The Black Madonna

by Davis Bunn

  A cluster of other boats eventually joined them. Fishermen cast quiet greetings with their nets. The last sight Harry had before falling asleep was of Ahmed raising the dhow’s single parchment-colored sail.

  He awoke to find Emma’s hair flickering across his face. She had fitted herself onto the same bench, head to head with him. Wadi sat on the stern platform beside Ahmed, the two Arabs searching the horizon and talking softly. Emma’s hair brushed Harry’s face with feather strokes. Despite the gathering heat, his body was racked with chills. He eased himself up to a sitting position, cupped a hand, and dipped it over the side. Harry scrubbed his face, then slipped to the stern. Ahmed offered him a bottled water and an energy bar and observed, “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m okay.” Harry turned to Wadi. “We need to finish our discussion. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, and my offer is the only one you’re going to get.”

  Wadi squinted into the sunlight and said nothing.

  Emma slipped onto the gunwale beside Harry. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You look . . .” She touched his face. “You’re burning up.”

  “Let’s finish with this, then I’ll go back and collapse.” Harry turned back to Wadi and said, “Something big is going down. Big enough to get the interest of some powerful people in Washington. These people are ready to make you a onetime offer. Give us what we need, and we’ll do the same for you.”

  “You know me so well, you can tell me what I need?”

  Emma took a long drink from Harry’s bottle, then said, “Mr. Haddad, the U.S. government is willing to grant you and your family permanent residency.”

  Wadi said to the shimmering waters, “An agent we do much business with. He comes and says, ‘Make me something.’ He offers very much cash.”

  “What was the item you copied?”

  “Very old painting. Religious. Woman and baby. Painted on wood. Both people wearing crowns. How you say?”

  “Icon,” Harry said.

  “Yes. Very hard work.” He extended his fingers like radiating light. “Many carvings on inner silver frame. But primitive. Very old.”

  “A lot of time and effort,” Harry said.

  “Too much work, too many days. The agent, he comes too many times. Always with the pressure. My daughters, they work all day, all night. Three months and two weeks they work. One gets very sick. The other sleep for three nights and days when it is done.”

  “You know who the agent was representing,” said Harry. It was not a question. “You made it your business to discover. You figured there might be profit in it for you to know.”

  “Big mistake,” Wadi muttered.

  Emma asked, “What was the man’s name, Wadi?”

  “Vladimir Abramov.”

  “Say that again.” When he did, she asked, “You’re certain it was him?”

  “What, you think they chase me for a wrong name?”

  A slow puttering noise drew them around. Harry, Emma, Ahmed, and Wadi watched the approach of an inflatable landing craft. The vessel was operated at low speed by a trio of dark-suited navy divers. They halted about twenty feet off. A woman called softly, “Agent Webb?”

  “That would be me.”

  The boat drew closer still. “You mind if I take a look at your creds?”

  “Not at all.”

  As the officer examined the badge and the picture ID, Wadi said, “I cannot swim.”

  “No worries, sir. Not getting your feet wet is part of our job.” When she handed back Emma’s badge, she caught sight of Harry. “Sir, are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m only asking on account of how you look pretty far gone, sir. And there’s nothing in my book about allowing one of my passengers to expire.”

  “I’ll make it.” Harry let Emma and Wadi cross first, then he said to Ahmed, “Where do we send your money?”

  “We have not discussed the price.”

  “That’s right,” Harry said. “We haven’t.”

  The smuggler grinned and offered a slip of paper. “I was right to trust you.”

  Harry shoved the paper into his pocket. “Will you be okay?”

  “Oh, very yes. Is good time for housecleaning.” He studied Harry. “The lady is right. You are looking bad.”

  “Between you and me, I feel even worse.” Harry slipped over the edge and eased onto the inflatable’s reinforced side. He turned back and called across the waters, “Anytime, anywhere.”

  Ahmed lifted a hand in farewell as the woman officer said, “Okay, Bert, take us home.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THEIR INFLATABLE CRAFT RENDEZVOUSED WITH a naval destroyer on Gulf duty. A chopper was prepped and winding up before they reached the main deck. They were still settling in as the machine lifted and swooped out over the azure waters. Harry pretty much shivered his way through the transfers.

  They landed at the U.S. military base outside Jeddah, where they were placed in polite isolation with MPs for hosts. Harry barely managed to reach his bunk before collapsing. An hour or a day later—Harry had no idea—Emma arrived with a doctor in tow. The young woman had a thoroughly efficient military air about her. “Agent Webb informs me you’re a little worse for wear, Mr. Bennett.”

  “I’m feeling much better, now that I’ve had some rest.”

  “Glad to hear it.” She inspected his face. “What exactly happened to you?”

  “Bomb. Probably an IED.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Hebron. West Bank.”

  “Who treated you there?”

  “I was in a Palestinian clinic for a couple of days.” Harry swung his feet to the floor and leaned his back against the sidewall. Keeping his voice steady and his face calm took about all he had to give. “They were great.”

  “Did they scan you for internal injuries?”

  “No equipment,” Harry replied. “And no need. I’m fine.”

