRAWING. He oriented himself. “That way.”

The floor polisher and radio continued to duel upstairs.

They departed the dim foyer and wound their way through wide corridors until they entered a lit hall.

“Wow,” Pam said.

He, too, was impressed. The grand space was reminiscent of the vestibule to a Roman emperor’s palace. Another startling contrast to the rest of the house.

“This place is like Epcot,” he said. “Each room’s a different time and country.”

A chandelier’s rich glow illuminated white marble stairs, lined down the center with a deep maroon runner. The risers led straight up to a peristyle of fluted Ionic columns. Twists and curls of black iron railing linked the pink marble columns. Niches on both floors framed busts and statues as if in a museum gallery. He glanced up. The ceiling would not have been out of place inside St. Paul’s Cathedral.

He shook his head.

Nothing about the manor’s exterior hinted at such opulence.

“The drawing room is up those stairs,” he said.

“I feel like we’re going to meet the queen,” Pam said.

They followed the elegant runner up the unrailed risers. Paneled double doors at the top opened into a darkened room. He flicked a switch and another chandelier, fashioned from animal tusks, burned bright, displaying a crowded salon, worn and comfortable, the walls hung with velvet the color of pea soup.

“Wouldn’t have expected much less,” he said, “after that entranceway.”

He closed the doors.

“What are we looking for?” Pam asked.

He studied the wall paintings, most portraits of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century figures. No one he recognized. Maple bookcases stood in rows below the portraits. His bibliophile’s eye quickly noticed that the volumes were innocuous, only for show, with no historical or literary value. Bronze busts topped the cases. Again, no familiar image.

“The Epiphany of St. Jerome,” he said. “Maybe one of those portraits.”

Pam rounded the room, studying each image. He counted them. Fourteen. Most were of women, elaborately dressed, or men adorned in wigs and flowing robes common three hundred years ago. Two sofas and four chairs formed a U before a stone hearth. He imagined this was where Thomas Bainbridge may have spent a lot of time.

“None of these,” Pam said, “has anything to do with a St. Jerome.”

He was puzzled. “George said it was here.”

“Maybe so. But it’s not now.”

WASHINGTON, DC

STEPHANIE STARED AT BRENT GREEN AND HER IMPASSIVE EXPRESSION gave way to a look of astonishment. “Thorvaldsen told you to call off my backup? How do you even know the man?”

“I know a great many people.” He motioned to his bindings. “Though at the moment I find myself at your mercy.”

“Calling off her protection was foolish,” Cassiopeia said. “What if I hadn’t been there?”

“Henrik said you were, and that you could handle things.”

Stephanie worked to control her rage. “It was my ass.”

“Which you so foolishly placed on the line.”

“I had no idea Dixon was going to attack me.”

“Which is my point exactly. You’re not thinking.” Green again motioned with his head at his bindings. “This is another example of foolishness. Contrary to what you might think, a security detail will check in here shortly. They always do. I may crave my privacy but, unlike you, I’m not reckless.”

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Why are you in this? Are you working with Daley? Was all that earlier between you and him just a dog-and-pony show for my benefit?”

“I have neither the time nor the patience for dog-and-pony shows.”

Stephanie was not impressed. “I’ve had my fill of lies. Malone’s boy was taken because of me. Cotton is in London right now with an Israeli assassination squad. I can’t find him, so I can’t warn him. George Haddad’s life may be at stake. Then I learn that my boss leaves me bare-ass to the wind, knowing the Saudis want to kill me? What am I supposed to think?”

“That your friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen, thought enough to send you help. That your other friend, me, decided the help needed to work alone. How about that? Make sense?”

She considered his words.

“And one other thing,” Green said.

She glared at him.

“This friend particularly cares what happens to you.”

MALONE WAS ANNOYED. HE’D COME TO BAINBRIDGE HALL hoping for answers. Haddad’s notes had pointed them straight here. Yet nothing.

“Maybe there’s another drawing room?” Pam said.

But he checked the brochure and determined that this was the only space so labeled. What was he missing? Then he spotted something. Adjacent to one of the window alcoves, where elaborate stained-glass panes waited for the morning sun, a section of wall shone bare. Portraits filled every other available space. But not there. And the faint outline of a rectangle loomed clear on the wall covering.

He hurried to the bare spot. “One’s gone.”

“Cotton, I’m not trying to be difficult, but this could have been a wild goose chase.”

He shook his head. “George wanted us here.”

He paced the room in thought and realized they couldn’t linger. One of the cleaning crew might come this way. Though he carried Haddad’s and String Bean’s guns, he didn’t want to use either.

Pam was examining the tables that backed the two sofas. Books and magazines were decoratively stacked amid sculptures and potted plants. She was studying one of the small bronzes-an older man, his skin wizened, his body muscular, dressed in a waist cloth. The figure was perched on a rock, his bearded face concentrating on a book.

“You need to see this,” she said.

He approached and saw what was etched at the statue’s base.

ST. JEROME

DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

He’d been so busy trying to find complicated pieces that the obvious had escaped him. Pam motioned to a book just beneath the sculpture.

“The Epiphany of St. Jerome,” she said.

He examined the spine. “Good eye.”

She smiled. “I can be useful.”

He gripped the heavy bronze and lifted. “So be useful and grab the book.”

STEPHANIE WASN’T SURE HOW TO TAKE BRENT GREEN’S REMARK. “What do you mean? This particular friend?”

“It’s a bit difficult to discuss at the moment.”

And she spotted something curious in Green’s eyes. Anxiety. For five years he had been the administration’s bulldog in many a battle with Congress, the press, and special-interest groups. He was a consummate pro. A lawyer who pleaded the administration’s case on a national stage. But he was also deeply religious and, to her knowledge, never even a hint of scandal had been attached to his name.

“Let’s just say,” Green said in a half whisper, “that I wouldn’t have wanted the Saudis to kill you.”

“Not a great comfort to me at the moment.”