He’d spent hours with Sugar learning every doorway, every balcony, every alley close to La Galleria.
Beckett was convinced that the guests inside the gallery would be fine. It was all about modern-day terrorism now, protecting the perimeter. Best outcome? He and his team would stop Dane well before he reached the gallery.
At least that was the plan. But with Dane, you never knew …
How is it going to happen?
Music lovers were climbing the centuries-old church steps next door for an evening concert. Sugar stepped into the crowd and moved toward the gallery’s green door, disappearing into the ebb and flow of the crowd. Two members of the team, he knew, were already inside the art gallery, enjoying the current exhibit. Another team member was at the rear entrance, off a narrow alley. But Dane would choose the bright green front door, he was sure of it.
Where are you?
Beckett checked his watch once more. Almost showtime. Several well-dressed men and women already had entered the gallery, only to disappear, one by one, into the back room for their very private meeting with the gallery’s owner, the man everyone in the underground art world called The Angel. The young woman on the Vespa parked, dismounted, and sauntered through the green doors.
He patted the leather satchel against his hip, hoping the excellent forgery of a small Caravaggio self-portrait would assure his entrance to the meeting—enough to get him in the door, anyway. That, and the new identity papers the chief had supplied, introducing him as a very wealthy American collector who didn’t question an oil painting’s provenance. Sugar had told him that pieces by the revolutionary late-16th-century Italian Baroque painter had been sold for over one hundred million dollars. No wonder looted art was big business. Who has that kind of money, he wondered, tightening his grip on the satchel.
Would he find Dane in the gallery? Or was he already here, somewhere in the square?
Beckett’s eyes flickered over a strolling violinist, a vendor with a precariously laden flower cart shouting into a cell phone, a couple sitting arguing by the fountain—the woman in a purple scarf, the man’s brimmed hat hiding their faces. On the edge of his vision, an old woman pushed a bright blue baby stroller across the square toward him. A nonna with her grandchild …
An image of Maggie flashed in his mind, pushing her new grandson in a bright blue stroller.
He shook his head. Not now.
Streetlamps blinked on above the piazza just as the church bells began to toll. Seven o’clock. Ignoring the pain that throbbed in his bad leg, Beckett moved closer. Time to head into the gallery.
But still no Dane.
Where are you? What is your plan? Dammit, what am I missing?
He was having second thoughts. Something isn’t right.
The old woman crossing the square with the baby stroller came closer. Some part of the colonel registered the couple by the fountain standing, parting—the woman disappearing into the crowd, the man in the brimmed hat twisting away. Toward the art gallery! Something small, dark in his raised hand. A phone?
Christ! A detonator.
Too near the baby carriage. Beckett’s eyes locked on the stroller. Not the baby!
“Bomb!” shouted Beckett, lunging toward the baby stroller. “Una bomba! A terra! Everybody down!”
The man with the detonator spun, raced to the left. The baby’s grandmother screamed as Beckett rocketed into her, lifting her off her feet with one arm as he reached for the stroller handle. Somehow he wrestled both behind a low stone wall, pushed the woman down, and flung his body like a shield over the shrieking infant.
A blinding flash! The gallery’s green door exploded with a searing roar. A great whoosh as the shock waves crashed against his back. Bright light and pulsing dark, screams tearing the air. A thunder-clap of crushing, rushing air. A rain of sharp slivers of glass. Hot pain and the sickening coppery smell of blood.
A horrible moment of utter stillness, then the terrible ringing in his ears, the disorienting feeling that he was underwater. Beckett eased off the child, helped the frantic grandmother to stand. His hands ran over her, finding no injuries, no blood. “Are you okay?” he asked quickly in Italian. “Il Bambino?”
She was bent over her grandchild, her mouth moving, but he could not hear her voice. But the baby reaching for his nonna, tiny mouth open in a silent scream, looked unhurt.
Beckett stood, disoriented, dizzy and deafened, rescuing his cane from beneath the stroller as he turned to search the crowd. The square was in chaos. Small fires bursting into the darkness. He could not hear, and smoke was swirling over everything like a thick gray curtain.
