Blowback

by Brad Thor

  The afternoon sky was as black as he’d ever seen it, punctuated only by the erratic stabs of lightning. By the time their cab pulled up in front of a rather derelict-looking façade in the Les Halles neighborhood, a light rain was already beginning to fall.

  “Are we in the right place?” asked Jillian as she looked at the building.

  Harvath double-checked the address on the piece of paper Vanessa Whitcomb had given them. “This is it, “He said as he paid the driver and then held the door for Jillian as she got out of the cab.

  The edifice they were standing in front of was supposedly a storage and restoration annex. Whatever it was, it was a far cry from the resplendent auction house Sotheby’s had on the rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré—a stone’s throw from the Paris Ritz. This shabby, rundown building, which leaned precariously to the left (like many in France), was easily three hundred years old. It looked as if it wouldn’t take more than a seismic hiccup to bring it crashing to the ground.

  As they ran up to the door, Harvath heard a loud roar and felt the sidewalk shake beneath their feet. It took a moment for him to realize that they were standing above one of the many Métro lines that crisscrossed at the nearby Châtelet Les Halles Métro station.

  Émile Zola had called Les Halles the belly of Paris—a fitting sobriquet as it had long been the city’s main food market, where citizens, restaurateurs, and merchants alike traveled on a daily basis to purchase the wide variety of staples that made up the Parisian diet. Les Halles was also practically the geographical hub of Paris as it lay just north of the Louvre—the point from which all of Paris’s arrondissements, or administrative districts, spiraled out in clockwise fashion, much like the continuous ring of a conch shell.

  Sotheby’s three-story annex was bordered by some sort of warehouse to its left and a butcher shop to its right. Beneath the eaves of the butcher shop was a mural that Harvath thought he recognized. Before he could give it further thought, he heard a buzz as the lock on the annex door was released and he realized that Jillian was already on her way inside.

  The interior of the annex was incredibly modern and bore little resemblance to the building’s dilapidated exterior. The only hints of its age were the timeworn wooden floors, which had been polished until they shone like honey-colored mirrors. Rows of halogen lighting illuminated a variety of paintings and sculptures displayed against the stark white walls. A sleek, brushed aluminum reception desk sat in front of a frosted pane of glass complete with an etched Sotheby’s crest. Behind the desk was an impeccably dressed young woman, flanked by two armed security guards in crisp black uniforms. The guards were not your everyday rent-a-cops either. Their eyes had an unmistakable Don’t fuck with me look. Judging by the Heckler & Koch MP5s slung over their shoulders, the body armor strapped to their chests, and the .40-caliber Berettas at their sides, their employers took security of this annex very seriously. Harvath knew the price tag for all of the art stored in this facility had to have been astronomical.

  Jillian announced herself to the secretary, while Harvath nodded pleasantly at the two powerful-looking security guards. Neither of them returned Harvath’s greeting. They just stared, sizing him up.

  “Oui, d’accord,” said the attractive receptionist as she hung up the phone and turned to Jillian. “Dr. Davidson is officing on the top floor at the end of the corridor. I will need to see your identification, please.”

  Jillian and Harvath both proffered their passports. The receptionist copied down their information and then took digital photos of each of the visitors. Moments later a machine beneath her desk spat out two laminated badges. “If you would please be kind enough to pin these visitor passes to your clothing,” said the woman to Jillian, “you may proceed upstairs.”

  They walked up a narrow, winding staircase together in silence. When they emerged onto the third floor, it looked as if they were stepping onto the set of a Three Musketeers movie.

  The rough-hewn plank flooring was complemented by a series of wooden beams that lined the low ceiling. Eighteenth-century oil paintings of life at court, pastoral scenes, and a variety of still life subjects hung in gilded frames and lined both sides of the hallway. Beneath the paintings was the occasional antique chair or collection of leather-bound books piled artistically on sturdy, farmhouse-style tables. If not for the modern halogen lighting, Harvath would have sworn they had traveled back in time.

  Davidson’s office was at the end of the hall on the right. When they arrived at the heavy wooden door, Harvath knocked, and a voice from inside instructed them to enter. Rising from behind her desk to greet her two guests, Dr. Molly Davidson was not at all what Harvath had expected.

  She stood at least two inches taller than him, and with her long blond hair and deeply tanned skin looked more like a beach volleyball player than one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient arms and armor.

  “Dr. Davidson,” said Jillian, offering her hand as they met her halfway across the room. “I’m Dr. Alcott, and this is Sam Guerin,” she continued, using the alias Harvath was traveling under.

  Except for its extraordinary length, the office, with its petite sink, sloping roof, and small windows set into the eaves, resembled a typical Parisian-style garret apartment, or chambre de bonne used for housing domestics. The long room looked as if it was predominantly used by Sotheby’s for storage, but someone had shoved most of the office furniture and cardboard boxes toward a back corner to clear space for the arms and armor expert from London.

