Devil's Eye (5 page)

“
If anyone can do this, sir, it will be the Omega Group,” asserted Stanford Howard, the national security adviser.

“
Show me, Stanford!” the President challenged as he stood up from his chair.

“
Very well, Mr. President,” George Brandon interjected. When his President betrayed irritation it was time for the chief of staff to remove the irritants. ‘Stanford’ instead of ‘Stan’ was a clue. Brandon stood up also, giving the cue to the others that the meeting was over.

When the advisers left the Oval Office, the President sat down again, turned in his leather swivel chair, gave a long sigh of frustration and stared out the window into the Rose Garden, spotting a large, charcoal mockingbird bobbing among the flowers.

Chapter 3

The young woman walked briskly through the main hall of the Library of Congress between curved wooden reading tables arranged under the dome along her way. They were occupied randomly by congressional aides doing research that would evolve into eloquent statements on the floors of the House and Senate, students, scholars and curious tourists testing whether they could really find a copy of every book published in the United States.

They paused, however, and couldn’t help but notice, glance, or stare at the attractive young woman passing by. The black dress she wore outlined her shapely, soft body and the amber pendant around her neck swayed back and forth with the rhythm of her steps, made noticeably loud by her high heeled shoes. She smiled to herself, knowing that people don’t normally dress up for a visit to the library. She strode purposefully toward an elevator at the far end of the hall hidden behind numerous stacks of reference books.

Laura Mitchell rode to the basement level, then wandered through stacks of literature until she came upon a small office overfilled with books in a corner of the building.

Hunched over his paper
‐
strewn desk was an elderly gentleman, gray
‐
haired, with distinguished features, but dressed in a well
‐
worn, buttoned sweater that suggested he was more interested in things around him than on him. He was peering studiously at an old document.

“
Uncle Jonas,” Laura said in a sing
‐
song fashion so as not to startle him.

He looked up immediately. “Laura, sweetheart! How nice to see you. Come in! Come in!” He stood up to hug her. “You look lovely. So dressed up. It’s a young man, isn’t it? ” he declared with a sparkle in his eye.

“
No, no, Uncle, nothing like that. I’m on my way to the Smithsonian. There’s a reception at the Old Castle later. For new members of NATO.”

“
I see,” he replied. “To better acquaint us with the cultures of our lesser known allies.”

“
There will even be a map,” she said with a hint of irony.

“
And what may I ask does a French History professor have to do with NATO?” he asked in a mock challenge.

“
You should be pleased to know,” she answered emphatically, “that Alvin Carruthers, the assistant curator, asked me to be a docent for the display from the Devil’s Museum in Lithuania.”

“
Oh!” he conceded.

“
He said some of the sponsors couldn’t make it, so he asked me to fill in. Alvin knows how steeped I am in Old European folklore— thanks to you,” Laura explained as she teasingly tweaked his cheek.

“
The Devil’s Museum,” he said musingly.

“
Yes. Which reminds me: How is your project coming along?”

“
Fine. Just fine.”

“
You’ve been working on it a long time. You have more than five hundred pages. From what I’ve read, you could publish it right now.”

“
I’d trade most of those pages for a couple of missing pieces,” he said somberly. “Factual pieces. Yes, I could publish it now—but it would be just another fantasy. I’m looking to do a history—so people will believe it. Maybe do something about it.”

“
I know, Uncle Jonas,” she said solicitously. “I’m sure you’ll get those pieces. Especially now that Russia’s more open.”

“
Archivists, professors, bureaucrats. They opened all kinds of vaults, Laura. For gifts. For cash. For fresh air after a stifling, terror
‐
filled century. What I need is in secret police files. Those that are even deeper and more inaccessible in the new, more open Russia.”

Laura felt his frustration. She was laboring on a series of lectures herself in preparation for a book on the French Revolution, and material for her was boundless.

“
Listen,” he said tentatively. “When you’re there—at the Smithsonian. Can you see who has more than a casual interest in that devil display? You know what I mean?”

“
Uncle!” Laura replied with theatrical exasperation. “You and your conspiracy theories.”

“
You’re right, you’re right,” he answered with resignation. “I’m grasping at straws.”

“
You shouldn’t. Then you will drift into fantasy.”

“
I’ve got to get out of the library more,” he said, anticipating what his niece was about to suggest. He shuffled idly through some papers on his desk.

She smiled then kissed his cheek. “I’ve got to run. Let’s have dinner tomorrow. I’ll treat.”

“
Okay. But it’s on me. You pick the restaurant.”

“
I know just the place in Georgetown.”

”
And don’t forget what I asked you!” he said as she disappeared through the door.

“
I won’t,” her voice trailed back through the stacks of books surrounding his office.

Chapter 4

Thunderhead clouds, unannounced in the day’s forecast, were looming over Washington as Colonel Caine sped his dark red Viper from Arlington back to the heart of the city. A slow, choking stream of traffic, heading in the opposite direction, signaled the end of the work day. Government functionaries and other bureaucrats were leaving the nation’s capital for their homes in the burgeoning suburbs of Maryland and Virginia. Thousands of headlights pricked the April sky turned prematurely dark by the heavy rain
‐
laden clouds.