  “Are you.”

  “Absolutely tip-top.”

  Emma’s phone chimed. She checked the readout and said, “I have to take this.”

  When she stepped into the hall, Harry asked the doctor, “Think maybe you could help me lie back down?”

  “That was all show for the lady?”

  “Absolutely.” Even though the doctor took most of his weight, Harry groaned all the way down. He confessed, “I hurt right down to my toenails.”

  “Where is it worst?”

  He pointed at the space below his rib cage. “Here.”

  “Can you take a deep breath?”

  “Not anymore.”

  She checked his vitals, listened to him wheeze, then probed his midsection. Harry huffed against the pain.

  The doctor straightened. “Have you experienced any further trauma since the explosion?”

  Laughing should not have hurt him so much. “You could say that.”

  “My guess is you had a minor tear to the abdominal wall from the initial blast. This has been aggravated by your recent activities, resulting in internal bleeding.”

  “Please don’t tell Emma.”

  “Mr. Bennett, I’m not sure you understand how grave your situation could be here. Peritonitis is as serious as it gets. You can die from this. And soon.”

  “We have a friend who is in worse danger than I am. If Emma knows how bad things are with me, she’ll stay. There’s nothing she can do for me. But our friend’s life hangs in the balance.”

  Emma chose that moment to open the door. “How’s our patient?”

  Harry kept his eyes on the doctor. “Please.”

  The doctor was in her midfifties, with graying hair cropped tight and stern features only slightly softened by age. She said, “Mr. Bennett, you are one very lucky man.”

  Harry sighed his relief. “Tell me.”

  The doctor checked her watch. “Your travel orders are being cut as we speak. In just over an hour our regular transport departs for
Ramstein Air Base in Germany. I’ll phone ahead and make the arrangements for Mr. Bennett here to be checked over at the Landstuhl base hospital.”

  Emma exclaimed, “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing much,” Harry said. “The doctor just wants to play it safe. Right, doc?”

  “We need to make certain there’s no seepage into the chest or abdominal cavity. That’s common enough with IEDs. They’ll check you out, maybe insert a catheter to drain the fluid.” The doctor swabbed Harry’s arm. “This first part of your cocktail is an antibiotic. I’m also going to give you an injection to ease any congestion in your lungs, plus something for the fever and the pain.”

  Emma said, “But he’s all right?”

  “Never better,” Harry said.

  When the doctor was finished, she closed her bag and said, “A pleasure doing business with a gentleman, Mr. Bennett. Have a pleasant flight.”

  WHEN THE DOOR SHUT BEHIND the departing doctor, Emma said, “That was Tip who just called. Washington is doing a workup on this Vladimir Abramov. Tip expects to find he was one of Putin’s KGB buddies. Apparently these guys are the new Russian princes. The line between politics and industry has been erased. Which leads us to the next problem. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  Harry drifted on a now-familiar current, the pain receding with each shallow breath. “Sure thing.”

  “Tip says the CIA is in a panic. Apparently they had Storm under electronic surveillance. She was attacked yesterday. Reports are confusing. They claim she was abducted, but I just checked my messages, and Storm claims she’s fine.”

  The military medicine was nowhere near as explosive as the ice injections the Palestinians had given him. But the results were pretty much the same. Harry felt the world begin to recede with the pain. He said, “You have to go help her.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re anything but fine.”

  “They can take care of me. Storm needs you.”

  “And you don’t?”

  Harry watched Emma’s hand drift up to caress his forehead. It required a world of effort to reach up and clench her hand with his own. “We’re together even when we’re apart.”

  She gave him that same open yet fearful look. Harry held on to that as he drifted away, searching the cocooned darkness for something that might make it easy for them to do whatever came next.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE FLIGHT FROM JEDDAH TO the Ramstein Air Base in Germany took five hours. They were met planeside by a military green sedan, there to take Harry straight to the base hospital. Emma was politely but firmly shepherded through a swift farewell, then she was sped down the autobahn to Frankfurt’s main airport. She barely had time for a German food-court meal before boarding the next flight to London. Once on the flight, however, she gave herself over to the big quandary she had been running from ever since Harry had been found. She could dress it up any way she wanted. Put it down to a dismal family life, the Washington grind, whatever she liked. But by the time the plane was descending into the London mist, Emma had returned for the dozenth time to the undeniable truth. She loved Harry desperately. If they did not grow as a couple, they would die. And she could not let that happen. But she was terrified of what came next.

  Emma’s internal argument carried her through customs and out the airport’s main doors. She wished she could do what she had done a billion times before: flee from what she could not handle and bury herself in work. Only this time there was a new voice, soft as the English afternoon breeze, whispering that she wanted nothing more than to become Harry Bennett’s lifelong love.

  Which was when they struck.

  The snatch-and-grab defined slick. No training exercise she had been involved in even came close. She was walking toward the taxi stand, just another weary woman focused on internal dilemmas. Two men walked up with easy smiles and open jackets and leather ID wallets in one hand. One said, “Agent Webb, we were sent to meet you.”

