by M. J. Rose
“I’m doing my best to get better information for you.”
“I’m going to need better than your best.”
Chapter
FIFTEEN
Charlie Danzinger lifted a thin sheet of gold leaf with a sable brush and applied the fourteen-karat foil to a band girding the sculpture’s ankle. Sweeping away the extra, he stepped back and inspected his work, pleased at how the precious metal transformed an ordinary sandal strap into something magisterial.
Made of what appeared to be wood, with ivory hands, feet and face, the eight-foot Greek god was more than impressive—he was commanding. The few people allowed to visit the restorer’s studio in the Metropolitan’s south wing and see this secret project had been awed by its size and majesty. But no one was as interested in Hypnos as the venerated curator Marie Grimshaw, who was sitting on a stool in the corner, watching Danzinger work.
She had come twice a day every day for the past five months, spending fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Usually she arrived at around ten-thirty in the morning and then between three and four in the afternoon, always bringing coffee for both of them. She’d asked him that first day how he took it and had smiled when he said black with one sugar. “That will be easy to remember,” she’d said. “That’s how I take it.”
Marie had never given Danzinger a reason why she visited so often. Clearly, she was fascinated by the sculpture he was working on, but he sensed she didn’t know why. He didn’t ask; it wasn’t his business. Besides, he liked having her company, especially when she regaled him with tales about the museum. He was shy and found it difficult to get to know people. He’d been working at the Met for more than eighteen years but had few friends among his colleagues. So when Marie had sought him out, Danzinger had been flattered. And still was.
He applied more gold to the left sandal. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the curator cross and then re-cross her legs. She’d never been this agitated before, and she’d missed her morning visit. Rising off her stool, she walked past a bank of steel cabinets over to the shelves filled with the tools of his trade: stains and paints, brushes and pens, files and rasps, etching plates, rolls of canvas and trays of wood, glass and stone fragments.
“Charlie, do you know a lot about mythology?”
“I’m a restorer, not a historian,” he joked.
“They called your Hypnos the conqueror of the gods because he could put all of the others to sleep. Thanatos, the god of death, was his brother. Nyx, the goddess of night, was his mother and Morpheus, the god of dreams, was his father. Some family, wasn’t it? Hypnos lived in the land of eternal darkness, just a short distance beyond the gates of the rising sun in a land called Erebus. Plutarch said his job was to lull and rest men’s souls…” She didn’t quite put an end to the sentence, and the sound of her last word—souls—hung in the air.
Not sure what to make of her soliloquy, he remained quiet.
“Do you believe we have souls?” she finally asked.
He cleared his throat. “Yes.” He thought about what he’d said, and then amended it. “Yes, I guess I do.”
“You seem surprised by your answer.”
“I’m a lapsed Catholic and didn’t think I believed in much anymore.” He bit his bottom lip as he concentrated on applying a new sheet of gold leaf. Then brushing out a small wrinkle, he continued. “Working on all these valuable objects, I’ve come to believe that something of every artist’s soul is in their work, and that’s what I’m really preserving and restoring.” He looked up from Hypnos to Marie, whose eyes had filled with tears. She was the strongest woman he knew, as much of a treasure at the Met as one of the pieces of artwork. He never would have guessed he’d see her cry.
“What’s wrong?” He spoke softly, wanting her to confide in him if she needed to but still a little in awe of her. “Is there something I can do?”
“An important painting that was bequeathed to the museum years ago was delivered to us this morning.”
“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
“It’s been completely destroyed.”
“How?”
“Someone slashed it with a knife.” She whispered the last few words as if they were too terrible to say out loud.
Danzinger recoiled. “Beyond restoration?”
“Someone in your department will have to tell us.”
“What’s your opinion?”
A tear escaped and slid down her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Even if we can put it back together again, it won’t ever be the same.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“To prove he could.” Her voice quivered with anger. “The monster who did it said he has four more paintings of equal value, each donated to us, but all stolen before we could take possession. It’s blackmail. He says he’ll destroy one each week that we delay giving him what he wants.”
“What does he want?”
Before she had a chance to tell him, the studio door opened. Tyler Weil walked into the room accompanied by another man Danzinger didn’t recognize.
A visit from the director was unusual enough, but then Weil introduced Special Agent Lucian Glass.
The restorer hoped his hand wasn’t sweating when he reached out to shake the agent’s.
“Mr. Danzinger, can you show Agent Glass what you’re working on and explain a bit about how it’s progressing?”
“Sure,” he said confidently. Talking about his work was one thing he knew he could do.
They clustered in the center of the studio where, dominating the space, were two colossal sculptures, both eight feet tall, identical in shape and subject matter, but not condition. The one on the right was the statue of the ancient Greek god Hypnos that Danzinger had been working on. Young and handsome, with sensitive eyes, sensuous lips and a finely wrought nose, his bone structure was elegant and the expression on his face was both sultry and serene…as if he was slipping into a dream himself.
