“He said he was sorry he had to leave and I should not let you sell the ranch to anyone else. He wants to make the last offer.”
“What do you think?”
“My gut tells me we should hear what Alfredo Soares has to say,” James Lee said. “André walked away too quickly and without what he came for.”
“Are you having second thoughts?”
“No. I’m just surprised. Everything I’ve heard about André de Lionne is that he is a man who gets what he wants no matter what the cost is. He didn’t seem too upset that he didn’t close the deal today.”
Chapter 25
When we arrived back at the Pape ranch house, Clete and Janice, along with Katie who they were watching for me, had already left. I hoped Clete hadn’t had his feelings hurt. We all went inside to get out of the heat. Hannah began to organize the presentation materials for the next day and James Lee went back outside after getting a soft drink out of the cooler. He said he wanted to do a pre-flight check before flying to Austin with George.
His youngest sister, Sarah, had reached out to him and invited him and George to spend the night in Austin. Sarah still lived in the house that she, Barbin, and James Lee had grown up in. With all that had gone on in James Lee’s life and the direction that Sarah had taken in her life after her divorce, they had not been close since he returned home from Iraq. I was proud of my daughter for reaching out to her brother and her new half-brother. I knew it was a big step for her and it brought me much comfort to know my family was capable of healing its wounds without any help from me. Still, I realized, it was on me, not my children, to bring Elizabeth into the family fold.
I was resting up, waiting on James Lee to come in and get George, and reading the English language translation of the Jesuit Journal Hannah had finished. I hadn’t noticed that she had gone into the room where she was cleaning the jade pieces and reassembling them, but I sure knew where she was when she screamed. I almost wet myself. George, Shane, and I rushed toward the room.
“It’s gone! It’s gone!” she screamed.
The table she had used to layout the Mask was indeed empty along with the Tupperware she was using to hold the pieces we’d recovered.
“Sonuvabitch!” Shane said and put his arm around Hannah’s shoulder.
“Someone stole the Mask,” Hannah said and then buried her face in Shane’s chest.
I had long ago learned not to fight it when my Hoppy Gene kicked in. I was out the door and inside my truck when I realized it was getting away from me. I ignored my own warning though, grabbed my deer rifle off the rear seat rack, and headed for James Lee’s helicopter all the while imagining shooting those damn Frenchmen out of the sky.
James Lee saw me coming from beneath the tail and walked toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“Those bastards stole the Mask. I knew there was something suspicious about them? Who the hell doesn’t like barbeque! Come on, we need to get to the San Antonio airport.”
“André de Lionne wouldn’t do something like that. Are you sure?”
“Hell, yes, I’m sure. The helicopter pilot was the only one here. Fire this thing up.”
“I doubt they’re going to the San Antonio airport. They rented the chopper in Houston. They’ve got forty-five minutes on us and a faster chopper. I’ll call Houston once we’re up and see if we can detain them until we can land.”
I checked the safety on the rifle and climbed aboard. My reservations about flying in a helicopter had not yet registered with me. I was still too mad to think about anything else but getting my hands on that pilot. James Lee adjusted his headset and looked over the instrument panel. He reached forward and pushed a button and nothing happened. He pushed it again.
I didn’t know what the button was, but nothing was happening with the rotary blades.
He shook his head. “Damn.”
He climbed out and checked something inside a compartment on the fuselage, behind his door. “They took the starter motor’s battery,” he said angrily.
We headed back to the house. George, Shane, and Hannah came outside to meet us.
“George, go get the battery out of the Suburban,” James Lee said. He took out his phone and selected a contact and placed a call.
“Yeah, this is James Howard. Is Frank there?....Tell him it’s an emergency…..Hey, Frank…..No, nothing happened to the chopper. You still got eyes on it?....Bull shit. I know you wouldn’t lease that baby without a backup GPS tracker on it…..They stole something from us and I want it back. Call the police for me, will you…..I don’t know, at least half a million dollars…..It’s a Mayan artifact…..Okay, call me back.”
James Lee closed the call and faced us. He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. If they’re smart enough to pull this off, they won’t head back to Houston. Probably won’t go to SAT, either. They’ll ditch the helicopter at some remote field where a car is waiting for them. This has to be a professional heist. Hang on a second,” he said and selected a number in his contact list, then called it.
“Tankut, James. I need a favor. What number do you have for André de Lionne?....Okay, that’s not the number he gave me. I suspect someone has been impersonating your friend and they’ve stolen something from my family…..Yes, my father…..He’s upset, but fine. I’ll tell him. Listen, call André de Lionne…..I know and I don’t care. This imposter knew way too much information about you and me for the real André de Lionne not to be involved. Tell your friend that I expect the jade Mayan Death Mask to be returned within the week or I’m coming to get it…..Well, then, you have some choices to make, don’t you. One week,” James Lee said and closed the call.
“Tankut said to tell you hello and that he thinks of you often.”
