The Gold of Thrace

by Aileen G. Baron

  Gilberto drew closer, his breath rapid and heavy against her shoulder.

  She started toward the far wall where the mosaic lay, leaving Gilberto canted at half-tilt. “This is the mosaic?”

  He shifted his manner, smiling, expansive, businesslike. “You are fortunate. Objects like this don’t come on the market very often.”

  He took a rag from the table, dampened it at the sink and threw back the tarp. He wiped the surface of the mosaic with the wet rag. The flowered vines still embraced the center medallion. The superb lady, worn and altered slightly by rough treatment but still enchanting, with a seductive gaze and a glow in her curved lips shimmering beneath the film of water.

  Gilberto moved around to the front. “Beautiful, isn’t it? But badly neglected. Needs restoration.” He made a depreciating gesture toward the mosaic. “It was kept it in a shed in a country house, and lost tesserae here and there.”

  “You got it from Pompeii?”

  “From France. It may have originally come from Pompeii, dug up in the last century. It was owned by an aristocratic French family who came on hard times.”

  “From the collection of the Marquis de Cuvier?”

  “Exactly. The French family owned it since the late nineteenth century, 1890s. Before that, who knows?” He was right behind her now, his warm breath on the back of her neck. “I have a letter from the family attesting to the provenance.”

  She wanted to call him a liar, to let him know that she was on to him. She wanted to bargain over the price of the mosaic and let him get in deeper. She wanted to know where he got it, how it came here, who brought it, who took it from Tepe Hazarfen.

  “This comes from Mustafa?”

  He moved closer still, his body pressed against the curve of her back. “You could use it for your new museum, no? It could be a centerpiece, set the theme, be on display at the entrance.”

  She moved to the side and bent down as if to look more closely at the tesserae and almost lost her balance.

  He took a deep breath and started again. “The price…. Well, there’s what I paid for it and the expense of shipping and my costs for the restoration—I couldn’t go below a million six.”

  Tamar stood up and moved back, as if she were taking in an overall view of the mosaic. “That’s a little high. I don’t think I could get the trustees to come up with more than a million. Eight hundred thousand, more likely.”

  “This is not a flea market, Miss Saticoy.”

  “Dr. Saticoy,” she said, and tilted her head as if thinking. “I would need a full provenance before I could bring it to the trustees.”

  “Of course, my dear,” he said. “I stand behind any object I sell. The only way to keep my reputation for honesty and fair dealing.” He leaned toward her again. “Ask anyone in the business, my dear, anyone.” He smiled his charmed smile and lifted an eyebrow. “I have the bill of sale from the French family. Along with the letter.”

  “And where is it really from?”

  He moved his shoulders and drew out his hands in a gesture of explanation. “It could be Late Roman provincial from somewhere in the Eastern Empire. Turkey, perhaps.”

  “He’s right, you know,” said a voice from the doorway. “It’s from Turkey.”

  Mustafa stood at the entrance, and he was pointing a gun at them.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Basel, Switzerland, August 18, 1990

  Mustafa waved the gun vaguely in the air in the direction of the mosaic. “From Tepe Hazarfen.” The weapon, matte and dark gray, looked heavy and trailed after his hand like an extra appendage.

  “You were looking for the mosaic, yes?” he asked Tamar and aimed the gun at them.

  “The gun isn’t necessary,” Gilberto said in a low, wary voice. “Put it away.” He held out his hands and took a step forward. “Then we can talk.”

  “Nothing to talk about.” The gun trembled at the end of Mustafa’s outstretched arm. “It’s done,” he said, and his hand steadied.

  Tamar backed away. Will he really shoot?

  A distraction, we need a distraction.

  She looked around the room for something to hide behind, something to use, some way to stop him, saw the paint jars on the table and moved toward them.

  She began talking slowly, carefully. “Gilberto said he got the mosaic from you. Did he?”

  “I’m his connection, his runner.”

  She glanced at the table, moved a little closer. “You stole it from Hazarfen?”

