by Joseph Flynn
He heard an agent exclaim, “Jesus Christ!”
Right through the raised window with Eva Cassidy singing on eight speakers.
The next thing Mark knew, his car was surrounded by half-a-dozen agents, two of whom had their Uzis pointed his way. He’d never done an illegal drug in his life, but he felt certain he must be undergoing a hallucinatory episode. He thought it must be the consequence of a stroke or some other catastrophic brain dysfunction.
Then the driver’s door was pulled open and he was yanked out of the car.
The sensation of his body in flight also had a dreamlike feeling.
When his feet hit the ground hard enough to make his teeth click, though, he knew he was experiencing a horrible reality. He was frog-marched to the rear of his car and forced to take a good look at what was in his trunk. At first, he wasn’t sure of what he was seeing.
Then his mind began to interpret the visual input.
It was a body … in a bag. Transparent but fogged plastic. A woman, he realized. He couldn’t see her face because something obscured it. A baseball cap. With the cursive C of the Cameron School above the bill.
He’d given one just like it to —
Mark Naughton’s legs suddenly refused to carry his weight.
Two agents had to catch him.
He’d given that cap to his sister, Meghan.
He screamed in anguish, “Meg! No!”
Jean Morrissey had just come downstairs for her breakfast date when she heard a piercing cry of heartbreak. The nearest Secret Service agent had to sprint to catch up with her as she ran out the front door of her official residence.
Making herself a perfect target.
Williamsburg, Virginia
Arlo Carsten awoke with a terrible crick in his neck from being chained like a dog to an anvil. His hands were bound behind his back and, Jesus, his shoulders hurt almost as bad as his neck. A rope fastened his ankles together, but he felt nothing from the waist down. Sweet Mother of God. Was he going to lose his legs?
Put a bullet in my brain right now, he thought.
He retracted that idea the moment he felt a twinge in his right hip.
He revised his silent plea to a more common entreaty.
Get me out of here.
Deliverance failed to arrive on demand. Arlo used the early morning light to assess his plight. He’d been able to see very little last night, after they’d taken his blindfold off. He had the feeling he was in some decrepit enclosure built in days long past, little better than a lean-to. He felt drafts of cold air. The temperature and his predicament made him shiver.
One of the two men who had kidnapped him, the one with the cowboy twang, said, “Don’t get to shakin’ too hard. You’ll pull the anvil right down on your melon, and wouldn’t that make a fine mess?”
Just the thought made Arlo’s gorge rise. He repressed the urge his dinner had to flee his stomach. Abdominals spasms were certain to bring the great weight down on him.
“You have a pleasant night now,” his other captor told him.
The one who’d put the gun to his head. Bastard.
Arlo did the best he could to relax. He’d never done yoga, meditation or any of that other hippie horseshit. He was a man of science. He needed a rational point of focus to calm his mind and still his body. Took him only a minute to find what he needed: money.
He would buy his way out of this fix.
He had a quarter-million in a Bahamian account these days.
If that wasn’t enough, he’d sign over his house. Damn real estate market was finally on the upswing again. The house would bring in another two-fifty K. Lump it with his bank money, that’d be more than two shitkickers could ever imagine stuffing into their flea-ridden mattresses.
They’d go for the deal.
Hell, they’d accept … He fell asleep trying to decide how hard a bargain he might drive.
Fully awake now with sunlight coming through a dirty window, he got his first good look at the anvil. Damn thing looked like a relic from the O.K. Corral. Pitted steel. Had to weigh hundreds of pounds. Some crusty sonofabitch with a bald head and a handlebar mustache ought to be banging out horseshoes on the thing.
Be cheaper to pay just one asshole to let him go, Arlo thought.
He saw that the anvil sat on a roughly hewn cube of oak maybe three feet high. Closer inspection showed him the dense chunk of steel overhung the oak by half-an-inch or so. He didn’t know if he’d tugged it out of place as he slept, but he sure as hell didn’t want the damn thing to reach its tipping point.
Fucking anvil even had a pointed end. Pointed his way. It came down on him, it’d crack his skull like an eggshell. His stomach started to roll again. In a fevered whisper, he began to chant, “Money, money, mo —”
The door to the enclosure opened and the guy with the cowboy hat, Mr. Smooth Dancer, and his friend with the gun stood there.
The friend asked, “I hear you say something about money?”
Four Seasons Hotel — Washington, DC
Magistrate Yves Pruet and his bodyguard, Odo Sacripant, had their breakfasts served in Pruet’s room that morning. The magistrate had two griddle cakes; Odo ordered more eggs, this time with honey-cured ham. Each drank freshly squeezed orange juice and Kona coffee.
They finished eating at eight a.m. With the six-hour time difference between Washington and Paris, the moment was just right for Pruet to call his father after the elder Pruet had finished his lunch and before he began his afternoon nap. Madam Billaud, his father’s secretary, told the magistrate that his father was hoping he’d call and put him right through.
“You have news, Yves?” Augustin Pruet asked his son.
