Gold of Kings (35 page)

T
HREE DAYS LATER, STORM UNLOCKED
the doors to the shop in Palm Beach. She set down her bags and walked through the empty rooms, turning on all the lights as she went. Emma shut the front door, set down her case, and stood watching her. “Where it all started,” Emma said.

Storm stepped behind the front room's main counter and asked, “Can I help you?”

“Absolutely,” Emma replied. “I need a new heart. Mine is broken.”

“We're a little low on stock right now. But I'll see what I can do. Soon as I pick up one for myself.”

Emma walked to the dusty front window. “If I keep telling myself it would never have worked between me and Harry, do you think there's a chance I might someday believe it?”

Storm slowly wiped the countertop, clearing a tight circle of dust. “How long can you stay?”

“Long as it takes to know you're safe.”

“Any word on Claudia?”

“Same response as yesterday. The lady has vanished. Soon as I hear anything different, you'll know.”

They had spent two days in Washington, where Emma had been
feted as the returning hero. Hakim's investigation had yielded four more shops Boucaud had taken over. Hakim had given Emma the details, then departed. Leaving Emma to accept all the credit as hers. International arrest warrants had been issued for one Yves Boucaud, others for a shadow known as Leon.

Storm had spent hours with the lawyers. Nobody knew precisely what to do about Syrrell's. Ownership was now held by an offshore corporation that suddenly had ceased to exist.

And Claudia was nowhere to be found.

And Jack Dauer had been invited to resign.

The FBI had egg all over their faces. Treasury was doing backflips. Emma was up for a major promotion, possibly being assigned her own task force.

Emma asked the window, “Decided what you're going to do?”

“This shop is mine if I want it. The title is now in my name, and I have eight months still paid up on the lease.”

“You want it.”

“I thought I did. But now…”

“Bite the bullet, Storm.”

“I betrayed Harry and destroyed his dream. Now I'm supposed to use the blood money to make my own dreams real?”

Emma gave that the silence it deserved. Storm walked to the kitchen tucked beneath the stairwell, next to her downstairs office, and put on coffee. As she stood watching the pot brew, she said, “I was right, though. What I did and what I said. Sean combined the best of what he was, his faith and his passion for art treasure, and from this came his gift. It didn't make him perfect, but it made him a great man. There are a lot worse things for a girl to do with her life than follow her grandfather's example.”

From the front room, she heard Emma say, “You've given this a lot of thought.”

“Harry's the last of several men I've argued with who weren't actually there.” She poured two cups and brought them back. “I'm out of milk.”

“Black is fine.” Emma accepted her cup. “Washington is asking again.”

Storm sipped her cup. She preferred her coffee adorned with steamed milk and brown sugar and a sprinkle of chocolate if any was being offered. But the bitter brew suited the moment.

“They really want you there, Storm.”

Their recovery of treasure dating from the Second Temple had created an international furor. The official unveiling was to take place in three days at the Smithsonian. The president and the UN secretary-general and the Israeli prime minister were all slated to speak.

Emma said, “You can't believe from how high these requests are coming.”

“They want me so bad, fine. Find Harry.”

“We're trying. Believe me.”

“Tell them to try harder.”

“He's vanished, Storm. We're talking completely off the map. It's like he stepped off the boat and melted into the storm.”

The cup rattled against her teeth. “He can't be gone.”

They shared the quiet with the dust and the shadows and the empty rooms. Emma asked, “You hungry?”

“I suppose I should be.”

“I'll go grab us a couple of sandwiches. You want anything special?”

Storm waved the hand not holding the cup. Whatever.

After Emma departed, Storm remained where she was, staring out the front window. Through her entire adult life, her one goal had been to exceed her grandfather's expectations. Which was doubly tough, since almost nothing had satisfied the old man, and now he was gone from her forever. Just like Harry. She cradled her empty cup and tried to breathe around the rock of sorrow in her chest. She and men were such a losing proposition.

She picked up her suitcases and walked through the back room. She decoded the rear door's electronic lock and started up the stairs, thinking no further than how nice it would feel to shower off the trip.