Then, through the smoke, he saw the man who’d held the detonator, a black ski mask now shielding his face. Close, but turning to lose himself in the crowd. Beckett flung himself toward the bomber, swinging his heavy cane like a club. The man staggered, grasped the cane. Beckett felt the spine-jarring jolt as they both tumbled to the stones. Arms locked, they rolled together in a macabre lover’s embrace, their faces only inches apart. Then they slammed into a wall, and Beckett reached for the black mask. Through the slits of the mask he looked into a dark glowing eye.
“Dane?” His hand, slippery with blood, searched for his gun.
The assassin smiled, unafraid, his hard body pinning Beckett’s arm against the stones. Then his lips moved. Beckett could not hear the words, drowned by the wild roaring in his head. But the meaning was clear. I am coming for her.
“I’ll see you in hell first.” Beckett’s fist shot forward.
Dane dodged, raised his arm. A punching weight. Beckett felt himself spinning down into blackness. Into silence.
The last image Beckett saw was the face of a woman with hair the color of night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE SPANISH RIDING SCHOOL, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
FRIDAY
“ACHTUNG! BLEIB ZURÜCK!”
There was no mistaking the command to stand aside. Clutching her special VIP tour pass, Maggie stopped with the other tourists in the outdoor covered walkway behind the Imperial Palace. From the left, the jingle of bridles, the thunder of hooves beating on ancient stones. She watched in awe as several enormous, beautiful stallions cantered past her, their pure white coats shining in the midday sunlight.
Her eyes followed the horses and their handlers into the “stallburg,” the huge grassy courtyard of Vienna’s famed Spanish Riding School stables, where each stallion was carefully guided into his stall.
Once inside, the horses turned so that their sleek, muscled necks and massive heads stretched through the half-open stall doors into the courtyard, their dark eyes curious and gleaming with intelligence. Beautiful, thought Maggie again, watching the trainers and grooms stay to share an apple or an affectionate rub. The scents of hay, liniment, and leather surrounded her. Watching the grooms move easily among the horses, she felt as if she had stepped inside a painting.
A movement to her left caught her eye. The sun was going down, and in the slanted shadows, she saw a man on the far side of the courtyard, seated on a low round bench in front of an easel. A small wagon by his side was filled with palettes, brushes, knives, and bottles. Bright tubes of paint were scattered on the grass around his boots. An artist. Intrigued, she lingered under the covered walkway waiting for the rest of the tour to move on. When the last tourist disappeared, she hurried toward the artist.
Stopping just steps behind the man, she peered over a paintstained shoulder at the large 3’ x 4’ canvas. Against a bright cerulean sky, the outline of a noble horse’s head stared back at her, silver-gray forelock long and silky, huge dark eyes still indistinct, unfinished.
Sensing her presence, the artist’s neck muscles bunched, his head tilted. Without turning around, he spoke in German, his voice low.
Maggie stepped closer. “I’m American,” she told him. “Do you speak English?”
His right hand kept moving. In spite of the palsy in his arm, his brushstrokes were firm and sure against t
he canvas. “Come around where I can see you.”
She moved to his right and stood looking down at the canvas. “You’ve captured the horse’s nobility, his intelligence, as well as his beauty.” She smiled. “I’m Maggie O’Shea.”
Did she imagine the sudden stiffening of his shoulders? A moment passed, and then he raised his head, adjusted wire-rimmed glasses, and stared at her. Smears of bright paint covered his veined hands and shirt. She guessed his age to be at least eighty—his hair was as white as the horse he painted, his leathery skin lined as old parchment. But it was his eyes that surprised her the most. Bright blue, as blue and clear as an Austrian lake at sunrise.
“And this fellow”—he gestured to the painting, and then to the stall behind her—“is Conversano Bonavoia.”
She arched a brow as she smiled at him. “Quite a mouthful for such a beautiful creature.”
“The colts are named immediately after birth, always double-barreled. The sire’s line, and the dam’s name.” He grinned up at her, his teeth yellowed as old piano keys. “It’s all about ancestry in Europe, isn’t it? My personal favorite is Maestoso Cattinara.”
