01 Babylon Rising by Tim Lahaye Page B

rifled, but judging by the hiss of anger that accompanied the search, the desired object was not inside.
    The figure stopped suddenly, head cocked toward the door. Footsteps. High heels tapping their way down the corridor. In the office all was still. The footsteps continued, coming nearer. Then stopped. A pause. Then a knock, soft, tentative. Then another, louder, more insistent.
    “Dr. McDonald? Do you need any assistance?”
    The prim young woman in the neat navy blue suit hesitated. Sometimes when Dr. McDonald didn’t answer, she was simply concentrating so hard on a manuscript that she literally didn’t hear you knocking, and woe betide you if you marched in without being invited. One thing she’d learned early on was that Dr. McDonald didn’t take kindly to being interrupted in her work. It was a little like sleepwalkers, she thought to herself—if you woke them up, they could get terribly confused, violent even. Best to leave them well alone until they found their own way back to the land of the living.
    But this was different. She’d distinctly heard several loud crashes as she turned the corner, and as she neared the door there was no doubt in her mind that someone was trashing Dr. McDonald’s office.
    Fiona Carter wasn’t brave. The thought of any sort of physical violence made her nauseated with fear. But if there was one thing she feared more than a confrontation with a determined burglar, it was trying to explain to Dr. McDonald why she had allowed someone to decimate her precious library.
    Her hand shook as she slowly turned the knob and pushed the door.
    It swung open gently, revealing a slim female figure in a tweed skirt and a shapeless fisherman’s sweater standing ankle-deep in tattered journals and manuscript pages, a few of which stirred briefly in the sudden draft. The figure glared at her.
    “Dr. McDonald!” Fiona took a step forward and almost tripped over a hefty black volume. “Are you all right? I heard such a noise—I thought there was an intruder. I thought someone was—”
    “I can’t find the blasted poem of Charybdis! I was looking at it only yesterday, and now it’s disappeared. Fiona, have you been interfering with my manuscripts again?”
    Fiona stifled a nervous laugh. How could anybody, however ill intentioned, make Dr. McDonald’s office any more chaotic than it already was?
    “The poem of Charybdis? Is it possible you were consulting Merton’s
Early Coptic Literature
while you were reading it?”
    Dr. McDonald looked dubious. “Possibly. I suppose.”
    “In which case perhaps you put the poem inside the bookfor safekeeping?” If she remembered correctly,
Early Coptic Literature
was bound in dark green cloth with red lettering on the spine. It wasn’t in its usual place on the shelf against the far wall. Very little was. She looked down at the book-strewn floor.
    “Is that it? Over there, next to Eliade’s
The Sacred and the Profane?”
    Dr. McDonald turned in the direction Fiona was pointing and scooped up a fat green book. She riffled nimbly through its pages and a single sheaf of parchment fluttered to the floor. The poem of Charybdis.
    Dr. McDonald turned back to Fiona, beaming. With her matronly clothes and permanently severe expression, it was easy to miss the fact that Isis Proserpina McDonald was a stunningly beautiful woman. It was only her rare smiles that gave it away. Not that you were likely to see her smile if you called her by her given name.
    “Clever girl. How on earth do you put up with me?”
    Before Fiona could frame an appropriate answer, they were both frozen in place by a sudden ringing. Turning instinctively to the empty desk, they then scanned the floor, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Fiona pushed back a pile of journals and picked up the phone.
    “Hello, Dr. McDonald’s office, Fiona speaking. Oh, good morning, Professor Murphy.” She turned back to Dr. McDonald, who was still standing amid the rubble of her