The Looters (23 page)

“Sounds like just being around you is dangerous.”

He was right on that point.

“You’re right. I appreciate what you did tonight. If you hadn’t come along… well… I don’t want to put you in any more danger. Thanks for saving my life.”

I started to get up to leave.

“How much?”

“What?”

“Money. To accompany you. What are you offering?”

I didn’t know what to say.

He squirmed a little, embarrassed. “Look, if you told me your ex-boyfriend was abusive and on your ass, or anything that provokes sympathy, but getting involved in money laundering… that’s a little too mercenary to rouse the Sir Galahad in me.”

“Well, I figure about five days… five hundred a day… plus expenses.”

“Make it a thousand and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

A thousand was more than I wanted to pay, but I really wanted him to come with me.

“Okay, a thousand it is.”

“I’ve always wanted to see the south of Spain. When do we start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“How long is it by plane, maybe three or four hours?”

“We’re driving,” I said.

“Driving? To southern Spain? It must be a couple thousand miles.”

“About twelve hundred.” I had already looked it up. “If we took turns at the wheel, we could probably do it in twenty-four hours.”

“Okay. You’re the boss. I’m at your command.”

As we were walking through the reception area of the pensione, pictures of Lipton’s burned gallery were being shown on the television. The news program was in German.

“Did you hear about that?” Coby asked. “Three people dead; terrorist or some other kind of nut took out the place with a rocket launcher.”

Seeing the pictures made me sick.

***

I lay in bed that night, exhausted from nerves. I was glad that Coby had agreed to go with me. I told him I wanted to get a very early start in the morning. I hoped the men who’d tried to kidnap me would still be asleep.

I thought about Coby. He had a great physique. Sexy but not overpowering. If I met him at a party and he asked to see me again, I’d definitely go out with him. But there was something else about him that conveyed he had more talent than just physical strength. A man who knew what he wanted and did damn well as he pleased.

I realized I knew zero about him and that I was reaching out from desperation. I also didn’t want him to get killed trying to help me. Still, I felt this edge of guilt. I wanted to tell him the truth, but I was afraid to reveal too much.

One question I was going to ask him tomorrow was about his cap. I’d seen the word and emblem before. Some sort of military thing.

Navy SEAL.

Chapter 35

Coby was already waiting for me downstairs in the reception area when I came down in the morning. We both carried light luggage. Mine was little more than a large backpack, and his was a small carry-on.

“You don’t look like you got much sleep,” he said.

“I didn’t.”

“I don’t blame you. It’s not every day you narrowly miss getting kidnapped.”

“Just an average day for me.” I grinned with false courage.

“I can drive the first leg if you want to get some sleep.”

“No, I’m too nervous to sleep. I need to drive to get my mind off my problems.”

In the back of my mind I thought about what I was doing.
Was I really on my way to Spain to confront a killer? To risk my life and someone else’s? I must be crazy.

Guilt and worries kept pecking at me as I drove. We were on the outskirts of Zurich when I suddenly pulled over to the curb.

“Change your mind? Want me to drive?”

“No. I want you to get out.”

He looked at me like I’d slapped him in the face.

“There’s a bus stop over there. I’ll pay you for today.” I started rummaging in my purse.

“Whoa, wait a minute. What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, it’s me. I can’t let you get blindly involved into my troubles. I have to go it alone.”

“All right then. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I can’t.”

“Look, I need the money. You need the help. If you’ve done something really criminal, I’ll get out. But you don’t look like that type. If it’s just a couple of guys who are pissed about a drug—”

“It’s not a couple of guys.” Dammit. I was starting to get tension in my neck. “That art gallery you saw on TV last night, the one blown up in London, I was in it when it was attacked. If I hadn’t been superlucky, I would be dead now, too.”

“No shit!”

“No shit.”

“What the hell’s going on?”

It gushed out of me. I told him about the $55 million Semiramis, Neal Nathan, the fraudulent provenance, the dead Iraqi curator, the Swiss man named Viktor Milan who wasn’t in Zurich and might not even live or work there, my going to London to confront Henri Lipton…

“Did you see the guy who fired the rocket launcher?”