Her gaze swept the stables. “These are the stallions who perform classical dressage?”
“Ja. The levade, pas de deux, the quadrille. All in perfect harmony.”
“I’ve read about their ‘Airs above the Ground.’”
“‘Schools Above the Ground,’ we call them. Flying changes, pirouettes, piaffe, passage, courbette. And of course the most famous movement of all, the Kapriole, where the horse leaps with all four legs into the air and kicks out with his hind legs. Astonishing.”
“I’ve seen the photographs. But to be standing here, in Vienna, to see these elegant horses in person …” She shook her head in awe.
“Welcome to the Spanish Riding School. You are in the presence of the most noble and graceful horses in all the world, in my humble opinion. The Lipizzaners.”
Maggie spun slowly, in a small circle, to gaze at the stallions in their stalls.
“You are looking at over four hundred years of breeding,” said the artist, “thanks to Hapsburg Archduke Charles II. It takes six to eight years of training to become a School Stallion. Their trainers stay with them all that time.” He waved his brush toward the stallions with a sweeping gesture. “Pluto Bellornata, Neapolitano Madar, Favory Biserka. All magnificent. I’ve spent the last year painting their portraits, to hang in the Winter Riding School.”
She leaned toward the almost finished canvas. “Your work is beautiful.”
He tilted his head toward her. “But you are not here to talk about my work. Or my Lipizzaners.”
“No. I’m looking for someone. An old friend of Gisela Giulietta Donati.”
The man paled, then set his brush too carefully on the easel and stood to face her. Questions shimmered in the old eyes. “I knew Gisela a very long time ago. Has something happened to her? Did she send you here?”
Was he telling the truth? Maggie couldn’t be sure. She reached out to touch his arm with reassurance. “She is fine. She asked me to come. Is there a private place where we can talk?”
He shook off her hand, bent to gather his paints. “I have a small office behind the tack rooms. Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
He folded his easel, covered the canvas, and secured it on the wagon. Then he turned to her.
“I’ve loved Gisela since we were children,” he said in a voice still shaking with disbelief. “My name is Johann Vogl.”
* * *
“Stop, stop. Pay attention to the phrases, ladies and gentlemen. Again, please. From the Andante section …”
On the Vienna State Opera stage, the young, long-haired conductor, dressed in torn jeans and a faded gray t-shirt, raised his baton. A moment of silence. Then his arm arced in the air, plunged in a sharp descent, and once more the theater filled with beautiful, echoing music.
Simon Sugarman stood in the towering wings of the Staatsoper, the Vienna State Opera, searching the faces of the orchestra’s musicians. Today they were rehearsing on the stage, not in the darkened orchestra pit, surrounded by the set of Tosca’s Act I—a darkened chapel with a large portrait of Mary Magdalene against one wall.
There had to be—what? Eighty or ninety musicians in this orchestra. He counted five cellists. Two men and three women, all angled toward the conductor. He could see only one of the women’s faces. But she had blue helmet hair and granny glasses—clearly too old. He pictured the photo he’d seen, but the other two female cellists had their backs to him, dark heads bent and bodies swaying, lovely muscled arms moving up and down, back and forth. Which one was Hannah Hoffman? His money was on the tall woman with the tossing jet-black ponytail and the great shoulders.
His eyes dropped to a sleek silver greyhound sleeping on the floor between the chairs. A dog at the opera? The Viennese sure loved their dogs. But come to think of it, why couldn’t dogs like music, too? He shrugged. Just as long as it was someone else’s dog.
The greyhound made Sugarman think of Shiloh and Beckett. He’d spent the morning with Beckett at the Rome American Hospital before flying into Vienna. The colonel had a concussion, brutal bruises. But otherwise mostly superficial injuries. Thanks to him, no one had died. Gotta love a guy brave as the Lone Ranger, right? But he sure looked like hell. Beckett’s hearing had come back some time in the night, and now he was driving the nurses crazy. Sugarman grinned. Beckett was no fool; he surely knew the best way to speed up his release. Although with a concussion, he’d be kept on for a day or two.
