The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) (4 page)

7.

Christie’s Auction House

Moments Later

              The ringing of a hand-held bell announced the second part of the auction was about to begin.

              Gurt was studying the auction catalogue with undue intensity as Lang slid into the seat next to her. “See anything you can’t live without?”

              “
Abendessen,”
she said in the German she used when annoyed with him. “Dinner. I have difficulty with missing dinner.”

              Lang pretended interest in the catalogue she was holding. “I gather Club Gascon was unable to extend our reservations.”

              Her answer was a glare. “The French are impossible both here and in France.”

              The truth was, Gurt simply did not get along with the Gallic temperament if such a thing was definable. Whether this was personal or atavistic, Lang never knew. He did know, however, there was one characteristic of almost any high-end eatery, whether it be French, Japanese or whatever.

              “Let me have your phone.”

              She handed it over, perplexed

              He pointed to the screen. The restaurant is the last number you called?”

              She nodded, still puzzled.

              Lang stepped outside of the room, returning just as the bidding on a painting “in the manner of Holbein” was knocked down for a price Lang didn’t catch.

              “Well?” Gurt asked.

              “Our reservations are an hour later.”

              “And?”

              “Ten pounds to the matre’d.”

              They needed the time. It was nearly an hour before the Dee items came up. By then most of the auction’s customers had departed. The mystery item was the last.

              “What is it?” Gurt asked in a whisper.

              “I don’t know. That’s what fascinates me with it. Besides, it will make a nice birthday gift for Francis.”

              “He won’t know what it is, either.”

              Lang bobbed his head, agreeing. “But the fact it came from Elizabethan times will please him. He’s a bit of a history buff as you know.”

              Francis, Father Francis Narumba, was a native of one of West Africa’s less desirable hell holes. Through what even Lang admitted resembled divine intervention, the young man had been selected from his fellows at a Catholic-operated school to attend seminary. Upon graduation, he had been sent to serve the growing number of African immigrants in Atlanta. For reasons Lang  would never determine, Janet, Lang’s sister and only living blood relative, had joined Francis’s almost entirely black flock. When she and her adopted son died in a fiery blast in Paris, Francis had offered comfort and consolation. Though under the circumstances, Lang had a hard time accepting a loving, caring deity, he and Francis had become fast friends. During his college days, Lang’s bent toward liberal arts had induced him to take Latin, a language with which most Catholic seminary graduates are familiar if not fluent. It was, then, the language in which Lang and Francis exchanged jibes, aphorisms, and the occasional friendly disparagement of one’s religion or the other’s lack thereof.

              “How will he be pleased if he doesn’t know what the thing is?” Gurt insisted.

              Lang was relieved of an answer as the bidding began. It quickly became apparent that there were only three or four bidders before a five hundred pound bid was reached, a sum far below the average lot here at Christie’s. The auctioneer’s disappointment was obvious when there were only two remaining bidders: Lang and someone behind him.

              Swiveling in his seat, Lang saw the man with the Cyrillic cell phone hoist his paddle.

              “Just what would a Russian oligarch want with something belonging to John Dee?”

              It wasn’t until Gurt responded that he realized he had asked the question out loud.

              “The same as you: To give it away. Or maybe he knows what it is. And he isn’t missing dinner.”

              Lang inhaled deeply. He stood and orally doubled his opponent’s bid.

              His immediate answer was a shocked silence from the auctioneer who recovered nicely before inquiring if the “gentleman in the rear of the room” cared to respond.

              He didn’t. In fact, he seemed to be having trouble with his Cyrillic iPhone. He rebooted twice before displaying an expression with which Lang was well familiar: a temptation to throw the treacherous device against the nearest wall. He pocketed it instead.   

              For the second time that evening, Lang was writing a check in the auction house’s office. He exchanged it for a small velvet bag containing his prize and a handshake from the auctioneer.

              “Thank you so much, Mr. Reilly,” the man bubbled. “Hope you will attend out next affair, contemporary abstract paintings.”

              The pressure of Gurt’s foot on his was responsible for his mumbled reply, which might, just possibly, be construed as affirmative. He regarded the dribbles and splatters that passed for abstract paintings as more chance than design, certainly not the product of artistic ability. It was an opinion he had learned to keep to himself.

              Outside, the rain had stopped, its epitaph a series of puddles mirroring the street lights and rooster tails of spray as cars drove along the wet pavement.

              The “TAXI” light on the first two of London’s approximately 21,000 black taxi’s was off, signaling they were occupied. Lang was so intent on spotting one that was not, he didn’t notice the man’s approach.

              “Lang?” Gurt warned.

              Lang thought he recognized the man with the Cyrillic phone, but it was difficult to be sure with the hat brim pulled down and the collar of his raincoat up despite the fact it was no longer raining.

              “Mr. Reilly?”

              Lang was instantly put on guard by strangers who knew his name. He said nothing.

              “I saw your name on the check you left on the desk back there in the office,” the man said in heavily accented English.

