“No need to say how foolish this is.”
“You always wanted to know what I did for a living, and I never could tell you. Top secret, and all that crap. Time to find out.”
“I liked it better when I didn’t know.”
“I don’t believe that. I remember how aggravated you’d get.”
“At least I didn’t have any bullet wounds.”
He smiled. “Your rite of passage.” Then he motioned her forward. “After you.”
SABRE WATCHED AS THE SHADOWY FORMS OF COTTON MALONE and his ex-wife merged with the trees behind Bainbridge Hall. Malone had come straight to Oxfordshire. Good. Everything hinged on his curiosity. His operative had also done her job. She’d hired the three extra men he’d requested and delivered him a weapon.
He drew a few long breaths and welcomed the brisk night air, then removed the Sig Sauer from his jacket pocket.
Time to meet Cotton Malone.
MALONE APPROACHED THE OPEN REAR DOOR, STAYING TO ONE side, embracing the shadows, and peered inside.
The room beyond was an elaborate parlor. Shimmering light cascaded from the vaulted ceiling, illuminating gilded furniture and paneled walls livened by tapestries and paintings. No one was in sight, but he heard the whine of a floor polisher and the blare of a radio from beyond the archways.
He motioned and they entered.
He knew nothing of the house’s geography, but a placard told him he was in the Apollo Room. He recalled what Haddad had written. In the drawing room of Bainbridge Hall is more of Bainbridge’s arrogance. Its title is particularly reflective. The Epiphany of St. Jerome. Fascinating and fitting, as great quests often begin with an epiphany.
So they needed to find the drawing room.
He led Pam to one of the exits that opened into a foyer possessing the majestic lines of a cathedral transept, arches eloquently stacked atop one another. Interesting, the abrupt change in style and architecture. Less light softened the outlines of the furniture into gray shadows. Within one of the arches he spotted a bust.
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.”
THIRTY-FIVE
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.”