Eagle ascending, p.12
Eagle Ascending, page 12
“Hardly,” Grimm said. “I’ve brought an inspection camera, a thermal imaging camera, and a 3D stud finder, and they’re all telling me the same thing: there isn’t any secret passage, nook, or cranny, in this room. And there’s no secret messages lurking behind the picture frames either; I’ve looked. Which leads me to conclude that the malodorous Memphis Hotel is not going to offer us any clues in our quest.”
“Still, it was a good idea to visit,” Krueger said, pointing to the inspirational view. So much blood had been spilt in these lands, and yet there was a beauty that endured here, a beauty that had drawn people in spite of the promise of revolutions and upheavals. The ancient desert and the glories it held had stolen the hearts of men from each faith and none.
Grimm joined Krueger on the balcony, and soon his eyes were shining with awe. “Yes,” he said, “yes it was.” He finished his cigarette, crushed the filter on the floor, then picked it up and placed it in his cigarette holder, where it joined several others.
“I’m sure you can leave that on the floor, pal,” Krueger said. “Even a place like this has room service.”
“Oh, of that I’m certain,” Grimm replied absently, “but I always like to pick up after myself. We spoiled rich have a bad enough reputation as it is.”
“Speaking of reputations,” Krueger said, “it’s about time I tried to salvage mine. How’s about you enjoy another smoke on the balcony, Doctor? I’ve got to go inside and make a call.”
Grimm nodded his acceptance, and Krueger entered the room. He asked Brandt for some privacy, and she joined her old friend out on the balcony, closing the door behind her.
It was past five in New York when Krueger made his call, the middle of rush hour, but he knew Lucille Hawtrey would still be at her desk. That’s how it worked with professionals like her: they gave their all, every waking moment, till the bad guy was either in handcuffs or a body bag. Sure enough, when he reached the switchboard at the FBI Field Officer and asked to be put through to Jean Dupree, the sprightly assistant picked up on the first ring.
“I need to speak with Special Agent Lucille Hawtrey,” Krueger said.
As a grand marshal in the savage combat that is fending off pesky callers, Jean was used to hanging up on people who had no business speaking with her boss. But the hardness of the voice, the swiftness and precision of the request, led her to ask, “And how do you know she is still in the office?”
“Because that’s where I would be if I were in her shoes,” Krueger replied. “Tell her this is Detective Joe Krueger. Trust me, she’ll take my call.” Jean forwarded the call, looking nervously at the door to Hawtrey’s office. It had been closed since before lunch, and Jean hadn’t seen her boss since then.
“Put it through,” Hawtrey said with a ragged voice. She wore a crumpled black pant suit, and an untouched glass of Maker’s Mark, generously poured, sat on a sheaf of papers next to her.
“Detective Krueger,” Hawtrey said to the sound of deep breathing coming from her phone.
“I imagine you’d like to slap me right about now,” Krueger said.
“I would if I weren’t so busy,” she replied curtly. “And I’m not sure much good can come from this conversation. It’s too late for explanations. Your time would be better spent speaking to your lawyer about what you’re prepared to accept as a plea when we haul you before a disciplinary court.”
“I’m going to take my lumps,” Krueger said defiantly. “And you’ll soon see me in that courtroom. But first I want to explain what I’ve found. It may help with the case.”
Hawtrey sighed. Before her were hundreds of data files, report sheets, and assorted miscellany that together formed a chorus line, mocking her for her failure to land the scum who’d bombed New York and Portland. But Krueger offered a brief respite from their taunting.
“Tell me everything,” Hawtrey said.
Krueger did exactly as he was told.
“You are still in serious trouble,” Hawtrey said, finally. Hastily drawn notes, taken with a blunt pencil, littered the table around her. What started as an occasional jot had turned into reams of scraggy paragraphs as Krueger’s tale had turned more violent, and more confusing.
“That’s what I figured. It’ll probably mean the end of my career in Narcotics, perhaps even the force, but I need you to know I did it for the right reasons.”
