Gabriel's Horn (10 page)

Walter pushed his glasses up his nose with a forefinger. “Actually, no. I’m going to get you out of here.”

Annja breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that what the little man was saying was true. “Forgive me, but do you happen to have any identification?”

“Of course.” Walter reached into his jacket and took out a leather identification case. The photo ID looked just like him and announced that he worked for the United States Embassy in the Czech Republic.

Nervously, Walter settled his briefcase on the table. “I think they’ve got someone coming with your things from the hotel.”

That puzzled Annja. “Why are they bringing my things from the hotel?”

“That way you don’t have to stop on your way to the airport.” Walter checked his BlackBerry. “We’re getting a police escort to the airport, so getting there in time for the flight shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What flight?”

“Your flight, Miss Creed. Your visa has been canceled. Effective immediately.”

Annja couldn’t believe it. “They’re kicking me out of the country?”

“That’s an awfully blunt way to look at it, Miss Creed.”

“Is there any other way to put it?”

“Actually, I believe I did put it another way. They’re rescinding your visa.”

Stunned, Annja slumped back in her chair.

15

Despite the impatience that screamed through her, Salome forced herself to sit quietly in the plush chair amid all the other potential buyers. She knew many of them. Over the years, they’d all crossed paths. Many of them watched her covertly and quickly glanced away when she looked in their direction.

She had a reputation, and she was quite aware of it. In fact, she took a certain amount of pride in that reputation. She’d worked hard over the years to attain it.

The auctioneer called for the buyers to bid on another item. He was a fastidious man in a good suit. His voice, though quiet and controlled, was far larger than he was.

Two young women, both dressed in low-cut gowns that threatened to expose them, presented an antique silver tea service. After they had the item properly positioned to show it off to its best advantage, the young women stepped aside.

After referencing the three-by-five card that accompanied the piece, the auctioneer said, “This six-piece tea service was once owned by President Andrew Jackson while he resided in the White House. The set has been authenticated as having been made by Jabez Gorham himself very early in his career.”

Salome checked the details of the tea set in her catalog out of habit. The tea service was worth quite a bit.

Salome quietly wondered how and where the auction house had gotten its hands on such a prize.

Once the bidding began, it went fast and furious. Bids were increased with the movement of a finger, the tap of an identifying number or simply the wiggle of an eyebrow.

Salome kept track of the bidding, not at all surprised at the brisk pace. Major buyers had known the service was going to be present. Auction houses in the Hague didn’t often get such things.

Salome immediately wondered if the tea service had been stolen at some point, or was even a very good replica. Either was possible. If a theft had occurred long enough ago, and if it had happened in another country, it was possible to get away with such a thing. Especially if documentation was provided that checked out against art-theft lists generated by Interpol and other international police agencies.

The tea service finally sold, but it was for at least, she judged, twenty percent over fair market value. That told her whoever had purchased it had bought it out of love, not as an investment. It was worth making note of, and she did. But it was a mental note. Nothing she ever thought or observed or noticed was recorded anywhere. Her insight was much too valuable.

Once the tea service was taken away, the two buxom beauties brought out the next piece. When Salome saw it, she stopped breathing for just a moment.

She trusted that she gave no outward sign. To the room she was prim and proper. The elegant Versace business suit—with pants, not a skirt—was the foundation of her professional image. Her brunette hair, parted on the left, hung to her shoulders and stayed carefully in place.

“The next item up for bid,” the auctioneer announced, “is a painting by a little-known Venetian artist Virgil Carolini.”

Salome knew that was not true. Virgil Carolini’s brush had never touched the canvas in the antique frame sitting at the front of the room.

“Carolini’s works are starting to find favor with collectors around the world,” the auctioneer said. “Some said he was a madman, that the visions he wrought so carefully on the canvas were merely fever dreams he’d trapped in paint.”

A naked man lounged on a bearskin rug in front of a fire. He was beautiful. The fire warmed the man’s dusky skin and backlit him so that the shadows gave him partial modesty. His black hair gleamed and framed his face in ringlets. He was huge and proportioned evenly, godlike in every way.

“Oh, my,” one of the female buyers gasped.

Salome regained control of herself. During her thirty-six years, twenty-nine of them spent chasing objets d’art beginning with her father when she was very young, she’d only felt this near the loss of control a handful of times. She took a slow breath and let it out.

Another woman laughed.

“He’s rather…large, isn’t he?” the woman asked, but Salome could tell from the woman’s reaction that she hoped this was no fantasy.

“Who was the model?” another woman asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” a man grumbled. “Whoever he was, he’s long dead. And the artist probably embellished that anyway.”

The auctioneer smiled a little, and it was the first emotion Salome had seen out of the man the whole long morning.

“Actually, if the rumors about this piece are true—” the auctioneer couched his terms salaciously “—the model could still be alive.”

Salome’s pulse quickened. She hadn’t expected the auction house to have any of the real history of the painting. The secret was about to be exposed, and she wondered who was responsible. She knew that Roux would never have told anyone. In fact, when she’d let him know how much she knew, he’d nearly killed her.

That was nine years ago. The incident had happened in Luxembourg after an art show. Despite the fact that she’d been checking for Roux’s presence since she’d stepped into the auction house, she looked around again.

There was no sign of the old man. Or of Saladin. She would be doubly blessed.

How did I find the prize before you did? she wondered. Then she admonished herself for feeling so fortunate. She hadn’t made off with the painting yet.

“According to the legend surrounding this piece,” the auctioneer went on, “the figure in this painting is a fallen angel.” He used a laser pointing device to indicate the fireplace. “If you gaze into the fire, you can see tormented souls twisting in Hell.”

At her distance, Salome couldn’t see the figures, but she knew they would be there. The notebooks she’d studied, the ones found in Cosimo de’ Medici’s private collections, had shown sketches of the Nephilim.

