Authors: Al Ruksenas
Victor Sherwyck stood up, ignoring the Senator’s dying gasps.
“
An unaccustomed setback,” he said serenely.
“
A permanent setback.”
“
No one dares tell me that!”
Never since Soviet agents had planted him in the United States at the command of the Old One through arrangements with Commissar Vladimir Dekanazov—a principal in the cursed cult—was he ever challenged or confronted.
Never in his steady climb in financial, social, and political circles did he ever sense a hint of impediment or failure. Never did anyone dare direct him, much less command him to do anything. Never did anyone dare threaten him.
“
You’ll pay for this!”
“
I’m sure, I will,” Caine said, hovering over the woman, adjusting the shirt on her and rattling one of the handcuffs.
“
I’m going to ask you one last time. Where’s the key?”
Victor Sherwyck slowly approached the gurney.
“
Keep your distance!” Caine hissed.
“
The key is in hell!” Sherwyck shouted and reached for the abandoned blade at her knees.
“
Back off!” Caine commanded as Sherwyck fumbled for the obsidian dagger.
“
I am invincible!” he declared raising it above the sacrifice to be.
Caine fired.
Victor Sherwyck collapsed onto the woman who jostled in terror to get him away. Caine pushed gruffly and he sank slowly to the floor, holding onto the edge of his demonic altar.
“
You’ll… pay… for this!” he wheezed, kneeling next to it with head bowed from draining life.
“
I’m sure, I will,” Caine murmured.
“
Legions…behind me…through ages…will avenge.”
“
I know,” Caine replied. “They’re next.”
Sherwyck lifted his head in defiance, stared at Caine with profound hatred and collapsed on his back.
“
Is he dead?” the woman asked fitfully.
“
He’s dead,” Colonel Caine answered cryptically. “For now.”
Chapter 51
Alvin Carruthers walked into the room from the storage area, followed by Colonel Garrison Jones. Both had pistols in their hands. They looked warily around, focusing on the velvet covered autopsy cart. They saw Colonel Caine comforting the woman, who was now wearing his tan campaign shirt and standing huddled next to him.
“
Jeannie McConnell, I presume,” Colonel Jones said perfunctorily.
“
Jeannie! Meet my friend, Colonel Garrison Jones. We were all very worried about you.”
Caine looked to the curator. “And that’s my friend, Al Carruthers. Where’s Laura? “
“
She’s not in the museum,” Carruthers answered. “We’ll find her.”
Caine was disheartened.
“
We’ll find her, Chris!” Carruthers insisted. “We’ll find her. Maybe someone picked her up. She does have her uncle’s arrangements to make. We can’t always think the worst.”
“
Do you believe that?”
“
Well…” Carruthers began. He looked at Jeannie.
“
Come here, sweetie,” he soothed changing the subject. He could see she was still trembling. “Let’s get some real clothes on you. We have a whole history back here to choose from. Then we’ll get you some medical attention.”
The curator put his arm consolingly around her and led her into the storage area.
“
Who are all these people?” Colonel Jones asked pointing his pistol around.
“
Some of the cream of Washington society.”
“
Gone sour?”
“
Long ago.”
“
We’ll find her, Chris. I’m sure.”
The image of the woman lying in the street in Beirut flashed across his mind. He was reaching out to her—a haunting resemblance to Laura Mitchell—a face that destined him to meet the alluring professor—a professor who ignited his burning love for her. Was she now, too, beyond his reach?
“
The General said I might find you here.”
Caine looked at him.
“
You were supposed to report.”
“
I was on my way.”
“
I can see,” Jones said nodding at the bodies strewn around the room. “He called me back from Egypt as soon as I told him what we found. He figured you’d be takin’ a detour to the Pentagon.”
Colonel Jones stepped among the velvet robed bodies, reminiscent of the monks in the cavern. “My, my, my. Some fancy names. What do we have here—ten, twelve people? Not counting your guard downstairs and our few outside the door.”
He looked back at his friend. “We thought you were in real trouble when we heard the gunshots in here. Al said you had a silencer on your piece.”
“
This deserved louder attention.”
“
I imagine,” Jones agreed. “But how far can it carry?”
***
With their sidearms drawn, Colonel Caine and Colonel Jones escorted Al Carruthers and Jeannie McConnell to the service area.
Unmarked official looking sedans and several coroner’s vans were parked in the lot. Forensic technicians were examining Laura Mitchell’s car and the dark green van with Caine’s bullet hole in the rear panel.
“
We’ll keep looking around here,” Colonel Jones said. “Question some detained workers.”
“
I’m heading back to the hospital,” Caine said. “Maybe there’s something there.”
“
General Bradley’s office tomorrow, Chris. That was his order.”
Caine nodded, thanked Carruthers, hugged Jeannie McConnell, and hurried to his roadster.