When Sean had refitted the shop, he had effectively designed a shell within a shell. The shop was sheathed in steel plate and bulletproof glass. The stairs leading up to the apartment were narrow and claustrophobic, with reinforced doors at both ends. The upstairs door would not open until the other sighed shut on its pneumatic hinge. The up
stairs door faced directly into the living room, across from the kitchen and her bedroom entrance. Storm opened the door to the same empty space, with one impossible difference.

On the room's one remaining item of furniture, the lumpy sofa where Harry had slept, sprawled her aunt. Her hands and ankles and mouth were taped. Her eyes were closed. Her face looked lumpish, pale, utterly removed from Claudia's customary elegance.

The blow to her head came out of nowhere. The pain was so sharp it shattered her vision. Storm went down hard.

S
TORM AWOKE TO A SOUND
from her childhood. She breathed the same sweet cloying odor that had permeated every room in their house. She sat with her eyes closed. Coming to terms with everything she had gotten wrong.

Her father collected pipes. Hundreds of them. His favorite traveling pipe was a hand-blown bong. The base was shaped like a yellow tulip. Her father liked to fill it with ice. The sound of sucking smoke through the melting ice was almost musical. Storm would have known that sound anywhere.

“You might as well open your eyes. I know you're awake.”

Her first sight was of him standing by the open freezer door, unscrewing the bong's top so he could drop in more crushed ice.

The things a girl remembered about home.

Claudia said, “Are you all right?”

Storm's mouth felt gummed shut. Nodding threatened to dislodge the top of her skull.

Her father slammed the freezer door. “Oh, come on. Leon didn't hit you that hard.”

They were seated in Storm's kitchen alcove on a pair of metal folding chairs. The chairs were set up to face the rear window. The shade was drawn tight and nailed to the counter. A laptop sat open on the
counter beneath the window. Storm's wrists were tied to the chair's rear legs. Her ankles were taped to the front legs. More tape bound her waist. She glanced over. Claudia was lashed the same way. Tape ran around the crossties running between the chair's front and rear legs, and this was nailed into the floor.

Storm managed, “I'm so sorry.”

Claudia's eyes filled. Her hair, normally so perfectly coiffed, was matted and mashed flat. “For what? I'm the one who didn't believe you and your threats.”

“I thought it was you.”

Her father choked over his smoke. “Her? My perfect little sister? Do something wrong?” He laughed wildly.

Claudia snapped, “This is your
daughter
.”

Joseph Syrrell's pupils were tight pinholes, his hands never still. Meth, Storm decided. He'd started mixing and matching his highs about the time she left home. Her father snapped, “Way wrong. I lost this girl the day she went to work for
that man
.” He spat the words, his face constricted by the effort of releasing a genuine emotion for once. He rounded on Storm. “You just wouldn't leave the thing alone. This was supposed to be
my
time.
My
shop. Take back everything the old man stole from me.”

Claudia said, “You're the only thief in this room.”

“Oh. Right. Ask Storm why she stopped by my house the other day.” He flicked the lighter, toked hard, and grinned around the mouthpiece. Blew out a long stream of smoke. “Cute move, by the way. Using the siren to spook me.”

“The triptych was Sean's.”

“Like I care.”

“Whatever Boucaud has promised you, it's a lie. The whole deal has gone south. The authorities—”

“Save it.” He set down the pipe and started tapping on the laptop's keyboard. His bulk blocked the screen from view. After a moment, he asked, “Can you see okay?”

“If you will move aside, I'll tell you.”

The voice froze Storm's gut.

The face on the laptop screen smiled directly at her. “Storm Syrrell. We meet at last.”

E
MMA LEFT THE DELI BOUNCING
the sandwich bag off her leg. The afternoon light bathed an almost empty Palm Beach Island. Humidity now replaced tourists in this off-season town. Her fatigue was as heavy a burden as the heat. The past few days had been like living inside a fireworks display. So many explosions coming so fast, the clamor had been deafening. News of the discovery had broken before their flight landed. They had been met at Dulles by a barrage of mikes and lights and cameras and shouted questions. Emma had suspected Hakim had been behind the leak, but he was nowhere to be found.