“Many of the greatest errors in history were made for the right reasons,” Hawtrey said. “But if it’s any consolation, I did some checking on your while you were gone. You’ve got a good record, Detective, lots to be proud of in that resume of yours. You may yet get through this.”
“Thank you, Agent Hawtrey,” Krueger said with newfound respect.
“Are you in need of assistance?” Hawtrey asked. She was still angry at what she perceived to be Krueger’s dereliction of his post, but, like so many in the law enforcement community, she had an unbreakable desire to help the good guys when they were in distress.
“Perhaps,” Krueger said. “The moment I’ve finished up in Cairo, I plan to head home, and you can put me in chains the moment I touch down. In the meantime, is there a way you could arrange for my grandfather’s body to be exhumed? If we could check to see who is in that grave of his, it sure would go a long way to proving the truthfulness of his last letter.”
“I’ll get it done,” Hawtrey said, making a note using her worn-down pencil. “Anything else?”
“I’d appreciate an update on the case,” Krueger said.
“We’ve had over four-thousand tip-offs since we released that image of the suspect to the media. Each and every one of them was a bust. Even worse is the fact I’ve had the NGI database audited–twice–and it still confirms that the suspect seen in New York is most likely General Krueger.”
“Urgh,” Krueger said in response, as if he were severely nauseous.
“Our working theory is that the suspect used heavy make-up around his nose and ears, either with the intention of resembling General Krueger—or through sheer coincidence.”
“That’s awfully thin, ma’am,” Krueger said.
“That’s because it is,” Hawtrey confessed. “But there’s worse. A blog run by the Montana Freemen was posted late last night, claiming that the bomber was General Krueger. It mentions the possibility that he found the True Cross in Syria during World War II and was bestowed with eternal life.”
“Who are the Montana Freemen?” Krueger asked.
“Neo-Nazi militia operating out of Butte,” Hawtrey answered. “One of the smaller groups out West. Most of them are bitter, bored teenagers. Their Krueger post is a rant, but rants have a way of spreading online. I fear it’s only a matter of days before a major media outlet, perhaps a supermarket tabloid, links the bombing to your grandfather. And when that happens, we better have some good answers, or we’re going to be a laughing-stock. So whatever you are doing in Cairo, do it quickly.”
“Understood,” Krueger said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Hawtrey said. “You’re still going to be up on serious charges, and there’s nothing I can do to stop that.”
“I know,” Krueger said, “but it’s good to know I’m no longer thought of as a lunatic.”
Hawtrey smiled and hung up the phone. She paused, surveyed all the material around her, which was gathering in volume each day like a spreading fungus. Finally, she set aside the ballistics, forensics, and intel reports that littered her desk, the data compiled using hard science and reason, and turned to her computer. Against her better judgement, she was soon researching the mythical powers of the True Cross.
IT WAS EARLY MORNING, and Krueger was awoken by a knock at the door. He rose quickly and found Grimm waiting patiently for him, decked out in a safari jacket and cravat.
“Breakfast?” Grimm asked, as he fixed the strap on his pith helmet.
Minutes later, over a handsome spread of dates, yoghurt, tea, and shashuka, Grimm turned to Brandt and Krueger, and handed them a single sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” Krueger asked.
“The key information you need to know about the True Cross,” Grimm asked. “If we are going to walk in your grandfather’s footsteps, then we should at least acquaint ourselves with what he was searching for.”
“I know, the Cross on which Jesus was crucified,” Krueger said, and was surprised to find Grimm’s eyes turn dark with annoyance.
“It is more than that,” he said. “In the aftermath of the crucifixion, the cross became the central focus of the fastest growing religion in the world. And this new religion did not demand its followers bow to some remote, uncaring deity that they could barely comprehend. The cross was physical proof that this new God had walked amongst us and shared in our pains and fears. It was why, in the year 135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian tore down the cross and buried it in an old Jerusalem cistern. He wanted the physical proof of the existence of this new God destroyed. Later, he even built a temple over the site where Jesus died, the hill of Golgotha, in hopes of extinguishing the flame of this new faith.”