“I have spoken with a detective from New York City.”
“You have returned to New York?”
“No, Papa. He came to Washington to meet M’sieur McGill.”
“The president’s husband is helping you?”
“Oui.”
“Have you met with Madam la Présidente?”
“Yes, we had lunch at the White House. She is as charming as ever.”
“That fool Jean-Louis should have had his affair with her not the German.”
Pruet’s father still had not forgiven Germany for World War Two.
“Papa, Patricia Grant loves her husband, and I think M’sieur McGill might have dispatched the former President of France had he intruded in his marriage. Where would that have left all of us?”
“With an immortal love story,” Augustin said. “Romance, revenge and unimagined consequences.”
That sounded familiar, Pruet thought. The names Antoine and Jocelyn leaped to mind … and something else nibbled at the edge of the magistrate’s reasoning process. The notion of unimagined consequences.
But of what sort? And for which couple?
The president and McGill or his great-grandparents.
He shelved those questions for the moment to pursue another.
“Papa, the detective from New York raised a potentially important question. Did great-grandfather receive a bill of sale from Renoir?”
Antoine Pruet chuckled. “Of course, he did. I meant to show it to you when you entered the family business. Then you chose a different path and I … well, by the time I got over my pique with you, I forgot to tell you about it.”
Pruet shook his head. He supposed parents and children never stopped learning about one another. He asked, “But how could there be a bill of sale if the painting was a gift?”
“The receipt, written in Renoir’s own hand, was part of his gift,” his father explained. “It say’s, ‘One painting, in token repayment for the immeasurable kindness and generosity of M’sieur Antoine Pruet. Pierre Auguste Renoir.’ He also describes the painting.”
The magistrate swelled with pride.
He said, “The document itself is a treasure.”
“Exactement. Which is why it resides in my safe.”
The news of the bill of sale led directly to the mag
istrate’s next question.
“Papa, I have never inquired into your business affairs, but does the Pruet family still support the arts?”
“Yes, of course. The shame of it is, there are no Renoirs painting these days.”
“Still, you must have earned some good will in the arts community. Do you know anyone connected with the fine arts transportation company, TBA, or its American operation, FAT?”
“Oui. Jules Favre, the chairman, and I dine quarterly. Why do you ask?”
“Odo and I saw a FAT truck arriving at a new museum in Washington.” Pruet gave his father the street address. “I would like to know everything I can about this museum.”
“Your interest is more than cultural?” Augustin asked.
“The detective from New York told me new museums are not so particular how they acquire their art. They might easily pay a high price for an authentic, newly discovered Renoir and ask no questions about its origins.”
A moment of silence ensued, followed by, “Bravo, Yves! That is brilliant. I shall call Favre immediately. You will have all the information you need. I have never been more proud of you, mon fil.” My son.
“Thank you, Papa. Please keep the bill of sale safe. With luck, we may soon need it.”
The two Pruets said their goodbyes. Odo looked up from his copy of Le Monde, having lingered over a cup of coffee.
“All went well?” he asked.
“Oui. Nothing to bring a family together like facing a common enemy.”
Odo nodded. “We are all Corsicans at heart.”
“Possibly,” Pruet said.
“I have a thought for you, Yves.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to see you with blood on your hands. You don’t want me to do what you feel is your duty. There is one solution we have both intentionally overlooked.”
“I know,” Pruet said.
“The Louvel family is the truly injured party here. Perhaps the answer is to find our villain and let them determine his fate.”
After a moment’s silence, Pruet said, “I will consider the possibility.”
Then he called his father back and asked him to find out everything he could about a woman named Duvessa Kinsale who claimed to have worked at L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and now owned a gallery in Manhattan.
“Toute de suite,” Augustin said. Immediately.
Pruet heard a note of glee in his father’s voice.
He devoutly hoped Papa’s interest in detection wasn’t growing too keen.
Inspiration Hall — Washington, DC
Representative Philip Brock and billionaire Tyler Busby stood before a painting of a vase filled with wildflowers hanging in the Busby Gallery of Washington’s new mystery museum. The painting was signed Van Gogh. Brock leaned forward, careful not to break the plane of the security sensors.
Might be interesting, though, he thought, to see how quickly the museum locked itself down. How fast the guards came running. Whether the whole antitheft system was up and running.
Not that he could afford to indulge himself. As things stood, he was now on a very short list of people who had gained admission to the museum before its official opening. His presence would be judged as Busby currying the favor of an up-and-coming member of the House of Representatives. The similarity of their political views made the idea plausible.
It was publicly known the two had met two years ago at a PAVES, Preserve American Values, conference in Charleston, South Carolina.
Busby had been one of the many mega-rich present; Brock had been the lone Democrat elected to federal office. They agreed on many points of policy, but what had made them fast friends was each recognized in the other a buccaneer’s sense of entitlement to anything he wanted. Plunder was to be taken by any means available.
Influence buying and peddling were the tools they held common.
Shedding blood, in a pinch, was another shared trait.
Brock leaned back and told Busby, “I can’t tell the difference. Is the painting butter or margarine?”