He had driven his general back to the Pentagon and returned to his apartment in nearby Arlington to prepare for the reception at the Smithsonian. Caine was dressed in a light gray suit with subtle pinstripes instead of his military dress uniform. He did not want to appear too official in getting information from Victor Sherwyck. It also gave him an advantage to better conceal his .38 caliber pistol, a seven
‐
round Sig Sauer P232 that he habitually carried as a back
‐
up weapon.

The clouds released a violent torrent of rain just as he pulled up to the curb near the National Museum of Natural History on Constitution Avenue. He had planned a leisurely stroll across the Mall to the Old Castle, but now had to wait out the cloudburst.

He tuned his car radio to a news broadcast. It included an update on the item he had read that morning while waiting for General Bradley at the White House—a rural sheriff in Ohio investigating animal mutilations and suspected devil worship. There were additional details of a similar discovery of animal mutilations near the Appalachian Trail in the Shenandoah Valley.

Authorities dismissed it as a cruel prank and found no connection to the discovery in Ohio.

“
These things happen now and then,” a park official stated. “They look like rituals for shock value. Malicious hoaxes. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of sick minds around.”

Caine wondered about these kinds of stories reported as oddities from various parts of the country. They appeared with periodic regularity. How many were undiscovered or unreported? The main concern seemed to be the loss of farmers’ stock. No one ever suggested the perpetrators may be following a text of some standardized, bizarre ritual.

The heavy rain was dissipating. Caine turned off the radio and decided to make a dash across the Mall during the lull. He climbed nimbly out of his roadster and hurried toward the expansive stretch of greenery framed in the distance by the Capitol Building on his left and the obelisk of the Washington Monument on his right.

A striped alley cat—black and gray—crouched low in some bushes as he jogged along the sidewalk next to the museum building. The cat bobbed its head several times as Caine approached, crouched low and twitched its tail as if to pounce. The moment passed as Caine’s hurried footsteps receded and the stray cat diverted its attention to other movement in the area.

The red sandstone mansion was an impressive Gothic Revival structure reaching into the past—seemingly out of place among the other official buildings whose light hues and linear designs set the Old Castle apart in the lineup along the Mall. It was the first building erected there and carried that distinction with ageless style.

As he neared the Castle, Caine noticed a derelict sprawled awkwardly under a budding elm tree. The man must have been sleeping off a bottle of cheap wine and at first glance might even have appeared dead. Satisfied by a quick glance that the man’s unkempt face was not blue, Caine continued on his way. He was inured by the occasional sight of street people who for reasons of their own, or as a deliberate statement of their condition, frequented the areas around the White House, Capitol grounds and the Mall. Sprawled out as he had been, it was surprising to the Colonel that the derelict’s clothes did not seem to be wet from the rain.

Moments after Caine passed him, the man stirred, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings, and as if driven by his own sense of time and place, shuffled off in his ragged clothes in the direction from which Colonel Caine had just come.

Chapter 5

Caine joined a small line of guests filing up the stairs of the brick canopy entryway. Others exited limousines that had backed up on Jefferson Drive in front of the building during the downpour. Standing at the door was a plain
‐
faced doorman who seemed at first glance to be out of place in his red service jacket that was more than a size too big. The doorman looked indifferently at Caine’s invitation and returned it upside down, motioning him inside.

He gave the same uninterested look to other guests; a look that appeared to say he would prefer to be somewhere else. In each case he returned invitations upside down. Most of the guests did not pay attention, while several gave the doorman a sideward glance at this apparent lack of grace.

“
Some way to save a buck,” Caine thought, presuming one of the maintenance crew was doubling as a greeter.

He passed the vestibule where the crypt of James Smithson stood eternal watch over the historical wealth he had presented to America. The English benefactor had been buried in Italy in 1829, but his remains were brought to the United States in 1903 by then Regent Alexander Graham Bell and interred in the vestibule. Caine nodded unconsciously in the direction of the crypt and wondered whether the man really would have wanted to become an artifact in his own museum. He couldn’t help but think that Smithson was just like one of those human sacrifices ancient cultures placed in edifices of new buildings to appease the supernatural.

The vestibule opened into a cavernous hall with prominent deep brown pillars supporting a ceiling two stories above. Caine lingered near a pillar where several socialite friends of his family noticed and engaged him in conversation. All the while he was tuned to hear the voice or see the presence of Victor Sherwyck.

“
Chris, my dear boy,” said a distinguished looking woman. “We haven’t seen you for such a long time. Samantha’s been asking about you.”

“
Mrs. Davis. You look as charming as ever,” he replied, adjusting the front of his jacket slightly to avoid exposing the holstered pistol at the small of his back.

“
Oh, Chris, you’re always so flattering. I only hear about you when your folks are visiting. That nasty Army keeps you away all the time,” she said with mock indignation.

“
I’ll visit soon, Mrs. Davis,” Caine replied with a polite smile. “I promise.” He knew the lady from his childhood, but felt constrained lately by her efforts to pair him up with her youngest daughter, Samantha.

“
You’re such a fine young man. You ought to settle down,” she continued with friendly and familiar concern.

Caine glanced at either side of him. He was growing a little embarrassed by her good
‐
natured but ill
‐
timed advice and took a little longer to gaze around the hall for Sherwyck.