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collecting his belongings from the tray.
     
As he did, Nuñez noticed that the two fingers protruding from his bandage each bore a tattoo; the tip of his index finger bore the image of a crown, and the tip of his thumb bore that of a star. Seems everyone has tattoos these days, Nuñez thought, although the pads of his fingertips seemed like painful spots to get them. “Those tats hurt?”
     
The man glanced down at his fingertips and chuckled. “Less than you might think.”
     
“Lucky,” Nuñez said. “Mine hurt a lot. I got a mermaid on my back when I was in boot camp.”
     
“A mermaid?” The bald man chuckled.
     
“Yeah,” he said, feeling sheepish. “The mistakes we make in our youth.”
     
“I hear you,” the bald man said. “I made a big mistake in my youth, too. Now I wake up with her every morning.”
     
They both laughed as the man headed off.
     
     
Child’s play, Mal’akh thought as he moved past Nuñez and up the escalator toward the Capitol Building. The entry had been easier than anticipated. Mal’akh’s slouching posture and padded belly had hidden his true physique, while the makeup on his face and hands had hidden the tattoos that covered his body. The true genius, however, was the sling, which disguised the potent object Mal’akh was transporting into the building.
     
A gift for the one man on earth who can help me obtain what I seek.
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 5
     
The world’s largest and most technologically advanced museum is also one of the world’s best-kept secrets. It houses more pieces than the Hermitage, the Vatican Museum, and the New York Metropolitan . . . combined. Yet despite its magnificent collection, few members of the public are ever invited inside its heavily guarded walls.
     
Located at 4210 Silver Hill Road just outside of Washington, D.C., the museum is a massive zigzag-shaped edifice constructed of five interconnected pods—each pod larger than a football field. The building’s bluish metal exterior barely hints at the strangeness within—a six-hundred-thousand-square-foot alien world that contains a “dead zone,” a “wet pod,” and more than twelve miles of storage cabinets.
     
Tonight, scientist Katherine Solomon was feeling unsettled as she drove her white Volvo up to the building’s main security gate.
     
The guard smiled. “Not a football fan, Ms. Solomon?” He lowered the volume on the Redskins play-off pregame show.
     
Katherine forced a tense smile. “It’s Sunday night.”
     
“Oh, that’s right. Your meeting.”
     
“Is he here yet?” she asked anxiously.
     
He glanced down at his paperwork. “I don’t see him on the log.”
     
“I’m early.” Katherine gave a friendly wave and continued up the winding access road to her usual parking spot at the bottom of the small, two-tiered lot. She began collecting her things and gave herself a quick check in the rearview mirror—more out of force of habit than actual vanity.
     
Katherine Solomon had been blessed with the resilient Mediterranean skin of her ancestry, and even at fifty years old she had a smooth olive complexion. She used almost no makeup and wore her thick black hair unstyled and down. Like her older brother, Peter, she had gray eyes and a slender, patrician elegance.
     
You two might as well be twins, people often told them.
     
Their father had succumbed to cancer when Katherine was only seven,and she had little memory of him. Her brother, eight years Katherine’s senior and only fifteen when their father died, had begun his journey toward becoming the Solomon patriarch much sooner than anyone had ever dreamed. As expected, though, Peter had grown into the role with the dignity and strength befitting their family name. To this day, he still watched over Katherine as though they were just kids.
     
Despite her brother’s occasional prodding, and no shortage of suitors, Katherine had never married. Science had become her life partner, and her work had proven