by Davis Bunn
She then called Curtis Armitage-Goode and said, “I’m sorry I stood you up.”
“Great heavens, is this really you?”
“None other. Weary but intact.”
“I heard you had been kidnapped. When you didn’t arrive and I couldn’t raise you by phone, I drove over to the auction. The police were positively swarming. Was that horrid Jacob Rausch behind your abduction?”
“I have no idea. What did you hear?”
“Only that he bought a round for the house after he heard you were abducted. That man is a weasel.”
“Is the item we discussed still for sale?”
“Most certainly. But tell me what happened.”
“Questions have to wait. Are you certain the owner is still motivated to sell?”
“Positively salivating.”
“When can we wrap this up?”
“Soon as you arrive at my place.”
“You have it in your possession?”
“My dear girl, I acquired it.” Curtis was enjoying himself immensely. “Could hardly have done otherwise, could I? Not when that weasel Rausch started sniffing around.”
“You are a dear, sweet man and I owe you.”
“You do, actually, and rather a lot. When Rausch realized I was not going to resell the item to him, he had some particularly nasty things to say about my forebears.”
Storm did not need a map and guide dog to track him. The item was hers so long as she matched Rausch’s offer. “Can I have an item I purchased at the Cirencester auction be delivered to your shop?”
“Most certainly. Here, let me give you the name of my bonded shippers.”
As Storm arranged the transfer of the paten to Curtis’s shop, Tanya emerged from the kitchen. When she set down the phone, Tanya said, “I have been called away.”
“Thank you again for saving my life back there in Cirencester.”
“It was my job.” Tanya handed her an embossed calling card with nothing except a telephone number. “Antonin Tarka says, call this day or night. Give your name, say what you need.”
“Who is he?”
“A patriot. Antonin Tarka fought with Lech Walesa against the Communists. Then he served in Walesa’s government.”
“You like him.”
“I like working for a patriot. It makes for a nice change.”
“What about you?”
“Some questions you cannot ask.” Her gaze turned opaque. “Officially I am nothing. A tourist visiting London. You wish to see the Victoria and Albert Museum? I hear it is very nice.”
“You believe all the stories about the Black Madonna icon?”
“The history, the legends, nobody knows. But I tell you something I do believe. I come from one of the towns we passed, Zawiercie. My father, he is an electrician. We have a little land. We raised some pigs. We did okay. I was the first of my family to go to university. My mother, she went to pray for me at Czestochowa. Every year she went. Sometimes with her local church in bus. Other times, she walked. Sixteen hours it took her. She walked and she prayed the rosary.”
“I think I understand.”
“The politicians and the educated people and the new rich, when they hear the Black Madonna is stolen, what will they do? They cry scandal, they point fingers, they shout and wave their arms. But the other Poland, the country still trapped in Soviet muck, they will suffer.” Tanya pointed at the card in Storm’s hand. “You hear something, you call the patriot. And remember. We only have a few more days. Then the politicians will learn what has happened, and my country will bleed.”
CURTIS ARMITAGE-GOODE’S SHOP WAS ON the opposite side of Hyde Park, in the Mayfair district of London. The taxi drove to where Storm could see the minty green of Berkeley Square. The door gave a cheery ping as she entered.
“Great heavens, if it isn’t my adventurous client.” Curtis Armitage-Goode was as foppishly dressed as ever. Blue blazer, gray slacks of summertime flannel, college tie, and a silk handkerchief draped ever so casually from his jacket pocket. “Here, let me take that case. How are you, my dear?”
“Grateful I wasn’t kidnapped.”
“Your travails do suggest there are fates worse than bankruptcy. Tea?”
The Mount Street shop had two well-appointed rooms at street level and twice that space underground. When the Cirencester auctioneer’s transport arrived, Curtis personally carried her acquisition downstairs, took the other article from his office safe, and arranged both on viewing stands. Storm knew the dealer wanted to give her the sort of polished presentation he would offer any respected client. So she spent the time on a bittersweet tour of his shop. Most of Curtis Armitage-Goode’s clients would hunker down and weather this economic hurricane. Curtis would survive intact. It was hard not to feel a little jealous.
Curtis walked over to where she admired a Rubens portrait and asked, “Will you tell me what happened?”
When Storm finished her quick rundown, he said, “You do run with a dangerous crowd. It leaves me positively giddy. Here I am, the most exciting part of my day is opening a tin of caviar for one of my overfed buyers. While you’re out there defending yourself against international gangsters.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Well, only a little.” He waved her toward the pair of stands in the center of the room. “Shall we?”
The fact that they were in a glorified cellar was masked somewhat by high ceilings, two chandeliers, and a trio of fourteenth-century French tapestries covering the walls. The velvet display stands were placed beneath the room’s central spotlights. Storm focused first upon the item Curtis had acquired for her, a single piece of rock crystal shaped like a grotto. The crystal cave contained a gold statue of Mary, mother of Jesus. Such carvings became a component of the early iconic tradition, when only a tiny minority of the population could read and write. Tradition had it that after Vespasian’s invasion of Galilee in AD 67, the Holy Family relocated to a cave on the island of Patmos, where the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation.
