The Isis Covenant (34 page)

Jamie recognized one of the reasons for Herschel Meyer’s unlikely survival the moment he set eyes on Sam. The Belgian was tall and broad shouldered, with slicked-back blond hair and intelligent blue eyes; a picture of the successful Aryan businessman in his two-thousand-euro Armani suit and the spectacular stone that twinkled on his ring finger. His greeting was polite, but wary. Sam Meyer’s cousin had been the client Jamie had recovered the Rembrandt for and Sam had oiled the wheels with the help of his contacts in South America, but that didn’t make them friends.

‘Your phone call was intriguing, but not particularly informative, Mr Saintclair. How can I help you?’

He listened politely and without comment as Jamie explained about the possibility of a large, hitherto unknown diamond being offered for sale or valuation by a Soviet official during the Cold War.

When Jamie was finished, Meyer smiled, showing teeth almost as sparkling as the diamond on his finger. ‘It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. You’re serious?’

‘I know it’s unlikely, but …’

The big man shook his head slowly. ‘So we’d be talking about the seventies or early eighties? A long time ago, but if something like that happened, even back then, I would have had some hint of it.’ He waved towards the office window that overlooked Antwerp’s Diamond Club. ‘We inhabit a small and incestuous world, Mr Saintclair. There are only about ten men I’d
trust
with this kind of business and seven of them work in that building. The diamond you described – three hundred carats, white, possibly flawless, and yet to be properly cut – would be the stuff of legend. Stones are our lifeblood. We talk about nothing else. If any
diamantaire
had seen a diamond like that, a stone to rival the Mountain of Light or the Great Mogul, word would have been round the bourse in a matter of days.’

Danny Fisher spoke for the first time. ‘The man who owned this diamond would have bought his chosen expert’s silence either with cash or by the threat of violence, probably both. If he’s the type of man we believe he is he would be very persuasive indeed.’

‘Perhaps that is true,’ the dealer said. ‘But we are talking about decades ago. By now the money is spent and any threat would have lost its potency.’ He smiled. ‘The Soviet Union is no longer the bogey man it once was. New York is still our biggest market, but Russians are some of our best customers.’

‘So you can’t help us.’

‘Of course, I will do what I can. I will be at the club this afternoon and I will ask a few discreet questions. There are also some phone calls I can make. Give me your cellphone number and I will call you tonight if I have any information.’

‘Disappointed?’ Danny asked, as they left the office onto
Pelikaanstraat
.

‘It was always a long shot,’ Jamie admitted. ‘But I wouldn’t write off Sam Meyer just yet. He strikes me as
a
man who can get things done.’ He studied her and realized how weary she suddenly looked. ‘You seemed a little distracted in there.’

She hesitated, seeking the right words. ‘I have a feeling time is running out for the case … and for us. The only reason we’re still alive is pure dumb luck. Every face I see, I wonder if it’s one of those goons who killed Bernie Hartmann, or Frederick and his merry band of Nazis, or somebody else getting ready to cash in on the contract that’s out on you. You’re different, Jamie. Harder.’ She reached out to touch his face. ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way. You just seem to coast through it all. Nothing bothers you. After all those years in homicide I thought I was immune to death, but the stories that are associated with the Crown freak me out. How many children have died in an attempt to make the fantasy come true? And how many more if we fail? That’s the problem, Jamie. For their sake, we can’t afford to fail, but all we seem to be doing is fumbling around in the dark.’

By now they were in a wide park with walkways and ponds. He led her to a bench between two gnarled beech trees.

‘You’re the cop, Danny. Tell me what else we could have done. Every clue we’ve followed has brought us another step closer to the Crown or the Eye. Hell, when we started we didn’t even know the Crown of Isis existed. And every step closer to the Crown or the Eye is bringing us closer to the men who killed the people in
New
York and London. That’s the reason you’re here. Don’t give up on me now.’

She turned to him, but he didn’t give her a chance to reply.

‘And then there’s your career.’

She glared at him, but they both knew he was right. From the moment they’d left London they’d been operating beyond the boundaries of normal policing and in a murky grey area of near criminality.

