Gold of Kings Read online

  Emma answered very carefully. “The head of our interagency task force is Jack Dauer.”

  “What is he, fibbie?”

  “Roger that. Agent Dauer was sent down from Washington to lead this assignment. I am assigned to be the group’s liaison officer with Interpol.”

  “What will Dauer think of Interpol’s alert bringing you a serious lead like this?”

  Emma chewed the inside of one cheek and did not respond.

  Drummond smirked. “You know what I think of this interagency alphabet game? A goat rope. That’s an expression we brought back from our first dance in the Gulf. Tie a bunch of goats to a rope don’t mean they’ll go where you want them.”

  “I’m sure Agent Dauer would be interested in your opinion, sir.” She held out her hand. “May I have the phone number in France our man contacted? As I said, I’ll share with you anything we come up with.”

  “We ran you off his photograph as well.” Drummond passed over two printed sheets. “You want my advice?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Washington staffers like Dauer get antsy when their people play outside the frame. You do your business with Interpol and you leave this fibbie totally out of the loop. He gets a tiny hint you’ve started building yourself a system of useful allies beyond the Washington playbook and he’ll bury you, Webb. Warm, breathing, screaming your head off, it won’t make any difference. You’re gone.”

  FIFTEEN

  STORM HAD NO IDEA WHAT the two federal agents thought of their detail, shepherding her around. She didn’t want to know. Her morning was too tightly compressed.

  One agent was female, lean, Storm’s age, and Hispanic. The other was male, blond, crew cut, chunky. Both seemed comfortable with her silence. They moved the painting from her room to the trunk of their unmarked Crown Victoria, then the man stayed with the car while the woman followed her into the church office.

  Storm sat and made notes detailing the day ahead until Richard Ellis appeared. The pastor took one look at the agent by the doorway and asked, “Are they arresting you or guarding you?”

  “Guarding. For the moment.”

  “Let’s move to my office.” As they walked down the hall, he asked, “Did you get some rest?”

  “A little, not much. I apologize for Harry’s late-night call. He thought we’d be safe here, and to be honest I was so shook up I just followed his lead.”

  “He was right to call.”

  It was the first time Storm had been inside the man’s office. The room was nice enough, wood paneled and spacious with a window that overlooked the windswept pines separating the church from the parking lot. Richard wore an open-necked shirt and brown tweed jacket. His hair was still wet from the shower. She knew he was a dedicated marathon runner because she had been approached by him to join the church’s team. But Storm did not run in order to compete. Nor did she much care for what she had always considered the forced intimacy of church. She had been born with a double dose of the loner gene.

  Richard asked, “How long are you staying?”

  “Today is the last day of the exhibition. Tomorrow morning we fly to Dulles for Sean’s funeral.”

  “And from there?”

  Storm shook her head. She could not afford to look beyond the next few hours. She reached into her purse, drew out Sean’s Bible, and opened it to the page marked by a decrepit leather bookmark. The previous night, Storm had fed off that page’s comfort and the odd sense that her grandfather was studying with her. She swiveled the book toward Richard and pointed to where her grandfather’s brutal script had actually torn the page. He had made angry notations all around the borders, filling the spaces with his rash demands for answers.

  She pointed to the underlined passage, now almost lost beneath the smudged cellophane. “Explain that.”

  Richard possessed many of Sean’s most volatile traits. He was adept at impatience, some would say far too talented in that department for a minister. Also like Sean, he had been widowed for some time and showed no interest in remarrying. Richard’s bluntness was one reason he didn’t run Saint Anthony’s, but rather remained relegated to the church’s peripheral activities. Another reason was Richard Ellis did not care. He bent to no political wind. He remained indifferent to parishioner disapproval. He said what he thought. No senior pastor in a heavy-wallet area like Palm Beach could get away with brutal honesty as his defining trait.

  But he showed none of that impatience now. “The first time we met, Sean told me he’d once read the Bible cover to cover and found it a thoroughly dissatisfying experience. He said it was like tramping over buried treasure and being in too much of a hurry to dig. From that point on, Sean searched out passages that troubled him. Dissatisfied him. Angered him. And he dug. He read the commentaries and he studied the original Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic. He wrestled and he argued and he fought. And only when he was satisfied did he move on.”

