The Painted Messiah

by Craig Smith

  first time he had even considered North's presence.

  'There is nothing I would enjoy more than killing you, Dr North,' he announced in English. 'Fortunately for you, you have some value if your uncle decides to trade my painting for your life. That said I don't particularly care about the condition of your body as long as you are alive, so you would do well to answer my questions quickly and honestly.

  'You, Lady Kenyon,' he said shifting to Italian but in no other way directing his attention away from North, 'are a different matter. I extend to you the rights and courtesy due a prisoner of war. For the time being I have no intention of causing you even a moment of pain. Not a bruise if I can help it. If you don't cooperate with my interrogation, I tell you freely, nothing at all will happen to you.'

  He shifted his gaze to Kate, and without smiling still managed to express his amusement. 'You don't look as if you believe me.'

  'I don't.' Kate told him in English.

  Corbeau nodded and the guard who had presented him with his weapon walked up to Kate, touching her shoulder gently. In German he said to her, 'Against the wall, please.' Kate gave way under the pressure of his fingertips and felt the cold masonry against her shoulders. The guard spoke again in German. 'Your hand, please?' Kate presented her hand. She could imagine that he meant to separate it from her body. That was a thief's punishment, but as there was nothing she could do to prevent it, she simply steeled herself for the inevitable - whatever it was.

  Gently, with all the courtesy of an escort helping a woman from a car, he lifted her wrist until it was above her head. The cuff snapped over her flesh with surprising ease. Startled, Kate looked up and saw the handcuffs. With her free hand she swung angrily at the guard catching his nose with a swift, sweet crack. The young man covered his face with his hands and began to bleed. A single cry of pain had escaped his lips as she broke his nose, but that was the only sound he offered.

  'Shoot her,' Corbeau said in German. He spoke with the indifference of a man who has given such an order numerous times. Both guards leveled their weapons and fired once at Nicole North. North screamed as she was thrown back against the wall and then fell to the cindered floor. After a moment of stunned silence, North gasped in pain and gave a violent, inarticulate scream.

  'Rubber bullets,' Corbeau said in Italian, his eyes holding Kate's gaze with a lover's intensity. 'I expect right now she thinks she's dying. As I understand it, the pain is nothing compared to having one's flesh burned away. Perhaps you'll refuse to cooperate again and give her a chance to find out. Now, if you would be so kind, give this gentleman your hand, and for the sake of your friend here do not make me ask anything twice. I assure you, I will unchain you both after we have talked, but I've seen the video surveillance tapes of you in action, and to be honest I won't feel entirely comfortable until you're secure.'

  North stayed on the floor, her groans still loud.

  Corbeau told his guard in German to ask Kate for her hand.

  The guard stepped up to her quietly, his nose dripping blood. 'Please?' Kate let the guard snap the cuff around her wrist. Next he cuffed each ankle.

  It did not help Kate's fears to watch her gentle guard lift North up roughly by her arm and slam her against the wall. He actually threw his head back and forth, letting his blood splatter across North's face. As she cringed and shrieked, he cuffed her wrists and ankles brutally. That accomplished, he ripped her clothes away. Certain now of what came next, North broke down. Her prayers for pity meant nothing to Corbeau. He was not even looking at her. His eyes remained fixed on Kate. His promises to the contrary, Kate was sure Corbeau meant for them both to be raped before he proceeded to the more delicate arts of the Inquisition.

  'Leave us,' Corbeau said in German. As the three guards left, he passed the weapon back to the guard.

  When they were alone, Corbeau walked over to examine North's wounds. She whimpered quietly as he touched her flesh. 'What do you want?' she asked.

  In Italian Corbeau said to North, 'If you ask me politely, I will have fresh clothing sent to you at once.'

  'What are you saying?' North shouted in sudden anger. 'Speak English! I don't understand you!'

  Without taking his eyes from North, Corbeau continued in Italian, 'If you tell her what I just said, I will give her clothes soaked in acid.'

  'What does he want?' North demanded of Kate. 'Tell me what he's saying!'

