Eye of the God (5 page)

Alex followed Abby out of the Smithsonian parking lot and into the flow of traffic. The mental files in his mind began to fall into place. He remembered the hair, the ear, the neck. And he remembered the ring. Alex Weld knew where he had seen her. He scrambled for his phone.

Isaac sat in a dimly lit office with the shades drawn, a set of Smithsonian blueprints spread on the desk. He traced the pale blue lines with a fingertip, mentally working his way through the building.

A stack of black-and-white photographs sat on the corner of the desk. Among them were snapshots of Abby at work, at home, and in her car.

Newspaper clippings were pinned haphazardly to the wall behind him. The most recent was an article about the heist in Rio. Another proclaimed that two Van Gogh paintings had been stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. A third described the theft of Edvard Munch's classic
The Scream,
known to many as the most frequently stolen piece of art in the world.

The phone rang. Isaac picked it up and asked, “Did you make contact?”

“Yes,” replied Alex. “But we have a problem.”

“What problem?”

“It seems we've met our mark before.”

Isaac snatched a picture from the pile and glared at Abby's face. “What do you mean?”

“In Rio. She was wearing the ring.”

“Where are you now?”

“Following her to a café. We're having dinner.”

“Get to the bottom of it,” Isaac hissed.

“I intend to.”

Isaac set the phone down and studied the picture.

Alex and Abby sat at a small bistro table on the sidewalk, sipping coffee and eating sandwiches. The smell of autumn leaves suggested that winter was not far off.

“What's the craziest thing that's ever happened to you on the job?” Alex asked, taking a sip of coffee.

Abby grunted and curled her upper lip. “You don't want to know.”

“Oh, come on, what can be so distressing about the life of a museum director?”

“Are you insinuating that my life is boring?” Abby grinned.

“Yes.” He chuckled.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Abby shrugged. “How about a theft at gunpoint and the loss of four of the most valuable paintings in the world?”

“At the Smithsonian?”

Abby shook her head and finished the last bite of her sandwich. “No. In Rio de Janeiro. I was on a business trip and found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Sounds harrowing.”

“It was pretty bad.” Abby paused and then looked at Alex apologetically. “I'm sorry. You asked me for an interview and I've been babbling on about my problems. All that time I spend around
boring
inanimate objects must have left me hungry for human interaction.”

“
Touché
,” Alex said, offering a genuine laugh. He pulled a legal pad from the bag at his side and flipped back through the notes he had made during her lecture. “Sooo … take me back to the beginning. What happened to Tavernier once he got his hands on the diamond?”

“He held onto it for fifteen years. It's the only stone he kept for any length of time. He later sold it for the equivalent of $3.6 million dollars.”

Alex whistled. “Not a bad profit!”

“Perhaps, but I'm sure he soon came to wish he had never laid eyes on the thing.”

“How so?”

Abby turned a wistful gaze toward the park across the street. The tree limbs swayed in the gentle breeze. Loose strands of hair swirled across her cheek as she told Alex the story.

4

DECCAN PLATEAU, CENTRAL INDIA, 1655

H
AUTES MONTAGNES QUI FONT UNE FORME DE CROISSANT
,
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier scratched into the pages of his journal as he looked at the great stone outcropping atop Medusala Mountain. Although he had heard many travelers refer to the mountain being shaped in the form of a cross, he disagreed.

It looks more like a crescent to me
, he thought, digging through his bag for a pouch of dried fruit.
But it could be the hunger talking
.

The oxen cart jolted along the dirt road, narrowly avoiding ditches on either side. Tavernier perched atop the shaky wooden loft like a corpulent bird on a swaying branch. The guide he hired to take him to the Kollur mines walked beside the mangy beast, carrying a whip in one hand and a dirty water skin in the other.

“How much farther?” Tavernier asked, aching from the journey.

“Just over that rise,” the guide responded, cracking a whip upon the malnourished haunches of the old ox. What was meant as an effort to spur the beast into action
resulted in nothing more than an aggravated grunt. The ox plowed ahead slowly, putting one arthritic hoof in front of another, same as before.

Tavernier sat up and craned his neck to see over the ridge, balancing his weight carefully to avoid falling off the cart.

Within a few moments, the wobbly ensemble of ox, cart, rider, and guide crested the ridge and beheld the largest excavation on the continent. A great plateau spread before them, swarming with tens of thousands of workers.

Europeans dug their mines into the sides of mountains and tunneled deep within, supporting their quarries with elaborate engineering and timber frames. The Indians preferred instead to dig their holes directly into the ground, leaving wide but relatively shallow pock marks throughout their mining areas. Most holes were abandoned after a few feet if no diamonds were discovered. Others plummeted fathoms into the rocky soil and were virtual beehives of activity.

