HANS WOLFE DROPPED THEM OFF at the small private airport thirty-five minutes later.
“Is there anything else I can do?” His square, blunt face was eager. “I could go back and get you food at that bakery we passed.”
“The bakery was closed,” Caleb said.
“But I know the owner. I know everyone in this town. He’d open up the shop for me.”
“Thank you, but I believe we’ll be fine,” Caleb said. “Our plane should be arriving any minute.”
Hans’s face fell. “Then what else may I do for you?”
Caleb smiled gently. “Nothing more. You’ve been a good friend to me, Hans.”
“Yes, we’re very good friends. It’s good that you were able to stop by after all these years.”
“But it’s time for you to go home now. I think it’s best that you forget us.”
He nodded. “Because of that trouble you said you were in. I understand. You’ll come and see me again?”
“Yes, someday.” He shook his hand. “I think I hear the plane. Now go home and don’t let anyone see you on the way. Good-bye, Hans.”
“Yes, I hear it, too,” Hans said as he turned away. “Good-bye, Seth. I’ll see you next time.”
Lina turned to Caleb as Hans drove away. “He’s very accommodating. How long have you known him?”
“Long enough.” He turned and watched the Gulfstream jet coming in for a landing. “I think I’m going to be his silent partner. He’s always wanted to own his own gas station.”
“Providing he could trust you,” Lina said, as she and Jock moved toward the Gulfstream.
Caleb made a face. “It’s going to take quite a while to get her to think kindly of me, isn’t it?”
“You could use the same voodoo you did on Hans Wolfe,” Jane said.
“No, I couldn’t. I told you that I have a few rules I don’t break.”
She was silent a moment. “It’s very generous of you to give Hans his dream.”
He shrugged. “I put him at risk. He may still be at risk.”
“Will he forget everything just as that bank manager did?”
“Yes. It’s safer for him as well as us.” He walked toward the tall, sandy-haired man who was getting out of the plane. “Thanks for coming on short notice, Marc. We need to move quickly.” He gestured to the pilot. “This is Marc Lestall. Get on the plane. I’ll make formal introductions later.”
“Where are we going?” Lestall asked. “It would be a good idea if I knew. Right?”
Caleb looked at Jane. “MacDuff’s Run?”
She nodded. “But I want to go see Alan Roland first.”
He was silent for a moment. “It might be dangerous.”
“Not if we go to his office. He’s not going to make a move surrounded by all his office staff.”
“And it might not accomplish anything. He’s not going to admit anything.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want him to think that he’s safe because he’s hiding behind all that money and power. I want him to be aware that we know what a bastard he is.”
“Then we’ll go to Edinburgh and split up. You and I will go to London to see Roland and send Lina and Gavin to MacDuff’s Run. We’ll join them later.” Caleb followed her up the steps and said over his shoulder to Lestall. “Scotland.”
THEY WERE IN THE AIR within a few minutes, and Jane gazed down at the ground disappearing from view. Millet might be down there, but he couldn’t touch them. Not now.
Relief. Intense relief.
“Blanket?” Caleb was standing beside her with a navy blue blanket in his hands. “We have a few hours, and you might be able to catch a few winks on the trip. We haven’t had a chance to get much rest since this began.”
“That’s an understatement.” She started to take the blanket, but he was already tucking it around her. His hand brushed her throat, and she inhaled sharply. It was only the lightest touch but her skin tingled, burned.
And he knew it. His gaze was on her face, and there was a stillness, a watchfulness, that made her chest tighten and her heart start to pound. It was like that primitive moment at the cottage when he’d thrown Weismann down before her. He was wrapped, surrounded in heat, but now it had nothing to do with violence and everything to do with sexuality.
She jerked her own eyes away and moved back away from him. She huddled under the blanket and tried desperately to think of something that would break that intimacy. “It’s soft…”
“Cashmere.” His gaze never left her face. “Marc has a lot of business executives who hire him to fly them around. They appreciate the finer things.”