  “That sounds like Sean.”

  “That page marks the last passage Sean battled over: For to him who has, will more be given, and he will have abundance: but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. If Sean ever reached peace with that one, he never said.”

  Storm pressed quietly, “He told you, didn’t he. About the threat, and about his plans.”

  “He asked me to give you something, if…”

  “If I asked.”

  “You are not using me to go out and get yourself killed as well.”

  “What did he leave me, Richard?”

  “I told Sean I wouldn’t do it. He said I was the only one he could trust to pass it on at the right moment. He wouldn’t say what that moment was.”

  Storm nodded slowly. “I understand.”

  “Nobody could ever push my buttons like your grandfather.”

  Storm stared out the sun-bleached window. “You know why I started coming to church?”

  “Because Sean came here. Your grandfather was no saint.”

  She shook her head. “Because it was everything my father wasn’t. I was fourteen and rebelling against a man who burned holes into every day with his bong. Or sailed away from reality on whatever magical mystery tour he happened to find in his stash. There was nothing that would get my old man madder than to know I’d started going to the same church as Sean. The biggest, the most fashionable, the most conservative church in Palm Beach.”

  Richard was silent now. Which made it easier to face him and speak around the rasp that had crept into her voice. “Last night I realized Sean had left me not one choice, but several. I could go after the prize that got him killed, or use the funds to start my own business. Grow beyond my past, or not.”

  Richard leaned over and opened his bottom drawer and pulled out a sealed envelope. Set it on the desk. “The first time he told me of his search for the Second Temple treasures, I was the one laughing. That mystery has swirled about for two thousand years. Your grandfather insisted he had uncovered new details, and that both his quest and the goal were very real.”

  The letter on the desk bore Storm’s name written in her grandfather’s abrupt script. Keeping herself from reaching for it was about the hardest thing she had ever done. “When was this?”

  “Back around the time you started coming to church.” Richard stared blindly at the letter. “I warmed to the idea quickly enough. Sean’s friendship had opened my eyes to the world of treasures and major new finds. I had decided that if anybody had what it took to uncover the mystery of the ages, it was Sean Syrrell. I encouraged him.”

  Storm clenched her hands together in her lap. “You didn’t kill him, Richard. There’s nothing you could have done that would have stopped Sean from going after that treasure.”

  He looked at her then, his gaze hollowed by the depth of his loss. “I’ll tell you what I should have told your grandfather. A true believer doesn’t need external confirmations. No historical artifact, no treasure, no new discovery, is going to make any difference. Why? Because believers either know or th
ey don’t. Down deep, at the level beyond words and earthly things, the spirit has entered and has changed. No discovery, no matter how incredible, can compare to the light of true faith. No matter how important the world may think this to be.”

  Storm rose to her feet and slipped the envelope into her pocket. “That’s not the verdict we’re talking about, though. Is it.”

  AT HER REQUEST, THE AGENTS drove Storm to her apartment. After the female officer checked the terrain, the other agent stayed with the painting and the Crown Vic while Storm followed the lady officer into the courtyard. As she passed the shuttered shop, Storm mouthed one word to her reflection in the empty window. Soon.

  She left the agent in the living room, stopped by the kitchen for an item she thought she would need later, then carried Sean’s letter into the bathroom. She locked the door and turned on the shower. Only then did she open the envelope. The letter was handwritten and one page long. The script was as abrupt as the man who’d written it. The letter began, My dear Storm.

  She used a towel to stifle her sobs as she read the letter through several times. Then she showered and dressed and packed a few items for later in the day. Once back in the car she was tempted to reread the letter, but she did not want to risk ruining her makeup. Today she had to remain in absolute control.

  They drove to a specialty phone shop near the exhibition center. Storm had the salesman take her purchases from the plastic wrappings and show her precisely how to make them do what she wanted. There was neither room nor time for fumbling. She had one shot to get this right. One.

  They were parked in front of the convention center nine minutes before the doors opened. The imperial palms lining the front walk and the parking lot cut idyllic swaths from the morning light. The two agents sat in the car’s front seat with the silence of people who where good at waiting. The car’s four windows were down. The wind drifted off the ocean, tangy with salt. Traffic rumbled over the neighboring causeway. When the security detail in their gray blazers unlocked the exhibition doors, Storm said, “Let’s go.”

