A tear trickled down his cheek. “I was their guardian and I traded it for the words of a false prophet. He was going to restore the Breastplate, to communicate with God. All I wanted was to talk to my Alba, just one last time. She, too, was a guardian. She earned her place in heaven.”
A hard knock sounded on the door. A man’s voice yelled, “FBI.” Braydon had phoned for paramedics. He hadn’t called for agency backup.
Jared shot out his hand and grasped Braydon’s wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong, like a man who feared being dragged off to hell. “Gather the diamond and sapphire, quickly. As I told you, Contreras has people at the highest levels. You must not let Contreras have the stones.”
A heavy boot kicked at the door. “Open up,” the man’s voice called. Braydon was sure of it this time, the husky, cigar tainted voice, the Slovak Brooklyn accent . It was Rambitskov, AKA Rambo, the man Jared had warned him about, the man in charge of G-20 security. He hated the guy.
Jared passed out. Braydon had to act, not analyze. He swept up the diamond and sapphire. He grabbed a linen napkin, wrapped the gems inside it. He let it drop into his jacket pocket. He stepped over Jared and opened the door.
Rambitskov stepped forward, Glock in hand. He took in the scene with one glance and a scowl. “Damn it, Fox,” he said. He did not holster his weapon. “That’s the Lux et Veritas sword.”
“And that’s the man who made it,” he said. Compassion was as foreign to Rambitskov as air to a fish. “I’ve called the paramedics, in case you’re interested.” His first thought was that Contreras had caught on to Jared’s bait and switch and sent Rambitskov back here for the real gems, but he had come too fast. Rambitskov’s arrival on the scene must have been part of Contreras’s original plan. Braydon was the wild card here. He could see Rambitskov thinking fast.
“All you had to do was babysit this guy, get this sword to the dinner tonight,” Rambitskov said. “I’m up to my eyeballs in protesters downtown.”
“Anonymous tip that you got a cleanup in Room 1066 pull you away?”
“I don’t got to answer to you,” he growled. “You know what the press is going to do with this? You let some mealy-mouthed peace protester waltz in here and stab Britain’s crown jeweler with his own sword for Chrissakes.”
“No evidence points to a protester as the perp,” Braydon pointed out, despite the fact Rambitskov was still holding the gun. No doubt the man had that evidence neatly tucked away, waiting to be planted, a letter, maybe, clumsily crafted from a collage of newsprint, a good visual for page one.
“Those diplomats. All they need is a reason like this to slap each other around,” Rambitskov pressed. “And stick it to the U.S. of A.” He was scrutinizing Braydon, assessing whether he should kill him, or win him over. “I am a patriot,” he said. “Are you?”
“I’m for life, liberty and the pursuit of justice,” he answered. The ding of the elevator sounded from down the hall. The paramedic’s radio chatter and clunk of equipment preceded them to the room’s open door. Fox’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the screen. It was a text from Torrino. Christa Devlin in extreme danger. She got emerald. Prophet wants it. Marrakesh Restaurant, 47 and Tenth. Going down now. He jammed the phone into his pocket. “Duty calls,” he said, taking a step back.
“You can’t walk away from this,” Rambitskov said. “This is a crime scene. You’re a key witness. You leave here, that makes you a suspect.”
Two paramedics arrived at the door. They hesitated, stunned by the scene and the palpable tension between Braydon and Rambitskov. Braydon turned to the medics. “The victim is Jared Sadler. He is the guardian of Britain’s Crown Jewels,” he said. “Save him.” He turned and walked down the hall.
Rambitskov shoved his way past the paramedics. If they hadn’t been there, Braydon had no doubt that he would have been shot in the back. “You leave here and your career is over,” Rambitskov shouted. “You hear me, Fox? You’re dead!”
CHAPTER 42
Christa’s hand reached for Ahmed’s, not Daniel’s, and clasped it. The carved wooden door of the Marrakesh Restaurant closed with a thud. Dread fell upon the room like the gloom of night. The four men approached from the shadows. Although he was the shortest, Baltasar Contreras was clearly the alpha male of the pack. God help her, how was she going to get out of this one and save Lucia?
