FaceOff

by Lee Child

  This was truly fascinating because the first time he’d put John Wen under, the antiques dealer had returned to the exact same place and time. To anyone else it would have been a coincidence but not to Malachai. There were no coincidences when you were dealing with reincarnation. Every act had repercussions, every encounter a purpose. We return to be with the same people in similar circumstances to complete the karmic circle, to right our wrongs, to be given another chance. Souls whose fates were forever intertwined, finding each other, again and again and again. Following a repeating pattern of doom.

  Every time Malachai witnessed a patient travel he felt privileged to be part of the journey. But this time he also felt ebullient. His own family history—complicated and mysterious—might finally be resolved.

  John Wen had been shot and killed by an intruder in his study, just as Malachai’s ancestor Trevor Talmage had been shot and killed over one hundred years ago. Murdered in his own study by an intruder, according to family lore.

  Or had he been?

  Upon Trevor’s death, his brother Davenport had inherited the house and everything in it, including Malachai’s longed-for treasure, the list of lost Memory Tools.

  And now, as Malachai listened to Judy Chan describe every detail of a study she couldn’t know in a time period she shouldn’t be able to recall, Malachai felt another piece of the puzzle slide into place.

  “What are you doing there?” Malachai asked.

  “My brother is wrong,” Judy Chan said, answering a different question, her voice stronger than it had been a moment ago. She was sitting up straighter, too, Malachai noticed, her demeanor becoming more agitated.

  “What is your name?” Malachai asked.

  She didn’t answer his question. Instead, she continued arguing with a ghost Malachai couldn’t see or hear.

  “The decision to publish is not your choice.”

  “Publish what?” Malachai asked. “Who are you talking to?”

  “My brother,” Judy Chan hissed. “He is wrong.”

  And then Malachai knew. Trevor had not been shot by a stranger. His brother, Davenport, had done the deed.

  “Do you know Mr. Tiffany?” Malachai asked, breaking one of the rules of hypnosis and interrupting the moment to interject a question that might bring the patient out of the episode.

  But his hunch was correct.

  “Yes,” Judy said. “He designed the lamps in the house. The tile work. Jewels for the family.”

  Malachai pictured the note he had found, written in Davenport’s hand about the visit to Tiffany’s studio so soon after Trevor’s death. Had Davenport killed his own brother in order to seize the ancient text describing each lost Memory Tool? He must have. Then, he’d sought to hide the evidence of his crime in a treasure chest created by Tiffany. To keep secret that which he never meant to share. Not in that life, or beyond.

  And now Judy, in the present, had shot her boss, John Wen, in order to steal the papers back once again.

  Instantly, Malachai realized the answer to everything he’d been looking for wasn’t in the past. It was in this room, staring him right in the face.

  The Laughing Buddhas.

  “Judy,” Malachai said, his voice urgent. “You can hear me now. You need to leave the house in New York. You need to come forward. To the present.”

  Judy remained in her seat, returning slowly.

  “You are in John Wen’s office,” he informed her, his rich voice deep and compelling. “It is five days ago, you have come to see your boss. Then, you see a Buddha. Tell me about the Buddha.”

  “It is an eight-inch, solid-jade Buddha,” she whispered. “Sitting on a square wooden base with gold-seamed corners and inlaid abalone. Mr. Wen has had it for months now. Months when I have implored him to give it to me.”

  “He won’t listen to you.”

  “The Buddha must be shared, I begged him. It is wrong to keep it secret, hidden from the world. True power is sharing knowledge in order to help others, not hoarding it for yourself.”

  Malachai blinked, puzzled. “So you decided to take back what belonged to you. You shot Mr. Wen. You removed the Buddha from his office. Where is the Buddha now, Miss Chan? Tell me, and I will help you share it with the world.”

  The woman’s dark, slitted eyes held a strange, spectral gleam. She was not yet in this existence, Malachai realized. But nor was she in the other.

