Behind the Walls (21 page)

‘You’re on a dig?’

‘No. I’m documenting a collection of—’

‘OK. So you’re on campus? I can come by.’

‘No, I work at a professor’s house. Off campus.’

‘So, I’ve got a car – how far away will you be?’

Man, he was pushy. Why was he pressing so hard? ‘Rick. It’s not going to work. Besides, like I said, I’m not interested in working for the Colonel.’

‘At least hear me out before you make up your mind. No harm in listening, right? Are you at work now?’

Good God. ‘Yes. I am. And I’ve got to get back to it. So—’

‘OK. I get it. I know when I’m shot down. Hey. Good to talk to you, Harper. Catch you later.’

Harper stood on the gravel road, baffled. Irritated. What was Rick’s problem? Why had he been so persistent? Was he the Colonel’s duty officer? Had Rick sent people to quiet Burke? And Murray? Would he come after her next? She looked around, saw nobody among the trees. Of course she didn’t. Colonel Baxter was ambitious, overbearing. Possibly dishonest. But a killer? Doubtful. Even if he’d stolen the money, he wouldn’t assassinate every potential witness. He was a renowned public figure with a distinguished military record. The idea of him putting hits on people – well, it was absurd.

Enough. She wasn’t going to think about them now. In fact, she wasn’t going to think about anything that was newer than Pre-Columbian. Tossing her phone back into her bag, she closed her eyes. Took slow deep breaths. Relaxed her shoulders. Felt the stillness of the air and the trees. Opened her eyes again.

The gray sky sent soft light through the branches; yellow and copper leaves speckled the ground. The air smelled of crispness, of autumn. Harper walked on, her shoes crunching pebbles, crushing leaves. One step. Another. Gradually, though, she noticed another sound – soft and muted. Echoing her steps. She stopped, listening. Looking around. Bracing herself to fight – was someone following her? One of the Colonel’s people?

Silence. Then a breeze skittering through the trees. Damn. Now, she was the paranoid one; Burke’s fear had infiltrated her psyche.
You shouldn’t be alone
, she heard him warn.
They’re all around, watching. Closing in.

‘Shut up,’ she muttered, walking on, feeling an ache in her left leg, hearing the sound again. Deciding that it wasn’t actually a sound; it was more like imperfect timing, as if her footsteps were slightly out of sync with the noise they made.

Harper kept going, reaching into her bag, searching for her pocket knife, finding her flashlight and phone, her water bottle. Pretending not to notice the sound, she tried to identify its direction. And when she did, even without a weapon, she spun around to face it, adopting a combat stance.

A young buck stood among the trees. Bambi? That’s who’d shaken her up? She exhaled, shook her head. Noticed the odd coincidence: deer were the Pre-Columbian symbol of the Seventh Day. And it was Sunday – the seventh day of the week. Chills skittered up Harper’s spine even as she dismissed the fact as meaningless. Big deal. So she’d seen a deer on a Sunday – Pre-Columbian beliefs were fascinating but had no basis in reality. After all, they were nothing but myths. Deer symbolized many things: they stood for the hunt; they were the rescuer of the moon goddess. And they were a favored shape taken by Nahuals.

The deer lifted its head and met Harper’s eyes, stared right at her, directly, as if challenging her. But of course, it wasn’t doing anything of the kind. Deer were meek; deer didn’t challenge. The creature was probably terrified, frozen in fear. Harper stood motionless, watching it, recalling Zina raving about a Nahual. Swearing she’d encountered a cat-man-bat-owl  . . . Deer?

No. Absurd. Still, for a long moment, neither of them moved. The deer watched Harper; Harper watched the deer. A stand-off. Harper assured herself that the deer would not change forms and turn into a hunter. Wouldn’t come after her heart. A Nahual hadn’t killed Zina; there was no such thing as a Nahual, and Zina’s family had killed her.

Still, the animal was large. Muscular. And its eyes were steady, holding her gaze. Harper told herself to get moving, asked herself why she was in a staring contest with a four-legged furry opponent. Decided that she would end it. Breaking her stare, she took a deliberate step forward and looked at the path ahead.

A few steps later, Harper turned to look back. She didn’t see the deer, but she heard an odd sound for daytime: the mournful hoot of an owl.

