CRESCENT OF STEEL AND DARKNESS

CSI:New York and characters are the property of Anthony Zuiker and CBS; Without a Trace and characters are the property of Hank Steinberg and CBS; Hellboy and characters are the property of Mike Mignola and Dark Horse Entertainment. Used without permission. No copyright infringement intended.

All Qu'ran citations are from the translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali, published by Tahrike Tarsile Qu'ran, Inc., Elmhurst, Queens, 2003.

"Oh No" copyright 1962 by Robert Creeley. Used without permission. No copyright infringement intended.

Chapter 1

Thursday morning, 4:30 AM. A late spring dawn was still two hours away, but that never matters in the City that Never Sleeps; the Crime Scene Unit was already on its way. A man and a woman paused for a moment at the foot of the broadest, most impressive steps in the city, looking up toward the immense triple entrance and the three driveway-sized banners. Detective Stella Bonasera shifted her grip on her equipment case and considered the looming building. "So explain to me why they insisted on getting the two of us on this case."

Her colleague, slender and deceptively unprepossessing, favored her with a glance and half a smile. "Nothing but the best for the city's premier cultural institution, or something like that. What odds you want to lay that they called the museum director before us?" Detective Mac Taylor smirked up at the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Got to put this case to bed before the big donors get spooked."

"Are we feeling a little cynical this morning, Detective?" Bonasera pushed back her cloud of brown hair, and her eyes sparkled.

He swung up the steps just ahead of her. "This is New York, Stella. No matter how cynical you get, it's never enough to keep up."

"Right. How silly of me to forget."

They reached the door farthest right, opened for them by a museum security guard, and were met by another guard, two uniformed police officers, and a flustered-seeming gentleman in a hastily donned suit. This last grabbed and pumped Taylor's hand a little too hard, then Bonasera's, chattering rapidly. "Oh, so good of you to come quickly at this unconscionable hour! The Crime Scene Unit, right? Such a disaster; I can't even begin to remember when we last had a – an incident like this one. Poor Mr. de Montebello – he's the Director, you know – is utterly beside himself, but he's in Madrid now; he'd be here if he could, of course."

"Of course," Bonasera echoed him calmly. "And you are, sir?"

"Oh, how inconsiderate of me – very sorry! Clement Lindley, Curator of Arms and Armor. I'm afraid this nightmare happened on my watch, so to speak. Please, follow me."

The yellow tape was already marking the boundaries of a space off the famous Equestrian Hall that displayed the Met's finest suits of European armor. In this side gallery, away from the magnificent center, the light glowed from the display cases, gleaming against the immaculate steel surfaces of an array of Turkish and Balkan daggers, swords and guns; what light escaped the cases cast a deep shadow around the uniformed and lifeless body near one corner of the room.

Detective Don Flack was waiting for them, his familiar leather-jacketed figure beside the display nearest the body. "Here's our motive." A nod of his raven head indicated the neat round hole chased into the glass on the short side of the case; beyond the hole on the upholstered wall was a blank area bordered by two hooks that once supported a treasure. "Guard probably came in and caught him at it."

The curator let out a little wail. "Oh, the poor man!" As if suddenly remembering something, he started talking faster. "Jimmy Abbott, one of the newest on our security staff. He loved the place, loved the night shift, never complained about a thing – he used to mention how lucky he was to be here, surrounded by beautiful things, instead of in some dull office building…" The criminalists did not answer; they already had their cameras out and snapping every inch and angle of the crime scene.

Once there were enough pictures, Bonasera swooped to the violated display, leaving Taylor to the examination of the dead guard. "What was taken, Mr. Lindley?" she began even as she opened her case for fingerprint powder and luminol.

"Item 36.25.1297."

"That's not a whole lot of help," Flack observed tartly.

"Oh, do please forgive me! A sword, a magnificent Turkish scimitar with green leather-wrapped hilt and Koran verses chiseled in relief on a gold-inlaid blade, believed to have been made for Sultan Suleyman the First of the Ottoman Empire sometime in the 1520s."