She looked around the luxuriously appointed cabin. Thick, gray carpet, twelve plush seats in burgundy suede framed in polished mahogany. Lina and Jock were sitting near the back of the plane, and Lina’s eyes were already closed.
“I appreciate the finer things, too.” She stroked the feather-soft wool. “Particularly when they have to do with comfort. Celine and I never agreed about designer luxuries. She thought a little discomfort was worth the-” She stopped as her eyes started to sting. They had been so frantically busy that Celine’s death had faded from the forefront of her mind. Now the memory was back and all the more poignant for the suddenness of its coming. She blinked fast, hard. “Damn. Sneak attack.”
“The worst kind of ambush.” That almost primitive sensuality was gone though the electricity still lingered between them. Caleb handed her his handkerchief as he sat down in the seat across the aisle from her.
She dabbed at her eyes. “I want to go back. I want her alive. I want to change things. If I hadn’t agreed to that damn art show and gone to Paris, then she wouldn’t be dead.”
“That’s true. Unless you believe in destiny. You could also say that if you’d never painted Guilt, none of this would have happened. Maybe changing one piece of the puzzle wouldn’t make a difference.”
“It’s all crazy. I told you, it was pure chance that Guilt looks like their idea of Judas. He’s a figment of my imagination. A dream.”
His brows rose. “Dream?”
She hadn’t meant to blurt that out. Certainly not to him. “Maybe I did see his face in a few dreams, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
He was smiling. “Oh, Jane. You do protest too much.”
“Bullshit.”
“I realize that admitting that you may have a tinge of weirdness yourself is against your every instinct. You’re such a wonderfully grounded, practical woman. It took all your tolerance just to accept that I’m a freak.”
“I’m not that closed-minded. I’ve come to realize that there are some people with legitimate psychic gifts. I’m just not one of them.”
“Then why did I immediately feel a closeness to you the moment we met? I knew you’d understand whatever I-”
“I don’t know why you would feel like that,” she interrupted.
“And you don’t want to hear it. I scared you tonight. You don’t want to claim any similarity with me. You’re shying away from everything about me that you don’t understand.”
“You didn’t scare me. But you’re right, there are too many things about you that I don’t understand.”
“Then ask me. I don’t promise to answer everything, but I’ll be honest with what I do tell you.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted him to be honest when she remembered the brutality of the night. And when she was still overpoweringly aware of how he had aroused her only a moment ago.
Yes, she did. He had fascinated and intrigued her since the moment he had come into her life. Admit it, she thought. I want those answers. “You seem to go into people’s minds and mold them and pull out whatever you need so easily. Yet you told me that you wanted to be careful with Adah so that it would be smoother. Is it harder to do than it appears?”
“Sometimes. It depends on the mind. Most of the time it’s like skating on firm, fresh ice. Sometimes it’s a fight to get in, and that can cause serious damage unless I take my time. But I can overcome it.”
“But you didn’t take your time with Weismann.”
“No, I didn’t give a damn. He was already a dead man as far as I was concerned.”
The blunt ruthlessness of the statement shocked her. He had promised to be honest with her, and he was keeping to his word.
He smiled crookedly. “Was that a little too much information for you? Is that all you wanted to know?”
She was silent a moment. “No, one more question. You said it was very rare that you ran up against someone you couldn’t manipulate. Even if you try all your bag of tricks?”
“After all these years of practice, I’m close to perfect.” He shrugged. “But yes, there are a few people out there who I can’t touch. Very strong minds. And then there are the quagmires. Whenever I hit one of those, I pull out and run like hell.”
“Quagmires? What’s that?”
“I call it the quagmire effect. There are some people whose minds are constructed oddly. They don’t necessarily even have to be strong. They’re just… different. It’s like being caught in quicksand. Intense pain and sensation of smothering. If it went on too long, I think it would kill me.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve only had it happen twice. The first time I didn’t know what was happening, and I backed out right away. But I was still dizzy and sick for a day afterward. The second time, I couldn’t get out of his mind and I blacked out. I didn’t wake up for two days. I was very careful after that. I’ve learned to recognize the signs.” He smiled. “You see, I trust you. I’m letting you know all my vulnerabilities.”