“I looked over the railing and saw a dark figure, a man, good sized, wearing a coat, hood. I didn’t see much of his face, not enough to recognize him.”

After I was through telling him everything, I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was exhausted but also relieved to get it all out in the open.

“Madison…”

I felt a tremor of excitement as he brushed my arm.

“Yes?”

He leaned closer to me. “You’d better let me take the first leg. You’re too wasted to drive right now.”

“You still want to come with me?”

“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to… and haven’t since I was about eighteen, except when I had to obey orders in the Navy. And this isn’t charity; my price has gone up. It’s now two thousand dollars a day, five-day guarantee.”

“I don’t have that much cash.” I didn’t have that much money, period, but…
how much was my life worth?
I’d get it somehow. I wondered if my black American Express card was still good. I only assumed the company had pulled the plug on it. Maybe—

“I’ll trust you. Now get out. We have a lot of miles to cover and I’m driving.”

I liked his take-charge attitude. What a relief it was to let someone take over directing my life. I certainly hadn’t done a terrific job of it lately.

I closed my eyes. I’d worry later about where to get the money to pay him.

***

When I awoke a couple hours later, we were near the French border. We stopped at a roadside café and got coffee and rolls. As we set out again, I was too fuzzy to drive. I still hadn’t woken up.

“What exactly is a Navy SEAL?” I asked.

“You’ve probably heard them called frogmen in old movies. They started out as commandos who blew up ships and coastal defenses. Now SEALs do missions on land, too. ‘SEAL’ stands for sea, air, and land. You have to go to jump school and qualify as a paratrooper.” He shot me a quick grin. “Fly like a bird, swim like a fish, and crawl like a snake, that’s what it takes.”

I remembered where I saw the name before. “Weren’t there some Navy SEALs killed during the Afghanistan conflict a few years ago?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t in Afghanistan. I did some time in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.”

I stiffened at the mention of Iraq. I looked out the side window so I wouldn’t let my expression expose my sudden fear.

“Did you see any action in Baghdad?”

“No, I was in the first Iraqi conflict, back in 1991. We never got closer than hundreds of miles before Baghdad. Stopped way down south, by Basra.”

He was right. I remembered that the United States and its allies had pushed Saddam out of Kuwait but never pushed on to Baghdad. Some of the tension left me.

He glanced over. “By the way, the next time you rent a car to flee the police and these killers, get something a little faster.”

“Next time I’m fleeing the police and killers, I’ll rent an Army tank.”

We drove in silence for a moment before I noticed he was pursing his lips, deep in thought.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“About what kind of lunatic would use a rocket launcher.”

“Someone who wants to kill a lot of people.”

“But not very subtle. A pro would use a pistol with a silencer, maybe even a .22 like the Mafia does, a weapon that has a high velocity but doesn’t make a lot of noise.”

“I still say he’s kill crazy.”

“No, I think it’s more basic than that… he’s destroying evidence.”

“The evidence of his crime?”

“No, the evidence of his dealings with your pal the art dealer. There’s nothing like a raging fire to cover your tracks. From the sounds of it, he used an incendiary explosive. That would be the way to go. You kill all the living evidence and wipe out the paper trail at the same time.”

“You sound almost like you admire him.”

He shrugged it off. “No, I don’t admire the guy. But I have to give him credit. He set out to do a job and he did it right.”

“Hmmm. That’s certainly a plus in his favor. But I hope he’s a little less competent when he comes after me.”

Chapter 36

Barcelona

We drove all day across France, taking turns behind the wheel, stopping only briefly for food and gas. Looking at a map, I figured we could take turns driving all the way to Malaga and make it in about twenty-four hours. It could be done, but I had overestimated my energy level. After days of no solid sleep, I was ready to fold.

When we were crossing the Pyrenees, I told Coby, “I’ve changed my mind about driving straight through.”

“Okay. Tired?”

“I’m beat. I’ve also been thinking about the two men back at Zurich. I’d rather not be on the road at night.”

