Gabriel's Horn (24 page)

She slid into the seat and closed the door. Bullets hammered the glass, spiderwebbing it, and beat a tattoo on the metal door.

Garin didn’t wait for her to fasten the seat belt. He applied his foot heavily to the accelerator and shot through the stalled traffic.

Annja looked over her shoulder and spotted a car racing after them. “There’s a car.”

“I see it.” Garin was calm. “It’ll be taken care of. I have to admit, the attack at the hotel was unexpected. Since no one had bothered you, I thought we might get out of there uninterrupted.”

“You brought them there,” Annja accused.

“No, I didn’t.”

At that moment a man with a rocket launcher settled over one shoulder stepped forward and took aim. The rocket leaped from the tube and struck the car, turning it into a roiling ball of flame that slammed into the side of an office building.

“If we got lucky,” Garin said, “Salome was in that car.”

“Do you think she was?”

Garin shook his head. “She’s too good to take chances out on the battlefield.” He sped through traffic.

Annja kept watch as Garin sped through the Brooklyn streets. There were no more signs of pursuit.

“How do you know you didn’t bring them with you?” she asked. “You said she was over in the Netherlands with you and Roux.”

“She was. They didn’t have time to arrange an elaborate setup like this since I arrived.” Garin took a hard left and reduced speed. “Remember, your loft had been burgled.”

“You said they didn’t take anything.”

“They were looking for you.” Garin looked at her. “They knew where you were. I’d say they had someone on you as soon as you got back from Prague.”

“And Salome isn’t linked to Saladin?”

“They’re bitter enemies.”

“So we have two groups after us?” Annja asked.

Garin nodded.

Annja sighed. “The more the merrier, I guess.”

“In your endeavors,” Charlie said, “you’re going to find that you have any number of enemies. You’ll certainly have many more enemies than friends who will be drawn to your calling.”

Annja settled in her seat. “Have you and Charlie met before?” she asked Garin.

“No. I thought he was your friend.”

“Not until recently.”

Charlie sat happily in the backseat. “Other than the ambulance the other night, it’s been a long time since I’ve ridden in an automobile. It’s much more exciting than I remembered it being.”

Garin looked at Annja. “You make strange friends.”

“Personally, I think it all started when I met you and Roux,” she said.

35

Annja carried her backpack to the spacious cabin area in the private jet. She took her computer out and hooked it into the aircraft’s communications array.

Charlie appeared utterly thrilled to be on the private jet. Questions flowed out of him, and they were all directed at Garin. Annja was pleased to see how much that annoyed him.

When Charlie mentioned that he was hungry, Garin took him forward to the kitchen and placed the old man in the capable hands of the young female chef he’d hired to cater for the flight.

Garin dropped into a seat beside Annja. “Why are we going to Istanbul?”

“Because Tsoklis wasn’t the only artist who worked on the Nephilim painting.”

“When I left Roux in the Hague, he told me he intended to pursue the forger who made the painting we were chasing,” Garin said.

“Why?”

“Roux said that the forger had to have a source he worked from.”

Annja agreed with that logic. “If the painting was good enough to fool Roux for a time—”

“It was. You should have seen his face when he thought it had been destroyed.” Garin grinned, but Annja knew his heart wasn’t in it. Worry showed in his face.

“Roux never explained the painting to you?”

“No.” Pain flickered in Garin’s black eyes. “He raised me, Annja. He was a father to me in so many ways. But even fathers don’t always tell their sons everything.”

“No parent does,” Charlie agreed. He strode back into the cabin area carrying a large platter filled with food.

Where does he put all that? Annja wondered. Eating that much just doesn’t seem humanly possible.

“Now that we’ve heard from Dr. Charlie,” Garin said disdainfully, “perhaps you’d like to finish what you were saying.”

“If the painting was good enough to fool Roux with all that he knows about it,” Annja said, “then someone else has to know a lot about it.”

“The forger.”

Annja nodded. “Was it an old forgery or a new one?”

“Roux believed it was recent.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. I have to assume it was because of the materials involved.”