“Perhaps a tiny percentage of your vulnerabilities. You’re as heavily armored as a tank.”
He chuckled. “Next time I’ll reveal another Achilles’ heel. I’ll be like Scheherazade telling you a tale a night to keep you interested.”
“More like a narrator from the Twilight Zone.” She pulled the blanket higher around her. “I’m going to take that nap now.”
“Do that. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He was silent a moment. “Have there been other dreams, Jane?”
She tensed. “Everyone has dreams.”
“Like that one?”
She didn’t want to answer. Why was she feeling compelled to do it? “Sort of. Maybe.”
“What’s it like when you dream? Disjointed?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Clear. Very clear. As if I’m there, part of it. It’s as if a story is… unfolding.”
“Interesting. Will you tell me more about them?”
“No.”
“If you change your mind…”
“No.”
“Dreams don’t make you weird. Or at least only in the most minor category on the scale. Believe me, I know about weird.”
“I do believe you,” she said emphatically.
He chuckled. “I know you do. Tell me, where is Guilt right now.”
“MacDuff’s Run. MacDuff took it for safekeeping. Why?”
“I want to see it. I want to see your dream, Jane,” he added thoughtfully. “It must have been a very powerful dream. Do you believe that it could have been brought on by the thoughts and vibes of all those thousands of worshipers in Judas’s temple?”
Shock jolted through her. “No, I do not.”
“Just a thought.”
A very disturbing thought. But then Caleb was a very disturbing man. She wished she’d never made that verbal slip about the dream of Guilt. He would probe and gnaw at it until he was satisfied or had it in pieces and devoured.
Caleb tilted his head. “Or it might have been a case of remote viewing.”
“Remote viewing? What on earth is that?”
“It’s a technique that the CIA has been experimenting with though they don’t admit to it. It’s rather like astral projection or out-of-body experience where their psychic agent actually can mentally go to a place or situation and view it. I guess you could call it a form of psychic espionage.”
She frowned. “In dreams?”
“Or deep hypnosis, or, if they’re gifted enough, they merely concentrate and pull it off. If that mosaic of Judas is that close in resemblance to your painting, then maybe you did a little mental visiting.”
“The CIA? That’s absolutely absurd. They wouldn’t be doing experiments like that.”
“No? As I said, they’re very careful of their credibility, but the intelligence community will do anything to keep the advantage. When they learned the Chinese and Russians were ahead of them in experimentation they jumped on the bandwagon in 1972. There was even a multimillion-dollar research program called the Star-gate Project, which came to light in the nineties, that probed military applications of psychic phenomena.”
“And they claimed it worked?”
“Of course not. That would be giving away a valuable asset and endanger their psychic operatives.”
“Or they were embarrassed to admit that they’d even entertained the idea of anything so crazy.” She added curtly, “If remote viewing even exists, I have nothing to do with it. That’s even more bizarre than thinking I’m attuned to those idiots’ vibes.”
“I’m just exploring possibilities. I’m finding that one very promising. It would explain why you-”
“And I’m finding it total bullshit.”
He held up his hand. “No need to become upset. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself for the present.”
“Good idea.”
“Go to sleep,” Caleb said. “I’ll try to stop asking questions. I’m not trying to catch you at a weak moment. It’s just my nature.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions.”
He was silent a moment. “I might have nudged a little.”
“What?”
“Just a little. Then I backed away. And I’m admitting it, aren’t I?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “And that makes everything all right?”
“No, but it makes it a little less threatening. And I took ‘no’ for an answer.”
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Caleb.”
“I know. I had to tell you. You’d have wondered later, and it might have damaged our relationship.”
He was totally impossible. One moment she was chilled and terrified by him. The next he was showing her a side that was almost vulnerable. “We have no relationship.”