This polychromatic god was seated, leaning on his arm, in a languid pose. His eyes were obsidian orbs partially veneered with more ivory and inlaid with moss-green chalcedony to give them a lifelike appearance.
The throne he was seated on was a hollow armature made from the same insect- and rot-resistant wood. His tunic was gilded and well decorated. In his left hand he held a silver horn of what legend said was sleep-inducing opium; in his right he held a bronze branch dripping water, symbolized by a drop of lapis lazuli, from the river of forgetfulness, Lethe.
In the back of the sculpture was a three-foot-wide and four-foot-high wooden panel that opened like a door, exposing the sculpture’s hollow guts and structural skeleton. One afternoon Danzinger had come back from a meeting to find Marie standing inside Hypnos, her hands outstretched, her fingertips running up and down the inside skin of the god, staring up into his hollowed body as if she were in a trance. Danzinger had called out to her three times before she responded, and then she seemed nonplussed, as if she’d woken to find she’d been sleepwalking. During the past six months, he’d been inside of the structure a few times himself but hadn’t noticed anything worthy of her intense interest.
Beside this piece sat a second version of the same god, identical in size and shape but not in condition. This Hypnos was not nearly as glorious. He was the original, two thousand years older and looking his age. Ancient and worn, he was seriously damaged and discolored. One of his silver wings was missing, as were both of his hands. His right foot was gone; his left had only two toes. His tunic was stripped of its gold. One of his eyes was intact, the other was dead black, with both the green pupil and the white sclera missing. The body of the sculpture was badly damaged. What there was of surface space was a mass of scars.
Compared to the almost completed copy, which the museum was going to put on display to show museumgoers what the sculpture had looked like when it was first created, the original was unimposing.
Over the next ten minutes the restorer described the process of making casts o
f the original, filling the molds with a wood composite he chased with tools so it appeared carved, or with a polymer that resembled the original’s ivory. He detailed the stages of painting the sculpture, gilding it and ornamenting it with stones.
The agent took notes and made sketches—Danzinger noticed—in a small Moleskine notebook, the kind used by artists.
“Is the gold on the original thin sheets or leaf?” Glass asked.
“Leaf,” Danzinger answered confidently.
“What about the silver?”
“Very thin sheets.”
“The stones? What are they? What are they worth?”
“Most are semiprecious, but there are some emeralds, rubies and amethysts. Mostly you’re looking at lapis lazuli, amber, garnets, carnelians, banded agates, sardonyx, chalcedony and rock crystal. None of them of exceptional quality.”
The FBI agent turned to the director. “What’s the value of the sculpture?”
“It’s the most complete chryselephantine sculpture to have survived… I think it would go for five to six million.”
“Compared to a painting by Matisse or Monet or Van Gogh—it’s really small change, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Marie answered before the director could. “The paintings are worth so much more.”
“Which brings us back to the question none of us can help you with, Agent Glass,” Weil said. “Why would anyone want to exchange paintings worth over a hundred and fifty million dollars for our Hypnos?”
Chapter
SIXTEEN
Malachai swung the shiny gold disc slowly, back and forth, until the child’s eyes grew heavy and closed.
“Where are you, Veronica?” Malachai asked the little girl sitting opposite him.
“It’s so dark…” she whimpered.
“Where are you?”
Nothing.
“Do you recognize this dark place?”
“Yes…” Her voice was quivering.
“Tell me.”
She shook her head, no, and then again no. “Don’t go.” She sounded frantic, almost hysterical. “Don’t go.”
Robert Keyes inched forward on the couch. Malachai knew he wanted to stop the hypnosis, but he shook his head at Veronica’s father and mouthed, She’s fine.
“Has someone left you in the dark?” Malachai asked.
“No.” Her little voice broke.
“What’s happening?” Malachai asked.
She was half panting, half crying.
“Can you step back from where you are? Try to see what’s happening, like a picture in a book.”
The little girl’s panting intensified.
“They’re here.”
“Can you tell me where you are?”
“Inside.”
“Inside your house?”
She nodded.
“Where is your house? Where do you live?”
“Shush,” Veronica said. “I live in the ghetto.”
“Do you know what year it is?”
“1885.”
Malachai had been a reincarnationist for over thirty years and by now knew about almost every culture and country. Shush was in Persia, which at the end of the nineteenth century was a very difficult place for Jews. They weren’t allowed to travel outside the ghetto’s gates or to wear most colors. They needed to be easily identifiable.
“What is happening to you?”
She was oblivious to his question, reenacting a scene in her mind that had happened over one hundred and thirty years ago. “Don’t go,” she whimpered, her lower lip trembling, and then she reached out with her little hands to grab at someone who wasn’t there, whom Malachai couldn’t see.
Chapter
SEVENTEEN
Farid Taghinia had left work at six o’clock. The rest of the employees departed quickly after he did, so by six-fifteen the mission was empty, but Samimi had decided to wait a bit longer before venturing out of his office. Now that it was seven, it was certainly safe, but he was nervous nonetheless. He was always nervous lately. If his actions were discovered, he’d be sent back to Iran and killed. He had no doubt.