  In English he answered, 'Pray to your God, Dr North. I understand He can be a great comfort in times like this.'

  North screamed as if he had pierced her with a knife, and yet Corbeau had done nothing to cause it except to mention God.

  Corbeau left her and walked to Kate. North's screaming subsided with each step he took away from her, but her breathing was labored and shallow and fast. When he was standing in front of Kate, Corbeau said in Italian, 'Who broke into my house with you this summer?'

  Kate answered in English. 'A man I know in Rome.'

  Corbeau walked to one of the torches on the wall. Taking it with an affectionate gaze at the bright, flickering fire, he stepped toward Dr North. Her screams turned into a mad panic.

  'Ethan Brand!' Kate shouted.

  It did no good. Corbeau swept the torch over North's feet. He seemed indifferent to the changed pitch of her screams or her wild contortions. Her voice was like nothing Kate had ever heard, and something inside her broke. She had imagined she could resist, that no matter what he did he would not have the satisfaction of seeing her beg, but Corbeau understood Kate's singular weakness: she was human.

  'Leave her alone!'

  Corbeau carried the torch with him as he returned to Kate. His eyes swept over her shoulders to her breasts, across her hips and thighs - a look Kate had no trouble understanding.

  Corbeau's smile was almost friendly. 'And if I do?'

  'What do you want?'

  'I want the truth! Don't imagine you are betraying your lover. He is already dead.'

  Kate's eyes burned. Her throat closed off. For a terrible moment it seemed that she could not stand.

  'If it is any comfort, he killed two of the three people I sent to interrogate and execute him. A very physical man, your lover. I only wish he had been one of mine.'

  Kate blinked tears from her eyes. Until that moment, she had never truly hated anyone. It was an emotion that left the extremities cold, the centre very hot. She did not care that it would cost her life. Had she been free in that moment she would have killed Julian Corbeau. What was hard was accepting that she could do nothing. Ethan was gone, and she could not even cry without giving this sadist pleasure.

  'Who were the people at the front gate?'

  Kate glanced at Nicole North. Much as she might have wanted, she could not refuse Corbeau. She actually wanted pain. It would have given focus to her rage, but she could not watch North's suffering. 'They were Austrians. I don't know their names. My father knows them. I only met them once.'

  'You don't know their first names?'

  'We didn't use names.'

  Kate's eyes cut to North, who was watching her with fearful intensity. She had apparently worked out that her pain was connected to Kate's answers.

  'I shouldn't worry too much about them, if I were you. They're both dead. Helga killed herself this afternoon. Poor soul wasn't very bright about it. She drank some kind of drain cleaner. From what I understand, she suffered a great deal. Hugo was found about an hour ago in his favorite tavern in Vienna. Someone had castrated him in the WC and left him to bleed away. Messy business, I take it.'

  'You miserable bastard.'

  'I have a very long reach, Lady Kenyon, in case you hadn't noticed.'

  'You won't get away with this.'

  'Your father said almost the same thing to me this afternoon before I put a bullet in his head.'

  Kate lunged toward the man in fury. When her chains held, she nearly ripped her arms from her shoulders. It was her turn to scream.

  Corbeau walked over to Nicole North, who
began to tremble uncontrollably as he approached her. 'Stand up, Dr North.' North did not respond, seemed incapable of it. 'Stand up or I shall burn you again. Would you like that?' North stood but only for a few seconds. Her legs could not hold her and she used her chains to support her. 'How did you find out about my painting?' Corbeau asked, swinging the torch carelessly close to North's hair. North cried quietly, her terror so complete she had already lost the will to resist and certainly the power of discourse.

  'She didn't!' Kate shouted. 'Ethan found it!'

  Corbeau turned away from North, but remained close enough to set her hair on fire if he did not like Kate's answer. 'A letter in the Bill Landi collection at the University of Denver, as I understand it?' he said.

  'If you know why do you ask? Why are you threatening her?'

  'Tell me about the letter.'