Like in the desert with his pseudo-safari get-up, or at the playground in his suburban luxe cashmere overcoat, Contreras was dressed for the occasion, in a custom cashmere suit seamed with a superior attitude. His gray gloves gave off the air of affectation paired with his Truman Capote ascot. His stature and bearing made him a Caesar among the Brutuses of the two thugs from the playground who flanked him. The fourth guy had the crescent scar on his cheek. He was the one who had that neck hold on Joseph in the Arizona desert and attacked Percival’s home this morning, the one who shot her. He had a bandage on his left hand, bracing his pinky. It did not put him at a disadvantage.
The two thugs bulldozed a path towards the swinging kitchen doors, knocking aside wooden chairs and upending two round brass tray table tops, which clashed to the floor. Ahmed stood abruptly. He rushed towards the thugs with fists clenched, screaming an Arabic oath. One snapped a pistol from his shoulder holster. He aimed it at Ahmed’s forehead. She reached for him, terrified into silence. Ahmed stopped short. The second thug kicked open the kitchen door with excessive force. A startled shout, in Arabic, was followed by a demand, in English, “Into the storeroom! Now!”
Crescent scar and Contreras drew closer. Despite his injured hand, he kept a tight grip on the handle of a briefcase. It was sleek and aluminum, a Halliburton, the type that drug dealers and gun runners use, the briefcase that contains the launch codes for a nuclear strike and follows the President of the United States. Contreras scraped a chair along the wooden floor, pulling it from beneath the low, round, brass tray table. He unbuttoned his suit jacket with his gray, gloved fingers and sat heavily opposite Christa.
Contreras shifted his chair to an angle where he could keep the dining room and her in his sights. He assessed Ahmed like a cobra gauging his attack. “So considerate of you to bring the Tear of the Moon to New York, Mister Battar,” he hissed. “I assume that my man in Morocco and the pirate, Mishad, had a difference of opinion. No honor among thieves and all that. I do hope that your wife and daughter are enjoying their unexpected visit here, although I dare say that 1134 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is hardly the city’s finest feature.”
“Bastard,” Ahmed growled.
“Actually, they call me the Prophet,” Contreras said.
The thug near Ahmed coiled his arm. He pistol-whipped Ahmed, striking his right temple with a sickening smack. Ahmed crumpled to the floor. Christa sprang towards him. Daniel grabbed her arm and held her back.
The pistol-whipping brute dragged Ahmed unceremoniously through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Ahmed’s slip-on leather loafer was pulled off his heel and abandoned. Christa clasped her fingers into fists. Both thugs came out of the kitchen, neither having broken a sweat. “An apt moniker, don’t you agree, Mister Dubler?” A conspiratorial tone laced his voice.
“Among others,” said Daniel. He sounded more irritated than afraid. He placed a protective arm around her. “You hurt her and it’s over.” She should give him more credit. She would have pegged him as an easy surrender. She should have believed her father when he insisted that the crucible tests the true mettle of a person, usually just before they were dropped into a dicey situation.
Contreras cracked his thin lips into the same disturbing grin that he had showed Christa at the playground as she drank his elixir. “You don’t trust me,” he said. “It all comes down to that, doesn’t it? What, and whom, you believe.” Christa remained still as Contreras swiveled to target her in his sights. “You’re a clairvoyant, Professor Devlin. I’d bet you didn’t see this coming.” He snickered, then laughed with delight at having the upper hand. “So tell m
e, which of your trusted friends, the loyal Arab or this mild-mannered high school teacher turned hero, betrayed you and brought me here?”
“Divide and conquer. Is that the best you can come up with, Contreras,” she said. With Daniel by her side, she might have a chance against this guy.
Contreras frowned. He extended his gloved open palm towards her, opening it to the faint scent of roses. He still wore that ring, the gold band with a pear cut diamond, over his glove. She’d seen it someplace else and not just at the playground. Her stomach roiled. It was in the NewWorld Pharmaceuticals website photo of Gabriella and Lucia at the company picnic. That disembodied gloved hand, with that ring, was clutching Lucia’s shoulder, the rest of him outside the frame of the picture. “Give me the Tear of the Moon Emerald,” he prompted.