To make it look as if he’d gotten up without premeditation, Samimi left an unfinished document open on his computer, picked up a sheaf of papers, walked down the hall to his boss’s office and, using a key he wasn’t supposed to have, opened the door.
After laying the papers on Taghinia’s desk, Samimi pulled on gloves and then picked up the phone. He always held his breath during this part of the operation. If Taghinia had found the bug he’d be cagey enough to set a trap for whoever had placed it there.
The device was where Samimi had put it last week.
His hands shook as he removed it and slipped it into his pocket. No matter how many times he’d performed the ritual of putting the bug in and taking it out, his fear never lessened. And he’d been at it now for almost six months. Once every ten days, the night before the offices were swept for listening devices, Samimi retrieved his pet and took it home with him, only returning it to its nest the evening after the inspections. That meant that every fortnight he missed twenty-four hours’ worth of Taghinia’s phone calls. It bothered him, but what could he do? So far he’d been able to pick up where he’d left off in most of the conversations without too much confusion. But was he missing anything critical?
At his boss’s door, he listened before he walked out. Nothing but street noises and the whir of office equipment. About to leave, he remembered the papers, his excuse if he was caught. I just came in to leave these here, he’d say. And if Taghinia questioned him about the locked door? It wasn’t locked. He’d rehearsed it all in front of the mirror at home a dozen times. I didn’t know you locked your door at night, Farid. Why do you do that?
Back in his own office, Samimi extracted the day’s phone tape from the hiding place he’d constructed in his bookshelf and left the mission for the night.
An hour later he sat sipping Scotch and playing the tapes in the kitchen area of his small Queens studio, which was decorated with clean, modern furniture and not a single Persian rug. He was halfway through his drink and so far none of the calls were important or relevant to the Hypnos rescue.
Since Vartan Reza had discovered the forgery, plans had been speeding up. The statue had first been a symbol of power but now, with the possibility it was a legendary map to unleashing unconscious powers, it was valuable as much more than an artifact. If his country had been determined to reclaim it before, now they were desperate. Something like this could not belong to anyone else. Could not be discovered by anyone else. Hypnos had to come home and be examined.
That was why Samimi was being so careful now and why he’d bought himself such an expensive insurance policy last Friday.
Following Taghinia’s instructions, Samimi had driven a gray Mercedes up to the garage in Lake Placid. But not the same Mercedes that had been used in the murder of Vartan Reza. Samimi had put that car into a storage space he’d rented in the Bronx and had driven a replacement he’d bought up to the garage. It had cost him almost half his savings, but how could he put a price on having evidence against Taghinia for vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crime?
What to do with that evidence weighed on his mind, though. He was afraid to send it to anyone, but he’d written a letter explaining what he’d done, which he kept folded up behind his credit cards in his wallet. If anything happened to him, someone would find it.
“My boys loved the last set of American movies you sent, Farid. Thank you,” Nassir was saying on the most recent tape. “That young actor—what was his name? Jon Heder. Very funny.”
This was it. The minister who was the mastermind of the plan to bring Hypnos home, was employing the code. Ready with a pencil and pad of paper, Samimi wrote down every word the two men said for the next four minutes. When the call ended, he worked on the translation for half an hour. By the time he had it all deciphered and read it through, he needed a second drink.
In code, Nassir to
ld Taghinia he was arranging for a delivery of five pounds of Semtex, the Czech-made plastic explosive. Specifying pre-1991 Semtex, which had no commercial tracing chemicals in it, so it was virtually undetectable. It would arrive via the diplomatic pouch and be delivered to the warehouse the mission owned on the west side of Manhattan. More than enough explosives, Nassir said, to blow up a stone building six stories high.
Hypnos was in the Met. The Met was built of stone…Samimi considered its size. Were they talking about the museum? What was going on? He drained the second drink in less time than it had taken him to pour it.
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
“I’m here to see Andre Jacobs,” Lucian said as he offered his badge to the uniformed doorman. While the man inspected the agent’s credentials, Lucian studied the lobby. It looked the same as it had twenty years ago when he’d camped out upstairs in Solange’s parents’ Fifth Avenue apartment while they were traveling.
For years after the accident, he had avoided this block. Once he’d been in a taxi that stopped at a light on the corner, instinctively glanced over, counted up ten floors and stared at the darkened rectangle of glass that had been her bedroom window. And suddenly, there in the car, Lucian could smell Solange’s lily-of-the-valley scent and feel her body pressed up against his. Unwilling to luxuriate in the agony of missing her in the back of a lousy cab, he’d pushed the memory away.
After that if he came down Fifth either on foot or in a car he avoided looking left; he’d just keep moving.
The doorman hung up the house phone. “You can go on up, Agent Glass. Mr. Jacobs’s housekeeper is expecting you. When you get off the elevator it’s to your right. Apartment—”
“Ten B,” Lucian said, walking to the elevator.