‘Failure to report several deaths, failure to report an abduction – actually, make that two – assault, though I doubt Frederick will be pressing charges, flying a plane without registering a flight plan, crashing said plane, failure to report crash of said plane … Ouch!’ He rubbed his shoulder where she’d punched him. ‘Anyway, the point I’m making is that we can’t go back now, either of us. All we can do is keep going until we find the Crown and the Eye.’

‘And what then?’

‘We’ll worry about that when it happens. But the general idea is that you get the bad guy and head back home to take all the glory.’

‘All right.’ Her lips twitched into a bleak smile. ‘I’ll buy that – for now. But you have one week to make it happen, mister. In seven days I have to be on a flight to New York.’

Seven days? The figure came as a hammer blow. Their time together had passed so quickly and so naturally that it hadn’t occurred to him that it was drawing to an
end
. Just for a second he thought of suggesting that she give up everything and stay with him, but the absurdity of the idea almost made him laugh. She grinned when she saw the look on his face.

‘C’mon, Saintclair, don’t be such a sap. Let’s make the most of the time we have. Take me back to the hotel and show me some of your crazy moves.’

As suggestions went, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The chirrup of Jamie’s mobile phone broke the reverential post-coital silence. It was Sam Meyer and the regret in his voice told Jamie everything he needed to know.

‘I asked around at the club – people I trust – but nobody’s heard anything about a big stone out of Soviet Russia. The considered opinion is that there’s no way a diamond like that could exist without it becoming known in the community.’ There was a moment’s silence as Jamie digested the bad news. He was about to thank Meyer for his help when the Belgian continued. ‘I also made a few calls to people who were around at the time, but have since retired. The answer was the same. I … These are old-fashioned men, Mr Saintclair, some of them from my father’s time. A few of them refused to answer until they knew who was asking. I hope you don’t mind that?’

‘If you trust them, I’m sure it won’t do any harm.’

‘Well, one of these gentlemen, Leon Rosenthal,
became
quite animated when he heard your name. He asked whether you were the same Saintclair who found the bunker in the Harz Mountains. When I told him you were, he said he’d like to meet you.’

Jamie was still coming to terms with the crushing weight of failure. The idea of hanging around to meet a geriatric Belgian when all he wanted to do was get back to London held no appeal. ‘I don’t think—’

‘Before you say no, perhaps you’d hear me out. For one thing, I’d esteem it a personal favour. Leon Rosenthal is something of a legend in Antwerp and in the diamond trade. He was eighteen when the Germans marched in, but unlike many others, my father included, instead of just trying to stay alive, he decided to fight. Leon formed a resistance unit that helped downed Allied airmen, carried out attacks on the Germans and hid fellow Jews from the Gestapo round-ups. After the war he built the family firm into one of the world’s biggest dealers in precious stones, with branches in New York and Tokyo. And that’s the other reason you should see him. Leon Rosenthal knows more about diamonds than any other man on the planet. If anyone can give you information about this mythical stone, it’s Leon.’

XXXVIII

LEON ROSENTHAL’S RED-BRICK
house was set within its own grounds in the upmarket suburb of Aartselaar, about five miles south of the city centre. A housekeeper showed them into the main room where a nurse was just packing up her equipment, and it was a few moments before a heavy-set man with thick white hair and a neat moustache appeared in a wheelchair. At the age of eighty-six, Leon Rosenthal still radiated the fearsome energy that Sam Meyer’s history had hinted at. He used the chair like a battering ram, impatiently pushing aside chairs and bulldozing through doors. Narrow-rimmed spectacles with thick lenses framed his milky blue eyes and magnified them until it seemed they were dissecting you.

Like Meyer, the old man spoke impeccable English, and despite the chill he waved them towards a paved area beyond a set of wide patio doors. On the way, he picked up a stone jar and carried it to where Jamie
and
Danny had taken their seats at a wooden table.

‘My only vice in sixty years,’ he growled, snipping the end from a large cigar and lighting it. ‘They say it will kill me, but what difference is that going to make now? Even when the Americans were blockading Cuba, Fidel Castro would send me a box every month as a gift.’