  Workbenches with microscopes, illuminated magnifying glasses, and a host of other research tools lined the interior wall. A short row of bookcases ran along the opposite wall beneath the windows, while down the center of the room was an enormous worktable that had to be at least seven feet wide and twice as long. Half of the table was covered with a series of white sheets on top of which were the artifacts Dr. Davidson was currently investigating, including the breastplates.

  Davidson shook both of their hands and then shut the door behind them. “I have to apologize for the modest quarters. This was the best they could do for me on such short notice.”

  Through the room’s closed windows, Harvath could still hear the rush of whining Vespas and noisy diesel delivery trucks from the busy street below. He also could hear the muted melody of a song he thought he recognized. It seemed to be coming from inside the room itself. It took him a couple seconds of intent listening before he could place it. It was the seventies funk classic “Love Rollercoaster” by the Ohio Players. If Dr. Davidson had a stereo hidden somewhere, Harvath had to hand it to her, she had good taste.

  “I also have to apologize for that noise,” added Davidson. “The shop next door rented out their upstairs apartment to a young DJ who’s home all day and gone all night. Half the time, I end up having to take my work home with me just to get away from it. “Davidson walked down the length of the room, pounded on the far wall, and yelled in French for the music to be turned down. The command seemed to work, for seconds later it was barely audible.

  Harvath, though, didn’t much care for Dr. Davidson referring to music of the Ohio Players as noise.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you much more over the phone,” continued Davidson as she crossed to a computer workstation and reached for a box that was inside one of the drawers. “But as I indicated, I was still waiting for a couple of key test results to come in this afternoon. We’ve only had the artifacts for a little over a week now.”

  “That’s okay,” replied Jillian. “Have the test results come back then?”

  “Yes. I just got them.”

  “What can you tell us?” asked Harvath as he lifted an enormous battle hammer from the table and shifted it from hand to hand, gauging its weight.

  “I can tell you,” snapped Davidson as she brought a box of white cotton gloves from her drawer over to the table and handed a pair to Harvath, “that I would rather you not handle any of the artifacts without my permission, and even then, only whilst wearing prope
r gloves. These items are quite old and need to be treated with extreme care.”

  “Of course,” said Harvath, setting the battle hammer down and pulling on the gloves. “I’m sorry.”

  Davidson looked slightly mollified. “I suppose there’s no harm done. Out of everything you could have picked up, you selected the sturdiest item. It’s quite an amazing piece. According to our testing, the hammer’s head was forged from metals mined in North Africa, and the handle itself, interestingly enough, is made from Indian teak—the hardest wood known to mankind.”

  “Why is that interesting?” asked Harvath.

  “It’s interesting because we’ve dated the piece to the third century

  B.C., and it was believed that Greece was the only common point of contact for those two cultures. India and North Africa were not known to be direct trading partners.”

  “Could the Greeks have traded in North African metals or Indian teak?” asked Jillian.

  “I don’t profess to be an expert on either culture,” replied Davidson. “This is a bit out of my league. My expertise runs more along the lines of arms and armor of the Middle Ages and that sort of thing, but I suppose anything is possible. There’s just as much about the ancient world that has been lost to us as has survived.”

  Jillian nodded her head in agreement as Harvath walked along the table and asked, “Are all of these items part of your investigation?”

  “Yes. According to our client, all of the items were discovered together.”

  “And where was that?”

  “We don’t know,” replied Davidson.

  “You don’t?” said Harvath, somewhat skeptical. “Why not?”

  “Our client wouldn’t say.”

  “That certainly can’t make your job very easy,” offered Jillian.

  “No,” answered Davidson. “In fact, it makes it a lot more difficult for us. But for some of our clients, items have been in their families for generations and there’s the possibility that they are simply unaware of the actual origins.”

  And there’s also the very likely possibility, thought Harvath, that more than a few of the artifacts that come your way are criminally tainted and their owners say as little as possible to help them remain under the radar. Harvath had done his homework on the prestigious British auction house at a public internet terminal at Newcastle Airport before arriving in Paris. Sotheby’s had been involved in numerous scandals over the years dealing with the sale of stolen artifacts, and they were anything but naïve when it came to the ways of the world. That said, they had built a reputation on protecting their clients’anonymity at all costs. He didn’t relish the prospect of having to sweat Molly Davidson, but if it came down to it, he’d do it. For the time being, though, he wanted to know more about her research and what she’d been able to uncover. “You mentioned in your e-mail to Dr. Whitcomb that you thought the breast-plates came from Carthage, around the third century B.C. Why is that?”

  “I can trace the materials used in the breastplates to the region during that time,” replied Davidson, “but it’s the other artifacts discovered along with them that really push me in that direction.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, we have coins from the Iberian Peninsula, spearheads from ancient Egypt, arrowheads from Gaul, even the stirrup of a Numidian cavalry soldier. It’s a real hodgepodge. Based upon the weapons and armor, my hypothesis is that this collection belonged to either a military unit that was widely traveled throughout the ancient world, in and around the Mediterranean in particular, or—”

  “It came from an army made up largely of mercenaries from in and around the Mediterranean,” said Harvath. “Just like Hannibal’s.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I didn’t know Hannibal’s soldiers were mercenaries,” said Jillian.

