‘Glad to hear it,’ he replied, his facial muscles taut with a fake smile. ‘Keep up the good work —’ he glanced at the man’s name badge ‘— Officer Milligan.’ He had no idea if security guards were addressed as ‘Officer’, and at the moment he didn’t much care. The fake grin replaced with a grimace, he headed for the doors, shoving aside a couple of jabbering tourists.
Once outside, he came to a standstill, his booted feet planted on the cobbled stone driveway that fronted the entrance. Ignoring the two-way human traffic — badges heading into the museum, tourists heading out — he raised his head to the grey sky above. And prayed.
Boyd didn’t want to let down the colonel. He owed everything he had to Colonel Stan MacFarlane. Sometimes, when his mind wandered, he liked to imagine that the colonel was the father he never had but always wanted. Stern but fair. Righteous. A man who’d never hit you unless he had just cause.
Like a soothing balm, the gently falling snow cooled his brow, big fluffy flakes sticking to his eyelashes, his lips, the tip of his nose. It put him in mind of the first time he’d ever seen snow fall from the sky. It was during a tour of duty in Japan. A backwater kid from Pascagoula, Mississippi, he’d only seen winter snow on celluloid. He well remembered standing there, a bad-ass two-hundred-and-thirty-pound marine, sorely tempted to lie down, flap his arms and legs like an epileptic and make an angel in the snow. Come to think of it, it’d been snowing the day he made his first kill. A Jap with an attitude had accused him of stiffing on the sake bill and had followed him into the alley, attacking him from behind while he took a piss. He killed the slant-eyed shitbird with a backward jab of the elbow, ramming his nose all the way into his skull. A ruby-red bloodstain on virgin white snow. It had been a beautiful sight. Like a silk-clad whore spreading her legs for a game of peek-a-boo.
Reinvigorated, the blood pumping through his veins fast and furious, Boyd straightened his shoulders as he strode past the black Wrangler. The colonel said that God was a fine one for testing the faithful. Maybe that’s what all this fiddle fucking was about — he was being tested.
He was up to the challenge.
Opening the boot of the Ford, he removed a drawstring pouch. Inside the bag were two mobiles, coiled wire, duct tape and a small block of C4 plastic explosive. Everything he needed to make things right.
19
Glancing through the plate-glass doors of the 7th Street exit, Edie imagined the headline story on local TV news: GUNMAN GOES BERSERK INSIDE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART. Channel 9 and Channel 4 news vans had just pulled up outside the museum, technicians hurriedly unloading equipment. As she continued to observe the action outside, it appeared a great many people were unloading equipment from the back of official-looking vehicles: paramedics with stretchers, firemen hefting axes and water hoses, DC police stacking orange traffic cones. The museum had become a scene of industrious purpose — visitors exiting through one door, emergency services entering through another.
Still in the wheelchair, she sat quietly as C?dmon rolled her over to a large Chinese vase set in a niche.
‘Time for Milady to exit her carriage.’
Edie hurriedly extricated herself from the wheelchair, her legs so wobbly she unthinkingly grabbed the Qing Dynasty vase to keep from collapsing.
C?dmon wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gently removing her hand from the priceless
She nodded her thanks, surprised by the admission. Although she barely knew him, C?dmon Aisquith seemed to have been born with the proverbial stiff upper lip. No deep breaths required.
‘Given the obviously well-planned attack, we must assume that there are more people involved and that our adversaries will attempt to track our movements via electronic transactions.’ Removing his wallet from a trouser pocket, C?dmon peered into the worn brown leather. ‘I’m afraid that my assets are somewhat paltry. Seventy-five dollars and three hundred euros. How much do you have?’ he bluntly enquired.
The question caught Edie off guard. Her eyes narrowing suspiciously, she said, ‘I have five thousand dollars. What’s it to you?’
‘I say! You must have cleaned out your bank account.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ she mumbled, unwilling to elaborate.
‘Very well then. I suggest we assume aliases, Mr and Mrs Smythe-Jones or some such, and check into a hotel.’
‘The two of us? In a hotel?’ Edie had given no thought as to what would happen once they left the museum; if anything, she’d assumed they’d go their separate ways. She’d only come to the National Gallery of Art to warn him of the danger, not to hook up with him.
‘Yes, a hotel,’ C?dmon reiterated. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m in dire need of a soft bed and a stiff drink.’
‘Bed and booze. Okay, I’m in.’
C?dmon motioned to the throng exiting the museum. ‘Shall we join the multitude?’
As they approached the line of people being searched, Edie surveyed the crowd of visitors, most of whom were excitedly chatting about what they’d seen, what they knew or what they’d heard.
She nudged C?dmon in the arm. ‘Did you hear what that man just —’ She stopped suddenly, catching sight of a familiar face out of the corner of her eye.
‘To your left! It’s the killer’s cop buddy!’ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
Without so much as turning his head, C?dmon swivelled his gaze to the left. ‘The bloke with sandy blond hair?’ When she nodded, he said, ‘Did he catch sight of you at the Hopkins?’
‘No. But they have my driver’s licence photo. They know what I look like.’
‘Right.’
An absent-minded look on his face, C?dmon patted his breast pocket, giving every appearance of being a man searching for a pen or his reading glasses. It took a moment for Edie to realize that he was very carefully casing the joint, his eyes moving from left to right and back again.
‘In a few seconds there’s going to be a frightful stampede towards the door,’ he said in a low voice, taking her firmly by the upper arm as he spoke. ‘Be ready to run for your life.’
Edie nodded, knowing he spoke literally, not figuratively.
‘Good God!’ C?dmon suddenly boomed in a loud, forceful voice. ‘There’s the gunman! That man standing by the elevator doors!’
At C?dmon’s commanding voice — which sounded an awful lot like a Shakespearean actor bellowing about kingdoms and horses — every head in the lobby abruptly turned.
A second of shocked silence ensued, then the facade of order gave way. Those visitors closest to the doors rushed them. The four museum guards and every policeman in sight charged in the opposite direction towards the elevators.
That being their cue, Edie and C?dmon ran for the doors, elbowing their way to the head of the pack.
Several seconds later, they burst free of the building.
‘Hurry!’ C?dmon ordered, taking her by the hand as he descended the portico steps that fronted the museum. ‘I suspect we fooled everyone save the man searching for us. What’s that across the street?’ He pointed beyond the traffic jam of news vans and patrol cars to a grove of leafless trees on the other side of 7th Street.
‘That’s the outdoor Sculpture Garden.’
‘And in this direction?’ He pointed towards Constitution Avenue.
‘Federal Triangle.’
‘Am I correct in thinking there’s a tube station nearby?’
