by M. J. Rose
O’Hara grabbed the second of four planks.
“One, two and…” Lucian counted. “Three.”
O’Hara stepped down.
“You’ve got it,” Richmond shouted as he and the other two agents moved their hands under the stone and lifted.
“It’s slipping!” Sellers shouted.
The men let go. The stone fell and crashed back on the ground.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Sellers yelled. “Almost lost my fingers on that one.”
“Let’s try it again,” Lucian ordered.
The plank groaned as O’Hara bore down. The agents got their fingers underneath the opening, grabbed hold of the lip and this time lifted the stone up and rolled it out of the way, exposing a forty-inch hole in the ground. Shining the flashlight down, Lucian saw an iron staircase descending even deeper into the earth.
“How the hell did you know that was here?” Richmond asked.
Up until that moment, Lucian hadn’t understood it himself, but now, peering into the escape hatch, he laughed. His memory had nothing to do with the distant past he’d been traveling to in his mind. Nothing to do with the hypnosis sessions. “Didn’t any of you see that movie? The Act of Vanishing?”
“What are you talking about?” Richmond asked.
“We’re on a movie set. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. This place—this whole complex—it’s all part of Shabaz’s studio. That wasn’t a real earthquake. It was a special effects earthquake like the one they used in the movie.”
“And in the movie—if you’re right and I hope to God you are—does this lead anywhere?” Richmond asked.
“Yes.”
“I can hear a but. Where did it lead?”
Lucian put his foot on the first rung of the rusted-out ladder that descended down into more darkness. His shoulder throbbed, but he ignored it.
“Where did it lead?” Richmond insisted.
“It was just a movie, Matt.”
“Except you’re about to go down there, wherever there was.”
“It led to hell, okay? Ironic enough for you? Still willing to risk it?”
“When there’s a will…” Richmond said with a grin, and proceeded to follow his partner deeper down into their very real nightmare.
Chapter
FORTY-NINE
The stone tunnel had an unpaved dirt floor littered with hundreds of rodent skeletons.
“How much of the movie did they shoot down here?” Richmond asked Lucian as they steadily moved forward.
“It wasn’t that good a movie. I don’t remember the details, Matt. It’s amazing the way your mind works.”
“My mind? Amazing isn’t exactly what I was thinking.”
“I’m going to have to rent this flick when we get out of here,” O’Hara said, his voice echoing in the narrow passageway. “Isn’t this place too small to get all that equipment in?”
“They probably shot this part with a handheld,” Jeffries said.
“Well, listen to you! When was the last time you shot a movie?” Richmond asked.
“My brother-in-law is a cameraman.”
“Here we are,” Lucian called out as he reached the end of an S curve and shone his light up to the ceiling, revealing a second iron staircase exactly like the one they’d just used, but this one offered a dozen steps leading up to a hatch. “I’d better change places with one of you. If that’s stuck I won’t be able to put much strength against it.”
Richmond climbed up the stairs and pushed. Nothing budged. He tried again. Wood creaked. “One of you want to get up here and help me? I know there’s not much room, but I’m not going to be able to move it on my own.”
O’Hara climbed up, and together he and Richmond shoved the hatch open. It fell out with a loud crash. So did the radio that O’Hara had been carrying. Lucian tried to catch it as it whizzed by him, but it was beyond his reach.
They entered. The shack was six feet wide and unfurnished. Just a room with a hole in the floor and a door cut into one wall.
“Okay. Looks like we’re almost out of here,” Lucian said. “God knows what’s on the other side of this door so everybody needs to be on alert.” His shoulder and his head were both throbbing, and he knew his voice was sharper than it needed to be. In the flashlight’s gleam he could see they had their guns drawn.
Richmond opened the door and Lucian stepped out first, relishing the cool evening air on his face. Twenty feet away was a thicket of trees that would offer camouflage. He pointed to it, dropped to his knees and, gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, crept forward. Was this the same grove they’d seen when they’d scrutinized the area upon arriving almost an hour before? There was no way to tell.
Continuing, careful not to come down hard on anything that might make a crack or rustle, the team members skulked ahead, all of them reaching the edge of the tree line in less than a minute.
“What the hell is that?” Richmond whispered, pointing at the fence in front of them.
“I should have realized…from the movie…everything is the same. That’s an aluminum blockade that went up around the building as soon the explosion hit.”
“Electrified?” Richmond asked.
“Not in the movie.”
“And the building—where Shabaz and the sculpture are—is that on this side or that side? Are we locked in? Are they?”
“If I remember it right, we should be on the outside now, Shabaz and the sculpture on the inside.”
O’Hara rounded the curve ahead of everyone else and almost immediately there was a burst of shouts. But Lucian couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. The sudden pulse of a helicopter drowned out all the words.
When he rounded the same curve he saw Gary Fulton and the rest of the agents running toward them.
“Good to see you’re safe,” Fulton screamed over the chopper. “What the hell happened in there?”