Annja tried to shrug off the frustration that scratched at her nerves.

“You said there was another artist who worked on the Nephilim painting,” Garin said. “Could he have been the forger?”

“No. His name was Jannis Thomopoulos. He lived about two hundred years after Tsoklis.”

“So?”

“At one point Thomopoulos touched up the Nephilim painting for the man who owned it in Constantinople.”

“Before the city fell?”

“Yes.”

Garin sat back. “Two hundred years later.”

“Two hundred sixteen, to be exact,” Annja said.

“Why did he touch up the painting?”

“Some older paintings required touching up because the materials the artists used didn’t last. A lot of pieces in private collections and museums have been restored. If the original is found, I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been touched up since.”

“So why is it we’re trailing Thomopoulos?” Garin asked.

“He had to have had reference to work from,” Annja said. “I’m hoping that reference might still be in some of his materials.”

“What kind of reference?”

“Sketches.”

“You think Thomopoulos may have made sketches of the original painting?”

“It’s how it’s usually done.” Annja had studied quite a bit about art during her university days, as well as after. Too many archaeological records resided in artwork to ignore it.

“And you know where Thomopoulos’s materials are?”

“I do.”

Garin smiled. “Now, wouldn’t that be interesting?”

“What?”

“If we—not having the original painting—are able to figure out the map before Roux does. And if the answer to the puzzle he’s worried about for hundreds of years was actually there in front of him the whole time.”

Annja frowned and bristled a little. “It wasn’t exactly in front of him. He may not know Thomopoulos was involved—”

“He doesn’t or he would have mentioned him before now,” Garin stated confidently.

“It’s possible that Thomopoulos’s work hadn’t been gathered up in a collection.”

“However it goes,” Charlie said, “you can’t allow what Roux seeks to fall into his hands.”

Garin looked at the old man. “You know what it is?”

“Of course.” Charlie wiped his hands on a napkin.

“Then tell us.”

“No.”

Anger, hard and frightening, flared to life within Garin. It was a part of him that Annja knew she would always have to be wary of, and she knew it would always be a part of him. Whatever had marked Garin in his early years had marked him forever.

“I could make you tell us,” Garin threatened.

“No,” Charlie stated, “you can’t.” He smiled. “And even if you tried, Annja would stop you.” He picked up a chocolate chip cookie.

Garin looked at Annja. “My way would be easier and faster.”

“We’re not going to torture him.”

“He’s old. It won’t take much. He may talk tough, but he’s not going to be hard to break.”

“No.” Annja tried to rationalize the way Garin had been in Prague when he’d taken her out and how he was now. It was impossible. Garin had two sides to his personality, and both were equally strong and passionate. She had to wonder which he would choose to be when they took up the trail on the map.

Garin cursed in disgust.

“You need to have open minds when you find it,” Charlie said. “Otherwise your expectations will affect how you treat it. Roux already has his expectations, and his needs, and that’s why it’s so dangerous for him to be near it.”

“Can you tell us anything about it?” Annja asked.

“I’ve told you, Annja,” the old man said patiently. “It has tremendous power. With it, the sleeping king can destroy the world.”

* * * *

“The door’s locked.”

Roux glanced at the ornate doorknob in front of him. “Is it?”

“Yes.” Hamid stood in the hallway outside the large condominium they’d come to burgle. Roux had known the man for over twenty years, and their business together had never been legal. He was small and dark, and his eyes moved restively and fearfully at all times. “And there will be alarms.”

“I thought you took care of the alarms,” Roux said.

Hamid shrugged. “I took care of
some
of the alarms. The men you can buy these days, they aren’t all trustworthy.”

Roux grinned at the little thief. “Not like you, eh, old friend?”

Hamid smiled. “Exactly.”

“Then it’s a good thing for you that I didn’t just count on your skills.” Roux turned and nodded at Jennifer.

With a quick look around the luxurious hallway, Jennifer reached into her coat and brought out an electronic device. She attached it to the electronic lock and activated a sequence.

“If we’re caught out here with that,” Hamid said, “they’ll put us in prison forever. They don’t suffer thieves over here.”

