The Seventh Stone (13 page)

CHAPTER
14

Braydon Fox had little time and less patience. The Prophet was after Christa Devlin and that armillary sphere she found in the desert. It had to be a clue. To something big, very big. That the Prophet was willing to risk an accessory to murder charge for. He had to puzzle this one out. Lives depended on it.

He pressed his back against the swinging door of the banquet hall to push it open, two steaming mugs in his hands. He pivoted, nearly knocking over a busboy who shouldered a service tray as round as he was tall. The boy skirted a cloth-covered banquet table like the Titanic bearing away from an iceberg. He listed to starboard. The phalanx of champagne glasses slid, clinked, wobbled. The kid let out a startled gasp of fear, overcompensated, shot up his hand to steady the glasses. Braydon’s reflexes kicked in. In one move, he slid his two mugs onto the nearest table, caught the rim of the tray before it toppled and eased it onto another table. If only he could steady his concerns about Christa Devlin that expertly.

The kid laughed in relief as the last glass teetered to a stop. He made a quick sign of the cross and kissed the crucifix hanging around his neck. “Gracias,” he said. “Thank you. If I break glasses, I pay.”

“
De nada,” Braydon said. He’d bussed his share of tables, saving up for the Academy. His father wasn’t about to pay his way to joining the Bureau. He gathered his two mugs and wove his way around tables and chairs, across the expanse of the banquet hall.

It was one of New York’s finest venues in one of the city’s finest hotels, the Platinum Room at the Waldorf Astoria. An army of busboys laid out china and more silverware at each place setting than Braydon had in his entire kitchen drawer. Buckets of flowers waited deployment from rolling trays in the corner. The clank of silver, china and crystal filled the room, along with the melodic fussing of the event manager, a gay guy who dressed in purple but could whip any man or woman into shape with a flit of his hand. The guy knew his stuff, and Braydon appreciated that he didn’t argue when each of the waitstaff had to be vetted for security.

Braydon’s boss was standing by the stage at the far end of the room, clipboard in hand, smartly dressed in a bold red suit that she somehow pulled off on her petite frame. Emerson Kim had been in the Bureau for decades, but didn’t look a day over forty. She had scratched her way up to the top New York position by being brilliant and hard-working, although rumor had it that she first earned her bones spiriting crucial, disaster-averting intel out of North Korea when she was barely out of the Academy. She knew what it was like to be in the field, and never forgot it. Her email to him this morning was concise and to the point.
Meet me at the Waldorf by ten or turn in your resignation.

“
Special Agent Fox,” she said as he drew near. “Your security plan for the presentation tonight is impeccable, as always, which is the only reason I am not firing your ass right now.”

“
That,” said Braydon, “and the hot chocolate.” Emerson was in a minority, not just as a Korean. She hated the taste of coffee. She did, however, fully appreciate the need for caffeine. Braydon was prepared with a packet of the rare caffeinated hot cocoa. He handed her the mug he had snapped up in the kitchen to add flair to his presentation, even added a dollop of whipped cream. She couldn’t be bribed. He simply liked her and appreciated her integrity.

She accepted the mug, saluted him with it. “Saving the damsel in distress, again.”

“
Bad habit.”

“
What more do you know about Christa Devlin?”

“
Only what I sent you in the email from the airport,” said Braydon, sipping on his own coffee, black. “She is an assistant history professor at Princeton. No priors. Her brother-in-law is a Princeton mathematics professor. He’s never even had a parking ticket. Her father is a bit of a mystery. Archaeologist. Travels to some edgy places. But the kicker is her sister, Gabriella Devlin Hunter. She’s that botanist for NewWorld Pharmaceuticals, owned by Baltasar Contreras. I interviewed her four months ago, but she seemed clean.” He slid the folded printout from his pocket and snapped it open. It was a photo of Gabriella Devlin Hunter and her two kids at a company picnic from the NewWorld website. “She was on that NewWorld expedition to Colombia for Contreras last summer. And she flew back to Colombia yesterday. Bought her ticket at the airport.”

“
You’re playing with fire, Fox. I told you to lay off Contreras. He’s given enough money in campaign contributions to buy every Congressman a penthouse suite. And his pharmaceutical empire has offices in more countries than most people have on their bucket list.”

“
Ironic,” he said, “that his company works to cure the world’s ills. That guy’s a cancer.” As a special agent on the FBI’s Jewelry and Gem, JAG, team, Braydon was accustomed to the intricate web of high end thievery in the art and gem world, but this felt something more like, he hated the word, a conspiracy.

“
Bold diagnosis, doctor,” she said, “but where is the evidence?”

“
I’m working on it.”

“
Not according to the Bureau,” she said. “That case in San Francisco is as cold as the stone that was stolen. Right now, you’re coordinating security for the presentation of the Lux et Veritas sword, in this banquet hall, tonight.”

“
Which is why I’m keeping a close tail on Contreras.” The Lux et Veritas sword was a bejeweled trophy piece commissioned by an anonymous donor to commemorate the G-20 summit on world peace. Britain’s United Nations ambassador had been instrumental in coordinating each of the twenty nations to contribute a gemstone for the sword’s hilt, a diplomatic tour de force. Braydon was well aware of the implications should a terrorist attack or a thief disrupt its presentation.

Kim finished off the whipped cream with a slurp that she would have restrained with anyone else besides Braydon. “So what were you doing in the Arizona desert last night?”

“
The question is, what was Baltasar Contreras doing in Arizona last night?”

“
Haven’t you heard?” She pursed her lips. “Contreras wasn’t there. He was dining with none other than the New York Chief of Homeland Security Rambitskov, going over the details of tonight’s sword presentation, like you should have been. Contreras is making you look like a fool, Fox.”

