Alex Lukeman - The Cup

"What do you think?" Nick asked.

"Doesn't look like he's home," Lamont said.

"Maybe he went to bed," Selena said.

Nick looked at his watch. "Pretty early for bed."

They got out of the car and hurried to the porch. Nick tried the handle on the door. It was locked.

"Do your thing, Ronnie."

Ronnie reached for his lock picks and bent over the lock. In seconds the door was open. They slipped inside and shut the door behind them.

They were in an entry hall. Everything was dark. Flashlights clicked on.

"What's that smell?" Selena said. "Like the toilet overflowed."

"Something's wrong here," Nick said.

He reached for his pistol, a move born of long practice. The gun that should have been there was back in Virginia.

They followed the smell to the first room off the hall. Bergstrom lay sprawled on the floor by an overturned chair. A second man lay back in a chair, his mouth open. Dead eyes stared at the ceiling. The stench of blood and feces was overwhelming.

"Whew," Lamont said.

Nick's foot knocked against a vodka bottle on the floor. It rolled away toward the wall.

Ronnie shone his light on the bodies.

"Shot. Two or three times each. Someone wanted to make sure."

Nick scratched his ear. "One of these guys must be Bergstrom."

Lamont bent down over the man on the floor and extracted a wallet.

"This one is Bergstrom."

"Okay. Keep going through their pockets and see what you can find. We'll search the house. Pull the drapes over the windows and turn on a light. Anyone sees, they won’t think anything of it."

"What are we looking for?" Ronnie asked.

"Something to give us an idea of who wanted Bergstrom dead. Anything about those artifacts or a connection to Hussein. Ten minutes, then we're gone."

They started through the house. Nick went into the kitchen. Ronnie took a bedroom. Selena went into what looked like a study. The drapes were closed. There was a desk near the wall and a large closet with louvered doors. Some of the drawers were open, others closed. Papers were scattered on the floor. It looked as if someone had been searching for something and been interrupted.

Selena felt the hair move on the back of her neck.

There's someone here!

The closet doors flew open and a dark shape lunged at her.

She didn't have time to think, but the instant of recognition that she was not alone triggered an adrenaline rush. Years of martial arts training kicked in. The attacker barreled into her.

She met the rush with a half turn and grabbed the front of his coat, pulling him past and leaning into him with her hip. Momentum sent him flying across the room. She went for him, aiming a kick at his head. He was fast, and the kick barely grazed his face. He rolled and came up on his feet with a pistol in his hand and fired.

Selena felt the round burn across her hip. She kicked the gun from his hand and kicked him again in the groin, as hard as she could. He grunted and doubled over. She spun and aimed another kick at his head. This time she didn't miss. He went down like a rock and stopped moving.

Nick ran into the room, looking charged. Ronnie and Lamont were in the hall behind him.

"What happened?" He shone his light down at the man on the floor.

"He was hiding in the closet," Selena said. "I recognize him. His name's Gabriel. He was the translator for Hussein at the refugee center."

"Forsberg is going to love this." Nick looked at Selena. "You're bleeding."

Selena looked down. The bullet had ripped through her jeans along the side of her hip. Blood stained the dark cloth. She started to come down from the adrenaline rush and the wound began throbbing.

"It's only a scratch." She fingered the tear. "Damn. I just bought these before we left."

Nick bent down and laid his fingers against Gabriel's throat. His breathing was harsh, ragged.

"He's still alive, but you put a big dent in the side of his skull."

Ronnie left the room. After a minute he came back with tape and gauze and handed them to Selena.

"Found these in the bathroom."

"Thanks."

"Need help bandaging that up?" Nick asked.

"No, I can do it. It's not serious."

"Ronnie, Lamont, keep checking the rest of the house. I'll start here."

They left the room. Selena unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down. The bullet had just missed her hip. Two inches lower and she would have been on her way to a hospital with a smashed pelvis and a traumatic wound. As it was, it had dug a bloody groove in her side. She'd be left with another scar for her growing collection. While she improvised a bandage, Nick looked in the closet where the attacker had been hiding.

"There's a safe in here."

He called Ronnie back into the room.

Nick showed him the safe. It was a newer model, about three feet high and two wide.

"It's got a biometric lock," Ronnie said. "Let's get Bergstrom to give us a hand. He won't mind."

They went back to the living room and dragged Bergstrom's body down the hall and over to the closet. Nick took the dead man's hand and tried fingers over the scanner until the tumblers unlocked with a quiet sound.

There were two passports on the top shelf. One was Swedish, in Bergstrom's name. One was German. It had Bergstrom's picture but was in a different name. There was a thick packet of Swedish kroner, next to a Walther P-38. Nick held up the gun.

"You don't see these much, anymore."

"Good pistol. Not his service weapon," Ronnie said.

Lamont came into the room.

"Nothing I could see in the rest of the house," he said.

Selena had finished with the improvised bandage. She looked over Nick's shoulder where he knelt in front of the safe.

Selena pointed at an object in the corner of the safe. "What's that?"

Nick took out a ceramic tile about a foot long. Brilliantly colored pieces of stone formed the image of a man in a long, black robe with a full beard against a white background. He wore a square black cap. In his right hand, he held a wine cup. Three rays of light came out of it. His left hand was at his side, the index finger pointed down at the ground. A set of keys hung from a rope tied around his waist.

Below the figure were two lines written in Latin.

Anastaisu confessoris ad imperatorem Theodosium

Solus justus et inveniam Illum

"Looks old," Lamont said. "Must be something Hussein smuggled in."

Nick stood and handed the tile to Selena.

"The style of mosaic looks typical for something done in the fourth or fifth century," she said.

"What does the Latin say?"

"The first line says, 'Anastasius, confessor to the Emperor Theodosius.'"

"And the second line?" Nick asked.

"That says, 'Only a just man shall find him.'"

"Find who?"

"It was probably an injunction to seek Christ." Then she said, "Oh."

"Oh?" Nick said. "Why, oh?"

"Look at the rays of light coming out of the cup. The priest is carrying the Holy Grail."

"The Grail again?"

"It can't be a coincidence, when you combine it with those scrolls. This could be a clue to what happened to the Grail. That would make it worth killing for."

Ronnie said, "ISIS must have found out about the box with the scrolls and now they're looking for it. That would explain who killed these guys."

"How would they find out?" Lamont asked.

"Someone had to tell them," Nick said. "The only people who know about the scrolls except us are Swedish. There must be another bad cop in the mix somewhere. Or someone in the government."

"Forsberg?"

"I don't think so, but I don't know. We'll keep our suspicions to ourselves for now."

Nick took a handful of papers from the safe and handed them to her.

"What do these say?"

She looked through them.