I had often suspected that one of the reasons the Department of Defense kept James Lee on the MIA list for so long was that he was much more effective to the war effort as an underground Kurd mujāhid fighter than he was as a decorated and wounded war hero back at home. He had told me it was always his choice to not come in. He was a take-no-prisoner kind of guerrilla fighter who specialized in corrupt politicians and Imams siphoning off chunks of the billions of dollars in US Aid meant for the Iraqi people. His intel and actions saved many American lives and so the DOD had turned a blind eye to his unsanctioned operations. There was a large bounty on his head when he finally left Iraq. He was as much feared, as he was respected, by the Iraqis depending on the ethnic faction they sided with.
I had no doubt that what he had just said to Tankut Güler was true. He would go to France to find the jade Death Mask and he wouldn’t come home until he had it. He had always been that way; single-minded and stubborn as any teenager I knew. Nevertheless, the Death Mask didn’t mean that much to me that he should risk losing everything he had accomplished since returning home from Iraq.
“I’ve missed Tankut. It’s been a while. We can call him back, tonight,” I said to diffuse the situation.
“We’ll be in Austin, remember.”
“That’s right, I forgot for a second. Listen, it’s more important to me that you and Sarah have a good visit than have you worry about some ancient artifact. Let it go, for now, and I’ll see you and George tomorrow.”
. . .
I think Hannah, Shane, and I were still dumbfounded by the events of the day, as we stood around silently watching James Lee hook up the car battery and eventually lift off. None of us said anything. It was several minutes after he disappeared over the horizon that we went back inside. I think Hannah was actually in shock over the loss of the Death Mask. It was a historically significant find for her and it had been stolen while in her care. She looked pale to me. I wasn’t sure what Shane was feeling. I think he was more concerned about Hannah. I, on the other hand, was angry at myself for being duped by the thieves more than I was in losing the Death Mask. I had always intended to turn it over to the Mayan People so it wasn’t like I was out anything.
“I sure didn’t see that coming,” I said, but
then I remembered I had. I just hadn’t seen it clearly enough. In the back of my mind, I felt the woman, Magali, was pulling a con on us and I had ignored my intuition and accepted too easily that she was indeed a ghost. We had just paid the price for my stupidity. Would I never learn?
We were sitting around the presentation room, reflective, and not in a real mood to talk to one another. No one responded to my feeble excuse at making light of the situation. My cell phone rang and startled us. It was Bishop McCrory. After his greeting, I tapped my speaker on and laid the phone down on the presentation table so Hannah and Shane could hear.
“Are we still on for tomorrow afternoon?” Bishop McCrory asked.
“Yes, of course. Listen, I’m curious about one of the prospective buyers that looked at the property today. He implied that he was acting on behalf of the Vatican Bank and that he wanted to purchase the property so that he could lease it back to you on more affordable terms than if you bought it outright.”
“That’s absurd. We don’t want to lease the land. Who is this man?”
“His name is André de Lionne from Paris.”
“I’ve never heard of him. I can assure you he’s not working with the Vatican Bank. I was there less than six weeks ago getting final approval on this project. They would have made me aware of an interested third-party investor.”
“I’ll see you at two tomorrow, Bishop McCrory.”
“Will you tell me who the other bidders are?”
“There’s just one other. He’s from Portugal and his name is Alfredo Soares.”
“I don’t know him either. That is strange that there are no American buyers. The Vatican is like a sieve; so many holes. Someone must have leaked news of our development plan in Rome.”
“Or maybe not,” I offered.
“What do you mean?”
“A descendant of the French Templar Knights, a Portuguese member of the Military Order of Christ, and a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church are all bidding for the same property. The question is what are they hoping to obtain by acquiring the property? I know that the two foreign buyers have offered considerably more than what your published budget says you plan to spend on land acquisition. You are about to be squeezed out, Bishop.”
“How much did they offer?”
“So far, the highest bid is eleven million. And, I say bid because each wants to make the last offer.”
We heard him choke and catch his breath through the phone. Shane smiled.
“André de Lionne asked me if I would sell the property to him. I told him I’d sell it to the buyer I felt I could trust the most. If you want to stay in the running you need to level with me. What are you looking for on the Pape Ranch?”
“First, there is no way I can compete with that kind of money and, secondly, I don’t know what you mean?”
“Don’t say I didn’t give you the chance.”
“Wait. I thought the old cistern had possibilities. It was ancillary to the plans for a Catholic Seminary and Retreat in the Hill Country, though. If you sell the property to the Church at less than the market value of eleven million, I could work with you and a creative tax consultant to help you write off the difference as a charitable contribution. Think about that, Mr. Howard.”
“That’s too bad. I was rooting for you, Bishop McCrory. Just so you know, we found it.”
“It? What is it?”
“The jade Death Mask,” I said and closed the call.
Hannah and Shane were staring at me wanting an explanation for what I had just done. I ticked off the seconds with my fingers and on the eighth finger, my cell phone rang again. I smiled at them, looked at the contact name on the incoming call and let it go to voice mail. It was Bishop McCrory.
“There’s just no honor among thieves,” I said.
“There’s a hole in your theory,” Hannah said. “The theft just proved that.”
“How so?” Shane said for the both of us.