“Yes, we do.” His eyes were holding her own, and she was aware that the sensuality she had thought gone was still there, waiting. “I don’t know what it’s going to turn out to be. It’s tentative, but I’m working on it.” His voice was velvet soft. “Sleep well, Jane.”
“TAKE IT.” JUDAS THREW the pouch on the ground at the feet of the high priest, Caiaphas. “I don’t want it. I never wanted it. You made me take it.”
“You wanted it.” The high priest’s lips curled. “Don’t lie. But now you’re having second thoughts. I don’t know why. Everything is working out quite well.”
“I didn’t think it would be like this.” Tears were running down his face. “They all think I’m Satan. I tell you, he wanted to die. I only helped him.”
“So it didn’t hurt to take a few pieces of silver?” Caiaphas said sarcastically. “I understand. I would have done the same.”
“I don’t want your understanding.” Judas’s hands clenched at his sides. “I want you to take the money and tell everyone I gave it back.”
The high priest stared down at the pouch on the floor. “There are difficulties. It’s blood money. I’m not sure it should return to our coffers. No, you’ll have to keep it.”
“I can’t keep it,” Judas said hoarsely. “It’s dirty. Every time I touch it, I feel the filth enter my soul.”
“Oh, it’s the money that’s dirty?” The high priest’s brows rose. “One would think that the act, not the payment, would be dirty. Betrayal is so very ugly, Judas.”
“Take it,” Judas said. “It’s all there. Pick up the pouch.”
Caiaphas slowly shook his head. “You say to touch it makes you feel the filth. I cannot take a chance of destroying the purity of my calling.”
“Pick it up!” Judas screamed. “Take it. Tell them I didn’t mean to-”
“Leave the temple. You’re beginning to annoy me. Your task is done.” He turned away. “Tell your friend, Jesus, that you meant no harm. I doubt if he will believe you either. As far as I’m concerned, the matter is closed.”
“Take back your money! Please.” He gazed in agony as the high priest walked away from him. It was not going to happen. He was forever going to be damned in the eyes of the world.
Not in the eyes of God. Surely God would realize he meant only to help perform His will.
Or had that really been his intention?
Was he lying to himself as the priest had said?
He had been disappointed when they had arrived in Jerusalem and there had been no magical coming of the kingdom as he had interpreted should happen from Jesus’s teaching. Had he meant to force that coming by betraying Jesus?
What was truth or lies?
Doubt was twisting, sickening him, darkening the world.
Answer.
He had to find the answer.
He turned and stumbled out of the temple.
“They would not take it?” Hadar asked. The young scribe rose to his feet as Judas appeared in the street. “They did not believe you?”
Judas shook his head. “He left the pouch lying on the floor of the temple. The high priest, Caiaphas, wouldn’t risk soiling himself by touching it.”
“I’ll go get it and bring it back to you.”
“No!” He started down the street. “Don’t you realize that would damn me forever?” He was sobbing. “As if I was not damned already.”
“But you are innocent.”
“Am I?” He had convinced Hadar, but how was he to make himself believe when his heart was shriveling within him with doubt. Hadar had been one of the faithful who had followed the disciples from town to town, and he had attached himself to Judas with a tenacity that had first flattered him, then brought him comfort. He could neither read nor write, and yet this scribe looked upon him with adoration. Hadar had clung to him even after everyone else had turned their backs in horror. “The priests say that I wanted the money. That it’s blood money. His blood.
“All lies. You’ll be a prince in God’s heaven. We’ll both be there together just as you promised me.” Hadar’s lips thinned, his eyes blazing with rage. “I could kill them all. I will kill them.”
A young boy willing to bathe in blood for Judas’s sake.
Blood. Crucifix. Jesus.
Dear God in heaven. What have I done?
He started to run through the streets, pushing through the crowds.
“Judas!” He heard Hadar calling from behind him. “Wait!”
He could not wait. He could not face Hadar again. He could not face the world again.
Betrayal.
Eternal damnation.
Guilt.
“JANE. Wake up.”
She was being shaken.
Her lids flew open.
Caleb’s face was only inches from her own.
“What is it?” she gasped.