“And this shadow?” The auctioneer traced the curved shadow barely visible on the right side of the painting. “This is supposed to belong to the artist who painted this piece.”

“Unless I’m mistaken,” one of the men said, “that shadow belongs to a woman.”

The auctioneer smiled. “You’re not mistaken. Virgil Carolini was actually the pseudonym of a woman painter.”

“There weren’t many of those in the seventeenth century,” someone observed.

Salome was relieved to realize they didn’t know the painting was actually painted earlier than that. No one, except perhaps for Roux, knew the painting’s true origins.

And the old man wasn’t telling.

“No,” the auctioneer agreed. “There weren’t many female painters for a long time.” He let that sink in.

Salome knew he’d expertly moved the piece from art to a definite acquisition for possible investment. Collectors and investors alike treasured the unique in that regard.

The auctioneer moved the laser pointer again. “If you look in the shadows here, you can see what appear to be wings folded beneath the man.”

An appreciative murmur came from the crowd.

“I see them,” a woman said.

Salome did, as well. She slipped her phone from her purse and opened it to the keyboard. She typed quickly without looking at the keys.

“It’s here.”

The response came almost immediately. “It won’t escape us.”

“Make certain that it doesn’t.” Salome put the phone away.

The bidding started gingerly at first. Since there was no real knowledge of the piece or the artist, buyers were hesitant. Salome stayed out of it.

Eventually the painting sold to one of the women in the room.

Salome sat through eight more items. She bid on a few, always stopping short of where she knew the final price would hit. She even purchased a clock handmade by Jens Olsen, the internationally known clockmaker who’d designed and built the world clock in the Radhus, the Copenhagen City Hall. The price was low because most of those assembled didn’t know that it was an original. Salome knew she could sell it to a collector she knew for at least forty thousand dollars more than she paid for it.

Then the woman who had bought the painting got up to make arrangements for the acquisition. Salome did the same. While she was in line, she also rifled the woman’s purse and found her identification without getting caught.

* * * *

As Salome left the auction house, she was met at the curb by a car. The man in the backseat got out and helped her inside.

Riley Drake was a big man. He headed his own private security company and rented his shock troops out to countries around the globe. He’d grown up in England, but he’d learned his trade in the killing fields in Africa. He kept his head shaved and looked deadly earnest at all times. It was a quality that influenced CEOs and heads of state to do business with him.

“Her name is Ilse Danseker,” Salome said. “I got her address.”

Drake nodded. He was also not much of a talker, which many of his employers appreciated. He only spoke when he had something to say.

“She’s having the painting transported to her house,” Salome said. “But I don’t know when.”

“We could take it during transport,” Drake suggested.

Salome shook her head. “Then it looks like we were targeting the painting. No, this will play better if it looks like a home invasion.”

Drake looked at her. “You’re afraid of that old man you told me about, aren’t you?”

Salome considered that. “I’m not afraid. I’m just knowledgeable enough to be wary.”

Reaching over, Drake took her hand. His felt warm, confident and strong. “I could have him removed.”

Salome touched his face and smiled gently. “I would rather that be a course of action we have to follow rather than one we choose. For all I know, Roux doesn’t even know the painting has surfaced.”

“You’re sure this is the one?”

“The painting is right. I haven’t seen it up close yet, but it matches the sketches in Cosimo de’ Medici’s journals.”

Drake nodded. “And this thing is going to give you enough power to do anything you want?”

As she listened to him, Salome’s excitement grew. She couldn’t help herself.

“With what that painting hides,” she said seriously, willing him to believe her even though he seldom believed in anything that he couldn’t see with his own two eyes, “a person will have the power to remake the world.”

“And if it’s just a story?”

Salome refused to believe that. “It’s not just a story. Too many people are chasing after it.”

“You mean the old man.”

“More than just the old man,” Salome said.

Drake frowned slightly. “I thought you said not many people knew about this.”

“They don’t.” Salome knew that Drake was upset because she hadn’t trusted him with everything she knew. Men were like that. They got their egos bruised easily. Even big men.

“It’s just that these things can be difficult to control, love,” Drake said as he took her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm.

The kiss sent tingles through Salome. “There’s only one other,” she said. “His name is Saladin. He’s a very dangerous man.”

Drake regarded her with his pale blue eyes. “I’m more dangerous, love.”

Salome silently hoped so. But it wouldn’t matter after they had the painting.

16

Fall chill had settled into New York by the time Annja returned. As the jet came down, she glanced at the cold, slate-gray ribbon that was the East River and tried to convince herself it was good to be home.

She didn’t buy it.

She didn’t get to stay and work on the movie, hadn’t been able to follow up on the King Wenceslas piece she’d planned for
Chasing History’s Monsters,
hadn’t explored more of Prague’s Old Town and didn’t find out anything about what Garin and Roux were doing.

Or even if they were still alive. Saladin hadn’t struck her as someone who would be easy to deal with. Probably none of the Saladins had been.

She felt incredibly grumpy after the plane landed. Rather than stand in line with the rest of the passengers as they waited to be released, she reached into her pocket, took out her phone and turned it back on.

Her menu showed six missed calls. Four of them were from Doug Morrell, and she didn’t want to talk to him at the moment. Two others had come from Bart McGilley’s cell phone and were only minutes old. Knowing that Bart had called lifted her spirits somewhat.

Detective Bart McGilley of the New York Police Department had been Annja’s friend almost from the time she moved to Brooklyn. One of Bart’s superiors had seen Annja on Letterman and decided to call her in to consult on a case involving artifacts stolen from one of the smaller private museums in the city.

Bart and Annja had hit it off from the beginning. Both of them had been working to get their careers started, and the case had ultimately helped them do that in their respective fields.