Roux knew that. “It’s fascinating, though,” he said as Jennifer worked with the device, “don’t you think? We’d be viewed as thieves for breaking into Vilen Bogosian’s residence. Yet, in certain circles, he’s known as quite the artiste of forged paintings.”

“He’s accepted here,” Hamid explained. “He hasn’t run afoul of anyone in Istanbul.”

“I’m sure that’s only because no one has yet discovered his crimes. I hardly think he’s living the life of an angel here.”

Jennifer straightened up with a frown. “I can’t get the combination. It’s not going to open.”

Anger seethed through Roux. He’d spent two days trolling the seamier side of the Hague to find out who was responsible for the forgery that had been sold at the art auction. Getting that information had taken time, money and many favors he’d called in.

Jennifer had accompanied him, but she’d remained tense. They didn’t talk about Garin’s decision to leave or the fact that they hadn’t been able to replace what Garin would have brought in the form of men and matériel.

Just go slowly, Roux thought. You’ve almost found the prize you seek.

Unless it was lost and gone forever. Part of him would have been relieved, he knew. But part of him would have gone ballistic.

“Try it again,” Roux said.

Jennifer hesitated only a moment, but she applied the device once more.

Roux hated trusting such things, but it was the way of the world these days.

This time the lock clicked and sounded like a pistol shot in the quietness of the hallway.

“Very good,” Roux said.

“I don’t understand,” Jennifer said. “It should have worked the first time.”

“You’re too edgy. Just be glad that it worked this time.” Roux pulled the door open and slid a pistol out from under his jacket. He stepped inside as Jennifer put the device back into her jacket and took out a pistol of her own.

Despite her misgivings, Jennifer had thrown her lot in with him. He still didn’t know if it was because she cared about him, in spite of what he’d done, or because she was curious about what secrets the painting held.

“This could be a very bad mistake,” Hamid said.

“Quiet,” Roux ordered in a raspy whisper. He entered the room. Even though it was cloaked in darkness, he knew his way around.

Hamid had arranged to get the blueprints of the condominium. For all of Hamid’s lack of a spine, he was quite the ferret when it came to getting necessary things.

Voices came from a room on the other side of the large and elegantly furnishing living space. Roux identified the room as Bogosian’s work space. Quietly, he crossed the room. His heart pounded in anticipation. There were other things he’d chased over centuries, but nothing like what he was after now. He calmed himself with effort.

Bogosian was in his early thirties, a bull of a man with a broad chest and curly black hair. Black leather pants encased his legs and hips. The black shirt was open to midchest and tailored to reveal his biceps and musculature. He laughed and joked with a model on the small stage in the workroom.

Lights flashed as Bogosian snapped pictures.

Roux vaguely recognized the woman. She was an American actress whose career had started to accelerate her to the A-lists. Roux couldn’t remember her name.

She held her long brown hair back off her naked shoulders as she flirted with Bogosian and his camera. Roux knew that the painter supplemented his forgeries with legitimate work. But even painting American actresses in the nude didn’t pay as well as forged masterpieces.

“Don’t worry about the tattoos,” Bogosian said in accented English. “I can airbrush those out. Just relax and have fun.”

The actress saw Roux as he stepped into the room. Her eyes rounded in surprise and she reached for the dark blue robe on the floor.

Even so, Bogosian kept shooting pictures and took a moment to turn around. “What are you—”

Unable to stop himself, Roux crossed the distance and grabbed the man around the throat with his free hand. Bogosian struggled and tried to get free. Roux’s anger and desperation gave him incredible strength. He lifted the man to his tiptoes with one hand and shook him.

“Quiet,” Roux advised. He showed the painter the pistol. “Quiet, and you may yet live in spite of all that you’ve done.”

Bogosian nodded.

Arm trembling from the effort of holding the man, Roux released Bogosian. “Now,” he said in a voice clotted with rage and need, “we’re going to talk, you and I. And if you lie to me, you’ll never paint or look at beautiful women again. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the Nephilim,” Roux ordered. “How can I find it?”

36