Emma's reports on Boucaud and the art market scandal had brought turmoil to the halls of power. Emma had been pulled into one conference after another—Treasury, Homeland Security, a Senate subcommittee, even one meeting with senior White House staffers. Foiling an attempt to use the international art and treasures market to finance global terrorism was a major coup. Everyone wanted to be seen as taking part in the triumph.

Only now, walking the sweltering side street back to Worth Avenue, could she see beyond the moment. And be confronted yet again with all she had gained. And the far greater burden of all that was lost forever.

Then she saw the bike.

This one was a brilliant red two-wheeled rocket. Even the emblem
looked fast; the gold letters ending in flames. The bike was massive, low to the ground, with a tiny windshield and stubby controls—everything drawn in tightly to help the driver withstand a g-force stronger than the space shuttle's liftoff. The bike was parked directly opposite the passage leading back to Storm's shop. A flame-red warning meant just for her.

Emma dropped the bag and ran, fumbling about in her purse for her gun. At the moment of sunlit blindness, a man stepped into her path. He was scarcely larger than an olive-skinned elf, and had eyes that burned with coal-dark rage. His hand was extended, almost in greeting. The single whiff from the perfume canister struck her face before she had even truly seen him. It was done so swiftly and smoothly she blocked his hand only after the mist clung to her skin and eyes.

Emma tried to raise her gun, only to discover she had no hands.

S
TORM KNEW SHE WAS SOON
going to die. This knowledge granted her the ability to split each moment into crystalline fractions. There were eons between each frantic heartbeat. Time to etch the man on the computer screen deep into her psyche. Time to hear Claudia's ragged breathing and know she was helpless to do anything about it. Time to watch her father take his leave from Boucaud and depart without glancing her way. Storm heard each precise tick of the clock above the stove. She felt the urgent need to get this one last thing totally right.

She said to Claudia, “I betrayed your trust by thinking what I did. I was totally wrong. I'm so sorry. I want you to know how much I love you.”

“How utterly American,” Yves Bouchaud sneered from the screen. “This ridiculous need of yours to unload your emotions.”

Claudia's tears dragged her mascara into dark trenches across her cheeks. “Why is he doing this?”

“I wrecked his plans.”

“Only temporarily,” Boucaud corrected. The computer gave his words a metallic drone, a deep and dead voice overlaid with a precise accent. “The authorities will scurry about for a time, then another crisis will arise and their attention will turn elsewhere. Then we will resume
our work. There is nothing on paper to link me to anything. The plan is still an excellent one. I'll simply identify another conduit.”

Claudia addressed the man on the computer for the first time. “What do you want from us?”

“Regrettably, your niece has stirred quite a fuss. Certain clients of mine insist upon knowing what else you have discovered.”

“But I don't know anything, and neither does Storm.”

“No. Probably not. I suppose they suspect this as well. But they still wish to observe as you both are interrogated. Thoroughly.”

Boucaud was groomed in the manner of a polished ornament, gleaming and lifeless. His skin looked professionally tanned. Perfect silver-grey hair. But there was a certain brutal crudeness to his features. His nose was a battering ram, his lips overfull and the color of raw meat. Dark eyes were half hidden by puffy folds.

Claudia stammered, “I don't understand.”

Storm said, “It was never just Syrrell's. We've uncovered six other dealers also under attack. Not to mention the treasure. We found it. What Sean was after. All of it.”

“I confess that has also rather irked my colleagues. They very much wanted it for themselves. A symbol. A negotiating tool. Or both.” He waved it aside. “It is all petty nonsense as far as I am concerned. Be that as it may, you have managed to irritate some very dangerous people. They insist upon vengeance.”

There was a rumble from downstairs. A door slammed.

“Excellent,” Boucaud said. “We can finally begin.”