"So how'd it end up here?"

"A gift to the Museum, via the bequest of the late George C. Stone in 1935."

Bonasera frowned at the powder she'd dusted over the glass. "No prints. Then again, that's not unexpected." She scrutinized the edge of the hole. "The cut was made with a diamond edge. No fragments, and he took the cut piece with him. Thoroughly professional." She turned to look toward her colleague. "He, or she, didn't make this easy for us, Mac – Mac?" Slight alarm tinged her voice when she saw his face.

The senior criminalist spoke as if only to himself, running his gloved hands across the body. "No bullet or stab wounds, no bruising or ligature marks on the neck, vertebrae feel intact, no sign of head trauma… and no blood." He looked up to meet his partner's eyes. "How did this man die?" With a single shake of his head, he returned to his examination. "Chances are that Dr. Hawkes will find a needle puncture, probably in the back. The tox screen will probably be very interesting." Taylor looked up again. "It looks as if this poor guy didn't catch our perp in the act, Detective Flack; the thief got the drop on him."

Lindley couldn't suppress a whimper; Bonasera quickly changed the subject as something caught her attention. "Mr. Lindley, was the missing sword a companion piece to any of these others?"

The curator followed her gaze to the remaining objects in the case, three more sabers and a scabbard. Two blades hung above the missing object's place, gold gleaming along gray steel, precious nephrite hilts carved so smoothly as to appear molded. But the eye swept past them rapidly, compelled to the angled bottom of the case by a sword and scabbard blazing with gemfire. The swooping blade flashed with an Arabic inscription written in inlaid diamonds and bracketed with the most delicate gold chasing; a tassel of pearls hung flirtatiously from the gem-accented jade hilt. The golden scabbard glowed green with immense polished emeralds, set among a glory of tiny diamonds.

"These pieces were grouped for common Ottoman origin and some stylistic similarities, but were certainly unconnected originally. As you can see," he could not keep the professorial temper from his voice as he indicated the sword above the empty spot, "this blade bears brief Koranic quotes set off with gold along its upper third. But the missing sword was completely covered with scriptures, all chiseled in relief out of the steel and surrounded with gold inlay. A unique piece, lavish without ostentation – unlike its more famous, later case-mate below." He shook his head at the gem-encrusted set and sighed.

"Been wanting to ask about that," Flack said almost casually. "That's quite a lot of ice on those things. Once the thief was inside the case, why not take those too?"

Lindley shrugged helplessly. "I can't imagine. If this animal wouldn't scruple to kill…" He shuddered, then quickly got a grip on himself. "All I can speculate is that this was one of those notorious commissioned thefts."

"Go on," Flack urged.

"Unscrupulous collectors are the curse of my profession, Detectives. Ever so often one will conceive an obsession for a particular piece and stop at nothing to get it. And there are those who will fulfill those obsessions for a very high price."

"Still, you'd think the perp might help himself to a bonus, given the opportunity. Honor among thieves is a fantasy." Bonasera cast another look at the jewel-encrusted scimitar left behind. "You say the stolen item was inlaid with gold?"

"Yes, but the total amount of gold involved in such pieces is rather small. It's the artistry of the inscriptions, not the troy weight, that matters."

Taylor glanced up from the victim's body. "What'd they say?"

The curator looked down as if surprised to see him. "I beg your pardon, Detective?"

"The inscriptions. What'd they say? I assume you read Arabic, Mr. Lindley."

The other smiled a little. "Sadly, I can't make that boast. My own linguistic expertise is limited to English, French, German and Italian, but of course our staff collectively can read and speak almost every written language on earth."

"That's real nice." Flack was curious, and getting annoyed with waiting for an answer to his colleague's question. "So what was written on the damn sword, already?"

"Oh – oh, of course. I can't give you a word-for-word translation off the cuff, but I understand that they were verses from the Koran dealing with jihad victory – appropriate for a royal sword – and King Solomon's magical power over the jinn, or spirits – no doubt intended to flatter the sword's recipient, Sultan Suleyman, his name being the Arabic version of Solomon."