“
Impossible,” Braydon said, unless Rambitskov was in on the faked alibi.

“
Don’t say what you’re thinking,” said Kim. “You implicate Chief Rambitskov and the President, himself, will fire you.”

“
Contreras has a private jet. He could still have gotten to the desert after this alleged dinner.”

“
Contreras is a charming, uber-successful businessman who is funding this banquet tonight. You’ve been on his back, how long?”

“
Nine months,” Braydon said. “Since the theft from the San Francisco Museum of Culture and History.”

“
You figured the perpetrator was Adlai Stonington, that high-end jewel thief that you’ve been building a case against.”

“
I’m sure of it.” Within hours of the discovery of the theft, Braydon had boots on the ground. By the next day, when it was discovered that all that the thief had snatched was a set of four stones, called the Abraxas collection, leaving behind a Faberge egg, a Rembrandt sketch and other pricey booty, his team was speedily reassigned to a high profile art theft from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. “Contreras met with Stonington in San Francisco the day after the Abraxas theft,” he said.

“
As I recall, our illustrious FBI Director personally kicked you off that case.”

“
We both know that the Director is positioning himself for the Secretary of State.” Braydon had figured Contreras for a collector who could afford any whim for stolen art or cultural gems, and a man who was used to getting what he wanted. The millions he filtered into high stakes political campaigns didn’t hurt. He no doubt promised the FBI Director to throw some of his weight his way.

“
The Director didn’t want to listen to any nutty ideas about Contreras being tight with a suspected thief like Stonington.”

Which is why Braydon had cashed in his personal chits, and got his off-the-grid guy, Torrino, to go in deep undercover. He had taken a bullet for Torrino, saved his life, and, more importantly, killed the bad guys before they could kill his pregnant wife.

It proved remarkably easy for Torrino to get close to Contreras, thanks to Contreras’s odd preference for beefy men and the alarming attrition rate of his “enforcers.” Torrino had become Contreras’s go-to guy for anything that required his ample brawn, apparently unshakeable loyalty, and bulldog persistence. Torrino had slipped Braydon evidence that Contreras was a nut who fancied himself a Prophet, a megalomaniac who had designs on starting a new religion, which was terrifying, but not against the law. In fact, if Braydon tried to stop him, then he’d be the criminal.

“
It was a bunch of old stones that was stolen,” said Kim, finishing off the last of her hot chocolate, “not the Crown Jewels.”

“
Exactly why I think there’s something else going on,” said Braydon, “something big. Or Contreras wouldn’t waste his time.”

“
Neither should you. These Abraxas stones aren’t worth it. Even the museum curator admitted the value of the Abraxas stones was more historical than material. So what if Contreras met with a jewel thief. It won’t be the first time some billionaire maneuvers to buy something that’s not for sale.”

“
True, and the second time was last night, in the Arizona desert.”

Kim pointed the clipboard at him. “I took a big chance, Special Agent Fox, trusting you when you begged me to take on the security of the Lux et Veritas sword. I know you did it because Contreras is hosting the banquet tonight. I figured a suspicious agent would be more diligent than an ass-kissing one, but a paranoid agent could kill both our careers.”

“
It’s not our careers that concerns me.”

Kim shook her head. “It’s about her, isn’t it? Christa Devlin,” she said. “Just like Iraq. You were sent over to track down the gems looted from the museum. Instead, you defied orders and risked your life for your informant, an Iraqi, no less, who got himself caught by the bad guys. Or taking that bullet for an expendable snatch and grab snitch. You’re falling into the same trap with Devlin. You can’t save everyone who dives in over their heads. Use them, then lose them. You’ve got courage and you’re a damned good investigator, but rogues don’t last long under my watch, Agent Fox.”

“
Neither will Christa Devlin,” he said, “if I don’t get to her, now.”

“
I saw her photo on the Princeton’s history department’s website,” she said. “I’m telling you this as a friend, Braydon, not the boss. Don’t do this, not for the wrong reasons.”

Of course Emerson would have checked the website, and seen the resemblance to his partner in work, and he had hoped, in life. But nothing was going to bring her back. Nothing was ever going to settle the score. “I’m doing this because it’s my job,” he said. It was all he had left.

CHAPTER
15

Baltasar Contreras cracked open the lobster claw with a satisfying snap. He relished the day when he’d do the same to Torrino’s neck. For now, he had to twist only his manhood, to find out if his failure was idiocy, or destiny.

“
Percival Hunter shot at me.” Torrino paced as he spoke, his beefy Italian arms gesticulating wildly. “What the hell was he doing with a gun? I had the journal in my hand. I had to get out of there, or kill him. And you told me not to kill him.”

“
Failure is weakness,” said Contreras, as his own father had taught him, “and weakness is unacceptable.” It was the cornerstone of the family’s pharmaceutical fortune. It had built this estate, this leafy orangery where Contreras enjoyed taking his lunch on Princeton’s wintery days. As a boy, this garden was his Eden. Father had even introduced a variety of highly poisonous dart frogs to the garden, to teach his son a lesson in fear, and to remind him of his family’s destiny. “It is a good maxim, don’t you agree, Mister Torrino?”

“
I was expecting a math geek,” said Torrino, “not a marksman.”

Contreras smiled crookedly at Torrino’s stab at wit. Part of him liked Torrino. He could not deny it. He breathed in the invigorating aroma of citrus from the nearby lemon tree and the fertile scent of the wet, dark earth from which it grew. So much more promising than the arid Arizona desert of last night. Upon arriving home, he had washed away his fury along with the pervasive red sand. He told himself to remain calm, especially now. He tamped down the ember of anger that threatened to flare inside him.