Gabriel's Horn (15 page)

“See?” Charlie took a step forward and opened the door. “Just have a little faith.”

Annja slid inside and made room for Charlie. She stared at the old man as he closed the umbrella, raked his hair from his face and slid inside.

“But you still have to make your own luck,” Charlie said. “Without that, the world will end for certain.”

21

Seated in the darkened cargo area of the panel van he’d rented for the night’s excursion, Garin studied Roux. He and Jennifer sat on the other side of the van. Both of them wore black clothing.

Members of the security team Garin had hired bookended them. That hadn’t happened by chance. Garin didn’t trust Roux ever.

Roux had remained strangely quiet through the meal, and on the ride back to the hotel where he’d rented rooms for all three of them. There were only two rooms. As it turned out, Jennifer was rooming with Roux.

Why are you so quiet, old man? The question kept banging through Garin’s head.

The only time Roux got so quiet was when he was fretful. Of course, there was plenty to fret about. Both Saladin and Salome were after the painting. Saladin was a dangerous man. And Salome was definitely deadly. Garin still wore the scars she’d given him.

“Sir.”

Garin turned his attention to the earpiece he wore. “Yes.”

“We’re coming up on the estate now.”

“Good.” Garin reached up and flipped down a video monitor from the vehicle’s roof. The cargo area only had windows in the back door. Both of those had been blacked out.

Instantly, an image filled the screen. The monitor showed the road leading up to the estate. A soft glow of light from a guardhouse could be seen.

Roux snorted.

Jennifer looked at him.

“The old man doesn’t much care for technology,” Garin said. He touched the screen and shifted through the different perspectives available to him.

The security team had outfitted the van with a satellite relay that allowed Garin to stream video coming in from the camera mounted on the front of the van. Select members of the group also wore more cameras.

“A child and his toys,” Roux muttered.

“Don’t knock it,” Garin said. “I’ve found it most helpful.” He turned to Roux. “Plus, the last time I was at your estate, you seemed to have the latest security measures.”

“It only serves to keep the idiots out.”

Jennifer frowned as she stared at Roux. “You have an estate?”

Roux took a moment to answer. “A small one.”

“Since when?”

Roux shrugged.

Exasperated, Jennifer glanced at Garin.

“I love technology,” Garin said. “He likes secrets. You’ll never get anything more out of him than he’s willing to give.”

“It seems like he could have mentioned he had an estate,” Jennifer said.

“The same way he could have mentioned why this painting is so important. But he chose not to.”

“Perhaps we could concentrate on getting inside
this
estate,” Roux suggested.

The team leader interrupted. “Sir, are you ready for us to approach the outpost?”

Garin surveyed the front of the estate. Nothing moved there.

“Go,” he said. He touched the screen again and shifted through the views until he’d selected the camera mounted on the man in the approach team.

In the camera’s view, two men took advantage of the brush on the side of the guardhouse as they closed on their objective. The camera bounced slightly as it followed.

“Do you want to tell me how you were going to break into this place if I hadn’t decided to lend a hand?” Garin asked.

“I have resources,” Roux said as he watched the screen.

Garin almost delivered a derisive response. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the fact that Roux did know people who could do exactly what he was doing. The old man preferred subtlety and subterfuge. Those had always been his weapons of choice.

A moment later, the two men entered the guardhouse.

So far, so good, Garin thought.

Then the whole operation went to hell.

“Sir,” one of the men said, “we have a problem. Somebody killed these guys.”

The cameraman stepped forward. The image carried back showed corpses lying where the bullets had left them sprawled.

Roux cursed. “Salome beat us here.”

* * * *

Heart rate elevated, senses flaring as adrenaline flooded his system, Garin held a sound-suppressed pistol in his gloved right hand. He focused his attention on the monitor as the van hurtled toward the house.

“Invading the premises at this point isn’t the smartest thing we could do,” Jennifer said. “If Salome got here before us—”

“She did,” Roux grated. “We waited too long.”