“You tell me.” He was in the aisle squatting beside her chair. “You were muttering and moaning. Nightmare?”
Judas. Hadar. The high priest.
She sat up straight in the chair and pushed her hair back from her face. “Sort of.”
“My fault?”
She frowned. “What?”
“One of the words you were muttering was Guilt. I asked you about the painting right before you went to sleep.”
“No.” She moistened her lips. “I wasn’t dreaming about the painting.”
“The Judas face again?”
Raw despair. Betrayal. Eternal damnation. “Partly.”
“But you’re not going to talk about it.”
“It was just a dream.”
His gaze narrowed on her face. “Someday you’ll trust me enough to talk to me.” He rose to his feet. “Or maybe not. Other things can replace trust that may be just as binding.” He sat down in his seat across from her again. “We should be arriving in Edinburgh within the next thirty minutes.”
“Already?” Her gaze flew to the window. “I must have slept longer than I thought.”
“You got a few good hours of sleep before the demons began to plague you.”
“What demons?” she asked warily.
“How do I know? Any demon that’s particular to you. We all have them.”
“What’s your demon, Caleb?”
“If I told you that, then I’d have to share. You don’t want to share my demons, Jane.”
She remembered that moment when he’d thrown Weismann down in front of Lina’s door. “No, you can have them all to yourself.”
He smiled. “But I’ll be willing to share your demons. I know most demons by name, and others are bosom friends. If I can’t fight them, I’ll persuade them to come visit me instead.”
She shook her head. “You’re impossible.”
“In more ways than one.” He paused. “Will you tell me one thing about your dream?”
“It’s just a dream.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind discussing it. Was Hadar in it?”
She looked at him in surprise. “How did you guess?”
“If they play out like a story unfolding, then Hadar would be a central character, wouldn’t he?”
“Or I might be influenced by all the talk about Hadar to have had him creep into my subconscious.”
“Yes, that’s a possibility. Was there anything that we can grab on to about Hadar?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said impatiently. “You can’t grab on to a dream.”
He was silent, waiting.
“Even if you were to put any weight in what I dreamed, Hadar was only a young scribe.” She made a face. “Who was willing to kill for Judas.”
“Where?”
“Jerusalem. Outside the temple. Judas had just tried to give the pouch of coins back to the high priest.”
“A very crucial time.”
She looked back at the red-tipped clouds outside the window. “A dream.”
“Or a story beginning to unfold,” Caleb said quietly. “And a demon being born.”
London
Day Five
ROLAND ENTERPRISES.
The name engraved in gold on the black granite gave the impression of being discreet, important, and affluent, Jane thought. But then so did the skyscraper that occupied a piece of London’s prime real estate.
“Into the lion’s den?” Caleb said as he opened the glass door for her. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
She shook her head. “No way.” She moved toward the elevator. “But I expected you to try to talk me out of it. Jock certainly did.”
“I agree with you that there’s a risk, but it’s not major. A man who has tried so hard to keep in the shadows isn’t going to take a chance unless he’s sure that it’s not going to damage his reputation.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He smiled. “And you’ve got me. I’d probably be able to sense any impending danger. I’ve got pretty good instincts.”
Hunter’s instincts. “You said the executive offices were on the top floor?”
He nodded. “Twelve.” He got into the elevator and punched the button. “And, according to the receptionist, Roland is in London at the moment.”
“Why not? He sends Millet to do his dirty work while he cools his heels in this granite mausoleum.” She got off on the twelfth floor and strode toward the receptionist’s desk. There were executive offices on both sides of the hall and at least a dozen secretaries in cubicles down the hall.
The secretary was blond, sleek, and attractive. SHEILA CARMODY was the name on the bronze plate on her desk. “May I help you?”
“I need to see Alan Roland,” Jane said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, tell him that Jane MacGuire wants to see him.”
“I’m afraid that he never sees anyone without an appointment.”
“Except Jane MacGuire,” Caleb said. “She’s always the exception, isn’t she?”