Curtis rolled over a professional restorer’s magnifying glass. The instrument was the size of a makeup mirror and rimmed in adjustable lights. “Perhaps this would help.”
Storm settled onto a stool. The crystal grotto was framed with twelve images carved in gold, depicting the apostles, and topped by a gold crown embossed with gemstones. The crown, known as a diadem, contained a special carving at its uppermost point. Time had worn the emblem down to a mere shadow, but there was enough remaining for Storm to declare, “Leo the Second.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
In the fifth century, emperors began weaving the Chi-Rho symbol together with the imperial seal. Many such images held reputations for miracles.
Curtis noticed Storm’s frown and asked, “Is something the matter?” When she did not respond, he said, “This is without question an exceptional piece. I know half a dozen museums that would match your offer and make this the pride of their Byzantium wing.”
“My research has uncovered no link between any of the items I’ve acquired for my client,” Storm replied. “Not their provenances, the list of previous owners and experts who had formally inspected the pieces. No overlaps. Nothing.” What was more, the two treasures before her held no connection to Russia. Storm had searched back to the point where their histories had disappeared into medieval mists and come up empty. Yet she remained trapped inside a battle between two mystery buyers, with unnamed attackers and government spooks hovering in the background. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, perhaps you’d be better off not inspecting this particular gift horse too closely. After all, your company is surviving these perilous times because of this new buyer.”
But the dealer’s words only added to her frustration. “We’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
Storm bent back over the magnifying glass. “I have no idea.”
THIRTY-ONE
STORM SPOTTED
EMMA AS SOON as the bellman tipped his hat and opened Claridge’s brass Art Deco door. Emma was seated across the main foyer inside a formal gallery. Her table backed up to massive floral display. The pedestal was four feet across and supported a mountain of ivory-colored roses and lilies. Emma stared at nothing, her features tight with sunburned exhaustion.
A man’s voice shouted, “Storm!”
Claridge’s was not the sort of place where people normally yelled. Or ran, which Raphael Danton did, down the central staircase and across the marble-tiled foyer.
He met her beneath the main chandelier and swept her into an embrace. Storm caught sight of her own astonished reflection in a gilded mirror as he murmured, “I was so worried.”
Storm normally hated anything that tore life out of her control. She also loathed being the center of attention, unless she chose to put herself there. Yet here she was, clenched by a man handsome enough to slow foot traffic in the next area code. Every eye in the hotel was on them. And all she could think was, He’s so tall.
Over Raphael’s shoulder, Storm watched a young woman follow him down the formal staircase. She was some exotic mixture of Asian and Western bloodlines and as precisely made up as a geisha. If Storm spent a full year in front of the mirror with an army of pros to do the makeover, she would never approach this girl’s elegance.
This stylish young woman gawked in openmouthed astonishment at Raphael.
Raphael broke off his embrace, touched Storm’s face, started to speak, then noticed his watch. “We have to hurry.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re expected at the Athenaeum in less than an hour.” He glanced around. “Where is your luggage?”
“I left it with the man outside. Why?”
“You must change.”
She looked down at herself. The gray suit carried the rumpled stains of a hard day. “This is the nicest thing I’ve got with me. And you need to—”
“No, no, this won’t do at all. Sir Julius is extremely formal.” Raphael spotted the hovering Asian woman.
And snapped his fingers.
The woman actually jumped. “Sir?”
Raphael said to Storm, “This is Muriel Lang. She is one of my personal—”
“Raphael.”
“Storm, it is vital—”
“Don’t snap your fingers.”
It was hard to tell who was more shocked, the man or his aide.
Storm went on, “If you made a list of all the things that would send me straight through the roof, snapping your fingers at somebody would be at the tippy-top.”
He colored. Started to speak. Then clenched down hard on whatever it was he was about to say. The effort left him sounding a bit strangled. “Tippy-top?”
“Be glad I’m not armed.”
“Yes. Very well.” He turned to the woman. “Take Ms. Syrrell to Bond Street. Chanel, perhaps. You know what is required. And give my compliments to the manager at Cartier; ask him for the loan of—”
“Raphael.”
“Storm, please, it is vital—”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Storm pointed to where Emma stood by her table. “We have to speak with my friend.”
“My dear, it simply is not—”
“Now, Raphael.” She already had him by the arm. “Your people in Athens will understand.”
“The Athenaeum,” he said, correcting her. “It’s a club.”
“Swell. But we need to sit down and figure out what is going on.”
Muriel said, “Sir, if I might suggest, I could shop for the lady myself.”
Raphael allowed Storm to pull him toward the gallery. “Something elegant yet understated.”
“I understand. Madame, might I ask your shoe size?”
“Nine and a half.”
Raphael said, “Take the car. Bring back several selections. Don’t forget Cartier. Hurry.”