  “According to one of the articles Vanessa had in her office,” explained Harvath, “the Carthaginians were predominantly merchants. There was no need to maintain a large standing army when they could just hire out the best one money could buy whenever they needed it.”

  “Which would explain the presence of a Numidian cavalry soldier,” said Davidson. “They were considered some of the best horsemen of their day.”

  “Normally each family in Carthage,” continued Harvath, “committed at least one son to a life of military service, and like Hannibal, those men were extremely well trained. They were the ones who led Carthage’s mercenary army.”

  Dr. Davidson watched Harvath as he walked over to the breast-plates. “What can you tell us about these?” he asked.

  “Not as much as I would like,” responded Davidson. “That’s what I was hoping you could help me with. Based on what my husband told me, your colleague at the University of Durham seems to believe that the snakes represent the Azemiops feae viper?”

  “They do bear a great resemblance,” replied Harvath, “but like you, we’re feeling our way around this to a certain degree as well. What else can you tell us?”

  Davidson pulled a pair of white cotton gloves from her pocket and put them on before handling the armor. “Each one of the plates shows exceptional workmanship, especially for the third century B.C. The Greeks were some of the best armorers of the period, but these surpass any of their work. Based on our metallurgical testing, we know the metal came from somewhere in North Africa.”

  “Just like the war hammer,” said Harvath.

  Davidson nodded her head.

  “How about the purple stones used for the bodies of the snakes, “He said. “What are they?”

  “Amethysts,” replied Davidson.

  “Interesting,” said Jillian. “Any special reason amethysts might have been chosen?”

  “I wondered about that too and did a little research. Like most stones, amethysts have a long mythological history. Da Vinci believed they possessed incredible powers, not the least of which was the stone’s ability to dissipate evil thoughts and quicken the intelligence.”

  “But we’re talking about a time period way before da Vinci,” interjected Harvath.

  “Right,” agreed Davidson. “That’s why I went as far back as I could, to locate the first reference to amethysts having any sort of special power. After all, it wasn’t unusual for ancient armies to employ specific talismans to give them particular advantages over their enemies in battle.”

  Jillian couldn’t help but anxiously coax the woman forward. “And you found a connection of some sort?”

  “Sort of. Ancient Greek mythology claims that Dionysus, the god of wine, had been insulted by a passing mortal and swore that he would take revenge on the next one that came his way. He conjured up a team of ferocious tigers just as a beautiful young maiden was approaching. The maiden’s name was Amethyst, and she was on her way to pay tribute to the goddess Artemis. As Dionysus released the tigers, Artemis turned Amethyst into a statue of pure crystalline to protect her from the tiger’s claws. Upon seeing the beautiful statue, Dionysus wept wine-filled tears of regret, which stained the statue a deep shade of purple.

  “From that moment on, the amethyst stone was known to hold significant protective properties. Apparently, as the myth recounts, amethysts could even protect you from the wrath of the gods themselves.”

  “So knowing that the Carthaginians had extensive contact with the Greeks, it’s possible they might have been familiar with this myth?” asked Harvath.

  “Most likely,” replied Davidson. “We know that a tremendous amount of religious practices in the ancient world were actually borrowed from the Greeks.”

  “Do you have any idea where these particular amethysts came from?” Scot asked as he took a closer look at one of the breastplates.

  “Most of us in the modern world automatically think of South America when we think of amethysts. Places like Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Argentina come to mind, but most of the amethysts in the ancient world actually came from Africa.”

  Yet another African connection, Harvath thought to himself, though at this point he nee
ded no further convincing that the artifacts were connected to Hannibal. “What about the stones used for each of the snakes’ heads?”

  “Rather unimpressive milk opals. They can be found all over the world.”

  “Any significance there?”

  “I don’t know, though they certainly aren’t being used as talismans in this instance.”

  Harvath tilted the breastplate he was holding in the light. “Why not?”

  “Amethysts,” said Davidson, “are revered for offering protection. But opals, on the other hand, are traditionally known to bring bad luck. The combination of the two stones seems to send a mixed message. Protect me, yet bring me bad luck.”

  “Or from a soldier’s perspective,” offered Jillian, “they could mean Protect me from the bad luck I am bringing upon my enemy.”

  Davidson set her breastplate down thoughtfully. “That’s also a possibility, but if these are Azemiops feae vipers, why would the Carthaginians depict them on their breastplates at all? What’s the purpose? From what my husband tells me, Azemiops feae is an East Asian viper. Armies in the Mediterranean never would have seen one, much less have known how deadly they were. If these breastplates were intended to inflict some sort of psychological damage, why not depict cobras, which were much feared and much better known? Or better yet, since we’re very likely talking about the Carthaginians here, why not use obviously ferocious creatures from their part of the world like crocodiles, rhinos, or even lions?”

  “If these are in fact representations of Azemiops feae vipers,” replied Jillian, “then they must have been very significant to the men who were wearing the breastplates.”