  'Landi was in Paris in 1900 to study painting. He met Oscar Wilde one evening in a tavern. For the price of a drink, Wilde told him a story about a portrait of Christ Pontius Pilate ordered painted on the morning of the crucifixion. The man who possessed it, he said, was immortal, the risen ghost of Jacques de Molay. Landi thought Wilde was making it up - I mean obviously he was making some of it up - but he wrote to his brother about it, because he was excited that he had met Oscar Wilde.'

  'How did Mr Brand come across the letter?'

  'You should have asked him that before you killed him.'

  'I'm asking you.'

  'Someone wrote to his website with a question about Pilate's Portrait of Christ. Ethan had never heard of it, but he was curious and started looking around. Eventually, he got something on it and wrote back with a source, which is what the person wanted. Out of curiosity he asked where this person had come across the reference and the writer sent him a copy of Landi's letter.'

  'You're not telling me something,' Corbeau answered.

  'I'm telling you what I know. Landi was a fairly successful artist and architect in Denver. When he died, his papers were donated to the university archives.'

  'Who wrote to Mr Brand?'

  'I don't know. He has . . . had ... a website.' She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. 'He got letters all the time from people who wanted information. Most of it they could have picked up in any primer on the Middle Ages, but sometimes he ran into something interesting. At first, I didn't know anything

  about it. He didn't get me involved until he had already found you.'

  'He found me - just like that? Someone mentioned the existence of an obscure painting on the internet. . . and he found me?'

  'What he knew was this. The owner of the portrait lived in Paris in 1883 and somewhere in Switzerland in 1899. He had the name of an Englishman Wilde visited in Switzerland in 1899. I don't know the relationship between this Englishman and your grandfather, but Ethan found something.'

  'You're lying to protect someone.'

  Kate said in Italian, 'I'm doing the best I can to protect someone right now by telling the truth!' In English, she added, 'Maybe Ethan didn't tell me about some of it, but I saw a photocopy of Bill Landi's letter. That much I know is genuine.'

  'Whoever wrote to him about the letter understood his abilities as a thief.'

  'That's not possible.'

  'If I found you someone else could have as well.'

  'You think one of your own people was behind it?'

  'I give my people what they cannot achieve on their own - even with the painting. It is why they are devoted to me. It was someone outside the Order - an enemy.'

  'It was dumb luck.'

  'There is no such thing as luck. But let me ask you something. You stole my painting . . . for the money? You had no other agenda?'

  'We stole it to see if we could.'

  Corbeau seemed to accept this, even to appreciate the

  motive. 'Then I think you would agree with me. You failed quite spectacularly.'

  'May I ask you a question?' Corbeau's expression suggested a willingness at least to entertain her query. 'What happens to us once you get your painting back?' Corbeau smiled darkly. 'Dr North will probably seek medical attention for her burns.'

  In Italian she asked, 'What are you going to do to me?'

  'That is the more interesting question.' Corbeau smiled with a sweetness that frightened her. He seemed almost willing to tell her but then shook his head. 'I think we shall wait for the answer to that. Besides, you would not believe me if I told you.'

  Zürich

  Max drove Malloy to the old town shortly before midnight. Marcus Steiner turned the scene over to another homicide detective, claiming he had too much to do assisting at the Airport crime scene, and then went back to his office to check for updated reports on the fire at Brand Books.

  Malloy tried to call Gwen and finally got through. 'I've been in the city,' she told him when he asked where she had been. 'Why?'

  'Nothing. Just . . . worried.'

  'Has something happened?'

  'No . . . just . . . the usual. I might have to stay on a few days more though. I don't want you to worry. I'll call when I have things worked out.'

  'How many days?'

  'I'm not sure yet.'

  They spoke a few minutes more and then disconnected. Setting the phone down, he stretched out on the bed, hoping to get an hour or two of sleep. His phone rang almost at once. It was Marcus.

  'We had a Marco Brunetti with his throat cut this morning in the financial district. He was wearing a gun in a shoulder holster and carrying a license for it. A couple of our detectives got to work on it. Guess who employed Marco.'

  'Roland Wheeler.'