Inside the house, Harper went straight upstairs, through the main house to the east wing. She needed to work, to focus on concrete items and tasks. So she hurried to the workroom with the logbooks, cameras and computer.

And saw that the boxes had been moved.

She’d left the crates that she’d already itemized and labeled neatly arranged in stacks. But they weren’t stacked any more; they stood side by side at odd angles, sloppy and disorganized. Harper stood at the door, surveying the room, her senses on alert. The intruder might still be around, hiding behind stacked boxes. Silently, she reached into her bag, feeling for cylindrical shapes, sifting through granola bars, water bottle, pens, pocket knife, tampons – until, finally, she retrieved her flashlight and slowly stepped into the room, aiming the light into dark corners behind the hodgepodge of boxes. Finding no one, she moved out, down the hall, searching each shadowed room. Nobody was there.

Could she be mistaken? Had she been so upset that she hadn’t actually left the boxes as neatly arranged as she’d thought? No. Absolutely, no. She clearly remembered separating the boxes she’d examined from the others, leaving them in order, clearly coded. Stacked neatly one on top of the other.

One of the brothers must have been there. Angus or Jake – both resented her presence. One of them must have come in to see what she’d done, messed around with the boxes, probably to annoy her. Well, they’d succeeded. Now that the boxes had been tampered with, she’d have to reopen them and confirm that the contents were still there as she’d logged them, undisturbed. Damn.

Harper shoved her flashlight into her belt, went back to the workroom. Put on the protective gloves and got to work, rechecking the crates one after another, confirming their contents, redoing what she’d already done. Finally, when she’d made sure everything was intact, she re-stacked the boxes neatly in the corner and lifted a new crate on to the worktable. It had a mark on the side: Utah. She reached for the lever to pry the top up. Opened it. And stared.

Nothing was in the box. Not even packing material. OK. There could be a lot of reasons it was empty. The professor might have removed everything. Or the contents could have been loaned out to a museum. Or broken during shipping, or sold. She read the list fastened to the inside of the lid. Three vessels and a gold mask were supposed to have been in the container. The note said nothing about lending or selling the relics.

Harper did the only thing she could; she added the items to her growing list of missing relics. Then she resealed the empty box, placed it in the corner with the others she’d examined, and opened another crate. Lifting the lid, she hesitated, worried that this box might be empty, too. But it wasn’t. Wads of packing material cushioned individual casings. She pulled each out carefully, and opened them, one by one.

There were seven Narino ornamental gold pieces from around AD 750. Each with dramatic projecting human faces, valued at $15,000.

A detailed avian sculpture from 2200 BC, thirteen and a quarter inches high, decorated with a double row of onyx knobs, valued at $10,000.

Two early classic Veracruz warrior sculptures from about 300 AD, with black skin, elaborate ornamental clothing, even detailed helmets. Valued at $15,000 apiece.

The final object on the contents’ list was missing. A Honduran marble vessel from the Ulua Valley, early post-classic period, about 1000 AD. Eight and one eighth inches deep, with geometric patterns and a projecting feline face with open mouth and jaguar fangs, handles in jaguar forms. Valued at $55,000.

Damn. The most valuable and intriguing piece in the crate was missing. Harper looked inside again, found only packing materials. The vessel wasn’t there. Why were so many pieces missing? Even if the professor had been absent minded, could he have removed all these missing pieces? Could he really have stashed unique $55,000 treasures in his soup pots?

Harper stared at the empty crate, frustrated. Too many important pieces were simply not accounted for. Someone would probably have to search the house, look under cushions, behind books. Even inside those legendary hidden passageways, if they existed.

Under the work light, the gold ornaments glowed. The warriors stood strong. Photographing them, Harper calculated that, according to the listed insurance estimates, even without the vessel, this one box contained about $130,000 worth of artifacts. She glanced around the room. Counted fourteen crates. The hallway and other rooms held dozens more. She did some rough math, estimated that the collection was worth several million. Possibly tens of millions.

Lord. She’d known that it was valuable. But now, adding up the estimates on the itemized lists, she couldn’t quite grasp the numbers. Or the incredible fact that she had the opportunity to actually put her eyes and hands – well, her gloves – on such rare and high-priced relics.