Although Tavernier bought thousands of diamonds from the region during his career, he had never been to the source of their bounty until now. He watched the frenzied activity below with interest. It was not long, however, before their presence was noted, and they were approached by an officer wearing the white turban and golden sash of the sultan.

“You are trespassing,” he said, without taking note of name or rank.

“I am here on official business,” Tavernier retorted, lumbering off the cart with minor difficulty. “I am here to see Prime Minister Jumla.”

At his full height, the Frenchman stood over six feet tall, a great contrast to the short, slender officer. The
excess of one hundred extra pounds made Tavernier seem even larger.

“Are you a friend?”

“A business associate.”

“I see,” the officer said with a slight nod. “Please come with me.”

Tavernier followed the officer through the midst of the camp where thirty thousand slaves—men, women, and children—hauled dirt from the pits and carried it away to be sifted for diamonds. On a small rise in the midst of the vast camp rose a large mound of earth, topped by an ornate wooden pergola. The sides of the structure were hung with tapestries, blocking its occupant from sight.

The soldier led Tavernier to the entrance, motioned for the guards to let him in, and then slipped away without a word.

As he parted the heavy curtains, Tavernier stopped short, clenching his jaw. Seated on the plush cushions was not Mir Jumla, but a man that Tavernier had grown to detest during his many travels to Golconda.

The old Brahmin sat cross-legged on a cushion, looking deceptively frail. The swath of red fabric wrapped around his waist was hiked up to the knees, pooling around his thin legs. A yellow sash hung over his bare chest, and his long, oily hair was tied back with a strip of leather. The beard that had once been thick and black was almost completely gray and came to a scraggly point a few inches beneath his chin.

“Rai Rao,” Tavernier growled.

“That is hardly a way to address a Brahmin,” Rai said, hands folded across his belly.

“Where is Mir Jumla?”

“I govern these mines for the sultan. Why would you expect to find that Persian traitor here?”

“We had an appointment last week, and he never arrived. I assumed he was delayed by business at the mines.”

“Would that appointment have involved the sale of diamonds rightly owned by the sultan?” Rai asked. He cocked his head to one side, eyeing Tavernier guardedly. “Perhaps you came looking for another blue diamond to match the one you stole two years ago?”

It took Tavernier only a brief moment to regain his composure, but he feared his expression had confirmed the Brahmin's assumption. “I came to buy diamonds. And I buy them from the prime minister, sanctioned by the sultan to do so. I am a jewel merchant. That is what I do. You know that very well, Rai.”

“I prefer to be addressed as Brahmin.”

“I prefer to speak with Mir Jumla.”

“Indeed,” he grunted. “You will need to find a new middleman. prime minister Jumla no longer works for the sultan.”

“I find that odd considering I received a dispatch from him a short time ago requesting that I meet him in Golconda.”

“Perhaps that was before he decided to find employment with the Mughal emperor, taking over four hundred pounds of the sultan's diamonds with him.”

“I know nothing of that,” Tavernier answered.

“You are hardly a convincing witness considering you and Mir Jumla have a long history of trading the sultan's jewels.”

“Jewels I bought and
paid
for honestly.”

“Just because you paid for them does not mean they were rightfully for sale.”

Tavernier paused, considering a new tactic. “Whether Mir Jumla traded diamonds honestly is not
my
concern, nor is it
my
problem. I bought what he sold. There is no crime in that.”

Rai Rao leaned in with a devilish grin. “It will be if you are found to have any diamonds larger than ten carats on your person or in your belongings. My officers are searching your room at the palace as we speak.”

Tavernier began sweating long before he entered the Brahmin's pergola, so the cold beads that dripped down his brow did not belie the sudden panic that gripped him. His concern was not for the hundreds of diamonds that sat in his quarters on the palace grounds, but for the 112-carat blue diamond that rested in the buckskin pouch next to his heart.

“You look worried Jean-Baptiste. Is there something that you need to tell me before I have my soldiers strip you?”

The color rose in his cheeks, and he leaned forward until he was but a few inches from Rai's face. “Do
not
mistake my anger for fear. You are forward, indeed, if you believe for a moment that you can treat the sultan's ambassador to France with such disdain. There is not a man in the sultan's court that would dare accuse me of dishonest dealings, and I would greatly caution you from becoming the first.”

A self-satisfied grin spread across Rai's face, and he brought his palms together in a series of three loud claps. The curtains were instantly parted by two guards who moved forward and took Tavernier by the arms.

“We will see if you have anything to fear or not,” Rai said as he leaned back into the cushions. “Take him back to Golconda and throw him in the dungeon.”