Emma frowned at Raphael’s hold on Storm’s hand as they approached. Storm rounded the table and hugged her friend. “Are you okay?”
“I’m alive. So is Harry. The rest is detail.” Emma nodded a tight greeting to Raphael and said, “I need to ask you some questions.”
“We are late for a most urgent—” He caught sight of Storm’s warning glance and sighed. “Perhaps we should sit down.”
Emma said, “I need to know who your client is.”
Raphael studied her carefully but showed none of the outrage Storm would have expected. “Such information is highly confidential.”
“This thing is moving too fast and has grown too big for you to play coy. Besides which, your client list is not legally protected. I know because I’ve checked. If it’s necessary, I’ll go to my British counterparts, explain the situation, and formally request that you be held in custody until it can be determined if any of your clients are actively involved in the financing or direct promotion of terrorism. But I’d prefer to deal with this over tea, wouldn’t you?”
From the adjoining chamber, a violin trio began playing Gershwin. Raphael said simply, “I would rather like a cup of coffee.”
“Order it yourself.”
Storm said, “Emma.”
“What?”
“Raphael is not our enemy.”
“You sure about that? I’m trying to figure out what role he played in my abduction.”
Storm said, “What abduction?”
Emma said, “I’m waiting, Danton.”
Raphael signaled a passing waiter, ordered coffees, then asked, “How far will this information go?”
“I’m in the business of keeping secrets.”
“My client is Sir Julius Irving.”
Storm’s own surprise was mirrored on Emma’s face. “He’s British?”
“Sir Julius Irving is a corporate solicitor who has risen to the pinnacle of British establishment. Knight of the British Empire, member of the Queen’s Privy Council. He is related to the Earl of Gloucester, but as youngest son to the youngest son. According to one source, Sir Julius inherited all of the aspirations and none of the means. His fortune is his own.”
“What are his connections to the Russian government?”
“None whatsoever that I have been able to determine. Sir Julius is fabulously wealthy. What is more, it is legitimate wealth. When all this started, I checked. Thoroughly. He holds interests in a number of Britain’s oldest companies, a string of castle hotels in Scotland, several distilleries.”
Storm asked, “Why is he bidding against Rausch’s client?”
“That is a mystery for which I do not have an answer. Six weeks ago, the PA to Sir Julius contacted me. I was carefully vetted. I had no idea why. You must understand, most of my clients belong to the newest class of the wealthy. What I offer is not merely the power to acquire but also an understanding of how to be wealthy on an international scale. This goes far beyond where to shop. It amounts to a complete cultural makeover. That is why I am successful. But people like Sir Julius rarely use my services. They have family estates, private secretaries, butlers. They are conservative in their habits and established in their routines.”
Raphael’s calm candor did little to defuse Emma’s ire. “None of this explains what happened to Storm. Or Harry. Or me. Or why we’re attracting the attention of multiple intel divisions.”
“I quite agree.”
Storm asked Emma again, “You were abducted?”
“This afternoon.” Emma related the events in terse bullets.
When she was finished, Danton said, “This was intended as a message. Russian intelligence has demonstrated to you in the clearest terms possible that if they had been behind Storm’s kidnapping, she would not be alive.”
“My boss in Washington said the same thing.” Emma studied him, then went on. “I have been instructed to share some intel with you. In strictest confidence. We have identified Rausch’s client as one Vladimir Abramov.”
Danton showed genuine surprise. “That is utterly impossible.”
Emma said, “W
hat are you talking about?”
“Vladimir Abramov is bankrupt.”
“He is the buyer, Danton. We know that for certain.”
“And I am telling you the man does not have ten cents to his name.”
Emma said decisively, “So you know something Homeland Security doesn’t?”
“About the new Russian billionaires, perhaps. And about Vladimir Abramov, apparently so.”
“Homeland has done a careful rundown on the guy. He owns the majority share of Russia’s largest aluminum producer.”
“But over the past ten days the value of his holdings has effectively evaporated. In exchange for making Vladimir’s debts vanish, the Russian government is quietly in the process of eating his assets whole.” Danton held up his hand. “Please, Agent Webb. On this I am absolutely certain. One of my Russian clients is on the verge of collapse because of Abramov’s unpaid debts. He is in Moscow as we speak, begging for crumbs.”
Storm said, “So we have a British lord with no ties to the Russians, bidding against a Russian with no money. Does that make sense to you?”
“Not in the least.” Danton rose to his feet. “Which is why I am taking you to meet Sir Julius yourself. But we must hurry. The man positively despises being kept waiting.”
THE SUITE RAPHAEL DANTON HAD booked for Storm was as intimate as an Art Deco teacup. The mirror frames were hand-embossed with the image of a slender woman in a flowing gown. The bed’s headboard was inlaid with the design of two ballroom dancers ready to waltz her into sleep. The glass shower and the closet doors held etchings of similar figures. More were printed on the silk divan in the parlor. Storm wanted to stretch out and enjoy the place for a month. But Raphael’s elegant young assistant laid out dresses on Storm’s bed and pressed her with silent urgency.