Carefully, Harper made a note of the missing vessel; recorded and verified the presence of the other objects. Then, before repacking them, she studied each piece. Felt their textures and weights, studied their detail and aesthetics. She held them, sensing the presence of their creators, as if the hands that had crafted the pieces could reach across centuries, touching her through their work. Who had formed these gold ornaments? Or clothed the figurines? Had the bird sculpture signified the soul of a dead warrior? She was examining its wings when, suddenly, her concentration broke. Harper sat up, alert. Hearing – no,
feeling
– someone coming up the stairs.

No one’s there, she told herself. But her instincts knew better. She’d had this sense many times in Iraq; it wasn’t a sound or a visual. In fact, it wasn’t anything with a name – just a certainty that someone was approaching. Maybe it came from a stirring of the air or the beating of a heart. But it was a certainty that she’d learned not to question, that had saved her life more than once.

Silently, Harper slid off her stool. Grabbing the lever, she stepped toward the door. And didn’t even breathe.

Rick Owens walked past the ‘No Trespassing’ sign, proud of himself. He’d played Harper like a fiddle, got her to tell him everything he needed to know without her suspecting a thing. In fact, she probably thought she’d brushed him off. No way she had a clue that he was right here in Ithaca. Let alone, not far behind her on the road, following her Ninja.

He stopped to admire her bike. Not a bad choice for a female. Nice chrome—

Rick spun around, hearing a rustle in the bushes. Saw a squirrel scampering up a trunk. Rolled his eyes at his own jumpiness. He continued along the gravel path, his sneakers almost silent. Not that anyone would hear him; the place was deserted. Well, except for Harper. She was here. The Ninja said so, and so had her cell phone. Nice to have connections who could trace calls.

But he wouldn’t have any more fuck ups. Not to brag, but despite what had happened with Burke, he was good. Efficient. Persuasive. He’d get the job done, according to plan. He’d show her how urgent things were, how the country was at war – not just war like the public ones in Iraq or Afghanistan or the rest of the hot spots. No it was fighting another, almost invisible war; one much more destructive and insidious than those others. One being fought right here at home, quietly, untalked about. A war that was eating the country from its gut, taking it down. The only hope was strong leadership by someone who could get people off their asses, inspire the military, mobilize the general public, close the borders. Make America strong again. A country not to be messed with.

First, this infernal, internal cancerous war had to be won. And Harper could be – no, she
needed
to be part of it. She had to choose a side. Step up. Not like Murray and Burke. Rick pursed his lips, felt the soreness of their loss, the betrayal.

For a few minutes, he hung back in the darkness of the trees, scouting out the front of the monstrous old house. The place was like a damned hotel, seemed wide as football field. But no problem; he’d find her. He could move like a shadow, disappear into dust. And he’d done his homework on Harper, on this place. Had studied the unsolved murder that had occurred here on this very site a week ago. The way the woman had died. The location, the position in which Harper had found her.

It was almost as if someone had set that murder up to make his worst-case scenario easy for him. Not that he’d have to take Harper out; his mission was to persuade, not necessarily eliminate her. Even so, combat images he’d tried to erase kept reviving themselves, popping into his head. Like the open eyes of a dead Iraqi boy, their look of disappointment. Rick blinked, trying to shake the boy from his mind, but he heard familiar screams and rifle fire; saw a leg in the middle of the road, smelled burning rubber and flesh. He rubbed his eyes. Felt the ground shake. Sweat rolled down his back, and his arms tingled from the vibration of his machine gun. Finally, he slid into a crouch beside a tree trunk, grounding himself against its rough bark.

When the images faded, he sat for a moment, recovering. Then, making sure he was safe, he checked his watch. He’d lost half an hour. Damn. Recovering, he looked over his shoulder, made sure no one was around, and darted to French doors at the side of the house. Jimmied the lock. Swung the door and snuck in. All of this in less than fifteen seconds.

Rick checked the pistol in his pocket. He wouldn’t need it, of course, but kept it at hand always, even when he slept. Just in case. He moved silently across the house, along a long hall to the foyer. He wandered through the first floor, looking for Harper. There were way too many rooms. A library or study. A formal living room, a dining room that could seat dozens. A big room with a high ceiling, completely empty. A huge kitchen, divided into three large rooms. A laundry room and servants’ quarters. Rick turned and went back to the stairs. Harper wasn’t on this floor; he was wasting time.