  “Violence,” she murmured. “It always ends in violence. Brother against brother, spouse against spouse, friend betraying friend. I loved him and I have felt his bullet. I loved him and I struck the mortal blow. Is there truly no other way?”

  Malachai realized belatedly that Miss Chan was holding a gun, a small antique pistol she’d pulled from the folds of her dress and now had pointed directly at his sternum.

  He had made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

  “You are not Davenport,” he whispered. No, of course not. John Wen had been Davenport, a man who’d shot his own brother in order to keep the legendary text a secret. “You are Trevor,” Malachai continued to Judy Chan. She was the reincarnation of the brother who’d wanted to share the list of lost Memory Tools with the world, and paid with his life.

  One hundred and thirty years ago, Trevor had been the victim. This time around, to judge by the pistol held so steadily in Judy Chan’s hand, that would not be the case.

  The secret of the Laughing Buddha had to be shared. And Trevor/Judy was willing to do it, no matter the price.

  “I can help you,” Malachai heard himself whisper, his voice hoarse with uncommon desperation. “Show me the Buddha. I think I know its secret. I’ll show you and we can share it with the world.”

  But Judy’s finger was already tightening on the trigger.

  Lives tumbling over lives. An endless procession of old injustices and fresh pains. Lessons still unlearned, cycles yet unbroken.

  The list of lost Memory Tools forever out of his reach.

  Malachai lunged forward.

  The antique pistol exploded to life once again.

  THE MOMENT D.D. SAW JUDY Chan sit down on her sofa, the detective had known the woman was in trouble. The glazed look that had come over her eyes, the sudden slackness of her features.

  Malachai was doing something to her. Drugging her, tampering with a witness, interfering with a murder investigation. It all sounded like probable cause to D.D. She started backpedaling as quietly as one could down a rusty fire escape, then dropped to the ground and picked up her cell.

  She requested uniformed officers, division detectives, and her squadmates and she wanted them now.

  She buzzed the second-story apartment again, frantically seeking entrance. This time, the elderly woman didn’t come down, but stuck her graying head out the window above.

  D.D. didn’t bother with pretenses anymore. “I’m a cop, and the tenant on the fourth floor is in trouble. Open up! Quick!”

  The woman appeared to consider the matter. Then slowly, but surely, the front door opened and D.D. sprang ahead.

  Four flights of stairs. Minute this case was done, she was booking more time with the StairMaster. But for now, around, around, around.

  She burst onto the fourth-floor landing just in time to hear a gunshot. Crap. She threw herself at the door, and it flew open, apparently unlocked.

  Her own firearm drawn, she dropped to the floor and scrambled into the unit, gaze already seeking an injured, possibly even murdered, Judy Chan.

  Instead, she discovered the woman in question standing quietly before her, smoke still pouring from some ancient-looking derringer.

  “He lied. He would’ve kept the Buddha for himself,” Judy said calmly. “The Buddha is meant to be shared.”

  Then she handed the strange little pistol to D.D., just as Malachai moaned from behind the sofa, “If you could be of some assistance, Detective. I believe I have just been shot.”

  MALACHAI SHIFTED IN HIS CHAIR with some discomfort. Being shot in the leg that had been hurt i
n the stampede in Vienna years before had been an unlucky break. This time around, however, at least he’d fared better. It turned out Judy Chan wasn’t a very good shot when partially hypnotized. While she’d murdered her boss with a single bullet to the heart, her woozy state—the very state Malachai had put her in—had saved his life.

  Eight months had passed and now she was in prison having been found guilty despite an aggressive effort on her attorney’s part to prove that she was criminally insane, deluded by visions from a so-called past life.

  Malachai had sat in the back of the courthouse every day. If Miss Chan’s attorney proved that believing what you remembered from a past life meant you were insane, Malachai’s own life’s work would have been held in question, his passion turned into a joke used against him. But the prosecutor had won. With over 25 percent of the country believing in reincarnation and several world religions based on its precepts, the defendant’s case didn’t pass muster. The jury hadn’t accepted the murder was Chan’s attempt to right a centuries-long feud. But they did convict her on a charge of second-degree murder stemming from armed robbery.