Once the agents had been airlifted back over the fence and made their way to the building where their investigation had started they found the FedEx truck still parked in front. According to St. Christopher, the sculpture was also still inside. So were five people.
Richmond and Lucian stood in the doorway for the second time that night, but now they knew who they were looking for. Using a bullhorn he’d grabbed from one of the guys on the chopper, Lucian shouted, “Give it up, Shabaz. We’ve got a dozen agents outside. A helicopter overhead. Let’s cut the games short.”
There was no sound and no movement. Lucian repeated his message. When there was still no response, they proceeded inside cautiously, hugging the wall, working their way to the atrium where they found the two guards, still cuffed and secured.
Gun drawn, Lucian flung open the door to the screening room. “FBI. Drop your weapons, Shabaz!”
The guards and the fake FedEx truckers were all there, right where the FBI had left them.
The crate was there, in the same state—partially unpacked—with the sculpture’s swaddled head exposed.
And there was a fifth man, his back to the door, who was in the process of turning around. But it wasn’t Shabaz. It was a stranger, wearing a baseball cap with an emerald lightning bolt zigzagging across the front.
Chapter
FIFTY
At midnight, with Hypnos in its belly, the courier jet was cleared for takeoff. As the plane ascended, Lucian watched the city below change from recognizable shapes into dots of yellow lights decorating a black canvas. Pulling out his sketchbook, in only a few minutes, he managed to draw Shabaz’s face. “His fame’s going to work against him getting away, but his fortune will work for him,” Lucian told his partner as the pilot turned off the seat belt sign.
“I’m getting a drink,” Richmond said as he stood up. “You want one? We’re officially off duty for the next six hours.”
Ten minutes later, halfway though his vodka on the rocks, Lucian got a call from Gary Fulton in the L.A. Bureau office. “It looks like Shabaz vanished into thin air
,” Fulton said.
“Impossible.”
“No, I’m being literal. I just got confirmation that his pilot filed a flight plan to Mexico City and that his plane took off an hour ago from the Santa Barbara airport.”
“Have you been in touch with Mexico City?”
“Sure have, and according to the plan they should be landing in an hour and a half. We’re working with the authorities there to detain Mr. Shabaz when he gets off the plane.”
“If he gets off the plane, you mean. How much do you want to bet that plane flies right over Benito Juarez International Airport with no plans of landing.”
“We’d both be on the same side of that bet. There’s something else, Lucian,” Fulton said, and filled him in on what he’d discovered.
“We lost him,” Lucian said to Richmond after he hung up with Fulton.
“Not yet.”
“Fuck your optimism.”
“Ditto to your pessimism. We just started, and you’re giving up?”
“This guy has more money than Midas. He’s got his own plane. And he’s French.”
“Shabaz is French?”
Lucian nodded. “Fulton just told me.”
“We are so screwed.” Richmond stared down into the amber liquid then took a big swallow.
“That’s what I was saying,” Lucian said, then turned and stared out the window into the blackness. A few moments passed without either of them speaking.
“France won’t extradite their own citizens once they return home if the crimes were committed on foreign soil, but this is a crime that involves five paintings, four of which were created by French masters of Impressionism,” Lucian finally said. “Do you think that will move them?”
“All of them were stolen from American collectors. I don’t think they’ll give a rat’s ass.”
Lucian was surprised by his partner’s response. “Now who’s being pessimistic?”
“There’s a difference between pessimism and realism.”
“Not that I can see.”
“Screw that. I still say we’re going to get him.” Richmond was back on the upswing. “You’ll see.”
“You have a plan?”
“Not yet, but we’ll come up with one. And we do have the paintings.”
“You’re right. We have the paintings. But I’m never going to be satisfied till we get the guy and find out who he was working with,” Lucian insisted as he picked up his pencil and started sketching again.
Chapter
FIFTY-ONE
Samimi opened the envelope that had arrived in that morning’s mail. His name was handwritten by a calligrapher on the front and the return address of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was engraved on the back. Running his fingers over the type, he felt the raised letters on the smooth, creamy stock. His hand actually shook a little as he pulled out the invitation and read the date and time of the event, one day short of a week from today. He was elated and nervous at the same time.
You are cordially invited to attend a private showing of Impressionist Masterworks Tuesday, June seventeenth, at six o’clock in the evening The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
There was a name, and a phone number and a request to RSVP. Yes, he’d respond. He reread the invitation. June 17. Between now and then there were so many things he had to get right and so many things that could go wrong.
Over another dinner two nights before, Deborah had told him about the event, excited because it would be the first time in decades anyone outside of the Met would see any of the paintings or the sculpture.
He’d commented that it sounded like an odd grouping—Impressionist masterpieces and the statue of Hypnos that his country was so intent on having returned—but she didn’t explain.
“No one outside the museum has seen Hypnos in over a hundred years,” he said wistfully as he signaled the waiter to refill their wineglasses. “What does it look like? What kind of condition is it in?”
She’d smiled and said if he wanted to know, he should come to the reception.
