Nine minutes later Martim’s etched silver gavel finally fell. Da Vinci’s preliminary chalk sketch for the Mona Lisa had commanded a stratospheric price of sixty-seven million dollars from the Japanese buyer, who left the ballroom with Martim to arrange for an immediate wire transfer from an account in Switzerland.
Not everyone was happy with the results of the bidding, and Bujune Okambe was the least happy of all.
Outside low thunder rolled over the loch as the African wheeled toward a group of buyers arguing with Luis Gonsalves and cut in. “I would have paid more if your son had not changed his mind and insisted on an immediate wire transfer. We all could have paid, is that not correct?”
The other bidders nodded angrily.
“The auction should be reopened.” Okambe banged the arm of his wheelchair. “We are agreed that the rules were both unclear and unfair.” Amid a chorus of fierce agreement, he glared at Luis Gonsalves. “Call your son back and we will continue.”
“It is not possible. My apologies to all of you, but the sale is finished.”
“Your son gave us only twenty-four hours to prepare the funds for transfer. Impossible.” Okambe seemed to sink into his chair, glowering. “Those were not the terms promised to me by Jordan MacInnes. He lied.”
As he spoke, MacInnes entered the room with a guard on each side, and Okambe watched him in growing fury. “He knew this would happen. He gave his word that the bidding would be equal for all, do you hear? Either the auction resumes now or Jordan MacInnes pays for his betrayal.”
Marie Okambe listened, her eyes narrowed. She turned as a uniformed waitress pushed a cart along the wall and moved directly into Okambe’s path. Furious, the old man drew a Browning Hi-Power handgun with Hogue grips from a small space hidden between the spokes of his wheelchair.
The thunder was louder now, low and booming over what might have been the hum of motors.
Nell MacInnes, whom Marie had recognized in spite of the black uniform, gave a sharp cry as the gun rose. The American woman rammed her cart against the wheelchair, but Marie blocked her, shoving her back against the wall.
Jordan turned at his daughter’s cry, his face going pale. Then the Browning cracked and while Nell looked on in horror, Okambe triggered four shots in quick succession into her father’s chest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BLOOD WELLED over the front of Jordan MacInnes’s white shirt as he was thrown back toward the wall. He staggered, clutching his side.
The guards simply watched him fall, their eyes expressionless. No one made a move to help. Nell broke free and ran to him, but her hands came away slick with blood. Her father’s eyes did not open.
Someone shouted from the front of the courtyard and then armed soldiers in black gear poured through the castle gatehouse and over the walls, their radios crackling. Nell didn’t look up as two soldiers flanked the old man in the wheelchair, who protested loudly as they escorted him away. Nothing seemed to make sense, not the noise or the angry protests. All she could see was her father’s lifeless face and the dark stain that covered his chest.
Nell tried to shake him, every movement clumsy. Something told her that if she shook him long enough, he would wake up and smile and tell her the world was a fine place.
But he didn’t wake up. She knew he wouldn’t ever wake up.
Panic burned in her throat and her low, broken moan seemed to come from someone else. She tried to grip her father’s shirt, but her hands kept pulling free, slick with his blood. The sight made her close her eyes, the room suddenly going black.
A hand brushed across her shoulders. A low voice called her name. Nell looked up to see one of the soldiers leaning down beside her.
“You’re safe now, ma’am. Why don’t you come with me?” He was American, and something about his calm sense of focus reminded her of Dakota.
Two other men in black lifted her father’s body onto a stretcher and carried him toward the courtyard.
“I can’t leave. He’s just unconscious,” she whispered hoarsely. But Nell knew it was a lie, knew she would never joke or argue or laugh with her father again. In a matter of seconds everything was cut short. Shaking, she grabbed the wall for support.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The good guys were supposed to high five and tell loud jokes, walking away with all the glory. But now that glory was gone, and all she would have were pale memories.
“Ma’am, it would be best if you came with me. Are you hurt?”
She looked up slowly. The man in a black tactical suit was speaking slowly, as if she couldn’t understand complex sentences. Maybe she couldn’t.
The ballroom was empty now. Someone had set up portable lights on the table. All the buyers were grouped outside near one door, surrounded by more men in black uniforms. Nell could hear the staff being questioned in the adjoining service area.
Where was Dakota? She ran a shaky hand across her face. Why was there still no sign of him or the art? She closed her eyes and breathed a prayer for his safety.
“Ma’am, would you like something to drink? Water—a cup of tea?” The tall man was leaning down beside her, his eyes very patient.
“Dakota?” she managed to ask, half-afraid of the answer.
“He’s fine, ma’am.”
Relief washed over her. Slowly Nell stood up, clumsier than she had ever been. Her thoughts seemed to balloon out and fragment as she followed the soldier through the beautiful old ballroom, past more grim Special Forces troops holding automatic weapons as they questioned the nervous buyers. There was no sign of the old man in the wheelchair. Nell didn’t know what she would say to him anyway. She could scream and claw his face, but what good would it do now?
Her father was dead, and nothing would change that.
The finality of it crushed her heart.