The stairway door opened. Emma was slumped over the shoulder of a man she completely dwarfed. Her hands dragged on the floor as he kicked the door shut and stepped into the kitchen.

The little tan man moved with remarkable ease. The only sign of the weight he carried was a heavy rasping breath. His gaze drifted over Storm, his eyes murderous.

“I can't tell you how much my colleague is looking forward to this.” Boucaud switched to rapid-fire French: “Put Webb on the floor where she can watch. Bind her well and feed her the antidote. Do her last.”

He must have seen the horror on both their faces, for he said, “You
both speak French. How convenient. I fear my colleague's English is rather limited.”

Claudia whispered shakily, “Who is that woman?”

“Emma Webb. Homeland Security.”

“Why is she here?”

Boucaud replied, “To protect your troublesome niece. Isn't that delicious?”

The man they knew as Leon held a vaporizer spray under Emma's nose, puffed once, then slapped her face. Again. The tan man had a serious bruise on one cheek and surgical threads dangling from wounds on his forehead and one arm, no doubt the result of Emma's attack in Cyprus. Storm hoped Emma could focus enough to see she had at least scored the first hit.

Boucaud said, “She will watch her last and final failure, then depart. I understand there are quite a number of her colleagues who will not mourn her passage.” He said in French, “Very well. You may begin.”

As Leon picked up the duct tape and ripped off three segments for their mouths, Claudia screamed, “Help! Oh please, somebody help us!”

Storm felt no need to remind her aunt how well the place was soundproofed. She stared at Emma. Wishing for a way to make things right. For once.

The gunfire was so rapid the shots sounded like a military drum-roll. Which, in a way, it was.

The reinforced French windows splintered, the webbing extended from a series of neat holes. Then a shadow obliterated the sunlight, and Harry Bennett came crashing through.

He tucked and rolled and came up in one fluid motion. He straightened his arm, taking aim with a pistol that looked as big as a club. “Freeze, hotshot.”

Leon instantly gripped Emma and pulled her in front of him. He twisted his body so he was fully shielded behind hers, this skinny little gnome holding Emma with one hand at her collar. Emma choked slightly as her wind was cut off. The guy reached into his pocket.

Boucaud screamed in French, “Do him! Do him!”

Harry shifted his aim a fraction to the left and blasted away.

The sound in the room's confines was murderous. Claudia screamed, or perhaps it was Storm.

Harry's gunshots shattered the cabinet beside Leon, sending shards of wood and tile ricocheting around the room. Leon flinched as measles-sized flecks of blood appeared on his face and neck. Emma recoiled under the barrage and twisted her head so the worst of the splinters buried into her hair. Harry moved as he fired, racing toward the assassin.

Leon roared and
threw
Emma at Harry.

Harry did the man thing. And caught her.

Leon was on him before Harry could release her. A blade sliced. Harry shouted far too high for a guy his size. Emma thumped onto the floor at his feet. The lady was all pro, drugged and dazed but still able to roll and grip by drawing her thighs up to her belly, anchoring Leon's legs.

Leon snarled his shrill rage as he swung the knife in a wide arc. Emma curled and ducked. Leon kicked her forehead. Emma slumped.

Harry's gun was on the floor and his shooting arm was drenched red. He hammered Leon with a straight left, hard enough to back him up a pace.

From the kitchen cabinet Boucaud kept screaming his commands, shrill as a woman.

Storm twisted and pulled with all her might. The tape binding her chair to the floor ripped free. She toppled her chair over. Leon flashed a silver arc, his knife came within a hairsbreadth of taking out Harry's throat. Harry backed away.

Storm was there, her one remaining weapon at the ready. When Leon took his next step, she lunged and caught his ankle with her mouth. She clenched down with all her might.

Leon roared and the knife swished. She actually heard it slice through the flesh of her shoulder. She bit deeper still, grinding down to the bone.

Harry stepped forward and pounded Leon straight between the eyes. The little man staggered but stayed aloft. Harry hit him again.

Leon went down hard.

Harry leaned over her, took a ragged breath, said, “You can let go and be sick now.”