             
Not likely. The check was on the Foundation’s Barclay’s account and the signature was less than legible.

             
Gurt had caught the lie also. She moved defensively so that the stranger was between her and Lang.

              “Are you interested in selling that object you just bought? You will make a nice profit.”

              Without thought, Lang’s hand went to his coat pocket. “Just what do you believe it is?”

              The man shrugged unconvincingly. “I have no idea.”

              “Then why are you interested in buying it?”

              “I have a--what do you say? I am acting for someone else.”

              “A principal?” Lang suggested.

              “Yes, a principal who collects things owned by that man Dee. I could not get a proper phone connection to him during the auction and I went the limit of what, er. . . .”

              “Authority?”

              “Yes, authority. I could not exceed my authority. But now that I have spoken with my principal, I am prepared to offer twice what you paid for it.”

              “Does your principal have any idea what the thing is?”

              Again the shrug. “He didn’t tell me.”

              Gurt was signaling another cab, this one with a light on. It pulled to the curb, and she opened the passenger door.

              Long ago, Lang had learned that which is too good to be true usually is just that: Too good to be true. “I don’t think I want to sell, Mr. . .?”

              The man produced a card, seemingly from nowhere. He proffered it just as Lang climbed into the cab. “Should you decide differently. . . .”

              Lang turned to watch the stranger shrink, then disappear, as the cab turned a corner.

8.

Headquarters, Metropolitan Police Services

10 Broadway, London

Two Hours Earlier

              Chand Patel was well satisfied. Among the first of Indian ancestry to be promoted to inspector by Scotland Yard, he was now one of many. And then this was his new office, formerly occupied by his immediate superior, Dylan Fitzwilliam. It had become his when the senior inspector had retired slightly less than a year ago.

              Patel ran his palm across the desk’s surface. How many times had he stood on the other side? At least three or four when the subject of the American, Lang Reilly, had come up. Or, more accurately, when Reilly entered the United Kingdom. More often than not, his arrivals had been antecedent to slaughter. Had it been ten years since two hoodlums had been shot on the street right in front of Reilly’s pal, Annulewitz’s, South Bank flat? Never could prove Reilly’s involvement in that nor in several other homicides including a particularly grisly beheading and shooting at Cavanaugh Hall two years ago. The one killing definitely tied to Reilly was of a kidnapper at the British Museum, entirely justified.

              That was why Inspector Fitzwilliam had called on Patel to provide a team of minders for Reilly every time the American appeared on the UK’s extensive network of surveillance cameras or his name had popped up on the computers’ programs selected daily list of those pre selected persons entering the country by air. Unfortunately, Reilly had a talent for leaving his police followers wondering where he had gone. Had Patel his way, he’d have Reilly detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure and be done with it. But, as Fitzwilliam had patiently explained, locking someone up indefinitely wasn’t the British way, no matter how potentially dangerous they might be. He was, of course, spot on but that didn’t make Reilly any less of a problem.

              There was a knock on his door.

              “Enter!”

              A young woman did just that.

              Hardly dishy: Late twenties, mousy brown hair, whatever figure she had largely concealed in the folds of a bulky Scottish wool sweater despite the season. She would be the last person noticed in a group of any size.

              This was precisely why Patel had summoned Inspector Patricia Lundy.

              Without being asked, she took a seat in one of the club chairs facing the desk, something Patel viewed as a bit of cheek to say the least. But then, the Yard’s personnel got younger every day.

              “You wanted to see me?”

              Also got right to the point, none of that ‘how’s the grands’ or ‘are you vacationing at the seaside again this year’ bullocks.

              He handed her an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo.

              “Taken in what looks like an airport,” she said. “From the quality, I’d guess a surveillance camera.”

              Patel smiled. “Right.”

              She crossed her legs. In other women the move could have been sexy. “Am I supposed to know the bloke?”

              “You keep that,” Patel said as she handed the picture back. “That
bloke
is an American named Langford Reilly. His friends call him ‘Lang,’ although I’m not one of them.”

              He paused, disappointed at not getting a laugh--or even a smile--at his little joke before describing Reilly’s real and perceived misdeeds while in the UK.

              Her unsculpted eyebrows went up. “You say he killed a man at the British Museum with an ancient Egyptian spear?”

              “Justifiably, but yes.”

              “Well, he sounds interesting, I’ll say that. When do I get to meet him?”

              Patel frowned. “Inspector Lundy, The Yard is hardly a dating service.”

              She shook her head, a smile toying with her mouth. “Too bad for me, then.”

              There was a moment of silence while Patel tried to decide if he was being put on. Then, “He arrived Heathrow this afternoon. Our last shot of him is about . . . ” He checked his watch. “Two hours ago, going into Christie’s in St. James. I want you to take a couple of men, er, officers, mufti, and keep an eye on him preferably without him noticing. First sign of trouble, in the nick he goes. We’ll think of charges later. It’s your job to make certain he doesn’t kill anyone on this trip, understood?

              She stood. “Perfectly.”