Garin didn’t say anything. It had taken time to get his team in place. Besides that, no matter how things went tonight, he’d known going in that he’d be blamed for any mistakes. That was how his relationship with Roux generally worked.

“Then we’d be better off leaving,” Jennifer finished.

“She might still be here,” Roux said.

“And the police might be on their way,” Jennifer added. “I didn’t come here to get arrested for murder.”

“That,” Roux declared, “will be the least of our worries if Salome gets her hands on that painting.”

“Maybe if we knew what was at stake,” Jennifer suggested, “we’d all feel better about the risk we’re taking.”

Roux ignored her as Garin knew he would.

The view of the main house grew bigger as the van sped across the landscaped grounds. A few lights glowed softly inside the structure. Two of Garin’s teams closed on the back door and left the front entrance to the van crew. Snipers positioned on the security walls kept watch over the site.

“I think Salome is already gone,” Jennifer said.

“If she was, then the police would be here,” Roux said.

“What makes you so certain?”

“She’d do that to make the situation even more insufferable,” Roux grated. “As a final insult.”

Or, Garin thought, she might set up a trap. He scanned the front of the house less than fifty yards away. Shadows cloaked the facade.

Without warning, the sound of a heavy-caliber rifle cracked through the radio frequency. An instant later, it rolled over the ground.

“Look out!” one of the snipers warned. “They’ve got a rocket launcher set up on the second floor!”

“Get us out of here!” Garin ordered. He slammed a fist against the metal plate that separated the front seats from the cargo area. He slammed against the side of the van as the driver took evasive action.

* * * *

The safe was located behind the entertainment center. Ilse Danseker had given up the location quickly after she’d seen her lover killed.

Salome tripped the electronic locks with the same remote control that operated the television, surround sound, DVD player and other entertainment devices. Evidently the woman’s husband liked having everything linked to the same controller.

After Salome keyed in the special code, the entertainment center slid away to reveal a safe built into the wall. The safe was the size of a regular door. Another key code spun the tumblers inside the lock. They fell into place with loud clicks.

When she glanced at Drake, Salome saw the man was grinning in anticipation.

“Excited?” she asked.

“Positively brimming,” Drake assured her. “A man builds a safe like that, he’s not casual about what he puts in there. I expect to find a few other things to pick up besides the painting you’re after.”

Ilse Danseker sobbed at the foot of her bed. Disposable cuffs bound her wrists and ankles. She rocked on her knees, unable to keep still. A whispered prayer poured from her lips in a litany. “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.”

The temptation to put a bullet through the woman’s head was almost more than Salome could bear. But until she had her hands on the painting of the Nephilim, she wasn’t going to lose her only avenue of information.

Drake nodded at one of the men in the room. He stepped forward and started to pull on the door.

“Wait,” Drake said. He looked at the sobbing woman. When he aimed his pistol at her, he depressed the trigger just enough to bring the targeting laser to life.

The ruby beam was steady between the woman’s eyes. The reflection turned her tears pale scarlet.

“Are there any booby traps on the safe?” Drake demanded.

“No,” the woman whispered.

“Because if there are, if something happens to my man or if the police suddenly decide to arrive,” Drake said, “I’m going to kill you.”

“There aren’t. I swear.” The woman closed her eyes and ducked her head so she couldn’t look at him.

Drake turned back to the door and nodded to the man at the door. The man went inside and found a light switch. Illumination filled the safe.

Salome entered. It almost looked like a bank vault. Stacks of currency from a handful of countries sat on a shelf in neat bundles.

Drake stripped a pillowcase from the bed and swept the cash into it. “Nothing wrong with walking away with a little extra.”

Salome barely noticed. Her eyes locked on to the painting that sat inside a protective case. She took a small penlight from one of the many pockets in her Kevlar vest. She shone the beam directly on the painting.

The brooding figure of the angel glowed.

Carefully, Salome took a reagent from her pocket, applied it to a handkerchief and knelt to swab it on a corner of the painting. She waited patiently. For a moment nothing happened and her hope remained intact.