“Sounds good to me. I’d rather sleep in a nice comfortable bed tonight than in a car.”

Barcelona was a jewel on a continent that had so many beautiful cities. Spread out before us to the Mediterranean, the city was a perfect romantic spot. Of course, the fact that I was running from killers and the police took away some of the mystique…

We ended up eating at the hotel instead of venturing out. Neither of us felt like doing any more driving into the city center to find a place to eat.

Since dinner wasn’t usually served until after nine in the evening, we ate a “late lunch” at the bar in the hotel. The main meal in Barcelona was lunch, eaten between 2:00 and 4:00
P.M.
Although the bar was still offering their
ménu del día
, a set-price meal usually comprising three courses with a beverage thrown in, we ended up just ordering a plate of their
entremesos
, which was a platter of hors d’oeuvres consisting of potato salad, olives, asparagus, a selection of cold cuts, cheese, and some rolls—a meal in itself. We finished with coffee and a local specialty,
crema Catalana
, a cold custard with a crispy caramel coating.

Happy that I had company, I was still quiet as we ate. I didn’t feel like talking about my problems. I noticed he wore a unique wristwatch.

“What’s that on your watch? It looks like a coin.”

“It’s an old silver coin from the days of real pirates of the Caribbean, what the Spanish called a piece of eight. Cleverly done so the value of the coin isn’t destroyed.”

“Very nice.”

“Yeah, I like it because it’s the real thing, so I didn’t mess it up putting it to use.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Found it scuba diving off the coast of Florida.”

I had been idly poking at food on my plate as I spoke. I looked up and into his soulful eyes.

“Searching for sunken treasure?”

“No, just dumb luck.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what? I’m just admiring a good-looking woman.”

“You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“And you need to relax.” He took my hands and lazily stroked them with his masculine fingers. “You’re tense.”

The touch of his hands sent tiny shivers through me again.

“I know exactly what you need,” he said in a slow, sensuous voice.

“A good lawyer? And a gun?”

“A good man in your life.”

I looked down at his tanned hands, then studied his face.

Damn! He was right. Was it that obvious? Could he see the loneliness and unhappiness that occupied my life? I hardly knew this guy, yet I felt safe with him.

I didn’t answer him. Right now I had to take care of a more pressing problem. Love would have to wait.

He seemed to have read my thoughts. “When you’re ready, let me know.” He let go of my hands. “Any idea as to how you’ll find this Milan guy?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. How would a real detective do it?”

“Phone book?”

“Doubtful. Probably there on vacation.”

“Property tax records?”

“Same thing. On vacation.”

“Check with rental agencies?”

“That’ll take time, a cover story, and knowledge of locales. Sounds like I should hire a Malaga detective. But there’s another possibility.”

“Which is?”

“There’s an archaeology museum in Malaga. It’s housed in the Alcazabar, an old fortress and palace of Moorish kings. It’s on a hillside below Castillo de Gibralfaro, another Moorish citadel. They might know him there.”

“Maybe. But you said you tried that in Zurich and no one knew him.”

“I tried one person at an art museum. Milan deals in antiquities, especially Middle Eastern ones. Better chance to find them in Spain than Switzerland.”

“So you think he’d be more at home hanging around a museum of Moorish antiquities than a Swiss one?”

“Not just hanging around. People who deal in art are like the ones who collect Avon bottles or Coca-Cola memorabilia. They never stop looking. They die and go to heaven when they bump into another collector. He wouldn’t be in Malaga long without checking out the antiquities scene at the museum and galleries. I guarantee you.”

“Why?”

“Spain has seen the rise and fall of great civilizations for thousands of years—the Phoenicians three thousand years ago, not to mention the Greeks, Carthaginians, and Celts. It was a major Roman province. They’re still finding Roman ruins all over the country. Then you had the Visigoths, and finally, for about eight hundred years after the Muslims burst out of Mecca, the Moors dominated the peninsula. Ferdinand and Isabella managed to drive them out and unite Spain. In fact, the last great battle that took place was the siege of Malaga in 1487.” I stopped and took a breath before going on.