The Huguenot Thief

by L. K. CLEMENT

  “But the Byzantines had thousands of reliquaries. How will you find the ones you want?”

  “For almost a month, an American religious expert has been working to answer that question. She had to be persuaded to cooperate.”

  “What do you mean, persuaded?” asked Zora.

  “We showed her pictures of her family, implying that they will be harmed if she does not cooperate. Dr. Kate Strong is the only expert in French reliquaries and Ancient Greek that we could find who could disappear for a while, and be motivated to do the work we need done in a short amount of time. Dr. Strong is bipolar, so I have been giving her doses of amphetamines. She has done a remarkable amount of work in a short period of time.”

  He paused, and then added, “She is in the basement of this castle.”

  Zora felt an icy wave cascade down her body. He was talking about this woman as if she was a lab rat. She jumped up and pushed away from her chair. “Anton, you kidnapped a United States citizen? You are out of your mind.”

  “I am not a murderer, Zora. When she has finished here, I will send her back to America, drugged and amnesic. No one will know where she has been. She will be alive.”

  “Not a murderer? You are talking about the annihilation of millions of people.” Zora cackled. “I suppose kidnapping is nothing compared to that. Why me, Anton?”

  “If we are to seed a large area with a microbe, we need to find an undetectable way to keep it alive for a few days, and make it look entirely natural. No one else has been able to replicate your experiment, where anthrax lived in the air of a laboratory for three days. You do remember that accomplishment, don’t you?”

  Of course she did. The problem of keeping a bacterium or a virus alive long enough to distribute it had caused her colleagues at the Institute to reject most of the agents they investigated. At the very end of her time at the Institute, days before the soldiers closed the facility; Zora had found the right formula—a combination of ingredients that would suspend bacteria in the air for three days without the microbe losing its infectious ability. She had never published a paper and never disclosed her exact techniques.

  “Anton, do not ask me to help you. It’s monstrous.” Zora slumped back into her chair, and tried to pour a cup of coffee, spilling it all over the tray.

  He looked at her thoughtfully and leaned over, not shouting, which made his words more frightening. “As monstrous as destroying ancient cities like Nimrud? As monstrous as cutting off people’s heads and videoing the act? As monstrous as forcing ten-year-old girls to be given to licentious old men as sexual slaves? Please, Zora. World leaders tear their hair out trying to appease the Middle East. The area is a cauldron of megalomaniacs, religious lunatics, and obscenely wealthy despots. Do you really believe that Russia has not whispered this plan to Washington, to London, to Paris?”

  Zora tried to take a sip of her coffee, but her hands were shaking too badly. She put the cup down. “Washington would not sanction the destruction of Israel. It’s one of the United States’ closest allies. If something like this happened, the world will blame the Jews.”

  Anton laughed. “For once, the Jews will not be blamed. They too will have horrific losses. I am not heartless, Zora. My company will distribute antibiotics to stop the epidemic.”

  Finally, she said, “And if I don’t help you?”

  Drumming his fingers on the table, he said, “Then you will be found to have abused the children treated at your clinic. You will be a pariah.”

  She gasped and stared at him. He stared back at her, implacable.

  Zora felt a welling of rage at Anton that he would manipulate her in this way. Her organization would never support Zora working with children once allegations surfaced, and if Anton were determined to use her, he would manufacture “irrefutable” proof.

  She recognized the certainty of the zealot. She had seen it in the communist bureaucrats that had come to the Institute. She saw it in the faces of the petty functionaries in Africa, newly rich and replete with absolute authority. She had even seen it in the faces of well-meaning American philanthropists who were certain that with the right education her adopted country could evolve from a confederation of tribes to a single country. In one generation, no less.

  Zealots did not respond to logic. If she appeared compliant, she might be able to slow his project. She had an expertise he didn’t have. She could claim she needed time to catch up on the research, to learn new equipment, anything to delay his plan. Would she be able to call someone? Zora stared at her former colleague and remained silent. He needed to believe the prospect of money motivated her. Immensely rich people believed that money could incent the vilest of behaviors. They were usually right.