Then, slowly, paint lifted from the canvas.

She cursed as she took the reagent from her pocket and upended it across the painting. Applied in greater volume, the paint bubbled from the canvas in strips.

“What’s wrong?” Drake stood nearby in the midst of helping himself to the jewelry in the boxes on a shelf.

“It’s fake,” Salome snarled. “This isn’t the original painting.”

Drake finished adding the jewelry to his bag and glanced at the painting. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Salome gazed at the painting in disgust. “It’s a very good copy, but it’s forged.”

“You said it was a copy,” Drake stated.

“It is.”

“Not merely guesswork on part of the forger?”

In an instant, Salome saw where Drake was heading with the question. “You think the forger painted this from the original painting?”

Drake shrugged. “You said yourself that no one had seen this painting in years.”

“Yes.”

“Then how did you know what it was supposed to look like?”

“From reports of people who have seen it.” Salome looked at the dripping mess of the painting oozing onto the floor.

“Whoever forged this knew what he or she was doing, love,” Drake declared. “Stands to reason that maybe the artist was working from good source material. Like, for instance, the original painting.”

“Find the painter, find the original,” Salome said.

“Perhaps we can trace the painting’s ownership back. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find him.”

“Someone could have hired the painter,” Salome argued.

“Once we find him, love, we can ask him. This isn’t the end of the world. Or a dead end.”

Salome turned away from the false painting. She sealed away her frustration and anger. All of this could still be sorted out.

The radio receiver in her ear buzzed. She thumbed it on and watched Drake reach up for his receiver at the same time. “Yes.”

“We have visitors,” a man said quietly.

“Who are they?”

“We haven’t identified them.”

“Where are they?”

“Front of the house.”

Salome crossed to the bedroom’s window. One of Drake’s men shut off the light inside the safe at his barked command.

She peered around the edge of the window at the estate grounds. A van sped up the road to the main house. They would arrive in seconds. She felt certain she knew who was inside. Roux had always been driven to succeed.

“There are also ground forces,” the man said. “We’ve identified two separate units in addition to the van. They’ve placed snipers on the walls.”

“We have the rocket team,” Drake told Salome.

For a split second, Salome thought about Roux and the years they’d spent together. The old man had taught her a lot, but he hadn’t taught her everything she’d wanted to know. In the end, she’d stolen part of his knowledge, taken a journal that talked about many wondrous things that she wanted to find.

So far, she’d found none of them. Twice before she had found items mentioned in that book, and twice before Roux had managed to strip them from her hands before she could realize her prize.

She knew what she had to do.

“Kill them,” she commanded.

Drake gave the order. Immediately, a rocket shot from the second-story window on the other end of the building and streaked toward the van. The vehicle’s driver was already trying to take evasive action, but it was too late. The rocket struck the van’s left front bumper and knocked it aside like a child’s toy. Flames engulfed the van at once.

So long, Roux, she thought. There was a twinge of sadness inside her as she watched the van roll over and over.

Drake gave the rocket team the order to reload.

22

“You have the most beautiful eyes.”

The comment startled Annja as she sat across the small table from the old man. She and Charlie occupied one of the back tables at Luigi’s, a small Italian restaurant that offered an evening buffet. Even Luigi, who prized Annja’s patronage because she was—in his view at least—”a television star,” barely admitted Charlie to his establishment.

Italian-themed bric-a-brac occupied the walls. Friezes of grapes outlined every door. Small fishermen’s nets hung from the ceiling. Gallon wine jugs—empty, to prevent grievous bodily harm—hung in the net, as well as Italian stuffed toys that were often given to the children of patrons.

“I’ve never seen eyes quite like yours,” Charlie went on. “They’re like a cat’s, but they have so much more promise. And maybe threat.”

“Thank you,” Annja said. “I think.” She felt a little embarrassed. “But they’ll be closing the kitchen before long. You should eat.”