The Painted Messiah (25 page)
A silenced gunshot and a scream from below him interrupted Ethan's thoughts. He heard a body rolling down the open stairway. Stepping forward he could see nothing and realized Kemp had the same problem. He had mistaken his partner for Ethan.
Ethan took four steps back and ran for the railing, hurdling over it with his left leg leading, his right tucked and trailing. As he dropped into the white smoke, he brought his legs together. He kept his arms wide and loose, his feet ready for the explosion of impact. When he hit the plank floor Ethan used the last of his forward motion and rolled until he was behind the counter. He heard the spit of Kemp's gun chasing him.
He collided with Sean's body, saw the head wound, and scrambled as far as the front display window. He settled into a small space between the cashier's desk and the front door. His position gave him good cover and the broadest possible view of the open floor. For a long moment there was nothing to see but smoke. He had to get out, and was considering his chances of rolling through the display area and hitting the plate glass, when he saw Kemp scurrying for the back door. He was nothing more than a limping shadow but Ethan snapped-fired his weapon. The first shot had no effect. The second sent Kemp to the floor. Bounding over the desk and racing forward with the tip of the gun staying on Kemp's back, Ethan got within three steps, when Kemp suddenly rolled over.
Kemp fired quickly, going for Ethan's head. Ethan flinched and probably missed being hit because of it.
He did not give Kemp a second chance, but unloaded his pistol pointblank. He dropped his clip and reloaded. There was no time to check either man's pockets for identification. He didn't have to. He knew who had sent them and he knew there would be more. Ethan lunged across the open floor and found the back door. A moment later, he stumbled into the clean October air.
The cobblestone alley was so calm, so quiet, Ethan almost didn't notice the car parked directly in front of him. The engine was running. The driver blinked stupidly at him. For a second Ethan didn't understand either. Then he saw the driver reaching for something at his hip. Ethan did not wait or even think. He lifted his gun and fired Zimmer's pistol. He saw the man jerk, then slide down under the dashboard. Ethan walked forward until he was standing at the driver's side door and fired twice more.
He opened the car door and took the dead man's gun, the silencer already attached to it, and the extra clip he carried. He dug in his pocket for a wallet and found a private security badge and a photo-identity card giving the name Rolf Lutz. He took the wallet, badge, and ID. He pulled the corpse from the car and climbed in. Ethan settled himself for a moment and tried to think. If he went to the police or got picked up, Corbeau could get to him. His only chance was to find Kate. Together they could handle this.
He backed out of the narrow alley with the nonchalance of a man going home for lunch. He was all the way to Bellevue Plaza at the lake before he heard the first wail of sirens.
Still inside the city limits, Malloy hit the speed dial for Jane Harrison's cell number.
It was six-thirty in the morning, but Jane was wide awake. 'Yes?'
'Bob Whitefield is dead.'
Jane swore. A moment later she asked, 'What happened?'
'People were waiting for us at the airport. They hit as our train was pulling in.'
'Is the product safe?'
'The product is safe. I'll take care of the product. I just wanted you to know about Whitefield. The thing happened almost fifteen minutes ago. You need to get going on it.'
'Do you need transport or tactical support? I can bring a Special Ops team in from Stuttgart in two-to-three hours.'
'Not necessary, but tell our friends in New York there's going to be some delay - a day or two, I expect.'
'I'm here if you need me.'
Malloy disconnected and shut the phone off. The best anyone could do with that, even Jane, was to put him inside Zürich - which she already knew. He pulled his car back onto the road.
An hour later he parked his car in one of the large public lots close to the Interlaken East train station and caught a bus to Iseltwald on Lake Brienz. From there he had a choice of footpaths taking him along the lakeshore in the direction of Ax Alp. He took the high trail.
At the contessa's property, almost an hour later, Malloy saw Rene step out of the garden and wipe his hands with an unexpected delicacy. The old man offered no gesture of recognition and Malloy, after meeting his gaze fixedly, went directly to the front door of the villa. The contessa did not smile this time.
Fully conscious of the fact that he was echoing her statement to him the night she broke the Swiss bankers, Malloy said, 'I need your help.'
Given the differences between the two occasions, Malloy was not at all sure she would open her door for him, but she answered quietly and without hesitation. 'Come in.' When he had crossed her threshold, she asked if he wanted something to eat.
Malloy was quite hungry actually, but it hadn't occurred to him until she asked. For the past couple of hours he had been floating on an adrenaline high, his mind moving erratically as he tried to figure out what had gone wrong. That was gone now, and more than anything he just wanted to go to sleep. I could use a cup of coffee, if it's no trouble.'
The contessa smiled and began preparing two cups of espresso. She set out a glass and pitcher of water, a basket of bread, and an assortment of fruits. Malloy ate ravenously. As he did, he started to explain what had happened, but the contessa stopped him. First food, she said. Then talk. The silence they shared gave him confidence. He was not sure what had happened or even who had ordered the attack, but suddenly he knew he wasn't going back until he understood everything. It might take a day or two. It might take him several weeks. He didn't care. He couldn't afford to trust
either Richland or Jane Harrison until he had more information.
'Now,' the contessa said, 'tell me why you have blood on your coat.' She reached out gently touching the dark stain in the leather.
Malloy told her the story simply and without embellishment. When he had finished, she asked, 'Did your friends set you up?'
'Not necessarily. If someone knew I was involved in this, he could have monitored my room from across the street with a directional microphone.'
'Who knew you were involved?'
'My friends. The buyers. Maybe the seller.'
'What's the motive, Thomas?'