Damn but the man was stubborn. Threatening Sugarman with a long and painful death if he breathed even a word of the Rome operation to Maggie. But La Maggie was no fool, either. “Good luck with that,” he muttered.
Too bad about Dane, though. Not a damn trace. Epic fail there. God, he hoped to hell that Dane had no idea Maggie was in Europe.
The crash of cymbals scattered his thoughts, and he squinted at his watch. Rehearsal was scheduled to end in twenty minutes. The usher had been very helpful, guiding him through the beautiful old red-velvet-lined theater to the backstage area.
“It is the Tosca closing tomorrow night, Herr Sugarman. Puccini’s great tragedy. They are rehearsing the finale of Act II, when Tosca stabs Scarpia. Ach, the orchestra is in such turmoil …” Then she had pointed a sharp, threatening finger at him. “Stay right here, Herr Sugarman. Do not move, and do not make a sound.”
His thoughts returned to the woman he was here to find. Hannah Hoffman. Described as brilliant by the Washington Post, the cellist had been a featured soloist since age seventeen, performing with many of the greats—the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Tokyo Philharmonic, London … on and on. A real powerhouse. The reviewers called her “stunningly gifted, ferocious, passionate, and intensely poignant.” Quite the package.
The music crashed around him as he gazed out at the empty theater. And speaking of stunning women musicians—where the hell was Maggie O’Shea?
She’d flown to Vienna last night, should have been here by now. He frowned, looked down at his watch once more. Time to get this show on the road.
But something just didn’t feel right—JDFR.
He checked his cell for messages, then texted her. Where r u?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
VIENNA
FRIDAY
THE SUN WAS just beginning to set over the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.
Maggie stood in Johann Vogl’s small white-walled office behind the stables. Crowded with stacked canvases and photographs of Lipizzaners taped to the walls, it smelled of turpentine, paint—and horse. Dust motes danced in the beams of coppery light that fell in bars through a paned window onto a large oil painting of an arrestingly beautiful young girl with fair braided hair and shining amethyst eyes.
Lighting a green-shaded lamp on the cluttered desk, the artist gestured her toward the room’s only stuffed chair, set next to an easel by th
e north window. Maggie watched him open a cabinet, take out a whiskey bottle and two glasses, and pour two stiff drinks. He handed one to her, then drained his glass and poured one more for himself. Hooking a wooden chair with his boot, he pulled it close and settled on it, whiskey in hand. Raising his glass toward her, he whispered, “To Gisela.”
“To Gisela.” Maggie swallowed the burning whiskey, then gestured toward the painting on the wall above his desk, now glowing in the setting sun. “You really are a good artist, Herr Vogl. Did you paint this young woman as well?”
He looked over at the portrait and smiled sadly. “You do not recognize her? That is Gisela, when she was a girl. When we first knew each other, before—” He stopped, his voice shaking, and put a hand to his throat.
“She was very beautiful.”
“I’ve seen her perform, seen the more recent photographs. She still is.”
Maggie leaned toward him and took a deep breath. “Gigi told me that you found her that night by the barn, that you helped her hide the contents of the Nazi chest.”
His glass froze halfway to his lips. The bright blue eyes locked on hers over the rim of the glass, shadowed and unreadable.
“Is that what she told you?”
Something is off, thought Maggie, like the out-of-tune keys on an old piano. One of them—Gigi or Johann Vogl—was holding something back. She said, “Yes, that is the story Gigi told me. And that you’ve kept her secret all these years.”
His breath came out, and he swallowed the rest of the whiskey. “Ja,” he said finally. “That is true.”
“Gigi still has Matisse’s Dark Rhapsody. She never sold it. She said she’d found three paintings. Can you tell me where the other two canvases are? The ones you kept when she left Austria?”
He stiffened, shot her a wary look. “Gigi sent you here to ask me these questions?”
He stood, began to pace back and forth in the small room. The only sound was the scuff of his boots on the wooden floor and the distant, high whinny of a stallion somewhere in the courtyard behind them.
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