  He brought up his other hand to steady the gun and for a moment held it with both hands.

  She took another step toward the table. Slowly, slowly. Don’t make it too obvious.

  “How did you know the mosaic was there? I didn’t tell you about it until the morning you came for the divisions.”

  “Put the gun away,” Gilberto said again, and Mustafa brandished it in the direction of Gilberto.

  Talking won’t help, Tamar thought. Mustafa won’t put the weapon away; he means to use it.

  “Chatham? Was it Chatham?” she asked.

  Mustafa’s hand was steadier, the gun pointed at Gilberto. “He was my partner. He was too greedy. He’d do anything for money.”

  “And you won’t?” Gilberto said, moving toward Tamar.

  She wanted to say: don’t make him angrier. She wanted to say: stay where you are, so he has two targets. She wanted to say: keep him distracted.

  “Put the gun away,” Gilberto repeated.

  “Gilberto told me he got the gold bracelet from you,” she said. “You got the bracelet from Chatham, didn’t you?” She moved another step toward the table. “You killed Chatham and took the Thracian gold.”

  “He was killed in Bulgaria.” He trained the gun on her. “I was never there.”

  She shifted closer to the table. Gilberto moved with her. She signaled to Gilberto to keep his distance. He didn’t notice, stayed close.

  “Orman,” she said. “You killed Orman, too.”

  He glanced toward the mosaic then leveled the gun at her. His hand was steady now. “I didn’t kill him.” He shrugged. “Maybe he was greedy, too. Maybe he wanted more than his share for the mosaic, more than Chatham.”

  “You’re lying,” she said. “Orman wouldn’t steal from the site.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shifted closer to the table. “How much did Gilberto pay you for the mosaic?”

  Another shuffle toward the table, with Gilberto following. He’s trying to shield me, she thought.

  “You stole four hundred thousand dollars from Gilberto,” she said. Another step toward the table. “You charged him for a fresco that wasn’t there.”

  “He owed me.”

  She was nearly at the jar of paint. “Stealing is stealing. Gilberto trusted you. I trusted you.”

  “What good is trust? We need the money.”

  “Who’s we?”

  He shook his head and waved the gun again. “You don’t understand. With money we can organize, train like soldiers, choose targets that the world will notice. We can do something, find a way to fight back, to stop the humiliation and persecution.”

  She was at the table now, her hand crawling toward the tempura, reaching for the jar, and Mustafa was watching her.

  “First we need the money,” he said. He stopped, gestured at her with the gun. “Get away from the table.” He brought up the gun and pointed it, holding it with both hands at arm’s length. “You think you can kill me like you kill a snake?” he asked. “With a pot of paint instead of a stone?” and he aimed.

  A bright flash discharged from Mustafa’s hand just as she grabbed the jar and hurled it. An explosion filled the room, echoed into silence that stung her ears.

  She saw paint splatter over Mustafa’s hand and arm, heard the gun clatter to the cement floor.

  She saw Mustafa rub yellow paint across his forehead, felt the weight of Gilberto fall against her, shive
red as Gilberto dropped to the floor, thinking as he fell, he tried to save me.

  She saw Enzio and the detective with the leather trench coat at the door, saw them hurl Mustafa to the ground, saw them handcuff him.

  She knelt beside Gilberto. “You’ll be all right,” she told him.

  She took his hand, stroked his arm.

  “You’ll be all right,” she repeated, but she knew he wouldn’t.

  She heard sirens bleat in the distance, coming nearer. An ambulance?

  “You’ll be all right,” she said to Gilberto again.

  She watched the trickle of blood from his mouth and nose, felt him gasp for breath through the pink foam of bubbles at his nostrils and the corners of his mouth.

  “You’ll be all right,” she said.

  Gilberto stopped wheezing, stopped bleeding.

  “You see,” Tamar said, “I told you, you’d be all right. You’re not bleeding any more.”

  The siren grew louder.

  Enzio stood next to her. “Come away, Tamar,” he was saying.

