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

Jason was horrified, but he wasn’t surprised, nothing the twins did since their sixteenth birthdays would surprise him. He watched their faces, listened to the words coming from their mouths, telling him Lilith had convinced them that they should kill the thief, that the men she’d hired had failed, and how she’d had the thief’s husband, Grant Thornton, kidnapped, to make an exchange. Lilith had assured them it was necessary, had to be done, both of them killed and disposed of.

He looked into those faces, listened to all the lies. But his voice remained calm. “Where is this man, this Grant Thornton, the thief’s husband Lilith had kidnapped?”

Ajax said, “She wanted to make the exchange in Venice, but that didn’t work out.”

Jason said, “I saw how that didn’t go well for your men. The world saw. It was a disaster.”

“Lilith’s men, Grandfather,” Cassandra said.

Ajax said, “So she brought him here, to the dungeons beneath the palazzo. She convinced us the thief would come here and we’d have both of them.”

“And what makes Lilith believe the thief will come to Castel Rigone?”

Cassandra said, “Lilith told us the thief was desperately in love with her husband and would do anything to save him. Once we have both of them, there will be no more problems.”

“And the FBI agents I saw in the Piazza San Marco?”

“They won’t be a problem, either,” Cassandra said. “If they come to us making accusations, we will tell them about Lilith—we will convince them she was the one who engineered the theft of the staff from the Topkapi. All will be well, Grandfather.”

“But you are the ones who wanted the staff of Moses stolen.”

“We are Kohaths,” Cassandra said. “It was our responsibility to ensure the staff was a fake.”

“I see, and what did you do with the fake staff?”

“We destroyed it,” Ajax said, and shrugged.

“I still don’t understand why you simply didn’t pay the thief and be done with it.”

Only a slight pause, then Ajax said, “Again, it was Lilith who made that decision. She said loose ends always came back to cause trouble. And now we have no choice. Lilith has left us, returned to Scotland, she told us, so now we have to act even though we don’t wish to. We will remove the thief and her husband. Then the FBI will have nothing.”

“You could tell the FBI that Lilith went to Scotland.”

Another telling pause, then Ajax said, “I think that Lilith lied to us, Grandfather. She’s committed heinous crimes and she is probably in hiding. We couldn’t very well order her to stay.”

“It is a pity she is not available to be arrested for her crimes.”

“Yes, it is,” Ajax said, “but she is gone. Probably forever.”

Cassandra said, “Grandfather, Lilith isn’t important. What is important, urgent, really, is that you prepare to move the Atlantic storm, just in case things don’t work out.”

Here it comes. Jason said, his voice emotionless, “And where would you like this storm to hit?”

Ajax said, “Washington, D.C. You always told us you didn’t like the place, too full of men and women who thought too much of themselves, braying asses, you called the politicians. Think of it as an opportunity. Should the FBI not be convinced of our innocence, we’ll wipe them off the map—their White House, their government, all their FBI agents. Then no one will have time to give us a single thought.”

Cassandra said, “Ajax is right, Grandfather. You already have plans to have the storm hit the Gulf. You can simply change its trajectory and let it slam into the eastern seaboard instead.”

Jason wanted to weep, looking at what his precious Helen had birthed—two beautiful young people, identical faces, smart as whips, both of them, yet they weren’t even competent liars, at least to him. Nor did they have a shred of conscience between them. What he did was always for a greater purpose, always to gain money to further the search for the Ark, to keep the Genesis Group at the forefront of archaeological discoveries, at least that was always his justification.

But these two—they didn’t want to get caught for the senseless and stupid mistakes they made, the misery they’d caused, and now, they wanted to bring down a nation, needlessly murder thousands of innocent people, and for nothing, not a single noble goal. It was all to try to save themselves, no one else.

What am I to do with your progeny, Helen? But it wasn’t your fault, you were always noble, pure. No, it was that insane husband of yours, David Maynes, a man who is finally dead, only weeks ago, and I did rejoice, I drank an entire bottle of champagne. But he passed his madness to his children, you know he did.

For Helen’s sake, he would try reason. “Cassandra, Ajax, think about destruction of this magnitude. It is not New Orleans we’re talking about here, although Katrina wouldn’t have wreaked such havoc if the levees had held as they were supposed to.

“But Washington, D.C.? It is a nation’s capital. It goes against everything we believe. It does nothing to further the family’s goals, Genesis’s goals. The Coil is not meant to cover your mistakes.”

“It was Lilith’s mistakes, Grandfather,” Cassandra said. “Hers, not ours.”