For a few moments the Belgian sat, oblivious of his guests, savouring the taste of the cigar and contemplating the fading light beyond the edge of the sparse parkland that surrounded the house. Eventually he emerged from his reverie and turned to Danny Fisher. ‘Forgive an old man his moment of pleasure, Miss Fisher, and welcome to my home. It is not often these days that this house is graced by the presence of a beautiful woman, although please don’t tell my housekeeper that. Claudette still believes she’s the same as she was thirty years ago. One of the benefits of poor eyesight and a refusal to wear spectacles.’ Danny smiled acknowledgement. ‘Mr Saintclair, you will be wondering why I asked young Samuel to invite you here?’

‘We’re visiting Antwerp because we are interested in diamonds, monsieur. Naturally, it was a great honour to hear that you wanted to meet us.’

Leon Rosenthal gave a grunt of laughter. ‘You should have been a diplomat, Jamie – may I call you Jamie? It’s my guess that you would have much preferred to be on the flight to London right at this moment. But I have my reasons for wishing to see you, and perhaps you will find some profit in your visit.’ He pressed a button on
the
arm of the chair and a few moments later the housekeeper appeared with a tray on which sat a decanter and three stubby crystal glasses. Rosenthal waved her away and poured three generous measures of glowing amber. ‘Please,’ he said, indicating the glasses. ‘Seventeen-year-old single malt whisky is not a vice, but a simple pleasure, and you would always regret not at least tasting this particular whisky. It is distilled on the banks of a river where I once fished for salmon and every sip brings back memories.’ All three drank and automatically sat back as the rich golden glow of the liquor suffused their nerve ends. Leon Rosenthal issued a long sigh. ‘Now, Jamie, if you would be kind enough to tell me about the bunker and what you found there?’

Jamie had told the story so often in the past year that it was a request he had no trouble fulfilling. He left out the machine-gun toting neo-Nazis who had hunted them through the Harz Mountains, concentrating on how he and Sarah Grant had unravelled the clues in his grandfather’s diary to discover the waterfall behind which lay the secret entrance to the bunker. Leon Rosenthal sat back and closed his eyes as he was led upwards into the darkness, and into the concrete tunnel that held the offices and laboratories of Walter Brohm’s research facility. Jamie assumed that, like everyone who asked him to recount the story, the Belgian was only interested in the Raphael painting that had made the bunker famous, and that was where he stopped. But
Rosenthal
opened his eyes and pinned him with his round-eyed stare.

‘Please, continue. Do not miss out a detail.’

The metal stair, and long echoing corridors, until at last they came to the great steel doors, twisted and buckled by the massive explosion that had been meant to obliterate the entire complex. Beyond them, a vast room the size of a football field, and Brohm’s engineering equipment, turned into the world’s largest indoor junkyard. Now he had no choice, but to tell of the pursuit that had driven them there, and into the room. Rosenthal’s breathing became a rasping tear and Jamie’s voice faltered for fear of the old man’s health, but the Belgian waved him on.

The room. ‘Behind the door we discovered the remains of three hundred scientists and slave workers who had been killed at their workplaces.’ He moved on, to the escape, but without opening his eyes, Leon Rosenthal raised a hand.

‘Do not cheat me, Mr Saintclair, I beg you. I wish to hear every detail of it as you remember it, please.’

Jamie exchanged a puzzled glance with Danny Fisher. Where was this going? Remember it? He had spent the last year trying to forget what they had found in the room. A sea of bones. Men and women contorted in every form of agony or mere heaps of disarticulated white. And, closest to the door, the girl. The silent scream in the tormented, eyeless face that had reflected the terror of her end, the jagged hole in her skull that
was
clear proof of the method they had used to snuff out her life. He had reached forward to touch her shoulder.

‘Describe her.’ Leon Rosenthal’s voice had turned savage.

How to describe a skeleton with a hole where the face had been? ‘She had long fingers. A piano player’s fingers.’ An image came to him of a girl. ‘She was tall and slim, graceful. She wore a striped grey shift.’

Rosenthal sniffed. ‘Yes, they would make her do that.’ He turned the chair away from the table and wheeled it back into the room to a large desk, opening a drawer to withdraw a small slip of paper. For a moment he held it in his hands, staring at it, with his shoulders slumped, looking somehow even older than his years.