***
Driving west on Constitution Avenue in the glow of evening lights, he noticed one pair of headlamps in his mirror that were immediately suspect. He saw the lights glow brighter and dimmer as they weaved in traffic and soon were right behind him. The gap between his Viper and the car behind him was closing. He was ready to accelerate, but evening traffic boxed all lanes.
Inside the trailing car, Oleg Alekseev looked to his driver. The driver looked back—anticipating. Alekseev nodded approval. The driver accelerated.
“
Hold on!” Alekseev cautioned.
Caine saw in his mirror the beams switch to high. He braced himself and readied for another impact.
Seconds later Alekseev’s sedan banged into the rear of Caine’s Viper.
Alekseev was already at the side of the sedan when Caine jumped out and started for him.
“
I’m sorry, Colonel! Truly sorry!” Alekseev said loudly above the din of traffic slowing and them moving around them amid the sound of several horns. “There has to be a better way for us to meet!”
Before Caine could react, Alekseev motioned towards the opening rear door of his sedan. Out bounded Laura Mitchell and ran towards him with open arms.
“
Chris! Chris! Chris!” she said as he enfolded her in a crushing embrace.
Behind her two muscular men in dark suits, had climbed out the back seat and began guiding traffic around the vehicles.
“
What the—!” He began in Alekseev’s direction only to be cut off by Laura.
“
It’s okay, Chris! It’s okay!” she assured breathlessly. “Alekseev explained everything! I was scared at first, then I was mad as a banshee, but he explained everything!”
The three of them walked across a lane of traffic to the sidewalk.
“
I’m sorry, Colonel. I know we caused you distress. But it was to save her life.”
“
Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he challenged with a seething voice.
“
We had to make sure you followed your suspicions—that she was kidnapped.”
“
She
was
kidnapped!” Caine snapped.
“
A minor inconvenience, Colonel. In the face of profound threats. We had to make sure you went into the museum.”
“
I
was
going to the museum.”
“
We didn’t know, Colonel. I regret. We have heard stories like your charming friend has. I must admit we had followed her now and then.”
“
Because of her uncle,” Caine declared.
“
Because of her uncle,” the Russian diplomat and spymaster admitted. “I extend my condolences to both of you for his loss. We are very much attuned to telling events that do not seem to have a natural explanation.”
Laura hugged Caine closely and shivered at the thought of her uncle alone in his office with a wayward cat creeping inside.
“
When we realized the conjuncture of various legends and events—including diabolical conspiracies in our former Soviet state, we knew someone had to act,” Alekseev explained. He looked at Caine and said straightforwardly. “As you know, Colonel we are guests in your country. We cannot act on our own—even if we perceive it for our mutual good.”
Caine said nothing, but grudgingly understood.
“
And as you know, Colonel,” Alekseev said with a wry smile. “Our reporting something like this to your government would cause immediate suspicion as an outrageous provocation.”
Caine knew. His own implications were treated warily, even dismissively when he broached the occult in their investigation.
“
You had to do this yourself, Colonel.”
Laura Mitchell could only imagine what Caine had done, but she knew it would provide for the closing chapter of her uncle’s quest. Tears of relieved emotions flowed down her cheeks as she quietly hugged the man she had grown to love.
“
I’m truly sorry about your car, Colonel. I’ll arrange for repairs. Privately, of course.”
Caine looked at him in exasperation mixed with diminishing fury over Laura.
“
We have not been formally introduced. And these repairs may get expensive,” Alekseev added above the din of increasingly congested traffic around their vehicles.
“
I must go,” he continued. His companions were moving their sedan into traffic. “I expect we’ll meet again.”
Alekseev looked both ways and stepped into the street saying offhandedly: “I’m pursuing diplomatic channels.”
Chapter 52
“
I hear there was more gunplay at the Smithsonian last night,” General Bradley said.
Colonel Caine and Colonel Jones, dressed in their blue service uniforms, had just settled into the leather sofa opposite his desk at the Pentagon.
The General was leaning back in his chair, elbows on the armrests and tapping his fingertips together in contemplation.
“
Let’s see—what with a ranking U.S. Senator, a Secretary of Defense designate, an esteemed presidential adviser, the manager of his Virginia estate, two multi
‐
millionaire socialites—a husband and wife, no less—a couple of Smithsonian guards and employees.”
He looked at the two officers.
“
I’d say ‘carnage’ is the word.”
“
Yes, sir,” Colonel Caine volunteered.
“
You were going to just talk with Sherwyck. Do I understand that right?”
“
Well, sir,” Caine began. “In a word—all hell broke loose.”
The General squinted at him past his tapping fingers.
“
We’re not practicing puns here, Colonel.”
“
No, sir. I’m quite serious.”
“
Chasing demons?”
“
No, sir. Real people acting in their name.”
“
Well gentlemen,” General Bradley declared leaning forward and stretching his hands on his desk, “All I know is that we have more than a dozen bodies strewn about a couple of floors of the Natural History Museum and how are we going to explain it?”