The Black Madonna (38 page)

Emma added, “It's all come together, Kiril. The Western governments know you were behind the theft of the Black Madonna. They have something against you now. The next time your government tries to cut back on the gas, they're going to cage the beast.”

“We're doing you a favor,” Storm said. “If the Western governments knew we were here, they'd be livid.”

“So maybe they will thank me when I make you both disappear, yes?”

“They might. They might also arrest you for stealing the Madonna. And who looks after your daughter then?”

Pale eyes bore into her a moment longer. Then he wheeled about and said, “Come.”

T
HE TALLEST OF THE SECURITY
guards did not like letting Storm inside the compound. He tried to protest, but Kiril Temerko was already shuffling back toward the manor. The guard opened the gate only about a foot, and Storm had to ease through sideways. When she was in, he jostled her as he shut the gate, shoving her against the metal.

Emma jammed her arm through the bars, pushing him back. “Watch it!”

One of the guards moving alongside Kiril Temerko spoke to their boss. The Russian turned and saw what was happening. He spoke one word.

The guard threatening Storm stepped back. The moment Temerko turned again toward the mansion, the angry guard pulled a phone from his pocket, hit the speed dial, and began muttering. All without taking his eyes off Storm.

Storm called to Kiril, “You're forgetting something.”

“Yes?” The man stopped and turned toward her.

“We should take the counterfeit icon with us.”

Temerko registered a trace of surprise. “You will just give it to me?”

“You made it. It's yours.” Storm watched the guard slap his phone shut and stalk over to stand beside Temerko. She did her best to ignore his glare. “In return, you're going to give me the original icon.”

“Am I?”

“Of course. It's in your best interest. And your daughter's. All this bluffing you're doing is for show. But neither of us has time for that now. So why don't we just go inside and do this thing.”

THE MANOR'S GROUND FLOOR HAD
the rehearsed sterility of a Palm Beach palace. The colors in the Titian oil above the polished stone fireplace matched the silk Isfahan carpet. Standard thirty-foot ceiling. Brazilian mahogany rimmed the polished granite floor. Everything was coldly tasteful. The London hospital's waiting room had more heart.

The upstairs was divided by the sweeping central staircase. Storm assumed the double doors to her left led to the master suite. The guard who had accosted Storm remained at the base of the stairs, while the three remaining guards continued to accompany Temerko. He pulled out his cell phone and again spoke urgently but softly, shooting daggers up at Storm.

Kiril pushed open the right-hand doors, revealing a long, dark hallway. When Storm hesitated, he said, “You wanted so bad to see, come see.”

The hallway was tall and domed and painted the same shade of rose as the manor's exterior. The walls held too many carved alcoves to count. Each alcove was lit by votive candles.

Storm no longer cared that Kiril and the guards waited impatiently up ahead. She set down the icon and gave herself over to the joy of discovery.

The first alcove held a carving of Jonah being cast from the whale. Such carvings had been popular in the second and third centuries. Early believers had considered it an image befitting those who had been expelled from the world of Greek and
Roman gods. The piece was of white onyx. Jonah, as the hero, was sculpted slightly larger than the whale that had just expelled him.

Storm stepped to the next alcove, which held a reliquary casket carved from olive wood and heavily embossed with silver and gilt. The casket's lid was peaked in three places like a royal throne, indicating it held the remains of a church leader. Probably sixth century.

Next came an emerald necklace, most likely worn by a Byzantine emperor when exercising his power as head of the church. The face of each stone was sanded flat and carved with the image of one of the apostles. Fifth century.

An early diptych, ivory covered with gold leaf. Because the woman depicted wore Roman dress, it was probably an image of the first Byzantine empress, Constantia, sister of Constantine. Fourth century.

A royal
globus cruciger
, a hand-sized ball topped with a cross, solid gold, studded with rubies and diamonds. Probably seventh century.

A diadem, or crown, made to commemorate the coronation of a new emperor. Because the crown was so tiny, it was probably made for a child. Ninth century.

There was a primeval air to the hall. But it was not a holy sensation. This was no church. The candles performed a macabre dance before treasures robbed of their sacred significance.

Kiril waited for her at the hallway's end, the three guards still surrounding him. Kiril's skin folded about his face and neck like a ghoulish cape.

“Enough,” Kiril said. “Your prize is this way. Come.”

T
HE CHILD'S SUITE WAS HALF
Aladdin's cave and half shrine. The bedroom was larger than Storm's entire apartment. A turret formed the room's northeast corner, a curved fairyland filled with stuffed animals and dolls. Hundreds and hundreds of dolls.

The room's centerpiece was a pink four-poster bed topped by a pink canopy. On the bed's other side was the largest antique dollhouse Storm had ever seen. It completely covered an oak refectory table.

The guards took up stations at the hallway door just inside the bedroom. A woman in a nurse's uniform rose from a chair by the bed. She did not look in Kiril's direction. She stepped into an alcove and left the room via a recessed door in the tower's curved wall. The door clicked shut.

