C. Palov - Templar's Code

And a perfect diversion. At least a hundred people giving uninhibited expression to their inner child. No one would pay him and Edie any mind as they traipsed through the park and peered under statuary and stone.

Needing to focus his thoughts, he turned his back on the drum circle. “Tell me everything that you know about the layout and design of Meridian Hill Park.” Not only did Edie hail from Washington, but she also lived a mere eight blocks away.

His companion immediately stopped swaying. Assuming the classic tour guide pose, right arm raised to point out places of interest, she said, “Basically, it’s two separate parks. We’re currently standing on the upper level, which, as you can see, is a flat escarpment with lots of trees, benches, and walkways. Very French. Think Tuileries in Paris.” Arm still raised, she gestured to the right. “This way, please.”

He walked with Edie to the edge of the escarpment. Bordered by a sturdy balustrade, it afforded one a magnificent view of the city below, the white dome of the Capitol and the skyscrapers of K Street visible from where they stood.

“From here, you can view the lower terrace of the park, which is set into a tiered hillside,” Edie said, still in tour guide mode. “Of special interest is the cascading fountain flanked on either side by wide steps with a long reflecting pool in the plaza below. Very Italian. Think Villa Medici.” Falling out of character, Edie chuckled. “All in all, very schizophrenic. Although oddly enough, it works.”

Caedmon’s attention was drawn to the oversized concrete bowls of water set into the hillside, each one positioned beneath the other. As one basin filled, it overflowed into the one beneath it. And so on and so on. All the way down the hillside. Thirteen basins of cascading water that flowed into the glassy reflecting pool at the bottom.

Thirteen.

“I’m guessing the basins represent the original thirteen colonies,” Edie remarked, having intuited the direction of his thoughts.

“For me, it harkens to that most infamous date in medieval history, October 13, 1307. The day that the royal arrest warrants were issued for the Knights Templar.”

Edie playfully slapped her forehead. “Silly me! I should have guessed.” Resuming the tour, she gestured to the eastern side of the tiered hillside. “To the left of the cascade fountain, there’s a path that meanders through a lovely grove with a full-length statue of Dante in the clearing. A sacro bosso, as they say in the old country. And at the bottom of the hill, across from the reflecting pool, there’s a seated marble statue of President James Buchanan. Don’t ask me why.”

Caedmon hitched a hip onto the balustrade. As he did, he was taken aback by what he saw in the so-called Tuileries section of the park. “Good Lord, is that an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc?”

“Keeping a vigilant eye over the city below. A gift from the women of France to the women of America. Girl power at its best. Although as you can see, somebody stole her thunder.”

He assumed that Edie referred to the fact that the armored saint was missing the requisite sword, her right arm held aloft, leading the charge against the English army with nothing but thin air.

“If there is a signpost hidden among all of these bronze and marble tchotchkes, it was put here by a later generation of the Triad.”

“Mmmm . . .” He didn’t want to consider the possibility that the granite meridian pier, removed decades ago to make way for the park construction, may have been the signpost they sought.

Edie clapped her hands together. “So, where do we begin?”

Folding his arms over his chest, a general previewing the parade ground, Caedmon glanced at the female saint astride a horse, the oversized urns, the bubbling fountains, the sacro bosso . “Safe to say that the signpost will not be in plain sight. At the first vertex of our triangle, we discovered Thoth. At the second, an obelisk. Yet here, at the third and final vertex, someone went to great lengths to re-create a European pleasure garden.” Purposefully confounding the hunt.

“Well, we know that Thoth was missing his two attributes, the was and the ankh. Since we suspect a reference to the was inscribed on the Jefferson Pier, perhaps we need to search for the other attribute.”

“Possibly.” He recalled the anagram that the original Triad members had cleverly concealed within their Great Seal motto, the meaning of which was still unclear. “Or perhaps an All-Seeing Eye. It has been popping up with annoying frequency.” Stepping away from the balustrade, he slowly turned full circle. “I say, the park is much larger than I expected.”

“Twelve acres of statuary, fountains, urns, and ferns.” For the first time since entering the park, Edie’s perky optimism dimmed as evidenced by the incised lines that suddenly appeared between her brows. “Yeah, I know, a Herculean task.”

CHAPTER 75

Saviour tugged on the baseball cap bill, pulling it lower, obscuring his features. That done, he turned to the muscular Jamaican beside him. Together they swayed and bobbed to the hypnotic percussion beat. Nearly a hundred bystanders swayed and bobbed along with them.

Without a doubt, Meridian Hill was a mystical and magical place.

Utterly seduced by the pulse of the drums and the teeming bodies that moved as one glorious, undulating beast, Saviour put a hand on the other man’s shoulder to steady himself. Afraid his legs might actually collapse beneath him. Both sensual and martial, this was the rhythm of the sex act fused to the soldiers’ call to arms.

He glanced at the nearby statue of an armored woman astride a bronze horse, charging into battle. Arm raised, leg muscles clenched. Exuberantly riding into the face of danger.

The Brit liked to court danger. To charge into battle. That’s why Mercurius wanted Aisquith to take all the risk in this hunt. Let the Brit do all the tedious legwork and backbreaking exertion. Saviour was simply to follow in the Brit’s shadow and collect the prize. Then, when the Brit and his woman no longer served a purpose, they would find themselves faced with a danger they could not escape.

As Saviour moved his body to the rhythmic percussion, he felt the sexual energy move up his spine, the pulsating beat animating his entire body. His entire being. The fierce pounding created a jubilant, primal sound that had but one purpose—to incite a man’s bloodlust.

Exhilarated, he smiled at the dark-skinned man in front of him.

Returning the smile, the swaying Jamaican grasped him by the wrist. “See di blood, mon?” He raised Saviour’s hand a few inches to show him the crimson smear on the base of his thumb. Ranger Walker’s blood. “Me think yah a hot stepper.”

Excited by the contact, Saviour glanced at the red smudge. “A hot stepper? What is that?”

“Yah is a bad boy, I think.”

Hearing that, he envisioned Ranger Walker propped against the Jefferson Pier, stabbed straight through the heart. A similar fate awaited the Brit and his woman. Soon enough he would have their blood on his hands.

Saviour stepped closer to the Jamaican. “Yes . . . I’m very bad.”

CHAPTER 76

“Okay, here’s the plan.” Exhausted, Edie slumped against the balustrade before continuing. “We come back in the morning, when we’re rested , and search the park with fresh eyes, full bellies, and maybe even a metal detector. There’s a place in town that rents them by the day.” Having read every inscription on every statue, examined the fountains at close wet range, and walked the entire circumference of the park three times, they hadn’t found anything even remotely promising.