  “I want half the money now,” Zora said calmly. “And I want to understand Dr. Strong’s research.”

  Anton smiled. “Excellent,” he said. “Let me make arrangements.” Anton stood gracefully, belying his size, buttoned his jacket, and went to the hall. Zora could hear him ordering someone to clear the table and bring more coffee. Now. She needed to do it now. Zora hefted her squat body out of the chair, and hurried to the terrace.

  Chapter 8

  Two stories beneath Zora, Kate looked in the mirror, and picked at the frizzy strands of her hair, remembering a March day when she and Sara had gone to the salon together. Kate’s hair had been highlighted and coaxed into cascading ringlets. It had lasted for an entire three hours before puffing back to its usual frizzy unruliness. Jack had called her Rapunzel and danced her around the living room, making her feel dainty and graceful, not a familiar emotion for a woman who was almost six feet tall. An overwhelming feeling of fear made her eyes tear.

  Kate knew she was on the precipice of a depressive episode. She had awakened a few hours before, cowering in the corner of the workroom, dirty and disoriented, realizing that the manic frenzy had abated. Kate had found it an enormous effort to lift herself from the floor and go into the bathroom. From the looks of her grown out hair, it had been four weeks since Bunin put the chloroform rag on her face in the castle dining room.

  After Bunin had drugged her, she had awakened in the same workroom. The door on the right hand side had been open. She had walked through it down a short hall and found a bathroom on the left and a room with a double bed on the right. The bedroom had a small chair and a nightstand without a lamp. There were toiletries in the bathroom; and the few pieces of clothing she had brought with her were hanging on hooks. None of the rooms had any windows. The ceiling in her three-room prison was fourteen feet above her with ceiling vents and speakers, both mounted too high for her to reach.

  Kate had gone to the workroom and stood in the middle of it. “What do you want, Bunin? I know you’re listening. If you let me talk to my family so they know I’m ok, I’ll do some more work on the documents. You have to tell me exactly what you’re looking for. I’m not a mind reader.” No response. Kate returned to the bedroom, looked under the bed and in the nightstand and found her backpack. She checked the contents. Her keys, phone, and nail file were gone, but her iPod

  Nano, wallet and passport were still there. She had no more lithium.

  The last dose would have been twelve to fifteen hours previously. She had returned to the research room, and pounded on the door again, this time noticing that it didn’t have a normal doorknob, just a handle. She felt no give in the door when she jerked back and forth on the handle, but suddenly, and very unexpectedly, when she pulled, it opened.

  Atay came in, and Kate rushed past him, intent on escaping, only to be stopped by two young uniformed men, who shoved her back into the room. The door slammed shut.

  “Let me out,” she screamed. “I’ve been kidnapped!” When she heard nothing, she turned to Atay, who stood in the middle of the room.

  He said, “Dr. Strong, we need your help. After you identify the items Bunin wants, you can go home. I promise you.”

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nbsp; He motioned her to the table, where they both sat. When Kate looked in Atay’s face, she almost felt sorry for the disheveled, unshaven man. Gone was his sartorial perfection; his shirt was stained and suit wrinkled. No doubt, she looked as unkempt as he did.

  “Dr. Strong, I am sorry you are in this situation.” He looked away.

  “What happened? How long have I been here?”

  “You were out for about six hours. No one harmed you.”

  “Are you kidding me? You kidnapped me. You know that, don’t you?”

  Atay rubbed his moustache. “Dr. Strong, Bunin will not let you leave. I cannot leave.” Atay looked away, and then, astonishingly, he began weeping and pushed an envelope across the table to Kate. She stared at it.

  “Open it,” he whispered.

  Kate took the envelope, her fingers fumbling on the envelope. She took out four photographs. They were 8 x 10 pictures of Jack and Sara.