Sheila Carmody frowned. “I believe you’re right. I’ll see if he’s busy.” She got up and disappeared through the heavy oak doors.
“Just a nudge?” Jane murmured.
“Only a fraction of a nudge.”
The secretary returned. “He’ll see you, Ms. MacGuire.” She shook her head at Caleb, who had started for the door. “I’m sorry. Only Ms. MacGuire.”
“No,” Jane said, as Caleb opened his lips to protest. “I’ll handle it, Caleb.” She opened the door and went into the office. Strong light streamed through huge rectangular windows and burnished the rich mahogany desk and glass doors of the bookcases with a soft glow.
There was nothing soft about the man sitting at that desk. Her first impression was of confidence born of years of meeting and attaining goals. He looked to be in his mid-forties and very fit. He was big, broad-shouldered, with a ruddy complexion, piercing blue eyes, and dark hair barbered to perfection.
“Ms. MacGuire.” His smile was charismatic. “Or may I call you Jane? I feel as if I know you well.” He paused. “And you must feel the same, or you wouldn’t be here. I suppose that Adah left a trail that led you to me? I was hoping to close that avenue, but you and your friends were a bit too quick.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You’re not denying that you’re working with Millet, that you belong to this cult?”
“Did you expect me to deny it? It would be useless. I’ll just have to deal with your knowing about it. Actually, I look forward to dealing directly with you.”
“Instead of having Millet go after me. You’re the one who started all this. You sent that photo to Millet.”
He nodded. “I wanted to make sure that he saw it. Millet isn’t the type who would be interested in the art section of a newspaper. He’s a little crude. You might have noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed. Why did you send it?”
“I needed attention paid to you. I don’t do that kind of thing myself. I have an image to maintain.” He was studying her. “You’re a beautiful woman. That photo didn’t do you justice.”
“It served its purpose for you. It started a killing spree. Millet butchered my friend.”
“That was only a necessary side effect. Millet had to be given something since he couldn’t have immediate satisfaction in your case.”
“Why?” Her hands clenched. “I didn’t know anything about your damn Hadar. And that painting was pure coincidence.”
He shook his head. “Not possible. The resemblance is too close. You must have found a way to get into the temple. I’d judge it had to have occurred several years ago. About the time you had your run-in with Thomas Reilly.”
She stiffened in shock. “What do you know about Thomas Reilly?”
“If Adah led you to me, then you probably know that I’ve been searching for years for the Judas coins. I’ve scoured the world and dug in the background of everyone I ran across who was also on the hunt for them. Thomas Reilly was a criminal but an avid collector and I took a particular interest in him. Not easy since I had to bribe my way into several CIA files after Reilly’s death.” He smiled. “But it was worth it. Because I discovered that Reilly was convinced that you knew where those Judas coins could be found. He thought that they’d been thrown into a chest of gold coins that came from Herculaneum to Scotland.” He paused. “And that you knew where that chest had been hidden.”
“If you know about this mythical chest, then you know that I’ve never tried to find it. And I certainly had no idea whether the Judas coins were in it or not. I don’t care.”
“I think you do. I’ve kept my eye on you over the years, and it’s true you haven’t initiated any search. But that could be because you’re very clever, very patient. Then I saw the photo of Guilt. Big mistake. Did you feel safe because of the years that had passed?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He leaned back in his chair. “After I saw the photo, I decided that Reilly was wrong about that gold treasure chest. Maybe it was a red herring you tossed out. You knew the Judas coins were somewhere else entirely. I think when you were hunting for those coins, you found your way into the temple and saw the mosaic. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that you also saw Hadar’s Tablet. But I don’t think you’d risk taking it. It was enough that you knew that it was there and could reach out and grab it when you could figure a way to do it.”
“That’s insane. I don’t give a damn about the Judas coins.” But he isn’t going to believe me, she realized. He’s obsessed and thinks everyone would be equally obsessed. “And I never saw that mosaic in your temple.”