At the far side of the courtyard, a tall figure emerged from a low door, arguing with one of the British soldiers, and Nell saw that it was Dakota, wearing some kind of black diving suit. The relief hit her again, along with deep emotions that she still didn’t have a clear name for.
Then her blank sense of loss returned and she kept walking toward the massive gatehouse, with its arrow loops and portcullis and beautiful mullioned windows, rich with Scottish history.
None of it mattered.
In the darkness, her foot struck an uneven cobblestone. As she stumbled, Nell pressed one hand to the cold stone, her hip thrown against the wall. The sharp contact made her wince and realize there was something in the pocket of her borrowed uniform. She reached down, frowning at the metal shape in her fingers. Long and heavy and very worn.
Nell frowned.
A key?
No key had been in the pocket earlier. She had checked them for a cell phone or a kitchen knife as soon as she’d taken the uniform, but all the pockets had been empty.
The metal felt cold and heavy against her skin. How had it gotten in her uniform? She had been moving constantly since the moment she had changed.
Nell realized that three other big men were surrounding her now in a protective circle. They all had the same quiet sense of authority that Dakota did, and she trusted them immediately.
The nearest man held open the door of a black sedan. “If you would have a seat, someone will take you to a hotel where you can rest. Is there anyone you’d like us to contact for you?”
There was no one. Her father was all the family Nell had.
The man waited for her to answer, calm and polite, but she wanted to explain that any questions could wait, that she needed to be alone so she could cry. But Nell didn’t have the strength to answer. Her hands closed tightly around the strange key as the first burning tears coursed down her face.
DAKOTA WATCHED her in the car, saw her white face and frozen expression. Saw the tears she was holding back by sheer will.
He gestured quickly, making sure that the American Foxfire men carrying her father’s body took a different route so Nell wouldn’t have to watch him b
eing loaded into a van. Then Dakota walked out under the gatehouse arch.
His superior officer, Wolfe Houston, closed the door of the big black sedan and crossed to Dakota. “She’s holding up pretty well, considering.”
“Don’t let them debrief her yet,” Dakota said curtly. “Her father just died, damn it. Let Teague fill our counterparts from London in.”
Wolfe Houston studied Dakota through narrowed eyes. “That sounds personal, Lieutenant.”
Dakota watched the black sedan move down the long gravel driveway and said nothing.
“I figured it was bound to happen someday. Even to you,” Houston said wryly. “Let me run interference with Ryker for you.”
“Probably a good idea.”
Neither man spoke as three members of the Foxfire team carried a Plexiglas case with great care out of the ballroom. The Mona Lisa was just as haunting and enigmatic as ever, sealed in her protective world. Would the experts and academics ever resolve the mystery of Michelangelo’s connection, or would the theories simply fuel more debate?
Not his problem.
Dakota looked down. His elbow had a four-inch gash, courtesy of a guard he’d dropped on his way down from the tower and he had a few loose ends to tie up, but the mission was materially complete. He would have a final harsh conversation with Okambe and question his daughter before the old man was taken into custody, then head off to meet Ryker’s chopper. The hard drive data would provide all of Martim Gonsalves’s criminal and terrorist contacts, which Izzy would analyze down to the last passcode and pixel. That information would be priceless to more than one government.
Time to go, pal.
Don’t have to like it.
You just have to do it.
Dakota knew it was time and yet he stayed right where he was, feeling the cut along his elbow burn and the blood dry on his scarred hands. He couldn’t have managed the climb half as well without Nell’s help, and maybe not at all. Given the way things had turned out, he wanted to tell her that and thank her officially on behalf of the British and U.S. governments.
But it wasn’t going to happen. She was already heading down the driveway. Wolfe Houston had a good man escorting her to the nearest hotel, and he would remain as her protective escort until Izzy could ask her some final questions.
Across the courtyard, Wolfe Houston called his name, holding up a satellite phone. “Call for you, Smith. It’s the man.”
Ryker.
Dakota frowned as he watched the black sedan cruise away. No way could he miss a call from Ryker.
Duty warred with emotion, and slowly, painfully duty won. The data secured in his watertight bag mattered more than his own wishes and more than Nell’s personal heartache. He swore that someday he would tell her why.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
San Francisco
Two weeks later
WORK KEPT NELL ALIVE and sane. Only the thousand details of jobs to finish gave her the distraction to hold her life together. Now she sleepwalked through the days, forcing all that had happened in Scotland out of her mind, while at night she huddled in her window seat overlooking the bay, sleepless and unable to forget.
The odd key was hidden at the back of a drawer inside her desk. After replaying every minute of the auction night, Nell was almost certain her father had slipped the key inside her pocket before he died, though she hadn’t realized it at the time.
From Dakota and Izzy she heard nothing. There had been two calls from Nicholas Draycott, both with invitations for open-ended visits to the abbey. Nell had asked him about the old key, but he was as stumped as she was.
There was no rush. One day she would research the numbers on the worn brass body, then track down the maker for any further information.
One day.
When the bleak memories faded and the huge hole in her life healed—if they ever did.
“Nell, two people are here to see you.”