In the bed was a wraith, a ghost still encased in skin and bones. Her skull was covered in a grayish-white fuzz that left her head even more naked than if she had been completely bald. Only her eyes held life, two brilliant dark orbs that fastened upon her father as soon as he appeared. She did not even glance at Storm. Her father sank onto the bed beside his daughter, took up her hand, stroked her face, and crooned to her.

The room's walls were plastered with icons. Dozens of them.

The Greek word
eikon
meant a likeness, image, or picture. In the eleventh century, after the defeat of iconoclasm and the split of the Roman and Eastern churches, artists began fashioning secondary frames around the icons known for having miracles associated with them. These frames were normally finished in silver and gold revetment, where every inch was meticulously embedded with patterns of holy ornamentation—crosses, diadems, faces, and so on. Every icon Storm could see bore such adornment.

The Black Madonna was on the wall directly opposite the bed. Storm felt herself drawn across the room. The force of the image was that strong. The table before the icon was blanketed by votive candles. In the flickering light, the icon's eyes watched her approach. Storm had the vivid impression that the child in the icon smiled a welcome.

She leaned the copy against the wall, slipped around the table, and gingerly took down the original. Her hands tingled as though a current passed through her body. She replaced it with the counterfeit. Then she stepped back. She knew she should flee. But the art historian in her insisted upon one proper look.

In the room's weak lighting it was difficult for Storm to identify differences between the two. Yet the original held a powerful sense of realness. The patina of smoke was deeper. The revetment, the gilded outer frame, was deeply marked in places. The scars beneath the woman's right eye, where invaders had attacked the icon six centuries ago, gleamed with a soft luminosity. Storm felt the strength of heritage and history reach across the centuries. She stared at the original icon, and her mind was filled with the image of Tanya's mother, walking sixteen hours to kneel and pray.

Her mind was then captured by an image of her own pilgrimage and how she had been held by such a grim desperation that to have released her prayer would have cost her every shred of control.

“You have what you came for,” Kiril Temerko said. “Take it and go.”

Storm turned back to where the Russian oligarch continued to stroke his child's cheek. “The guard we left at the bottom of the stairs, was he responsible for stealing this icon and making the duplicate?”

The man on the bed gave no sign that he had heard her.

Storm went on, “My guess is, he won't be all that happy watching me leave.”

Without lifting his gaze, Kiril spoke to the other guards. One motioned to Storm, a lifting of his chin. Come.

But as Storm hefted the icon, Kiril said, “Find me the Amethyst Clock. I will pay you whatever you want.”

“You don't believe that it exists any more than I do.”

He did not look up from the child's face. “What is belief? I buy what I need. I buy you. I buy the clock. I pay twenty million dollars.”

“I can't help you,” Storm replied. “Sorry.”

“Fifty million.” The Russian's voice carried no hope. No life. “A hundred.”

Storm watched the man stroke the child's cheek. The girl's eyes glittered in the half light as she stared at her father. Then the guard to her left touched her shoulder. Storm lifted the Madonna once more. She walked down the hallway, the treasures glittering in the candlelight as she passed. There was nothing for her here.

She blinked as she stepped onto the upper floor's landing. The doors clicked shut behind her.

Then she saw the gun.

THE TALL GUARD STOOD AT
the bottom of the stairs. He was a big-boned man with a fighter's jaw and eyes of pale onyx. The two guards flanking Storm argued with him in Russian as they continued down the steps.

The icon was not especially heavy, but the frame was so broad she had to walk with her arms outstretched. The guards halted when the gun weaved over to include them. It was a very Russian sort of argument, a lot of hand waving and finger-pointing. But none of the other guards pulled their weapons, so Storm assumed the quarrel was going her way.

Storm settled the Madonna on the next step down. Her entire body ached. She could track the pains up from her feet, through her legs, the small of her back, her shoulders, her wrists, her fingers. Finally one of her guards walked down the stairs, plucked the gun from the other man's grasp, and shoved him to one side. Storm lifted the icon and continued down the stairs. A rising wind buffeted the north-facing windows. The branches of one of the ornamental trees tapped against a ground-floor window.

The hostile guard said as she passed, “Sir Julius sends you his regards.”

THE WIND SMACKED HER WITH
a cold, damp fist. The northern peaks clutched passing clouds and spun a blanket of gloom across the valley. From behind the gates, Emma called something, but her words were lost to the wind. Then she pointed, and Storm saw that another jet had landed on the private strip and was taxiing to where a police car waited.

The guards saw it too. One man reached out to pull her back into their angry huddle. But Storm lifted the icon higher and let it act like a sail, tugging her down the front steps.

The wind tried to rip the icon from her grasp, but she hung on grimly and was carried forward. Behind her, a guard yelled. Her feet traced a frantic beat across the graveled forecourt.

She heard the guards racing to catch up. They shouted back and forth, panicking as the police car started up the drive with its lights flashing.

Storm spotted the red knob set in the pillar beside the gates and struck it with her shoulder. Emma pried through the instant the gates parted and rushed over. “This it?”

“Yes.” She slipped through the gates.

“Can we go? The natives are growing restless.”

“One of the guards has been in Sir Julius's pay.” Storm anchored the icon at her feet. “Things are about to get sticky.”