  'I am going though the phone records on Wheeler. The next to last call he makes is to Brunetti's cell phone, straight after his meeting with you. The last call he makes is to Kate Kenyon's cell phone.'

  'The daughter.'

  'I pulled up the files on Lady Kenyon and found out that the Ticino Cantonal Police think she was kidnapped from her weekend cabin in the mountain village of Sobrio early this afternoon. Here is the interesting thing, Thomas. I asked for Kenyon's cell phone records, and the last call she made was to Ethan Brand.'

  'Whose bookstore burned down this ...'

  'I still don't have anything on the three bodies inside the bookstore, but the man in the alley was not an innocent bystander. He was wearing an empty holster. We don't know if he was killed with his own gun or if whoever shot him took the gun afterwards. They ran his prints with Interpol and just got the name - Rolf Lutz. He's a smalltime hood working out of Berlin. Five years in prison for extortion. After that several more arrests but no convictions, everything from assault to possession.

  'Oh, and one more thing. The reason I called, actually. He had a clip on his belt but no cell phone. Maybe some fireman picks it up or maybe his killer takes off with it. I don't know, but this afternoon and this evening we got about ten different people calling Wheeler. Only one of those numbers shows up on the list of calls to Kate Kenyon's cell phone. Whoever was calling made several attempts in a period of about ten minutes, and then stopped trying. It's not Brand's cell phone, but I am thinking that it could be Brand.'

  'You think Brand got out?'

  'Somebody killed Lutz.'

  'So your theory is he kills Lutz and takes his phone and starts calling Kenyon and Wheeler?'

  'If they're in this together that's the natural thing to do.'

  'Have you dialed the number?'

  'I thought I'd let you try it.' Marcus read the number to him. 'This one is on me, by the way.'

  'Not with the risks you're taking!'

  'I forgot to tell you, the people who shot Roland Wheeler walked off with his Monet.'

  After a moment to absorb what his friend was telling him, Malloy simply shook his head and laughed. 'What's the world coming to?'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lake Lucerne

  October 11, 2006.

  At eleven-thirty a paneled van left the front gate of Julian Corbeau's estate. The lights stayed
on for several minutes but no one walked from the guardhouse to the villa. The activity Ethan had seen earlier had settled down. The appearance of the van was the first vehicle coming or going in over half an hour.

  When he and Kate had planned the burglary of Corbeau's villa, they had spent long hours watching the routines. Corbeau's director of security ran people on twelve-hour shifts, sometimes three days a week and sometimes four. Shift changes occurred at midnight and noon. The guards used their own vehicles. The van was something new, but the schedule looked to be the same.

  Before they had settled on the evening of the summer fireworks over Lake Lucerne, Kate had said she thought the best time to hit was shortly before the end of shift. The guards would be comfortable, bored and all too ready to accept the obvious, two drunks at the front gate. Her idea was sound, but Ethan was looking at a different kind of incursion. He needed that moment of disorientation that comes with an unfamiliar environment. The van, he was sure, would bring fresh guards in and remove those people who had been watching Corbeau's property for the past twelve hours. At that moment and not a moment before, Ethan intended to drive down to the front gate and talk his way through - or die.

  While he waited, trying not to think it might be the last minutes of his life, Lutz's telephone vibrated in his pocket. Pulling it out, he checked the number out of curiosity. It came from a cell phone issued in the Bern region - not one of the numbers in his address book. A supervisor? Maybe even Corbeau's head of security? He memorized the number just in case it could prove useful and pushed the button. 'Lutz.'

  'Ethan,' an American voice announced with unexpected casualness, 'this is Thomas Malloy. I used to come into your bookshop when I was living in Zürich.'

  Ethan's initial reaction was stunned confusion. By the time he spoke, using German and announcing that the caller had the wrong number, it was too late. If Malloy had had any doubt, Ethan had convinced him of his identity. Coming to terms with this, he actually remembered Malloy. It had been a few years, but the face came back: an older man, dark hair, dark eyes, trim, handsome, quiet, intelligent. A freelance editor and translator, he thought, or something like that. What was he doing in the middle of this?