The Black Madonna (25 page)

“Excellent decision.” The car pulled smoothly away. She glanced back, or tried to, but the knife pressed more deeply still. “We will make one circuit of the airport. We will speak. We will then deposit you back where we met. And we will vanish.”

The man to her right was silent, unblinking. He was very compact, very still. He held her arm with a grip that Emma recognized from her time in training. His strength and his abilities were such that he did not need to prove anything. She knew this sort of man quite well.

The man holding the knife was more senior. Emma placed him as midfifties trim, with the polite detachment of a man who could maim and torture with soothing ease. His accent was
crisply mid-Atlantic, the product of intense training. She asked, “Are you Russian?”

“We are nothing, Agent Webb. How could we be anything else, since this conversation is not taking place?”

“What do you want?”

“Sometimes mere words are so useless. I could have arranged a meeting and informed you politely that your Homeland Security and your CIA are chasing ghosts. And what would it prove? Nothing.”

They reached the final roundabout marking the airport's perimeter. The Mercedes S-Class swept through the traffic and returned to the airport. Emma took an easier breath. “You think this abduction proves anything?”

“But of course, Agent Webb. Think about what has just happened. We have demonstrated to you just how easy it would be for us to make you vanish.” He said to the driver, “A little more slowly, please.”

Emma said, “My superiors will issue a formal protest.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much. Tip MacFarland is a true professional. He has suspected from the beginning that there was nothing behind the mire of double-dealing and myths.”

“I'm still not clear on why we're having this conversation.” She tried to break free of the man's grip on her right arm, but he merely slipped his hold down a half inch and probed the pressure point at her elbow. The pain was astonishing.

“No, Agent Webb, don't reach, don't shift; we won't be together much longer. Let us finish on a polite note.” When she stilled, he nodded to the man opposite, who loosened his grip. The senior man went on, “Think on this, Agent Webb. We have just demonstrated how easy it would be for us to rip you from your life and make you disappear. We are professionals. Just like you.”

“This proves what, exactly?”

“That is the first stupid thing you have said.” The car pulled into the middle segment designated for private cars to leave departing
passengers. The man to her right slipped out and used his grip on her elbow to draw her with him. The senior man leaned over so that he could look up at her through the open door. The airport lighting turned his hair transparent. He offered her another polite smile. “Do be sure and give Agent MacFarland my warm regards. One professional to another.”

S
TORM ARRIVED BACK AT THE
Ognisko after midnight. She used the downstairs hallway phone to call Emma and Raphael and left terse messages, saying simply that she was fine and would be in touch. She showered in a bathroom from another age, then spent a while staring out the ancient sash window. Her upstairs room overlooked a busy street. Modern hotels rose in the distance. After a while she lay down. It felt like she was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

When she emerged late the next morning, Tanya was waiting in the front hall. “The dining room has shut for breakfast, but I can make you something. Would you like coffee?”

“Absolutely.”

“Raphael Danton has phoned three times. I refused to disturb you. He was not pleased.”

“I can imagine.”

“I promised I would have you call him as soon as you woke up.” She reached into her pocket and came out with a cell phone. “This is a pay-as-you-go phone. There is a hundred pounds' worth of credit on it.”

“Thanks.” Storm waited until Tanya disappeared into the kitchen to place the call.

The first words Danton spoke were, “Please tell me you are all right.”

Hearing the voice of a man she had thoroughly detested until their last encounter should not have left her weak at the knees. “You won't believe what's been going on.”

“Is it true what I heard about an abduction?”

“Sort of. I got saved at the last minute.”

“Who did this?”

Storm hesitated. “I'm not supposed to say.”

Danton asked, “Is it my fault?”

“It's definitely tied to whatever is going on.”

He sighed. “I'm on my way to the Budapest airport. I should be in London by two. Where are you staying?”

“A club called the Ognisko.” Storm glanced around. Tanya had vanished. Other than a bartender stacking glasses, the club appeared empty. “It's not all that great.”

“I'll book you a room at Claridge's. It has the finest security system in London. I'll meet you there.”

Tanya appeared bearing coffee and a plate of bread and butter and cold cuts. As she ate, Storm managed to get Harry on the phone the Arab woman had given him. His voice sounded reed-thin, but the man remained as cheerfully defiant as ever, insisting that he was fine, the doctors were nuts, he was getting out and joining them the next day. She then heard a nurse come in and beat the man with a verbal stick. Storm cut the connection and swiped her face. Her fingers came up dark with mascara.

She then called Curtis Armitage-Goode and said, “I'm sorry I stood you up.”

“Great heavens, is this really you?”

“None other. Weary but intact.”

“I heard you had been kidnapped. When you didn't arrive and I couldn't raise you by phone, I drove over to the auction. The police were positively swarming. Was that horrid Jacob Rausch behind your abduction?”

“I have no idea. What did you hear?”

“Only that he bought a round for the house after he heard you were abducted. That man is a weasel.”

“Is the item we discussed still for sale?”

“Most certainly. But tell me what happened.”

“Questions have to wait. Are you certain the owner is still motivated to sell?”

“Positively salivating.”

“When can we wrap this up?”

“Soon as you arrive at my place.”

“You have it in your possession?”

“My dear girl, I acquired it.” Curtis was enjoying himself immensely. “Could hardly have done otherwise, could I? Not when that weasel Rausch started sniffing around.”

“You are a dear, sweet man and I owe you.”