“Say the Mesoamerican Jade Death Mask is probably worth a quarter of a million dollars at the most in the antiquities market, and less in the condition it is in now. And you said their offer on the land was fair. All they had to do was buy the land, retrieve the Mask and they owned it. Why steal it? We have the provenance on it and it is well documented. As a stolen artifact its value has dropped considerably.”
“Nobody said they were smart?”
“They weren’t. I took three of the jade pieces to a jeweler in San Antonio who specializes in cleaning heirloom jewelry. I wanted to find out if he could do anything to restore the jade pieces to their natural state before I permanently reassembled the Mask. Those men won’t have the complete Mask. But, that’s not what I meant.”
“It’s not the monetary value, then,” I said.
“That’s what I’m thinking. Maybe it’s something as simple as an ancient institutional rivalry that has been going on for centuries. The French Knights Templars were burned at the stake by the King of France with the blessing of Pope Clement V, a boyhood friend of the King of France. Maybe André de Lionne is just getting even with the Catholic Church. We don’t know for sure.”
“I’m not sure André de Lionne is the one who took the Mask. Someone may have been impersonating him. In any case, we have another presentation at ten in the morning. I suggest we go home and get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
“Are you going to tell the Portuguese buyer about the Mask?” Shane asked.
“Everybody else knows about it now. It’s the fair thing to do, even if it wasn’t part of the original sale.”
“Maybe nobody will buy the property now,” he offered.
I couldn’t tell if that was wishful thinking on his part or a statement of the obvious. It had already occurred to me that with the Death Mask now missing what would Alfredo Soares want with the property. If he still wanted to purchase the ranch, then the Mayan Death Mask had nothing to do with the international interest in the land.
On the drive home from the Pape Ranch two things bothered me. The first and most obvious question was how the three potential buyers found out about the ranch and the hidden jade Death Mask. Someone who was close to me had leaked the information or the facilities at the Pape Ranch house had been bugged. Ariana had told her brother about the Journal, true, but the Death Mask didn’t seem to be motivating the Catholic Church to buy the property. The thought that Ariana was innocently involved in this bothered me as much as having the Death Mask stolen out from under me.
The second concern had to do with the woman that had turned up on the Pape Ranch. She had told me I would suffer the wrath of one of her Mayan gods if I didn’t turn over the Mask. Now that she wasn’t around anymore, was I still accountable? I had enough to worry about with my own God that I didn’t need to be looking over my shoulder for some angry Mayan gods.
. . .
There was a Kia parked in front of the house when I got home. It had an Enterprise sticker on it. We obviously had a guest.
Sunny and Katie were in the kitchen.
“How’d it go? Are we millionaires?” Sunny asked.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek. She was making Indian bread again and she didn’t bother to drop everything and throw her arms around my neck to welcome me home. I took some solace from my daughter who was glad to see me and giggled when I stole some of her sugar. I doubted she would tolerate that much longer. She was growing up too damn fast.
“Clete let me feed one of his bunnies,” she informed me. “And Kevin’s home.”
“They’re talking,” Sunny said.
“I’ll bet. How’d he get leave?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. He has to go back tomorrow. I’m just glad he’s here.”
I wasn’t going to voice the first concern that came into my mind. I sure hoped he hadn’t done something stupid again and just walked away from the base. His actions over the last few months hadn’t instilled a lot of confidence in me at his ability to think things through.
I reache
d inside the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of beers. “Let go sit out on the patio,” I said to Sunny.
“I can’t Max. I have to get dinner ready.”
“Sweetpea? You can have the other beer.”
“Yuck. I’m helping Momma.”
I walked into the bedroom side of the house and called out to Ariana from the hallway. I took some pleasure in knowing that maybe I was interrupting his homecoming.
“Ariana, bring that cayuse you call a husband out to the patio. I need to talk to you guys.”
“Max,” Sunny said in that tone that was more a warning than a query as to what I was up to. I walked through the kitchen to the backdoor and outside.
I was working on Kevin’s bottle of beer when they finally decide to show themselves. They both had a sheepish look on their faces and Kevin was in his civvies. Neither one said a word. I stood up with a grunt and walked over to them. I extended my hand to Kevin. “How’s it going,” I said. That was the best I could do.
We looked at one another for what seemed like minutes instead of the seconds it actually was. He was thin and muscular having stripped all the baby fat off his frame in Basic Training.
“Thanks for looking after Ariana,” he said to me.
I nodded. “Come sit down with me. I need to talk to you both.”
Sunny and Katie came outside, which didn’t surprise me at all. I knew Sunny all too well.
“Katie, darl’n, go close the backdoor. You left it open again.”
She gave me an annoyed look and ran to close the door before all the cool air in the house escaped.
“How’s training going?” I asked him.
“All right. As soon as I finish ITB and get my MOS 0311 designation as a rifleman, I’m applying for LAV crewman,” Kevin said.
He was showing off, but I didn’t say anything.
“You know what that is?” he challenged me.
“Light Armored Vehicle” would be my guess. “Ariana, let me ask you something? Has your brother talked to you about the plans the Bishop has for the Pape Ranch?”
The Turbulence of Butterflies (Max Howard Series Book 6) Page 34