Authors: Al Ruksenas
“
And from Aswan to America,” Caine thought. He was seeing a juncture between Alekseev’s narrative and his own discoveries.
“
Now that you have found the helicopter, I know Yuri Rudenko was betrayed. He was left behind at whatever secret place they were bound for.”
Caine imagined the poor wretch on the sacrificial altar in the cavern. A bloody bond for some hideous plan.
“
The flyers you are trying to identify are General Anatoli Lysenko and Colonel Nicholai Kuznetsov. Together with the two pilots, they were the only men found aboard. Yuri Rudenko should have been with them.”
Colonel Caine’s features froze at the name
Nicholai Kuznetsov
.
Warlock
! Dead in the desert for over half a century; dead in every instance that Senator Everett Dunne quoted him. Dunne the exclusive conduit for Warlock’s information. Dunne the disinformer. Dunne the traitor!
Caine’s mind raced over everything connected to Jeannie McConnell’s disappearance while the Russian spoke. Everything was suddenly clear.
“
My wife will rest easier, knowing what fate befell her brother. She can now pray for him in peace,” Alekseev said. “Because, now she believes in God. She promised me.”
He closed the hood and hurried to climb into his sedan. “I’m sorry about your car. I will make arrangements for repairs. Privately.”
Alekseev started the engine. “You must know one thing, Colonel. You are dealing with forces beyond physical science.”
Caine nodded slightly. He had heard that before.
“
Do something…For all our sake.”
Colonel Caine’s curious look prompted Alekseev to add: “If you cannot. No one else can.”
“
Now, why would that be?” Caine probed.
“
You
are
a member of an official secret group are you not? No holds barred? Omega?”
Oleg Alekseev backed up his car, made a quick maneuver around Caine’s roadster and merged into the flow of traffic.
Chapter 48
Caine cursed under his breath as he climbed into his roadster. He groped behind the seat for his blue flasher, put it on the dashboard and peeled away. He watched the sedan turn onto the Anacostia Freeway as he sped by. Getting to the hospital seemed more urgent than ever.
He was perturbed that the Russian knew so much secret information, but his anger was mixed with grudging professional admiration. Oleg Alekseev’s concern was about Yuri Rudenko. Colonel Caine’s became the revelation about Nicholai Kuznetsov.
There was only one way Senator Dunne could know about Nicholai Kuznetsov. Someone had told him. Someone who had been on the helicopter. Someone—whoever he was—before he became Victor Sherwyck!
A chill ran down Colonel Caine’s spine.
Senator Dunne for many years had filtered information through Warlock, the code name, he claimed, Kuznetsov insisted upon. “A sinister running joke,” Caine thought. Certainly propounded by the mastermind. ”Warlock—an in
‐
your
‐
face reference to a sorcerer. Warlock—someone in league with the devil,” Caine thought with a sheepish smirk.
But, Nicholai Kuznetsov, betrayed, had the last macabre laugh, Caine mused. A warning etched on the bulkhead of his tomb.
Senator Everett Dunne betrayed the rendezvous in the Mediterranean, so that he and Colonel Jones would not meet Mustafa Ali Hammad, the mercenary contact arranged by the Omega Group. The entire mission was based on Warlock’s lead as reported by Senator Dunne. Dunne knew that any response by Hammad—who flowed freely in lawless circles—would raise doubts about Middle East terrorists involved in Jeannie McConnell’s disappearance.
“
Wild goose chase!” thought Caine. Just as he had speculated to General Bradley earlier. While the Omega Group chased the usual terrorist suspects, critical links in the chain of nuclear command fell by the wayside. Freak, but innocent accidents. Coincidental events. But not so innocent with an overlay of the occult, which Colonel Caine and others had now witnessed with their own eyes.
All that the perpetrators needed was time. Time for the final and supreme accident, when their man took sudden control of the nuclear arsenal.
Another sacrifice was necessary to topple the President. A high value sacrifice for the ultimate target.
***
Weaving in traffic as his mind raced, he almost missed the left turn onto I Street. With tires squealing, he turned and sped ahead, then screeched right onto 23rd Street, stopping at the emergency entrance of George Washington University Hospital. He left the flasher on and hurried inside.
Caine bounded up stairs to the second floor and turned a corner into the Intensive Care Unit. No one said anything to the imposing, athletic man in the tan slacks and matching pleated shirt with epaulettes. He walked into a quiet, sterile room with an empty bed. He stood there reverently, staring at the taut sheet of linen over the bed. The woman from family counseling walked in.
“
Where’s Jonas Mitchell?” Caine demanded.
“
I’m sorry, he’s gone,” replied the woman.
“
Gone where?” he pressed, hoping not to hear expected words.
“
I’m sorry, sir. He expired.”
“
You mean, he’s dead,” Caine declared with rage welling in his chest.
“
I’m sorry.”
“
What about his niece, Laura?”
“
She said she had an appointment?”
“
Where.”
“
She said a museum,” the woman replied with a quizzical tone.
Caine pulled out his cell phone. The woman gave him a stern look and pointed to a picture on the wall with a red stripe across a cell phone.