Startled, she looked up from the untouched e-mail on her laptop. Her assistant looked uneasy, glancing back over her shoulder at the reception area. “They won’t give their names, but they said to show you this.”
The white card had small, official lettering. FBI.
Art Fraud Unit.
Something punched through the empty gray space where Nell had locked up her emotions since her father’s death. She recognized the names on the card, the same people who had harassed her several weeks earlier, the night she’d been stalked through the alley. Like blowflies, they came to feed on her sorrow now.
She strode across the room and shoved open the workroom door, angrier than she’d thought possible. Two agents stood near her front door, as if to block a possible exit.
Except Nell wasn’t going anywhere. “What do you want?” she said coldly.
Agent Fuller, tall and icily controlled, crossed her arms and glanced around the neat reception area. “We have some questions to ask you, Ms. MacInnes. It would be easier if we did this at our office downtown.”
“Not easier for me. Ask them right here, right now. I have nothing to hide.”
It was a lie of course. There were more than a few questions that couldn’t be answered. Nicholas had told her to say nothing about what had happened in England and nothing about her father’s risky plan.
The woman pulled a notebook from her jacket pocket. “You were gone for several days this month, Ms. MacInnes. Where did you travel?”
“Las Vegas,” Nell said curtly. “I wanted to play the slots.”
“Hotel name?”
“I stayed with friends.”
The cold-faced woman scrawled in her notebook. “Name of your friends and current address?”
Nell crossed her arms. “I don’t think I need to answer that. In fact, I think you’d better get some legal documentation before I say another word. Something tells me this is a fishing expedition.”
“So you refuse to cooperate, Ms. MacInnes?”
“Bring me a legal document or a search warrant. Then I’ll cooperate so much you’ll be sick of listening to me.” Nell pointed to the door. “Until then, I’ve got work to do and I’m sure you’ve got other people to harass.”
The woman snapped her notebook shut, tapping it against her knuckles. “We’ll be back with a warrant,” she said harshly. “You can be certain of that.”
Nell didn’t listen, walking back to her workroom, her shoulders stiff with fury. Some of her anger was at Dakota and Nicholas Draycott. They should have been clearer about what she couldn’t say and who she couldn’t say it to. After all, if you couldn’t trust agents of your own government, who could you trust?
She walked to the big windows overlooking the back alley, rubbing a knot of tension at her neck. Down the block an express courier was delivering packages, and two teenagers hammered by on skateboards, iPods in hand. Nell saw a uniformed man from her security company talking to the baker who worked next door. She’d upgraded her alarm system only a week before, after hearing about a rash of burglaries in the area. Nell couldn’t take a chance on losing priceless art released into her care for conservation.
A sound brought her around.
“You think you’ve won, but you’re wrong. You’re in way over your head.” Agent Fuller was right behind Nell. “I’m going to prove you’re dirty if it’s the last thing I do.”
Did they teach you how to stalk people that way in FBI training? Nell wondered. Creeping 101?
Agent Fuller threw her notebook on the table. “My patience is wearing thin, Ms. MacInnes. Either you cooperate now or I’ll have your ass locked up in a cell and you won’t see daylight for five years. Do we understand each other?”
“Perfectly. And that changes nothing.” Nell looked straight forward, her expression stony. “Get the papers. Then I’ll be glad to talk to you.”
“Where is your father right now, Ms. MacInnes? Out planning another theft?”
She didn’t know that he was dead, Nell realized. And Nell wasn’t sure how much she was free to reveal
, so she chose her words carefully. “I…haven’t heard from him in almost two weeks.”
“Convenient. Maybe he’s working on a new project, some way to divert funds from stolen art to support terrorist organizations. What do you know about your father’s involvement with those organizations?”
“Nothing. We’ve been down this path before.”
“I can arrange for us to finish this talk in a cell.”
Nell felt her face pale, but she strode calmly toward the door. “Leave. You’ve made enough empty threats.”
“Hardly a threat.” The agent pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “You are being held as a material witness in a federal terrorist investigation.” She stopped as a man crossed the alley, clipboard in hand. He checked his notes, then tapped at the back door. “Ignore it,” the agent snapped.
The man knocked harder, his face turned back toward the mouth of the alley. Something about the line of his shoulders made Nell turn and walk quickly to the door, an odd hammering in her ears.
She opened the door, ignoring the agent’s low, hissed orders. “Yes?”
His hat was low on his forehead, his jaw hard. “Nell MacInnes? I have a security camera for you. Where do you want it installed?” The eyes were the same clear blue-gray and the angled planes on his face were just as striking.
Nell felt the force of his eyes searching the room behind her, and for no clear reason she could name, she ignored the fact that he was no security company representative and two new cameras had already been installed by the same company whose name was sewn on his fake uniform.
Why was he here, and what was making him look so tense? Nell felt the muscles tighten along her neck and shoulders. “Right over here,” she said, pointing to a nearby alcove.
“You can install your cameras later,” Agent Fuller snapped. “This woman is under criminal investigation. I’m taking her in for questioning.”
To Catch a Thief Page 24