  Kate touched each of the pictures before laying it aside. The top picture showed Jack and Sara at Leo’s Restaurant with Amarintha Sims, mother of Sara’s best friend, Ava. Another was of the two in the kitchen, another, meeting with a police officer in their living room. In all the shots, they looked devastated and lost. When Kate looked at Atay, he stopped crying and wiped his eyes with handkerchief.

  “Bunin has pictures of my family as well. He filmed a visit his ruffians made to my house.” Atay clenched his teeth. “One of Bunin’s men threatened to rape my daughter.”

  Kate felt a rush of sympathy for Atay. “How do you know he won’t kill us both?” she asked. She felt unexpected calmness; her own fury held at bay by Atay’s fear and her tenuous sanity.

  “All he wants is to find the reliquaries marked ‘pseudos’ in the parchments. I don’t know why. Can’t you do that?”

  Pseudos. False. He wanted to find the false reliquaries, the reliquaries without real relics. Could she find where these items were today? What could he do with this knowledge?

  “Who is Bunin? Why is he doing this?”

  Atay looked up at a small camera in the corner of the room. He turned around so that his back was to it, and said in an almost inaudible rush. “Bunin has a company called New Institute. They took over the project.”

  What could he possibly want with these artifacts? What was the alternative? If she said no, would Bunin kill her?

  Atay looked away from her. She saw the fear in his face. Did she have a choice? “Yes, I will do it.”

  The look on Atay’s face was childlike in its gratitude.

  “Hold on a minute.” Kate made a list of books and websites she needed and gave it to Atay. “Take this, and leave me alone.” He backed out of the room.

  Hours later, Atay brought her stacks of printouts from the websites. Kate began to read.

  Within a day of Kate’s promise to find the false reliquaries, Atay once again became the urbane host—though now a slight tremor in his hands and circles under his eyes revealed his situation. To work as quickly and intensely as possible, she asked him to leave her alone. The uniformed men, visible whenever Atay entered killed any thoughts of trying to escape.

  Kate had stared at parchment images, and then had begun to create diagrams on the whiteboard. She slept just a few hours per night, if at all, and bathed resentfully. Atay brought food to her, and more often than not, took it away uneaten. Her fear and a pounding energy kept her working to collapse. On more than one awakening, she found herself in one of the corners, clutching the pictures of Jack and Sara. Rational Kate knew she was in a manic episode. Frenetic Kate kept working.

  Finally she had collapsed and slept what she believed was twenty hours, an extended unconsciousness portending the advent of a depressive episode, a dark hole that might clasp her as tight as a straightjacket.

  Now, four weeks since Bunin had chloroformed her, standing in the bathroom, feeling the depressive apathy take over, she vowed to remember whatever Bunin told her from here on so that at some future opportunity she could demolish him. She walked into the workroom, and stared at the whiteboards covered with her writing, and wondered if what she had uncovered would be enough to let her go.

  Charleston

  Chapter 9

  Thompson Denton sat on the porch with his laptop, completed his notes and hit “send.” With the death of Dr. Adam Chalk, Thompson was certain Interpol would call him home to headquarters in Lyon, France, where he would begin another case. Not for the first time, he asked himself whether he was up to another assignment that led, as almost all of them did, to a dead end. The Works of Art Investigation Team at Interpol could claim few successes, having fewer investigators than a Charleston book club.

  Adam Chalk’s murder on the bridge four weeks earlier was still making the occasional news story, but Charleston Police had not arrested anyone for the horrific homicide. He had been Thompson’s most promising target, an American academic creating phony provenance documents for Alternative Auctions, a company connected to a Russian oligarch named Anton Bunin.

  Alternative Auctions bought looted antiquities, paid academics like Chalk to create phony provenances, and then sold the items to Western buyers and museums. Bunin then distributed the proceeds to the terrorist organizations that the Russian government thought might emerge as a winner from the chaos of the Middle East.