“I don’t have it,” she said. Daniel’s lip twitched at her lie. Under the table, she pressed her thigh against his. He had to go with her on this, all the way. Ahmed needed a doctor. And she needed to get a step ahead of Contreras if she hoped to get away from him. ”Ahmed was afraid to bring the Emerald here, obviously with good reason. You knocked him out before he had a chance to tell us where it is.”
He shook his head, disappointed in her. “I could have had him killed,” he said, “but I need you to believe, Christa Devlin. I’ve seen my destiny. I’ve told you yours. I know you are the one chosen to help me restore the Breastplate.”
Restore the Breastplate, maybe, but certainly not for him. “You don’t need me,” she said. “You need to do the impossible, steal the Kohinoor diamond and Edward’s sapphire, and that’s just for starters.” The Emerald burned in the velvet pouch around her neck. But so did whatever was in that Halliburton. He saw her eyeing it. He licked his lips like a kid who will burst unless he reveals his secret.
He smiled. “You must be thinking, He can’t possibly hope to acquire them. Why, the Kohinoor diamond and Edward’s Sapphire are in the British Crown Jewels, the most heavily guarded gems in the world.”
“It would take a mastermind,” she said, egging him on.
“Torrino,” Contreras said, gesturing to crescent scar, waving him forward, “the Halliburton.” Torrino removed his fingers from the butt of the pistol in his shoulder holster and approached with the metal briefcase. He unlatched and opened it. He lowered it so that those at the table could see its interior. “Blessed are those who believe without seeing,” Contreras said, in a mocking tone. His breath reeked of lust. “The Kohinoor Diamond and Edward’s Sapphire,” he added in a tone so hushed that she nearly asked him to repeat it.
Inside the case, like stars on a moonlit night, sparkled a diamond and a sapphire, brilliant against the jet black velvet. Impossible. Except an aura of energy surrounded the gems. And it wasn’t just an aftereffect of the adrenaline still rushing through her system. She’d encountered it before, a shadow of the souls left behind by those who had held an artifact. In the case of these two gems, that meant moguls, monarchs and a saint. “Impossible,” she said. “A theft of the Kohinoor and Edward’s Sapphire would be all over the headlines.”
“You’ll hear about it soon enough, when they find the Crown Jeweler’s body at the Waldorf,” he said. “Synthetic copies of the diamond and sapphire are what the Beefeaters at the Tower of London are guarding right now.” He flourished his hand across the case like a trader presenting his wares. “And here are the slots for the Emerald and Turquoise, the two stones that you are destined to give to me.”
“I can’t give you what I don’t have,” she said. No, take from him what she didn’t have, the diamond and sapphire, that’s what she had to do. How, without getting killed?
Contreras nodded to his two thugs. “Professor Devlin, I do not believe you.”
The walls pressed in as the two thugs approached. They clamped their beefy hands on Daniel’s shoulders and shoved him down onto the settee. They grabbed his wrists and slammed his hands, palm down, onto the engraved brass design. The tray table nearly flipped off its tripod with the force of it. They held him as firmly as if they’d nailed down his hands.
Contreras extracted a small plastic box from his pocket. He dumped its singular contents onto the table. A bright yellow frog tumbled out, kicking its legs to right itself. The thing was tiny, not much bigger than the Tear of the Moon, and twice as bright. Its neon yellow reflected in the brass of the tray table, even in the dull light of the restaurant.
“Observe the Golden Poison Frog, native to Colombia” he said. “Used by the Muisca Indians to tip their darts for hunting. Currently considered the most toxic vertebrate on Earth.”
He lifted the small silver spoon from beside Christa’s tea cup. The tea’s mint aftertaste soured in her mouth as Contreras poked at the frog. The little creature was frozen with fear. She knew exactly how it felt. “Researchers claimed that a dog could die from merely contacting a paper towel that the frog has hopped across. I proved this to be true in my conservatory. Not to worry, it was only a stray, who had trusted the wrong master.”