  The froth at Gilberto’s nose and mouth had burst and ran down in tiny rivulets along his cheeks. She wiped them off with her sleeve and he didn’t stir.

  She heard the rumble and whine of the ambulance stop outside the warehouse door, heard doors slam, heard the scurry of feet, heard voices call.

  “The ambulance is here,” she said to Gilberto.

  “Come away, Tamar,” Enzio said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  Gilberto’s face softened and was still. “I told you, it would be all right,” she said again and felt Enzio’s hand on her shoulder.

  Gilberto’s gaze was unblinking, without expression.

  “His eyes,” she said. “Look at his eyes.”

  Gilberto stared, his pupils so dilated that he seemed to have no iris.

  “It’s as though he walked into a dark room,” she said.

  “Yes, Tamar,” Enzio said. He cupped his hand beneath her elbow and helped her to her feet. “A very dark room.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Basel, Switzerland, August 19, 1990

  “You’ll feel better after you drink it,” Enzio had told her when he ordered grappa for her.

  Feel better? After yesterday? After Gilberto’s unblinking eyes stared at her? After her interview with the police that went on and on?

  She lived through it again and again, the moment always the same: the flare from the muzzle of the gun, the blast of the gunshot reverberating through the warehouse, the splatter of paint on Mustafa’s arm, Gilberto falling against her.

  Tamar and Enzio sat at an outside table in the dappled sunshine at the bottom of the Freiestrasse, picking at their food, Enzio toying with pesto, Tamar looking down at a shrimp salad. They were waiting for the Herald Tribune to be delivered to the kiosk next door. Neither one spoke.

  Yesterday she had given the deposition to Herr Fischer, the detective with the leather trench coat. Seated across from his desk in the police station, she repeated it again and again, told him what had happened, while he stopped and started the tape recorder that logged the interview.

  Without his trench coat, wearing a dark polo shirt with an open collar, he sat back in his chair and played the stop button on the tape recorder like a pianist at a concert, with an arched finger and a flourish.

  He had stopped and started the machine three times. Once, he got up to adjust the window shade, the next time to turn on the rotating fan that stood near the window, and then to turn off the fan and rearrange the papers on the shelves behind him that had been blown out of place.

  Each time he started her from the beginning. He asked her to repeat what had happened, nodded his head in encouragement. She would begin again, and tell him about seeing the flash from the gun, hearing the explosion, seeing the splatter of paint on Mustafa’s hand and shirt, feeling Gilberto fall against her.

  And he would ask, “The gun fell to the ground after the pot of paint hit him?”

  She would say yes, and repeat it again.

  Over and over, until she felt nothing, until she could tell it by rote and the pain was almost gone.

  Tamar tried another sip of grappa. Her hand shook as she lifted the glass, and a few drops landed on the table.

  She put the glass down again. “It tastes awful.”

  “It’s supposed to. It’s medicinal.”

  She fingered the card in her pocket that Fischer had given her with his number, and thought of his admonition to call him in case. In case what? He had never finished the sentence.

  “I kept telling him,” she said to Enzio and reached for a napkin to wipe up the spill. “The flash from the gun, the blast of the gunfire, the paint on Mustafa’s hand, on Mustafa’s sleeve, then Gilberto falling. And Fischer kept asking.”

  “Mustafa claims it was an accident,” Enzio said. “He says that the gun went off when he dropped it after you hit him with the paint.”

  “He said that?” Tamar closed her eyes and sank in her chair. “Then Mustafa didn’t kill him. It was me.” Tears began to form beneath her closed lids. “I killed Gilberto.”

  “But that’s not what happened,” Enzio said.

  The tears coursed down her cheeks. “What then?” She couldn’t stop the tears from coming, and felt foolish.

  “Mustafa fired before the paint pot hit him,” he said. “You remembered the right sequence. The gunshot, the paint on his hand, Gilberto falling.”

  “You think?”

  “Gunshot residue from firing the gun was under the paint on his hand.” Enzio forked some pesto. “Paint overlaid the flashback residue on his sleeve.” He paused and leaned forward. “Fischer just needed corroboration,” he said with intensity.

