The Nostradamus File (21 page)

Nick sighed. Elizabeth's intuition was
usually right on.

"What's your operational status?" Harker
asked.

"There's a bright moon tonight, but
weather says considerable cloud cover. We'll get in through the river gate, open up that cave and see what we find. There's minimum security at the castle. They don't need it. Once they lock up for the night, it's pretty hard to get in. That was the idea when they built it 900 years ago and nothing has changed. Won't be much of a problem for us, though."

"How's Lev working out?"

"Nothing's happened yet. I expect he'll be fine."

"The problems at home may distract him."

"I'll deal with it."

"All right, Nick. Brief me as soon as you know what's in that cave."

"Roger that."

CHAPTER FIFTY-
TWO

The
river was calm and black and smelled of green weeds and rushes and mud. A chorus of frogs croaked in chaotic rhythm in the night. The sky was clouded over, the moon a dull glow when it could be seen at all. It was a night that almost defined the words
black ops.

They'd
found a wide, flat-bottomed skiff, big enough to hold them and anything they might discover in the castle. They'd changed into black clothes. Ronnie carried a small pack with the things they needed.

Nick worked the oars, breaking
the surface of the river with quiet splashes. Selena watched the towering castle wall draw closer, a darker shape in the blackness of the night.

This is real
, she thought.
I'm about to sneak into a 12th Century castle in Britain to look for the Ark of the Covenant.
She felt the adrenaline rush begin, the excitement.

The boat grounded with a soft scrape at the bottom of the slope below Wogan Cavern. They scrambled out
. Nick pulled the skiff up out of the water. They climbed up to the gate leading into the cave and Ronnie took out his pouch of tricks. He bent to the lock. A minute later the gate swung open, the hinges making a brief, harsh noise in the night. 

Inside the cavern,
Nick turned on his light. The LEDs cast an intense, blue-white beam on the limestone walls. They glistened in the cold light. The cavern seemed vast in the darkness. It was silent except for the sound of their breathing and a slow drip of water.

They went to the spot they'd found the day before. Ronnie took a spray can from his pack.

"Better move back," he said. "Makes a lot of fumes."

Ronnie sprayed the contents of the can back and forth across the concealed opening and
stepped away. Thick, bitter smoke roiled off the surface. After five minutes, the reaction stopped.

"Now what?" Lev said.

For answer, Ronnie stepped forward. He kicked the wall. It fell inward, revealing a dark opening. A whiff of old, stale air pushed past them.

"Technology is a wonderful thing," he said. "Better living through chemistry."

"We don't have anything like that," Lev said. There was admiration in his voice.

They
bent low to enter. Inside, the roof was high enough to stand. Nick moved his light back and forth. The cave was about fifteen feet long and as wide again. Something gleamed white in the back corner. Nick played his light over it. It was a skeleton, wearing a leather tunic and boots and fragments of clothing. A long sword lay at its side. The skull had been cleaved open by a savage blow. The rest of the cave was empty except for rubble on the floor.

"Damn." Nick swore under his breath.

Selena felt a wave of disappointment. There was no Ark. No Templar treasure. Just old bones and debris.

"I wonder what happened to this guy?" Ronnie walked over to the bones. He picked up the sword, swung it across, back again. The blade was over three feet long. It made a thick, deadly sound as it cut through the air.

"Nasty. I wouldn't want to get cut with one of these."

"Can I see that, Ronnie?"

He handed the sword to Selena. She examined the hilt.

"This isn't a 13th Century sword," she said. "Look at the hilt. It's a basket hilt. See the rounded guard and the way the hilt is
pierced and sculpted? The earlier swords had wide, heavy blades meant for slashing. This one is narrow, made to thrust. This is from the 17th Century, maybe around the time of Cromwell. It's the right style."

Ronnie was no longer surprised at the things Selena knew.
"Who was Cromwell?" he asked.

"
A Protestant commander who defeated the Catholic Royalists in England's Civil War. He took over the rule of England. Cromwell is one of the most controversial figures in English history."

"Was he ever here, at Pembroke?"

"I don't know."

Selena played her light over the floor in the center of the cave.

"There was something heavy here," she said. "You can see where it made marks as it was dragged away. A chest, something like that."

"Could it have been the Ark?"

"Maybe. The Ark took four priests to carry it."

Her light caught something shiny on the floor. She bent down and picked it up.

"Gold," she said. "It's a small piece of thin gold. It could have come from the covering of the Ark."

"Looks like we're a few hundred years too late," Nick said. "Let's get out of here. Ronnie, take the sword with you. It's the only connection to whatever happened here."

They went back out to the cavern and through the gate. Nick closed it behind them. The next time someone went into Wogan Cavern, they were in for a surprise.

There was a sound
from the river that shouldn't have been there. A boot, scraping on rock.

They dropped flat to the sloping ground. Clothing whispered as they drew their pistols.

Then the night lit with the flash of guns.

Lying there on the steep slope under the castle walls with the whine of bullets passing overhead, Selena entered the zone.

Time turned into a slow motion dream. A light breeze off the water brought the dank, moist smell of the river and the rushes on the banks, mixed with the sharp odor of burnt gunpowder. She watched the bright, winking flashes of the guns below. She fired back at them, watched her pistol lift slowly with the recoil of each shot.