“You do, actually, and rather a lot. When Rausch realized I was not going to resell the item to him, he had some particularly nasty things to say about my forebears.”

Storm did not need a map and guide dog to track him. The item was hers so long as she matched Rausch's offer. “Can I have an item I purchased at the Cirencester auction be delivered to your shop?”

“Most certainly. Here, let me give you the name of my bonded shippers.”

As Storm arranged the transfer of the paten to Curtis's shop, Tanya emerged from the kitchen. When she set down the phone, Tanya said, “I have been called away.”

“Thank you again for saving my life back there in Cirencester.”

“It was my job.” Tanya handed her an embossed calling card with nothing except a telephone number. “Antonin Tarka says, call this day or night. Give your name, say what you need.”

“Who is he?”

“A patriot. Antonin Tarka fought with Lech Walesa against the Communists. Then he served in Walesa's government.”

“You like him.”

“I like working for a patriot. It makes for a nice change.”

“What about you?”

“Some questions you cannot ask.” Her gaze turned opaque. “Officially I am nothing. A tourist visiting London. You wish to see the Victoria and Albert Museum? I hear it is very nice.”

“You believe all the stories about the Black Madonna icon?”

“The history, the legends, nobody knows. But I tell you something I do believe. I come from one of the towns we passed, Zawiercie. My father, he is an electrician. We have a little land. We raised some pigs. We did okay. I was the first of my family to go to university. My mother, she went to pray for me at Czestochowa. Every year she went. Sometimes with her local church in bus. Other times, she walked. Sixteen hours it took her. She walked and she prayed the rosary.”

“I think I understand.”

“The politicians and the educated people and the new rich, when they hear the Black Madonna is stolen, what will they do? They cry scandal, they point fingers, they shout and wave their arms. But the other Poland, the country still trapped in Soviet muck, they will suffer.” Tanya pointed at the card in Storm's hand. “You hear something, you call the patriot. And remember. We only have a few more days. Then the politicians will learn what has happened, and my country will bleed.”

CURTIS ARMITAGE-GOODE'S SHOP WAS ON
the opposite side of Hyde Park, in the Mayfair district of London. The taxi drove to where Storm could see the minty green of Berkeley Square. The door gave a cheery ping as she entered.

“Great heavens, if it isn't my adventurous client.” Curtis Armitage-Goode was as foppishly dressed as ever. Blue blazer, gray slacks of summertime flannel, college tie, and a silk handkerchief
draped ever so casually from his jacket pocket. “Here, let me take that case. How are you, my dear?”

“Grateful I wasn't kidnapped.”

“Your travails do suggest there are fates worse than bankruptcy. Tea?”

The Mount Street shop had two well-appointed rooms at street level and twice that space underground. When the Cirencester auctioneer's transport arrived, Curtis personally carried her acquisition downstairs, took the other article from his office safe, and arranged both on viewing stands. Storm knew the dealer wanted to give her the sort of polished presentation he would offer any respected client. So she spent the time on a bittersweet tour of his shop. Most of Curtis Armitage-Goode's clients would hunker down and weather this economic hurricane. Curtis would survive intact. It was hard not to feel a little jealous.

Curtis walked over to where she admired a Rubens portrait and asked, “Will you tell me what happened?”

When Storm finished her quick rundown, he said, “You do run with a dangerous crowd. It leaves me positively giddy. Here I am, the most exciting part of my day is opening a tin of caviar for one of my overfed buyers. While you're out there defending yourself against international gangsters.”

“You're making fun of me.”

“Well, only a little.” He waved her toward the pair of stands in the center of the room. “Shall we?”

The fact that they were in a glorified cellar was masked somewhat by high ceilings, two chandeliers, and a trio of fourteenth-century French tapestries covering the walls. The velvet display stands were placed beneath the room's central spotlights. Storm focused first upon the item Curtis had acquired for her, a single piece of rock crystal shaped like a grotto. The crystal cave contained a gold statue of Mary, mother of Jesus. Such carvings became a component of the early iconic tradition, when only a tiny minority of the population could
read and write. Tradition had it that after Vespasian's invasion of Galilee in AD 67, the Holy Family relocated to a cave on the island of Patmos, where the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation.

Curtis rolled over a professional restorer's magnifying glass. The instrument was the size of a makeup mirror and rimmed in adjustable lights. “Perhaps this would help.”

Storm settled onto a stool. The crystal grotto was framed with twelve images carved in gold, depicting the apostles, and topped by a gold crown embossed with gemstones. The crown, known as a diadem, contained a special carving at its uppermost point. Time had worn the emblem down to a mere shadow, but there was enough remaining for Storm to declare, “Leo the Second.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

In the fifth century, emperors began weaving the Chi-Rho symbol together with the imperial seal. Many such images held reputations for miracles.

Curtis noticed Storm's frown and asked, “Is something the matter?” When she did not respond, he said, “This is without question an exceptional piece. I know half a dozen museums that would match your offer and make this the pride of their Byzantium wing.”

“My research has uncovered no link between any of the items I've acquired for my client,” Storm replied. “Not their provenances, the list of previous owners and experts who had formally inspected the pieces. No overlaps. Nothing.” What was more, the two treasures before her held no connection to Russia. Storm had searched back to the point where their histories had disappeared into medieval mists and come up empty. Yet she remained trapped inside a battle between two mystery buyers, with unnamed attackers and government spooks hovering in the background. “I don't get it.”