Busby smiled, liking the metaphor. “It’s real. I bought it early on, as an investment. Never really cared for the work.”
“You like any of Van Gogh’s stuff?”
“Mostly his self-portraits. He really captured the feel of the world closing in on him. Poor bastard was lucky to last as long as he did. Made the most of his time, though. Did a hellacious amount of work.”
“And sold what, one or two paintings to his brother?”
“One painting out of nine hundred, ‘Red Vineyard at Arles.’ It’s now in the Pushkin Museum.”
“Poor sap,” Brock said, “but imagine all that potential wealth he left behind, just sitting around waiting to be discovered. It’s mind boggling.”
“That’s the real reason I run my little gallery. My idea of a lotto ticket. Some clueless genius waltzes in with a warehouse full of treasure. But no jackpot so far.”
Brock laughed.
The two men moved on to the other major galleries in the museum.
Busby whispered which paintings were real, which were superb forgeries.
Brock asked him, “What matters more to you, the taking or the having?”
“Each reinforces the other. You can’t have what you don’t take. So taking is grand. But having is both its own pleasure and it reminds you what you’re capable of taking.”
“So, in common parlance, it’s all good.”
“It’s all wonderful. And how’s your rancho down in Costa Rica coming along?”
“I’ve taken title to the land, begun construction and started looking for people to work the fields and guys to man the battlements.”
Busby chuckled. He didn’t share Brock’s view of a coming apocalypse, but you never knew. With what they had planned, things would be shaken up big time. Might be a good idea to have a fortified foreign hideaway. Maybe even stash some of the art he’d acquired offshore.
The original masterpieces.
Not the forgeries hanging in the new museum.
The Oval Office
Galia Mindel’s face was chalk white when she handed the photograph to the president. The picture had been sent to the Secret Service. Also present were James J. McGill, Vice President Jean Morrissey and SAC Elspeth Kendry. The photo had been attached to an email sent to the White House. McGill had seen the image when he’d stepped into Elspeth’s office on another matter.
Though McGill had no official position in anyone’s chain of command, and rarely threw his weight around, he suggested that Elspeth bring the photo first to Galia rather than take it directly to the president. Regarding his suggestion as reasonable, the SAC complied. At first sight, the photo made Galia’s eyelids flutter, as if she might faint. McGill steadied her. The feel of his hands on her helped Galia to right herself.
She called the vice president, who was en route to the White House, and asked her to meet them at the Oval Office. McGill informed the three women that he’d be sitting in on this meeting, if that was all right with the president.
Without a word passing between them, Patricia Darden Grant decided that if McGill wanted to be present he must have a compelling reason. It never crossed her mind to ask him to leave. She took the photograph Galia offered her.
It was a sharply focused, tightly cropped head-to-toe shot of Jean Morrissey running out the front door of her official residence. The angle made it clear the picture had been taken from above, from an aircraft. Superimposed crosshairs left no doubt a fatal shot might have been taken as easily as a photograph. A message superimposed across the bottom of the image emphasized that point: We haven’t forgotten about you. Leave while you can.
“May I?” the vice president asked the president.
She had yet to see the photo.
The president handed it to her and stepped out from behind her desk. Patricia Grant took the middle seat on one of the room’s sofa. McGill sat to her right. Galia was gestured to sit to the president’s l
eft. Jean Morrissey and SAC Kendry remained standing. In contrast to Galia’s pallor, the vice president’s face turned crimson.
She looked at the president and said, “Fuck them. The only way I’m leaving office is at the end of my term or in a box.”
McGill kept his seat, but he wanted to give Jean a high five.
The president said, “Please give the picture to SAC Kendry and have a seat, Jean.”
Taking and releasing a deep breath first, the vice president did as she was told.
“What can you tell us about what happened this morning?” the president asked.
Before the vice president could respond, Elspeth asked the president, “Would you mind if I record this, ma’am.”
“Only the vice president’s recollection of this morning’s events. The rest of our discussion will remain confidential.”
“Yes, ma’am.” SAC Kendry took her smart phone out and began recording.
Jean Morrissey gave her account of what she’d done prior to running out of her house. Then she said, “I’d never heard a man scream in such pain before. I thought someone was killing Mark. I didn’t think, I just reacted.”
Everyone in the room, including the vice president, knew that her response, while perfectly natural, was foolhardy. No one criticized her for it, though. They’d all have done the same. That was the scary thing. The people behind the threat had had the cunning and the means to kill one of the best protected people in the world. They’d simply chosen not to do so.
While still rattling everyone’s nerves but good.
The vice president continued, “The body in the car was not Mark Naughton’s sister, Meghan. From her appearance, she was a longtime street person approximately the same size as Meghan. The baseball cap that had covered the poor woman’s face was the one Mark had given to his sister.”
“Where are the Naughtons now?” the president asked.
The vice president said, “Mark said they’d be going to the family’s summer home in upstate New York, but he said they’re both too busy to stay away from their jobs for long, no more than a week.”