The Devil's Triangle (A Brit in the FBI 4)

She pulled away the last covering, a layer of even softer white linen, and they looked down at a staff made of brown wood—almond wood—their mother had told them, about forty-eight inches long, with a thick knob on the side, near the top of the staff, that gave the impression of a small branch beginning to sprout out the side.

Cassandra reached toward it, her fingers nearly touching it. “It’s not singing to me the way I expected, the way Mother told me it would.”

“We won’t know if it’s real until we pick it up.”

“Yes. Together.” Their hands hovered over the staff. “One, two, three.”

They grasped the staff with both hands and stood it upright, their hands stacked upon the other, each fully touching the staff.

According to the prophecy they’d heard since they were old enough to repeat the words, their united hands should instantly make the knob on the staff begin to bud and bloom. But there were no buds, no blooms. There was nothing at all but the old misshapen stick.

Cassandra wanted to weep. “It’s a fake.”

Ajax said, “Come, you really didn’t expect it to be real, now did you? And now we know Mother was on the right track all along.” He walked to the desk, pulled out a tape measure, measured the length of the staff. He smiled. “The staff is over three inches too long to fit inside the Ark. The Topkapi had to know it was fake.” He picked up the staff, broke it over his knee, and threw the two pieces out the window into the canal.

She heard the wood pieces splash into the water below. She walked to the bar in the corner of the large room, opened the small refrigerator, and popped the cork on a bottle of Veuve Cliquot. She poured two glasses, handed one to Ajax.

“Screw the Topkapi. Serves them right for perpetuating a lie all these years. Now the good news: we now know for sure the Ark isn’t in Egypt.”

They clicked glasses and drank.

“And to the death of the Fox,” Ajax said. “The only thread left to snip in our needful experiment.”

They drank deeply.

A moment later, a knock sounded.

“Come,” Cassandra called.

The door opened, and a tall, slender woman, with long blond hair curving around her narrow face, stepped into the room.

Ajax went to her, took her arms in his hands, and smiled down at her.

Lilith said, “Don’t tell me the staff from the Topkapi is the real deal.”

“A fake, as we suspected,” he said, his hands moving to her face, lightly stroking. “You’re grinning like a loon, Lilith. What is it?”

“The storm will be under way in two days, no longer.”

“Excellent news.”

It was indeed good news, and it was news that Cassandra should have known before Lilith. She’d planned to call Grandfather that very evening to get the status. She eyed her brother, his arm still around their own private assassin. Lilith Forrester-Clarke was from Roslin, Scotland, the small town made famous by the novel The Da Vinci Code. Cassandra found herself wondering yet again how the very bedrock of Christianity could have spawned this devil’s seed. Lilith and Ajax had been together for nearly four years now, lovers, confidants, but Cassandra knew he was the one who had the control, she’d never doubted that. He was Lilith’s handler, fondly called her his ultimate weapon. Together they formulated plans, and she executed them. As far as Cassandra knew, Lilith had never failed. So why hadn’t Ajax assigned Lilith to deal with the Fox instead of that buffoon Pazzi?

Cassandra watched Lilith pour herself a glass of champagne, turn and smile at both of them. Lilith raised her glass.

Ajax said, “To fulfilling our destiny: bringing the Ark back to the Kohaths. To our mother, and may we prove she was right all along.” And they all drank. He said, “Lilith, turn on the television, let’s see the latest reports on the theft from the Topkapi Palace.”

Lilith switched on the television and heard a cardinal talk about what the loss of Moses’s staff would mean to the biblical community.

Lilith drank more of her champagne. She loved the taste of it on her tongue, loved the slide of it when she swallowed. She watched Ajax, then his twin. Both were athletes, strong and fit. She knew both believed it critical to keep themselves in perfect condition in the field, and out of i

t. Of course, they weren’t yet thirty, not her thirty-six, and that made a difference, though she’d never admit it.

She knew Cassandra distrusted her, but usually she managed to hide it, at least in front of Ajax. Cassandra probably wouldn’t believe it if she knew Lilith admired her more than Ajax, more than any other person on this earth except for Benjie, her young brother, who’d died so very young and so needlessly. The drunk driver had lived only six more days before the life left his body at the bottom of a quarry near Edinburgh.

She drank more, looked toward Cassandra using her hands as she spoke to Ajax, such excitement in her voice when she spoke of bringing the Ark home. Cassandra was the face of the Genesis Group, a flawless face, and her wit and charm were legendary in the archaeological community. Few knew that her charm and beauty hid a coldness so profound it even occasionally gave Lilith pause. The Genesis Group, a perfect name, Lilith had always thought, and what a history. The vast, very wealthy international archaeological firm had been started by the twins’ great-great-grandfather Appleton Kohath, back in the 1920s. From the beginning they had sponsored digs across the globe, providing funds when budgets ran short. In the past forty or so years, their financial assistance to the archaeological community had grown exponentially. They were respected, honored in every country.

Cassandra’s was a huge responsibility for one so young. As Ajax would remind Lilith in the dark of night, deep inside her, it was her responsibility to ensure his twin remained safe when she stepped in front of the cameras.