  Reincarnation had not lost that day, Judy Chan had.

  “And now we have Lot 121,” the auctioneer called out in his singsong voice.

  Malachai watched as the jade turtle that belonged to the estate of John Wen soared past its estimate of $10,000. The antiques dealer had indeed amassed a very valuable collection of fine antique Chinese treasures. It was a shame he’d had to die protecting one of them.

  The turtle was removed by a young man in a dark-brown uniform and a similarly dressed man brought out the next item for sale and placed it on the podium.

  “And now,” said the auctioneer in his Boston accent, “we have the Laughing Buddha. Lot 122. A fine example of eighth-century Tang Dynasty carving.”

  The wait for the estate to come to auction had seemed interminable to Malachai, but the police wouldn’t release the items in Wen’s office until after Chan’s trial and arraignment were complete.

  “Do I hear ten thousand?” the auctioneer called.

  Malachai had needed to be careful when he’d come to Skinner’s to inspect the Buddha before this sale. If he’d shown too much interest in it someone might have noticed and wondered why. The private viewing room in the auction house where he’d looked it over had a camera in plain sight. Malachai hadn’t dared risk trying to take the statue apart to determine if the base might actually be the secret receptacle used by Davenport to hide the list of lost Memory Tools. But closer examination had revealed such a thing might be possible. The approximate size and shape of the wooden base. The classic Tiffany artistry showcased by the gold-seamed corners and intricately inlaid abalone. In Malachai’s mind, the statue’s base could very well be the piece commissioned by Davenport from Tiffany himself after that first murder, over a century ago.

  “Fifteen thousand on my right. Do I hear—yes, twenty to the gentleman in the back. Do I hear twenty-five? Twenty-five thousand, thank you, ma’am.”

  For the next few moments Malachai waited for a lull in the bidding. He didn’t want to help drive up the price. Expecting a slowing in bidding to come at $50,000, he was unhappy when it didn’t arrive till the price hit $75,000.

  But what difference did money make now, with his quest nearly over, the list of lost Memory Tools about to be his? He had been waiting for decades.

  “I have seventy-five thousand from the gentleman in the back. Going once. Twice.”

  Malachai raised his paddle.

  “Thank you, sir,” the auctioneer said, acknowledging the new bidder. “I have eighty thousand in the front . . . and . . . eighty-five in the rear. Now to you, sir, ninety thousand in the front.”

  Finally, after another five minutes, the bid was again with Malachai at one hundred fifty and there it stopped. Malachai’s head was spinning. Was it his?

  “Going once. Twice.” The bang of the gavel. “Thank you, sir. One hundred and fifty thousand in the front.”

  Malachai had won his prize.

  After paying for the jade statue, Malachai took the objet d’art back to his hotel room at the Ritz Carlton where he’d booked a suite.

  Carefully and with ceremony, he unwrapped the carved sculpture that rested on a fine base with hammered gold-seamed corners inlaid with abalone. The Tiffany signature had been verified by the auction house. The catalogue gave the base alone an estimated value of $10,000.

  But that did not even come close to what it was worth.

  Malachai enjoyed pomp and appreciated ritual. He believed in savoring the moments that mark one’s life. This was such a pinnacle. He’d reached the end of a long, long road today.

  Leaving the Buddha sitting regally on the table by the window, Malachai removed the bottle of Cristal champagne he’d put on ice before leaving for the auction house. Opening it with a pop, he poured himself a flute of the pale yellow ambrosia.

  Raising his glass, he toasted the silent statue and then took a sip. Thinking, as he did, of John Wen who had died for this moment. Of Judy Chan, who was going to rot in prison for her efforts to prevent it.

  “The time has come, my friend,” Malachai said as he walked to the table. He’d done his research. He wouldn’t have to remove the jade piece from the pedestal. All he had to do was manipulate the seams on the underside of the base. By pressing them in a certain way, he would, the experts had assured him, reveal a carefully concealed cleft.