“But he failed,” Brandt said.
“Most certainly,” Grimm answered. “For the Christians remembered Golgotha, and they remembered the Nazarene, the Prince of Peace, who died there. They also remembered where Hadrian had cast down the cross. And when the Dowager Empress Helena arrived in the Holy Land in 326, she rediscovered the it.
“She found three crosses there, for Jesus had been crucified alongside two thieves. To determine which of the crosses was the one True Cross, Helena ordered a gravely sick noblewoman to touch each of them. She regained her health the moment she touched the cross on which Jesus had died for our sins, thus proving to Helena and Christians throughout the ages that the True Cross had the power to grant unnaturally long life. And that power was bestowed upon Helena too, it would seem. She began her search for the cross at the age of 78, at a time when average life expectancy was in the forties, and after touching it, she went on to live another forty years in perfect health. There is simply no other record of any historical figure living to such an advanced age.”
“But whatever its power, the True Cross was lost of the Battle of Hattin,” Brandt said, finishing her breakfast and devoting herself to studying Grimm’s handout. “Where Saladin destroyed the armies of Christian Crusaders in 1187 and seized the cross for himself. It has not been seen since.”
“That’s almost true,” Grimm said, as if talking to a student he wished to excel. “But don’t forget Helena returned to Europe with a part of the titulus, and it remains at the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, the church which Helena founded before her death.”
“The what?” Krueger asked.
“Forgive me! I am getting ahead of myself,” Grimm said. “The True Cross consists of three elements: first the cross-beam, which Jesus was forced to carry to his execution after being convicted by Pilot. Second, the vertical beam, which stood on the hill of Golgotha. And lastly, the titulus, the carved wood, which was hung above Jesus, mocking him as the King of the Jews. Helena kept a part of the titulus herself, and though the monks in the Basilica will not allow it to be subject to official dendrochronological analysis, the evidence strongly suggests that it is a genuine artifact.”
Krueger snorted in disgust. “If you’re so sure, how come those priests won’t allow the experts to take a peek at it?”
Once again, Grimm turned his gaze on the officer. His lips, which so easily curled into a smile, curved downward into a grimace. “I would have thought that your unsavory experience in Berlin would have taught you than when mankind meddles with things he shouldn’t, bad things follow.”
Krueger, suitably chastised, kept him mouth shut. He turned to Brandt who winked, and the cop suddenly found his cheeks burning in shame.
“Of course, how the True Cross is related to the al-Qalqashandi Fragment I could not possibly guess,” Grimm said. He wiped his mouth efficiently with a napkin and signaled for his turbaned butler to remove the remains of his breakfast. “But we shall endeavor to find out!” he said. “Come, our driver awaits.”
Krueger found himself back in the Range Rover, with the sunglass-wearing wildebeest in the driver’s seat once again. He navigated his way through noisy streets filled with cars whose dented fenders and loud horns suggested they were used to more than the occasional prang.
After a while, Krueger realized that the car was driving up a steep hill, and he looked out the window to find that the road was widening. High in the air were a pair of sleek, thin minarets, standing astride a wide dome.
“The Mosque of Mohammed Ali,” Brandt said, reaching past Krueger and pointing with her finger.
She brushed the cop’s cheek as she did so, and Krueger felt a frisson of excitement swell in his belly.
“It’s the centerpiece of Saladin’s Citadel. He ordered its construction in 1176 to protect the city from Crusader armies. It did its job. After the citadel was fortified Cairo was never again threatened by a Christian army.”
The Range Rover eventually pulled up to a metal gate standing between two sandstone towers built into the citadel wall. Two guards wearing red berets emerged from their shaded office and looked at the car with a mixture of envy and anger before beckoning it forward. The gate creaked open on their order, revealing a vast genteel courtyard beyond, which looked oddly out of place amid the dust-strewn roads and menacing fortifications. The marble flagstones were polished, and around them were several parterres, bursting with desert flowers that glowed in their colorful bloom.