He shook his head. “You want the coins.” He added softly, “And now you have the tablet. But you’re afraid that we’re going to stop you from getting what you want, so you come and try to convince me that it’s all a mistake. Are things getting a little hot for you, Jane? You’re not playing with amateurs now.”
“No, I’m dealing with thieves and murderers. And I came here to let you know that I know who you are and what you are. You can’t hide from me. I’m going find a way to bust you and all those monsters who think they can torture and kill and-” She stopped. He was smiling. Her words weren’t making any impact on him. “You don’t believe me.”
“Tell me where the Judas coins are,” he said. “We can make a deal. It won’t be easy, but I can get Millet to forget about you. I’ll give you a fat share, and you’ll be safe.”
“I’ll be safe anyway. You won’t be able to touch me or the people I love.”
“Tell me where they are.”
“Is that why you let me come in here to see you? I was surprised it was so easy. You wanted to make a deal?”
“I thought I’d try. It would have made life simpler.”
“How did you know I wouldn’t bug our conversation?”
“I do business of all kinds in this office. I have electronic monitors. If you were wired, I would have known within the first fifteen seconds. I knew we could have an intimate conversation that wouldn’t hurt me and might further my aims. Besides, I was curious about you.” His smile faded. “You can’t hurt me, Jane. I own judges, members of Parliament, even senators in your Congress. If Millet doesn’t get you, then I’ll call on someone else. Do you feel secure with the little circle you’ve managed to gather around you? Try to fight me, and I’ll turn the big guns on them.”
“I don’t think they’d worry too much.”
“But you’d worry. You’ve already demonstrated that, haven’t you? You’re a strange mixture of greed and sentiment. You were very transparent when Millet killed Celine Denarve.”
Yes, she’d worry.
“Make a deal, Jane.”
She turned on her heel. “Go to hell.” She walked out of the office and slammed the door. The secretary looked up, startled.
“Problems?” Caleb asked.
“No, he’s exactly what we thought he was. Maybe a little more obsessive.” She headed for the elevator. “And stronger.”
“Yes.”
She glanced at him.
“I was doing a little probing.”
“And?”
“He wouldn’t be impossible to manipulate, but it would take a good deal of time at close quarters.”
“No! Stay away from him.”
His brows rose. “It could be valuable.”
Close quarters with a man who had killers, judges, and senators on tap? “We’ll go another route. Roland is totally obsessive. Let’s go find out where those Judas coins are and let him come to us.”
“Lina and MacDuff’s Run?”
She nodded. “MacDuff’s Run. I’ll call Eve and fill her in before we get there.” The thought of Eve was like a warm, soothing breeze after that disturbing conversation with Roland. “And I’ll call Jock and ask him to send someone to get several versions of the Bible and any reference books they can find about Judas and have them waiting for me. I don’t want to have to rely solely on Lina.”
“What are you going to be looking for?”
“I don’t know. Anything I can find out about Judas, Hadar, or Caiaphas.”
“Caiaphas?” Caleb repeated. “Who the hell is Caiaphas? I’ve never heard of him.”
“He’s the high priest who paid Judas for the betrayal.” She wearily shook her head. “Or maybe he’s not.” The name had just tumbled out. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him either.”
“No?” Caleb was smiling curiously. “Let’s just see what we can find out about him, shall we?”
“Whatever. We’re going to have to move quickly. Roland didn’t believe a word I was saying. He has his mind made up, and he’s blind to anything that contradicts it.” It was incredible that Roland had interpreted and twisted Thomas Reilly’s belief that Jane had found those coins to apply to his own driving fixation.
Two men with an obsession about the Judas coins that had hopelessly lured and held them captive. It couldn’t be just the money. What force would cause that kind of-?
She had a sudden memory of the face of Guilt.
Judas.
“Jane?” Caleb was gazing curiously at her.
She shook her head to clear it. She didn’t know where her mind had been wandering, but it was time she stopped thinking about mystical concepts and got down to trying to bring this nightmare to a close. “Nothing. I was just thinking. We should be at MacDuff’s Run by late afternoon, shouldn’t we?”