  It was easier than he’d imagined. And as promising as he’d dreamed. The base gave way, a fine sprinkling of dust falling onto the table, indicating it had not been opened in many years. As he’d hoped, no one at Skinner’s had discovered this compartment.

  · · ·

  Malachai didn’t look into the hidden compartment. Not yet. The anticipation after so very long was too delicious.

  He took a long, slow sip of the cold bubbly.

  This was his moment. After almost 150 years, the past and the present had come full circle. Malachai reached into the narrow enclosure. His fingertips felt . . . smooth wood . . . and . . . more smooth wood . . . satiny.

  He tipped the piece over. Stared into the narrow coffinlike space where he was certain the treasure he sought had once been stashed. Where now there was nothing.

  Malachai Samuels held the statue in his hands and stared into the abyss. For a moment, even though it was nigh on impossible, he thought he heard the Buddha laughing. Or maybe it was merely Davenport Talmage, still hoarding his list of lost Memory Tools from beyond the grave. Forever his to hide, and Malachai’s to seek.

  STEVE MARTINI

  VS. LINDA FAIRSTEIN

  Fact: In 1922, Howard Carter, then an itinerant archaeologist who had been combing the Valley of the Kings, discovered one of the largest treasure troves in history. Carter, on a single-minded quest for nearly two decades, unearthed the tomb of the boy king, the pharaoh Tutankhamen. He found subterranean caverns filled with priceless artifacts, hundreds of items of hammered gold, precious gems, and entire chariots crafted from exotic woods. Among those objects was a priceless figurine, a statuette of the boy king perched on the back of a black panther. The cat, carved from ebony, was molded from exotic resins, its formula known only to the ancient Egyptians.

  Fact: For nearly ninety years the priceless artifacts from Carter’s find, including the panther and its golden king, resided in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. Then, in early February 2011, in what became known as the Arab Spring, civil unrest gave way to looting. The museum was breeched and among the items taken was the statuette of the boy king atop the black cat.

  Fact: On September 11, 2012, a marauding band of terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, torching the structure and killing four Americans including the U.S. ambassador. For weeks the burned-out structure languished, largely unguarded, with documents, some of them highly classified, strewn about in the abandoned wreckage.

  Got your interest?

  For two talented writers like Stev
e Martini and Linda Fairstein, this was all they needed to start a story.

  Paul Madriani is the protagonist of twelve best-selling novels by Steve Martini, a former journalist and California lawyer. Linda Fairstein was a lawyer, too, a prosecutor for thirty years, and the head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Wily prosecutor Alexandra Cooper is her creation. So far there have been fifteen novels featuring Cooper.

  Crossing swords at a lawyers’ conference seemed the easiest way for these two characters to connect. Next, an enterprising young reporter returns from Benghazi and files a story about what she may have found in the burned-out consulate building. When that reporter turns up dead, Madriani and Cooper find themselves launched on a mad chase in search of the killer and the golden boy king.

  It’s a legal thriller for the twenty-first century.

  From two masters.

  Surfing the Panther

  SO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS that you have no sympathy for the victim?”

  “As I explained previously, I can’t discuss a pending case,” said Madriani.

  “Well, then, let’s go back to the hypothetical,” said Cooper, flashing a smile at him. “I just tried to get you to tip your hand about that big case you’re trying in LA. Give the locals here some pointers. The situation we’ve been given to discuss today has a few similar issues. I’d like to know what you gain by being so vicious about a dead woman.”

  “There’s no lack of sympathy, not on my part.”

  Cooper ignored his denial. “Why is it so many litigators show no empathy for the female victim? In our hypo, she was a woman excelling in a male-dominated vocation. Or maybe you saw her as someone who was socially undesirable—a parasite, perhaps?”

  “Your choice of words, not mine,” said Madriani. He didn’t like being cross-examined. Alexandra Cooper made him feel like a witness on the stand.