Ronnie lay next to her. She saw the slide on his pistol working back and forth, the empty cases drifting through the air, settling and bouncing around them. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized they were in a full blown firefight. The sound of the guns seemed far off, muffled. There was another sound. With a shock, she realized she was yelling, an inarticulate scream of primal rage and fear. It snapped the spell. Time sped up again.

They lay on the ground, facing down at the river, everyone firing. It sounded like someone had started World War Three.

Then it was over. They waited. Across the water a light came on in someone's house. Then another. There were no more shots from below. Nick risked a quick light. Crumpled shapes lay on the slope below. His beam landed on a boat drifting away from the shore. An arm draped over the edge trailed in the river current. The boat was beginning to settle as water poured through bullet holes in the side. Nick stood. The others got to their feet. All except Lev.

"Lev," Nick said. "Are you all right?"

He bent over the Israeli. Lev lay face down on the ground. The back of his skull was bloody. Brain matter oozed from the wound. Nick rolled him over. There was a large, open wound in his forehead. His eyes were open.

"Shit," Nick said. More lights were going on across the way. "Ronnie, Selena. Help me get him into the boat."

They carried Lev down to the boat. Ronnie ran back up, retrieved the sword and Lev's pistol and got in with the others. They pushed off from shore. Nick rowed hard, back to where they had parked by the river. Ronnie jumped out, waded to the bank and pulled the skiff in. They picked up Lev's body and put it in the back of the rental van. They got in and headed southeast, back toward England.

Nobody spoke. As Nick drove, he remembered Lev showing him the pictures of his wife and children.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

It was late at night in Washington. Elizabeth had just gotten home. She
took off her shoes and put her holstered pistol on the counter. She made a cup of chamomile tea and stood at the kitchen counter, thinking about another stressful day.

The sound of the doorbell jolted her. She looked at the monitor and saw a man in a dark suit
and tie standing outside. He wore an earpiece. Behind him, a black Lincoln idled in the street.

"Yes." She spoke into the intercom. The man held up an ID to the camera over the door.

"Secret Service, Director. The President would like to see you."

"One moment."

It was unusual for Rice to send a car unannounced. Good thing she hadn't undressed yet. She slipped her shoes back on. She clipped the holster back on her waist. She'd have to hand it over when she got to the White House, but she never went anywhere without it. Even at home, it was never far away.

This time of night, the drive to the White House didn't take very long. She got out at a side entrance. She handed over her gun and was given a visitor badge and followed an agent to the Oval Office.

President James Rice was seated behind his desk, writing something.

"Sir, Director Harker is here."

"Thank you, Bill. Come in, Director."

"Mister President."

"Take a seat, Director." Rice's manner was cool.
Still mad about Jordan,
she thought.
Maybe I'm here to get fired
. The President looked tired. He always looked tired these last months. Tonight he seemed even more so than usual. His skin had an unhealthy grayish tinge. The black that had been in his hair when he was first elected was completely gone. Rice had aged years since he'd taken office.

"Give me your assessment on Israel," he said. No pleasantries or small talk. Elizabeth gathered her thoughts.

"Sir, I believe Prime Minister Lerner is going to take harsh retaliatory action."

"Go on."

"Lerner loathes Weisner, but this attempted assassination has taken the lid off an old problem."

"You mean Hezbollah."

"Yes, sir. It's highly charged, in a political sense. With the election coming up, Lerner has to act. He can't just send in a strike against a few leaders. That only gets everyone worked up. If I'm reading the situation correctly, he will make an all out effort to remove Hezbollah once and for all."

"That would be unfortunate."

"Yes, sir."

Rice rose. Elizabeth started to get up but he waved her back into her chair. "Don't get up, Elizabeth."

Back to Elizabeth
. She breathed an inward sigh of relief. Rice's opinion mattered to her. It wasn't just that he was the Big Boss, or that she operated at his pleasure. She liked him. He had the worst job in the world.

Rice put his hands behind his back and began pacing back and forth. "The Secretary of State doesn't agree with you. She thinks Lerner will follow the usual pattern. Send in an air strike, kill a few militants and maybe some civilians and make the point that you can't
shoot at politicians in Israel and get away with it. Defense agrees with her. He says Hezbollah will retaliate with some suicide bombings, fire some rockets and that will be that."

"With all due respect, Mister President, I think they're wrong. Weisner now has at least a 50/50 chance of winning the election. He's got the conservative parties and all of the religious right behind him. Lerner's coalition is falling apart. It already was, or he wouldn't have called an early election like he did. The attack makes
it look like the Islamists think Weisner is a serious threat. That translates into votes. If Weisner is elected, any hope of a peace settlement goes out the window."

"And you think Lerner will get tough to prove he's not going to take it anymore."

"Yes, sir. The Israelis are also mobilizing along the West Bank. I think Lerner is going to go after Hamas at the same time. Hezbollah is Iran's major surrogate. Hamas is Sunni, but Iran likes the trouble they cause. If Israel neutralizes those groups it will set back Tehran's plans for an Islamic Middle East by years. They can't let that happen."

"I'm afraid I agree with you."

She paused. "There's something else I'm looking at."

"Yes?"

"I've received highly reliable intelligence from Israel about the shooter. He was nobody, a gofer in Hezbollah, the sort of person they use for menial tasks. Not very smart. It seems odd to me he would be given an important mission like that."

Rice stopped pacing and looked at her. "Are you saying you think this wasn't a genuine attempt? That the shooter was a patsy?"