  A year ago, Interpol and the FBI had agreed to a joint operation to shut down Alternative Auctions. Interpol created Thompson’s cover as an interior designer, inserted him into Charleston, and waited. The mission was to turn Chalk into a cooperating witness, to identify the other US-based members of the ring, and have the FBI make simultaneous arrests.

  For the past months, Thompson and his FBI colleagues had built a compelling case against Chalk and an owner of a local carpet store. All that had remained was turning Chalk, which all agreed would be the easiest part of the investigation. The professor would fold easily when presented with evidence of who was benefiting from the sale of these priceless items. Now Chalk was dead, and so was Thompson’s case.

  Thompson had learned of Chalk’s death from a local television announcer while working at home. He immediately went to the Charleston Police Department to find whoever was assigned to the case and offer his help. Thompson was almost certain that Chalk’s death was connected to the smuggling ring. After waiting for an hour, a tall black man had come out to the lobby, scowled at his badge, and motioned for Thompson to follow him into a small meeting room.

  “I’m Detective Frank Edson. I’m investigating the murder of Dr. Chalk. Why didn’t I know about you?” asked the detective.

  Thompson sat and spread his arms on the table. “I don’t know. I’ve been working with the FBI on an antiquities smuggling ring that involved Chalk, and figured they’d tell you what was going on.”

  Frank sat, scowled even more, and said, “They don’t share. Tell me all of it.”

  Detective Edson was clearly offended that an agent from an international law enforcement agency was in town investigating one of his citizens without his knowledge. After an hour of listening to Thompson and learning Chalk’s role in the smuggling ring, the detective’s scowl had turned into a thoughtful frown.

  “Do you think this group might have killed Chalk?” asked Frank.

  “Grabbing a man’s car and throwing it off a bridge is not a typical way to commit murder. The Russians are dramatic sons of bitches; so yes, I do believe they executed him. I don’t have much that will help you, but I’ll cooperate anyway I can.”

  Thompson had made a copy of all the phone, bank and email records he had on Chalk and sent them to the detective. For the past four weeks, he had frequently met with Frank, answering questions about Anton Bunin and Chalk’s role in the smuggling ring.

  Now, four weeks later, he had finished his report and conveyed all he knew to Detective Edson. It was time to leave Charleston.

  Thompson’s
cell rang. He left the porch and went inside, recognizing his boss’s number. “Hello, Sergei,” he said.

  “I received your report. Nice work wrapping up the case.”

  Molotov’s wording annoyed Thompson. “Wrapping up the case” would have meant an arrest. He supposed that his boss, who spoke excellent English, though with a very heavy accent, did not know the exact meaning of the phrase. Had he even had time to read the report?

  “I can be ready to leave Charleston in a few days. Where are you sending me now?”

  “Actually, I have new information that needs to be looked into.” Thompson could hear Sergei take a deep draw on his ever-present cigarette.

  “What new information?”

  “You investigated all of Dr. Chalk’s colleagues, didn’t you? How deeply did you look into Dr. Kate Strong?”

  Thompson certainly had investigated all of the man’s co-workers, including the missing Dr. Kate Strong, who had disappeared the day Chalk died. Before Strong’s disappearance, Thompson had cleared her of any involvement with Chalk’s illegal auction activity. He found no extra money, and no emails to or from suspicious people—nothing remotely incriminating.

  The day after Chalk died, and Thompson’s meeting with the detective, Frank had called him. “We’re trying to find a Dr. Kate Strong who worked for Chalk. Was she involved in any way with this syndicate?”

  “Not that I’ve found.”

  The detective was silent, and then finally said, “The woman left a voice mail for her husband that she was going out of town, and told him to call Chalk. By the time the husband got the message, Chalk was dead. Her cell phone signal ended in Summerville, and there hasn’t been a peep from it since. We want to talk to her. Can you come in?”

  After hours of reviewing every piece of information Thompson had gathered, the two investigators agreed that Kate Strong was not involved in Chalk’s illegal activity. She was just gone. Her disappearance was a local police matter.