  “You’re sure Mustafa fired before the paint hit him?”

  He nodded and twisted the forkful of linguine around on the edge of his plate. “Even if Mustafa’s cleared for Gilberto’s murder, he still has to be extradited to Turkey for antiquity theft. The mosaic isn’t the only thing he stole from archaeological sites.”

  “The Kybele?”

  “The one in the Marquis de Cuvier collection.”

  “Gilberto knew.”

  “The shooting was no accident,” Enzio said. “Gilberto was his target.”

  “Why would he do that? Why would he kill Gilberto? Was it about the fresco that never arrived? The four hundred thousand dollars? Gilberto demanded his money back?”

  Enzio shrugged, and held out his hands in a questioning gesture.

  “What happened to the money?” she asked.

  “It’s long gone.”

  “Mustafa stashed it in a numbered account?”

  “Better than that. He used it to buy arms. It disappeared into the hawala system.”

  “Hawala?”

  “An old system used in the Middle East to hide transactions. Mostly, it’s used to evade taxes, but it’s perfect for any illegal activity—terrorism, smuggling. Hundreds of thousands of dollars can be exchanged with just a telephone call. It predates modern banking, probably the ancestor of western banking.”

  Another gift of the Crusades, Tamar thought, like scallions and castles with crenellated turrets, like games such as hazards, and like the revival of learning.

  “Money or its equivalent is moved through brokers,” Enzio said. “Hawala means to change or transform.”

  “And the money just disappears?”

  “It works like letters of credit,” Enzio said. “Or checks, for that matter. Most often, credit, not money moves through the system. No records, no paperwork, and no one is the wiser. Cash is paid in at one end, the hawala broker charges two percent, and credit is passed along. Eventually, money comes out at the other end without a bank or a paper trail. No taxes, no official exchange rate. Everyone gains. Government officials can hide bribes, gangsters can hide loot, terrorists can hide funding. The system helps everyone, and everyone does well by doing good.” />
  “Is it legal?”

  “It’s a kind of black market.”

  “Why would any government stand for it?”

  “Most of the money comes from legitimate sources—‘white hawala.’ It’s used to transfer money earned by ‘guest workers’ back to their home village, just small amounts every month. When you add it all up it contributes a lot to the economy of the third world, so they turn a blind eye. It’s the ‘black hawala’ that’s connected to illegal activities and money laundering, siphoned off to terrorists to buy arms, explosives, to support them while they train. Sometimes it’s used in the drug trade.”

  “All sub rosa.”

  “Hawala can turn goods into cash, cash into goods. Anything of value that can be shipped, smuggled, turned into dollars. Goods are as good as cash. What the Middle East has in quantity—antiquities—or diamonds, gold.”

  “Gold?” she asked. She speared a shrimp with her fork and waved it in the air. “Like Demitrius’ gold? The Thracian gold, the Bactrian hoard?”

  “Yes, that kind of gold.”

  She narrowed her eyes and put down her fork. “Gilberto was in the middle of it,” she said finally. “Demitrius brought the Bactrian hoard to him. Gilberto had the Thracian bracelet. He said he got it from Mustafa, but Gilberto gave it to me before Mustafa arrived in Basel.”

  “He didn’t get it from Demitrius. Demitrius and Irena came here looking for it. He may have gotten it from Mario.”

  “Who’s Mario?”

  “Fabiana’s friend. You remember, the man she gave the deposition about?”

  They fell back into silence, into looking down at their food and picking at it.

  “What is the Marquis de Cuvier collection?” she asked after a while.

  Enzio smiled and held out both hands in explanation. “Another of Gilberto’s inventions. He had letterheads made with a crest of the fictitious Marquis. To give items a credible provenance, he would age his correspondence from the Marquis in the oven and dab the pages with used teabags.”

  “Wouldn’t it be obvious?”

  “It fooled you.”

  “What did Mustafa mean when he said ‘It’s done’ to Gilberto before he shot him?” Tamar said after a while.