He poked harder. The frog hopped. It moved towards the tea glasses in front of the crucifix and its tumble of gold chain. Contreras’s eyes darted from the frog to the crucifix. The frog diverted around it. Not a good idea to read too much into that. Contreras’s gaze, too, was diverted, coaxing the frog closer to Daniel’s trapped hands. “The poison from one tiny frog can kill two bull elephants,” Contreras said, “or a dozen men.” Daniel squirmed ineffectively against the thugs’ overpowering strength.
“Don’t do this,” Christa said. The frog hopped. It was now inches from Daniel’s fingertips. His fingers were trembling, their heat and sweat fogging an outline on the brass. The thug holding him stretched back as far as he could without loosening his grip.
“One gram holds enough toxin to kill 15,000 humans,” Contreras said. “It’s a terrible death. Spasms, contractions, heart failure. It is a toxin akin to the poison that will kill your nephew. Unless you give me the Tear of the Moon and I restore the Breastplate.”
She saw Daniel’s eyeglasses slipping down his nose as his skin grew moist with sweat. “He’s bluffing,” he said, teeth clenched to minimize even the movement of speaking. “Conroy said frogs raised in captivity aren’t poisonous. You can’t kill me, Contreras. I’m the one with the degree in theology. You need me as your high priest to wear the restored Breastplate, to interpret God’s word.”
“He doesn’t look like he’s bluffing,” she said. And she couldn’t take the chance. Daniel was in this life or death game because of her. “Contreras, let Daniel go. I’ll get the Emerald for you.”
“You do and he’ll kill Lucia,” said Daniel. “And Liam is as good as dead unless we are with Contreras when he gets that antidote.”
“Dubler doesn’t care about your family,” said Contreras. “I know what you’re thinking, Mister Dubler. Why settle to be a man of God, when the Breastplate can make you a god of men?” Contreras licked his lips. Bastard. Part of him yearned for her to hold out. He parted his lips with an expression nearing lust. “I will make you my high priest, if she gives me what I need.”
The frog hopped again. It poised mere millimeters from Daniel’s trembling forefinger. “Stop!” she shouted. “I’ll give it to you.” She cupped her fingertips beneath the circular rim of the table’s tray top. In one sudden, swift motion, she heaved the table top upwards and thrust it away.
CHAPTER 43
The pop was unmistakable, gunfire, small caliber pistol, followed by the crash of furniture and a man’s scream. Braydon kicked open the carved wooden door of the Marrakesh Restaurant. He blasted through, gun drawn. He had to save Christa before it was too late.
She was with Torrino. No, she was fighting with Torrino, over the Halliburton. Baltasar Contreras was sprawled on his behind, arms flailing across the breast of his suit. He looked like a cockroach stuck on its back, in a panic that its pathetic little life was about to be squashed. His body guard stood wide-eyed with fear, and then thrust his gun towards Brayd
on, taking aim.
“FBI,” he shouted. “Lower your weapon.” He caught the twitch in the man’s eye before he heard the pop. He ducked and rolled. A shot splintered the door behind him. He dove behind a settee. Two more slugs tore into the upholstery.
Braydon thrust his gun around the edge of the settee, ready to shoot. But the man who fired at him dropped his smoking forty-five to the floor and doubled over, clutching at his heart. He let out a choking scream. He fell heavily to the floor, his legs in a spasm. The body guard to the man’s left leapt back, horrified, his eyes on a small, yellow object on the floor next to his partner’s cheek.
Torrino spun Christa away, his hand still clenching the Halliburton. Jared’s fake diamond and sapphire had to be inside. Another man had his eye on the briefcase. He was that prep school teacher he had interviewed for any possible leads connecting Contreras with the Abraxas theft. NewWorld’s historian on last summer’s expedition into Colombia. Dubler. Daniel Dubler, as nervous as he was arrogant. A jerk. Dubler pressed his back against the wall, his shoulder skewing a framed photo of camels in front of a walled medina.
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