Ignoring her he dialed Alvin Carruthers. The curator answered on the first ring.
“
Get to the Natural History Museum as fast as you can!”
“
I’m already here,” Carruthers answered. “I’m glad you called.” His voice sounded concerned. “Laura said to meet her here. She’s not here, but her car is.”
“
Stay where you are!”
“
Is something wrong?”
“
I’ll be right there.” Caine ended the call.
“
Sorry,” he said to the woman as he hurriedly brushed past her. “And thanks.”
In the parking lot, he jerked open the damaged trunk of his Viper and reached unerringly for a slim, black, rectangular case holding his Beretta. He removed the pistol and a tubular cylinder, then quickly threaded the silencer onto the barrel.
Street lights around the periphery of the hospital were beginning to shine in the growing dusk.
He jumped into his roadster, placed his pistol on the passenger seat, looked around for entering ambulances, and sped out of the Emergency lot.
***
Within ten minutes Alvin Carruthers could hear his roadster careening onto 12th Street from Constitution Avenue and saw him turn into the maintenance area of the museum.
“
She said her uncle died and to meet her here!” Carruthers said urgently as he ran up to the roadster.
“
He was murdered!” Caine replied emphatically and climbed out with his pistol in hand.
“
Murdered?” Carruthers exclaimed staring at the elongated pistol. “What’s this?”
“
Where’s Laura?”
“
Maybe someone let her in.”
Caine looked around and saw several vehicles parked near Laura’s. One of them backed up near the door was a dark green van that Caine was sure had his bullet hole in it.
“
Her uncle? Murdered?” Carruthers repeated incredulously.
“
Sorcery!”
“
What?”
“
She’s in danger. And no one inside now is a friend.”
“
What do you mean?”
“
What did you say at that reception about the unions and the night crews and the contracts and Victor Sherwyck interceding to let them supervise everything after hours. Job security, seniority and all that crap!”
“
Yes. It’s frustrating. I’m a curator and blind to what goes on for nine hours every night.”
“
Let’s get inside before it’s too dark.”
Carruthers hesitated for a thoughtful moment. “I see what you’re saying, Chris. I don’t have a key.”
“
The hoodlum guards will be showing up,” Caine said and started for the delivery door.
“
Is that who you fought with that night?”
“
I’m sure.”
At the door, Colonel Caine motioned his friend to stand behind him. Carruthers stepped back and adjusted the jacket of his tailored blue suit. Caine put his pistol to the lock and pulled the trigger. A sharp sound of metal against metal was all that resounded from the suppressed barrel. Caine tried the door. It jiggled, but did not open. He pointed the pistol between the edge of the door and the frame and fired again. This time the latch gave and Caine pulled the door open.
They slinked past the kitchen of the cafeteria and hurried to a curved stairway leading to the main floor of the rotunda. They climbed the stairs, along the wall, looking upward for any guards or workers.
They reached the top and hid behind a marble support for one of the portals into the main hall. There they faced the bull elephant in its perpetual stately pose on the African savannah.
“
Do you think they have Laura?” Carruthers whispered, surprised how his voice carried in the empty hall.
Caine nodded and indicated silence. But, too late. A uniformed guard, unseen on the opposite side of the raised diorama, looked towards them. A pistol was in his hand. The guard took aim in their direction.
Caine swung his Beretta upwards and holding it with both hands fired two muffled shots in quick succession under the elephant’s belly. The guard fell behind the diorama.
Caine and Carruthers bent low and rushed around the diorama. The guard lay motionless.
“
Behind that desk!” Carruthers urged. He grabbed the body by the jacket collar and started dragging him. Caine joined in. The information desk was at a portal entrance into an exhibit hall radiating from the circular rotunda.
“
Normal guards don’t shoot at visitors,” Caine observed as they shoved the body into the desk well.
“
This uniform ‘s not the museum’s,” Carruthers panted.
“
Take his pistol.”
Carruthers looked at this friend.
“
You were in the Army, weren’t you?” Caine said under his breath.
“
I spent my time in intelligence.”
“
You had basic training, didn’t you?”
“
Well. Yes. Twice, actually.”
Hurried footsteps echoed on the floor above. Someone leaned over the marble railing and peered below. Caine and Carruthers were huddled over the body behind the desk directly across from the man. Colonel Caine raised his eyes upward. He recognized him immediately—the ill
‐
tempered overseer he met at Sherwyck’s estate.
The man scanned the hall below, then hurried out of sight.
Carruthers grabbed the guard’s pistol. A bullet was already chambered, ready to fire. He nodded knowingly. “They mean business,” he whispered. “Whoever they are. We have to find Laura.”
The curator pointed to the second floor where the man had just been. “She was interested in that gem area. Around the Hope Diamond.”
Caine cursed himself for not investigating sooner the suspicions Laura had from the start.
Chapter 49
Victor Sherwyck, in fact, had been at the Smithsonian the night Colonel Caine wanted to meet him at the reception in the Old Castle. Except, he was across the Mall in the Museum of Natural History officiating at a demonic ritual.