              He made a shooing motion with both hands. “Then get along with you before we lose him.”

              As he watched the door close behind her, he had the thought he might as well try to trap smoke as keep up with the elusive American. Well, as his father’s favorite old Hindustani proverb suggests, best to dig your well before you are thirsty.

9.

Club Gascon

57 West Smithfield

London

23:20 Local Time

              As he waited for the check, Lang was still enjoying the cod served with grapes and maple syrup. It had sounded, as his British hosts might say, a bit dodgy. The assurances of the heavily accented French waiter had won him over to Lang’s gastronomical delight, a fact tempting him to make a generous addition to the service charge when the bill finally arrived. Gurt had enjoyed her rabbit and octopus with fennel and chorizo as well.

              The only hint of dissatisfaction was the exorbitant price of the accompanying wine. Perhaps Lang would rethink that tip.

              The restaurant was small, every patron visible. Gurt had noticed them first: a table of one woman and two men.

              “No,” she had cautioned Lang, “Don’t turn around. “She is the only woman I see not wearing heels, certainly the only one wearing a
pullover
, a sweater.”

              The check arrived. Gurt picked it up, pretending to study it while looking at the group behind Lang. “And the men’s shoes . . .
Gummisohle.”

              Lang reached across the table to take the folder containing the tab and put his personal black American Express card inside. “There are a lot of people who wear rubber-soled shoes. And most of them are cops. Inspector Fitzwilliam has been very generous in providing me with escorts from Scotland Yard. Last time I was here in London I was also having dinner, at Bebendum, with Jacob and Rachel during that business about the Harry Oakes murder. I’m wondering if Fitzwilliam has access to every reservation list in town.”

              Gurt shook her head. “There would be no need with all the surveillance cameras. A mouse cannot cross the street here without being filmed.”

              Lang decided against the extra tip, signed the check and stood, walking around to ostensibly help Gurt with her chair. His purpose was to get a good look at the trio.

              The inexpensive, off-the-rack clothes, more appropriate for a neighborhood pub than a Michelin-starred restaurant, contrasted with what most of the guests were wearing. Plus, all three had only an appetizer, attesting to the fact that they were not as well-heeled as the other diners.

              They were dividing up their bill as Lang and Gurt headed for the door.

              Outside, there was a faint odor, perhaps imagined, Lang attributed to the Victorian Smithfield Market, the last wholesale meat market in Central London. Or perhaps memory of the site’s unhappy Medieval past as a place of public executions of enemies of the Crown such as Scottish nobleman William Wallace as well as heretics and religious dissidents.

              His arm linked through Gurt’s, Lang referred to the local Tube stations, “Five minute walk to Barbican, Farrington and St. Paul’s.”

              “You choose.”

              They had taken only a few steps when Lang noted a car at the curb ahead, one of the number that seemed to magically appear the instant of the week day, 6:30 expiration of the city’s no parking and “pay and display” ordinances. The only thing remarkable about it was the two men lounging against it.

              Experience, a sixth sense, something not quite definable made Lang tense. He was aware Gurt felt the same. He dropped his arm from hers.

              The two strangers pushed off from the auto, blocking the sidewalk. The parked vehicle and a building made going around them impossible.

              The two couples stood silently facing each other. The man to Lang’s right had a shaved scalp that looked as though it might have been polished.  He was large, over two hundred pounds and six feet tall. His nose had been broken and poorly set. He could have been a former participant in a combat sport such as boxing or wrestling. His companion was neither smaller nor prettier. Lang thought he glimpsed a reflection between his lips, perhaps a steel tooth as had been common in Soviet-era dentistry. An angry pink scar, poorly stitched, split his left eyebrow. Lang speculated that under the tight, long-sleeved shirt each wore was the physique of a body builder.              

              The one with the shiny scalp held out a hand that easily could have palmed a basketball. “Give it to us, Mr. Reilly, no one gets hurt.”

             
Slavic accent?

              “
And what might that be?” Lang asked.

              He knew and knew they knew he knew. Old agency training: when faced with danger either strike first or stall your opponent. He wasn’t sure which would be the case. But it did distract from Gurt who was edging toward the building on their left.

              “And tell the woman to stay where she is,” the Scar demanded.

             
OK, strike first is the only option left.

              “Everybody stay where you are!” A woman’s voice. “Police!”

              Lang turned his head just enough to recognize the trio from Club Gascon.

              The woman was holding up a shiny object, a badge.

              Steel tooth moved almost faster than the eye could follow. In a step, he had one arm across Gurt’s chest. The other hand held a knife to her throat. Whoever or whatever he was, he was no ordinary street punk.

              He and his cohort were moving slowly backward, Gurt being dragged along.

              “Stop right where you are!”

              Except for Northern Ireland, only about seven percent of British law enforcement officers carry firearms, a choice made by both public and police, Lang thought.
Swell. Three Metropolitan Police officers, no doubt armed only with PAVA spray or, perhaps, a Taser, are going be exactly zero help.