He shook his head. 'I don't know. Money, I expect, but Bob Whitefield is a player. He could have been the target.'
Her eyes cut to the package Malloy had brought into the house. 'Do you want me to see it?'
'I was actually hoping I could talk you into keeping it for a few days - until I sort things out.'
'How about if we take a look at it and see exactly what you're asking me to do?'
The contessa stood up and went to one of her kitchen drawers. Pulling out a paring knife she cut the strings binding the package. Under the wrapping paper they discovered a length of linen cloth folded neatly around what felt like a small panel of wood. The contessa examined the weave with interest but said nothing. Finally, she unfolded it, revealing a small black panel of wood. A long crack ran through the centre from the base of the board to the top. At each corner and along
the edges, the wood had been worn smooth, apparently from the repeated touch of human hands. Otherwise, there was very little damage. Even without Marcus Steiner's report on the radiocarbon dating, there was no question of its extraordinary age.
Turning the panel over, Malloy found himself staring at a painting of Christ wearing a crown of thorns. The condition of the piece was remarkable, the colours rich and expressive. 'The owners tested the wood yesterday,' he said. 'It's first century.'
'I didn't think it looked much like a twelfth century icon,' she offered with a scholar's wry sense of understatement. 'Bring it here. The light is better.' She gestured toward the worktable at the centre of the kitchen.
Malloy walked over to the table and found he was not quite able to take his eyes away from the figure staring out at him from the distance of two thousand years. The image depicted the head and top portion of the shoulders. Unlike the Renaissance portraits, this Christ was not a European. His skin was dark. The nose and lips clearly possessed Semitic features. Nor was he an especially young man, as tradition had it. He was closer to sixty than thirty, and he was not handsome. The face was gaunt, the skin leathery, but the eyes intimated both power and confidence. He wore the thorns like a royal crown. His blood glistened like adorning jewels.
'The perspective is slightly askew. Do you see how the highlights on the thorns and blood and in the eyes have a kind of randomness?'
Malloy had not noticed, but he saw what she meant.
There appeared to be no single exterior source for the light. 'Is that. . . good?'
'It is typical of Roman painting. The artists expressed a sense of perspective without understanding it.'
'You think it's authentic?'
'I do for two reasons. First, it's encaustic. All of the forgeries I know about in the 19th-century were tempera. Tempera is an egg-based medium that is easy to handle. Encaustic is made from bees wax and has to be applied hot with a spatula. A couple of thousand years ago, the best painters worked in encaustic for obvious reason. The colour holds and the shine was incomparable to anything then in existence. We have only really rediscovered encaustic in the last eighty years. It's possible, of course, that someone painted this recently on an extremely old piece of wood, but I don't think that is what you have here. See how the wood has been worn down by handling? In those same areas the paint has been compromised. This has been in existence for a great many years - long before twentieth century artists became reacquainted with encaustic techniques.'
'So it's not a medieval or Renaissance forgery?'
'I think it is exactly what it appears to be, a first century icon, probably Egyptian in origin. The best portrait painters were usually slaves who were either Egyptian or had trained in Egypt.'
'Worth twenty-five million?'
'Worth whatever the market can bear. It's one of a kind.'
From the doorway, Rene spoke. 'Get out!'
Malloy swung around in surprise. The contessa covered the painting and answered in a language
Malloy did not recognize. To Thomas, she said, 'You'll find some clothes upstairs that will fit you. The room at the top the stairs on the right. Take what you need. The clothes you have on will get you arrested.'
Malloy stared at Rene uncertainly. The contessa's man did not like him or his painting in the house. That much was clear. 'Are you sure it's okay?'
'I'll be up in a minute.' She saw Malloy looking at the painting. 'I'll take care of the painting for you. Don't worry.'
In the room at the top of the stairs, Malloy discovered four paintings that were similar in composition and style to the portrait of Christ he had carried out of Zürich. They appeared to be of great antiquity, apparently from the time of the Roman Empire, but they were not Romans. The clothing was colorful. The complexions were dark. The eyes were all black and shining. The subjects were common, every day people, probably upper-middleclass by the look of them.
After admiring them for a moment and wondering how the contessa had acquired them, he turned to the business at hand and found several overcoats that fit better than he had imagined they would. He chose the one that didn't look like it would draw much attention. It was not a tailored fit, but its roominess covered his shoulder holster comfortably. He wondered where they had come from. They certainly didn't belong to Rene.
He inspected the rest of his clothes. Except for a bullet hole in his sweatshirt he was presentable.
'That doesn't look too bad.' Malloy looked up in surprise at the contessa. He had not heard her climbing the stairs or walking on the creaky floors. 'Get rid of
the sweatshirt. I think I have something across the hall you can wear instead.'
He smiled and stripped away his jacket, shoulder holster and sweatshirt. She looked at the vest with the bullet hole over the heart but said nothing about it. If she hadn't let him imagine himself lying in his own grave he would not have asked for it and would be at this moment one of several bodies at a crime scene.
'I just need to get back to Zürich. I should have a suitcase waiting for me there.'
'Let's get you there safely.' She started from the room.
'I like the paintings.'
The contessa stopped and turned back to look at them with the affection of a collector. 'They're supposed to be Egyptian mummy portraits from the second and third century, but I like to think of them as my children.'
'What are they really?'
'A window into the past.'
She stepped back into the room now and pointed out one of the paintings. Malloy had trouble following her hand because her fragrance stirred him. 'You see the similarity in style to your painting?'
'It's encaustic, isn't it?'