Taylor's eyes hardened. "Jihad victory," he repeated almost tonelessly; Bonasera felt a chill. Fortunately, he then changed the subject: "I see there are security cameras in this gallery."

"In all of them, Detective," the curator replied. "Not to mention also in the hallways, the storage spaces, and at every entrance and exit."

"That's great. When can we have the tapes?"

Lindley pinked, and his fingers began dancing a nervous samba with each other. "According to our security staff," he glanced uncertainly over at the pair of museum guards across the gallery, "the cameras in here were turned off last night."

"WHAT the – !" Flack whirled to look up at the ceiling. "What about the main hall? He had to have come in from there."

The curatorial blush deepened to tomato scarlet. "We checked. Those were turned off too." Lindley looked down as if he didn't have permission to do otherwise.

"The cameras were probably deactivated all along the route our perp took in and out," Bonasera speculated.

"In advance." Taylor stood, acid in his voice. "An inside job, on the cleanest crime scene we've ever had."

Flack grunted. "And the hits just keep on coming."

Lindley's hands went to his face, now shifting from red to gray, and dragged down it. "Truer words were, sadly, never spoken. Please try to appreciate our position, Detectives! This museum – or rather, this complex – is the greatest treasure-house on the continent. It comprises eight acres of buildings covering over a million square feet; it has to have its own power plant, even its own fire department. We have a staff of over three thousand, and own a thousand objects for each one of them, fewer than ten percent of which are on display at any given time. At the best of times we teeter on the edge of chaos, and now, with this – this awful event," it was as if the polished fellow could not bring himself to say 'murder'; "following so soon on the disappearance, I've no idea what will become of us!"

One word got full police attention. "What disappearance?" Flack got it out first.

"You weren't aware? Why, we've already engaged the local FBI office on the matter. A member of the conservatorial staff in the department of European Painting and Sculpture didn't show up for work Tuesday, without calling or giving any notice. When she didn't show up again yesterday and could not be contacted, her colleagues worried and reported her missing."

All the NYPD officers on the scene exchanged looks. "Mr. Lindley, we'll need pictures of both the stolen object and the missing person," Taylor declared. "We also have to know everything you told the FBI before we contact them ourselves. If the staff here are able to get in and out of the building after hours, we just might have our perp."

Lindley went fully ashen. "Oh, no, that's not possible! Not Lexi!" Remembering himself, he explained, "Alexa Duhaine, the missing conservator, was a lovely girl. Talented, conscientious, very serious and completely dedicated to her work and this institution."

"The ones you always have to watch out for," Flack sneered.

Bonasera assured the curator gently, "Nobody has identified any suspects yet. But we have to consider the slim chance that she was somehow involved in this."

"Slim to none, and slim is quite out, Detective," the curator replied firmly. "It's inconceivable that a member of the Metropolitan Museum staff could be so heedless of professional honor as to be complicit in – in bloodshed and plunder!"

Taylor almost smiled, but there was no mirth in his eyes. "And yet, a thief and murderer was able to gain access without forced entry, and the cameras that would have solved the matter were carefully turned off ahead of time. I get a sense of less than perfect loyalty on someone's part."

With the dead man secured on a stretcher, the morgue attendants glided through the Hall of Arms and Armor, followed by the Crime Scene Unit with what meager evidence they had been able to gather. Far above, on the balcony bridge linking the two wings of the second-floor Musical Instruments collection, hovering before a grand pipe organ, a keen golden gaze followed them out, dark thoughts simmering behind the shining eyes. Too late. The local cops are all over this now. Should've been here even before they got the feds involved, but who knew? Who knew what she would do – and with whom? And now it's gone, into the wrongest hands that could get it. Well, like they say, you knew the job was tough when you took it… With a swirl of motion, too swift and too quiet, the balcony was suddenly empty again between the stone railing and the organ, and something moved almost noiselessly into the shadows.

TO BE CONTINUED