Bingo, he thought, and then smiled. American slang was so expressive.
Now, holding the invitation, he walked across the Persian carpet, headed for Farid Taghinia’s office so he could show him what had come in the mail, but at the door, he hesitated. He should go over Nassir’s plan once more before he faced his boss. The next set of moves was complex and would require skill, concentration and nerves. Taghinia would question him over and over. Test him. Samimi needed to be prepared three and four steps ahead, plan for each contingency. The outcome of this operation would affect more than where Hypnos wound up and who would own it. The trajectories of many people’s lives, his included, were at stake. This was his opportunity to show everyone what he was capable of. If all this worked, he’d be a hero. He’d never have to answer to Taghinia again. But living in New York was an expensive proposition. How long would it take to find another job? He needed…what did they call it? A nest egg, yes, that was it.
Punching a number in on his cell phone, he listened to it ring three times before he heard a man with a gravelly voice answer. Samimi identified himself and exchanged a sentence or two of pleasantries. Then he looked down at the date on the invitation.
“The rugs need to be cleaned, and I think it’s time to do those repairs you suggested before any of them get any worse. Would it be convenient for you to come and get them next Wednesday late afternoon, about four? I’d like to have them all done at the same time.”
It’s not stealing if what you are taking belongs to you, Taghinia had said to him, referring to Hypnos. Did that apply to treason, too? Was it even still treason if those who expected and demanded your loyalty were themselves disloyal?
Chapter
FIFTY-TWO
In the office the Metropolitan Museum had given him to use during the investigation, Lucian fed the shredder and watched strips of paper fall into a basket.
“The detritus of a job well done,” Tyler Weil said from the doorway.
Lucian looked up at the director. “There’s always a lot to clean up when a case ends.”
“You sound melancholy.”
“That would be an indulgence.”
“Nonetheless, I detect something in your voice and see something in the set of your shoulders.”
“If you insist, Mr. Weil. I liked having an office at the museum. It’s a special place to me.”
Weil nodded. “We’d be happy to keep an office here for you.”
“That’s something you don’t want to wish for—the need for an in-house ACT agent.”
“You’re quite right.” Weil laughed. And then he held out a cream-colored envelope and watched Lucian open the invitation and read it. “If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t be able to have this little party celebrating the return of the paintings to their rightful home. We do hope you can come.”
Lucian smiled gratefully. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“It’s going to be quite an event, the first time these paintings have been seen in years and the first and only time Hypnos will be on view until the new galleries open.”
“You’re putting Hypnos on view now? With the paintings? Why?”
“The sculpture was the impetus for the return of the paintings. Marie and I thought it would be fitting, and it will generate great press, which is something our lawyers want us to concentrate on. Build up support now, so when the time comes to argue the provenance of this piece, public opinion is on our side.”
The mention of Marie bothered Lucian. He’d had the same reaction every time he met with the curator or heard her name. There was nothing logical about his feeling. It was free-floating anxiety—that inexorable pall that hung over so many of his days now—something he’d never experienced before his trip to Vienna. He shook his head, wishing the movement could dislodge the feeling.
With his eye for detail, Weil noticed the agent’s reaction. “Something bothering you?”
Lucian had no intention of attemptin
g to explain what was inexplicable even to him. “Not at all. I’d be honored to come. Thank you very much for thinking of me and for coming down here yourself.”
“I wanted to thank you personally. You took on a situation fraught with physical and emotional hazards and did an amazing job. On behalf of the museum, I’m very grateful.”
Weil was talking about pigment applied to canvas, about streaks and swaths of colors, about gold and ivory and wood. What was it about these creations, these fragments of imagination, these re-creations of reality, this art that so hypnotized men and women that they devoted their lives to creating it and then preserving it and safeguarding it? Lucian had come to believe it was because every great work of art contained the soul of its creator. And by respecting and protecting the art, he believed, we respect and protect not only the soul of our collective past but our hope for our collective future.
But did any of that really matter when Shabaz had gotten away? When the men who’d stolen the paintings—at least one of whom had killed to steal a painting—had gotten away?
“I also brought this.” Tyler held out a second envelope. The calligraphy spelled out Emeline and Andre Jacobs’s names and their address. “My assistant was going to hand-deliver it to them, but with everything you’ve all been through, it occurred to me that there was something fitting about you taking it over, as if the past and the present were coming full circle. If you want to, of course.”
“I do,” Lucian said as he took the proffered envelope. He’d talked to Emeline late Monday when he got back from Los Angeles and talked to her again last night. He’d wanted to get uptown to see her, but Emeline said Andre was too ill for her to meet him. Lucian was worried about her. The threatening e-mails had stopped and she hadn’t sensed anyone following her since the police detail had been assigned to her. But now she was getting menacing phone calls. Sometimes they were quick hang-ups, other times whispered warnings from a mechanical voice taunting her, telling her the police wouldn’t be able to keep her safe forever and he’d be waiting for her when they left.