Krueger expected the car to turn toward the vast, golden mosque, seated ponderously in the center of the citadel. But instead the driver turned right, to a smaller, though no less ornate structure, with handsome porticoes and intricate carvings on the dark exterior wall.
“This is the Al-Gawhara Palace,” Grimm said, “one of three museums in the citadel. And it contains the fragment, which will either make us famous or give us an embarrassing fable to tell each other in our old age. Either way let’s go a take a peek.”
Grimm led his companions onto the courtyard, ordering the driver to keep the car close. As he did so, Krueger saw a uniformed middle-aged man jog toward the car. He wore a crisp khaki uniform, and, though almost completely bald, had nonetheless applied cheap black dye to the little hair he had remaining.
“Greetings, greetings!” he said in heavily accented English. “I am Sharif, captain of the garrison. Welcome Professor Grimm. And you two? You must be his research associates?”
“Why yes they are!” Grimm said before either Krueger or Brandt could cut in. “We most deeply appreciate your hospitality and your willingness to let us see the al-Qalqashandi Fragment.”
“Why yes! A supporter of the museum of such munificence deserves to see what his investment has purchased for posterity,” said Sharif. “And it is so odd! I received a similar visit less than a month ago.”
Krueger looked through his sunglasses at the captain and shared a nervous glance with Brandt.
“Who else has been here?” Krueger asked in too harsh a tone. He regretted it when he saw the momentary look of apprehension on Sharif’s face.
“Oh, let’s save that for lunch!” Sharif cried, recovering his smile.
THE EARLY MORNING clouds above threatened a storm, a tempest that the heat-ravaged city of New York desperately needed. But while the millions of people who called that city home toiled beneath the unrelenting sun, sweating as they waited for the deluge, one man was sweating in fear.
Shuffling nervously beneath the Doric columns of the New York Supreme Court, Glenn Chu stared with anxious eyes at the happy tourists walking the handsome sidewalks. None of them looked like the burly flame-haired cop who’d promised to meet him an hour ago.
“Mr. Glenn!” Sam O’Brian bellowed, not giving a damn that Chu had wanted to keep their rendezvous secret. He bounded across the street toward the marble steps of the Court, with some surly teenager in a ratty t-shirt following in his wake.
“This is not okay!” Chu whispered when Sam approached, tugging at the cop’s deep red tie. “This is too big a risk!” Chu was perspiring so badly that his glasses, a pair of massive steel-rimmed aviators, had slipped to the end of his nose.
“Oh, and you don’t think I was taking a risk helping you walk away from those charges?” O’Brian asked. “Heroin is a poison, pal, and to think you was peddling it through ya dry cleaning business!”
Chu swallowed hard. The teenager behind O’Brian looked as just uncomfortable as the forty-five-year-old Chinese.
“The Triads made me do it!” Chu pleaded.
“Sure, sure,” O’Brian replied, “which is why I let you go free. But you remember I said someday I might need a favor? That’s how this city works, see. Everyone helps each other out. And today…I need a little help.”
Chu wiped his brow. The sun was fast disappearing behind a fat thunderhead, and if he didn’t end this meeting soon, he was going to be late.
“This is my pal, Colin Dubchek,” O’Brian said, “and he needs a ride.”
Chu’s lips curdled into a scowl. “You talk in riddles!” he cried, genuinely offended. “What you need? Tell me now!”
“Take it easy,” O’Brian said, smiling earnestly. “Look, I know you are still working for that cleaning crew I fixed you up with after we shut down the dry-cleaning store. I know you’re working the afternoon shift at the FBI Field Office. So if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like for you to sneak Colin here into the building.”
“What?” Chu cried.
“I told you yesterday this was a waste of time!” Colin added. “This janitor hasn’t got a chance of beating security.”
Glenn Chu began to walk away, raving in his native tongue and waving his arms like a broken windmill in a hurricane. Chu had always possessed a strong sense of self-preservation, and it was stronger than his sense of self-respect.