  “That really wasn’t nec—”

  One hand took her elbow to draw her toward the car that swept to the curb, lifting her arm just enough for the man’s other hand to jab a knife at the nerve juncture below her ribs. The man said pleasantly, “Come with us or die. That is your only choice.”

  The other man bundled into the rear seat, dragging her inside. She braced for a strike, but the man in the front seat planted the barrel of a silenced pistol on her knee.

  The lead man slipped in beside her and reinserted the knife into her ribs. “Do not force me to press harder, Agent Webb. It is ever so difficult to clean blood from seat leather. Believe me. I know.”

  The man’s eyes were dark and fathomless. As clear a promise of agony as she had ever known. She froze.

  “Excellent decision.” The car pulled smoothly away. She glanced back, or tried to, but the knife pressed more deeply still. “We will make one circuit of the airport. We will speak. We will then deposit you back where we met. And we will vanish.”

  The man to her right was silent, unblinking. He was very compact, very still. He held her arm with a grip that Emma recognized from her time in training. His strength and his abilities were such that he did not need to prove anything. She knew this sort of man quite well.

  The man holding the knife was more senior. Emma placed him as midfifties trim, with the polite detachment of a man who could maim and torture with soothing ease. His accent was crisply mid-Atlantic, the product of intense training. She asked, “Are you Russian?”

  “We are nothing, Agent Webb. How could we be anything else, since this conversation is not taking place?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Sometimes mere words are so useless. I could have arranged a meeting and informed you politely that your Homeland Security and your CIA are chasing ghosts. And what would it prove? Nothing.”

  They reached the final roundabout marking the airport’s perimeter. The Mercedes S-Class swept through the traffic and returned to the airport. Emma took an easier breath. “You think this abduction proves anything?”

  “But of course, Agent Webb. Think about what has just happened. We have demonstrated to you just how easy it would be for us to make you vanish.” He said to the driver, “A little more slowly, please.”

  Emma said, “My superiors will issue a formal protest.”

  “Oh, I doubt that very much. Tip MacFarland is a true professional. He has suspected from the beginning that there was nothing behind the mire of double-dealing and myths.”

  “I’m still not clear on why we’re having this conversation.” She tried to break free of the man’s grip on her right arm, but he merely slipped his hold down a half inch and probed the pressure point at her elbow. The pain was astonishing.

  “No, Agent Webb, don’t reach, don’t shift; we won’t be together much longer. Let us finish on a polite note.” When she stilled, he nodded to the man opposite, who loosened his grip. The senior man went on, “Think on this, Agent Webb. We have just demonstrated how easy it would be for us to rip you from your life and make you disappear. We are professionals. Just like you.”

  “This proves what, exactly?”

  “That is the first stupid thing you have said.” The car pulled into the middle segment designated for private cars to leave departing passengers. The man to her right slipped out and used his grip on her elbow to draw her with him. The senior man leaned over so that he could look up at her through the open door. The airport lighting turned his hair transparent. He offered her another polite smile. “Do be sure and give Agent MacFarland my warm regards. One professional to another.”

  THIRTY

  STORM ARRIVED BACK AT THE Ognisko after midnight. She used the downstairs hallway phone to call Emma and Raphael and left terse messages, saying simply that she was fine and would be in touch. She showered in a bathroom from another age, then spent a while staring out the ancient sash window. Her upstairs room overlooked a busy street. Modern hotels rose i
n the distance. After a while she lay down. It felt like she was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

  When she emerged late the next morning, Tanya was waiting in the front hall. “The dining room has shut for breakfast, but I can make you something. Would you like coffee?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Raphael Danton has phoned three times. I refused to disturb you. He was not pleased.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I promised I would have you call him as soon as you woke up.” She reached into her pocket and came out with a cell phone. “This is a pay-as-you-go phone. There is a hundred pounds’ worth of credit on it.”

  “Thanks.” Storm waited until Tanya disappeared into the kitchen to place the call.

  The first words Danton spoke were, “Please tell me you are all right.”

  Hearing the voice of a man she had thoroughly detested until their last encounter should not have left her weak at the knees. “You won’t believe what’s been going on.”

  “Is it true what I heard about an abduction?”

  “Sort of. I got saved at the last minute.”

  “Who did this?”

  Storm hesitated. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  Danton asked, “Is it my fault?”

  “It’s definitely tied to whatever is going on.”

  He sighed. “I’m on my way to the Budapest airport. I should be in London by two. Where are you staying?”

  “A club called the Ognisko.” Storm glanced around. Tanya had vanished. Other than a bartender stacking glasses, the club appeared empty. “It’s not all that great.”

  “I’ll book you a room at Claridge’s. It has the finest security system in London. I’ll meet you there.”

  Tanya appeared bearing coffee and a plate of bread and butter and cold cuts. As she ate, Storm managed to get Harry on the phone the Arab woman had given him. His voice sounded reed-thin, but the man remained as cheerfully defiant as ever, insisting that he was fine, the doctors were nuts, he was getting out and joining them the next day. She then heard a nurse come in and beat the man with a verbal stick. Storm cut the connection and swiped her face. Her fingers came up dark with mascara.