  They joined the line of well-heeled stallholders rushing toward the entrance and the day ahead. There were worse ways for a girl to make an entrance than holding a museum-quality artwork flanked by two armed officers. By the time she registered the painting and received a preliminary vetting, word had spread. Storm knew this by the way heads were out and watching as she entered the hall and walked to her stand.

  Storm positioned the painting upon the center of the rear wall, where anyone walking the main aisle could not help but see it. At her request, exhibition security dragged over two brass stands and a velvet rope. Then she waited.

  “Excuse me, I beg your pardon.” Curtis Armitage-Goode eased his way forward. He asked Storm, “May I?”

  Storm nodded to the agent standing by the makeshift barrier. “Let him approach.”

  “I am indeed most grateful.” Curtis moved so close that his nose almost touched the canvas. He swept back and forth, up and down, then patted the pocket holding the silk scarf that matched his tie. “Drat. I left my glass behind.”

  “Middle drawer of the jewel stand.”

  “Many thanks.”

  The crowd grew respectfully silent. They watched Curtis use the magnifying glass to inspect several points on the canvas, remaining still and intent for minutes at a time.

  A small dark-haired woman with olive skin appeared at Storm’s elbow. “Ms. Syrrell—do I have that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Chandra Suritam with Artworld. May I have a few words?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you mind if we take a few photographs?”

  “No flash.”

  “No, naturally not.”

  Curtis snapped from his position by the painting, “You can ruddy well wait until I’m done.”

  Storm answered the journalist’s questions in the curt half measures she had heard her grandfather use. Offering more mystery than anything else. Finally Curtis slipped back through the crowd and joined them. “Good morning, Chandra.”

  “Hello, Mr. Armitage-Goode. Is it genuine?”

  In response he said to Storm, “Name your price.”

  A fizzing current passed through the crowd. Storm said to the reporter, “Excuse us for a moment.”

  “No problem.” The reporter moved forward to stand beside where her photographer was setting up a tripod.

  Storm pulled Curtis to one side, angled so she was both removed from the crowd yet within visual range of her booth. “Do you know the Palm Beach Bank?”

  “The dinosaur on Worth Avenue. Certainly.”

  “Meet me downstairs in the safety-deposit vault in one hour.”

  “Certainly. But you really must give me some idea of the price you wish—”

  Storm halted him by tapping one finger on his foulard. “Be on time.”

  STORM CARRIED HER SHOPPING BAG into the bank, signed into the safety-deposit vault, opened the left box, and took out her grandfather’s notebook. She relocked the box and entered one of the alcoves. She was careful to seal the thick velvet curtain on both sides. Overhead an AC vent sighed softly. Otherwise there was no sound. Storm pulled out her new phone and went to work.

  The next-generation Nokia had a ten-megapixel camera, Zeiss lens, and twelve gigs of memory. Storm photographed her grandfather’s notebook, one shot per page. The salesman had assured her that the phone shot crystal-clear close-ups in idiot mode. She worked through the notebook in less than twenty minutes.

  The alcove was completely lined in carpet the color of caramel and smelled faintly of disinfectant. The claustrophobic silence left her perspiring. She closed the notebook and followed the salesman’s instructions. The phone opened like a jewel box to reveal a fold-out OLED screen. The organic light-emitting display was only microns thick and attached to a slim plastic backing. When unfolded, her viewing area was six inches by nine and astonishingly sharp. As the salesman had promised, the screen flashed the message VIEW PHOTOGRAPHS Y/N. Storm scrolled through enough to be certain her grandfather’s notes were clearly legible.

  She returned the notebook to the vault and retrieved the golden chalice. The beige carpeted desk proved a perfect backdrop for photographing. There was nothing she could find that gave any hint of the dish’s origin. She suspected Phoenician because of the gold’s reddish hue, rich as desert sands at sunset. But she remained concerned by the absence of any carvings. Virtually all gold articles from the ancient world were richly adorned. Nowadays atomic profiling could identify gold by the region where the ore had been mined. But gold from the Fertile Crescent, if that was what she just photographed, was often melted down and recast, particularly if it was war booty. There could be a dozen different mines represented in any such artifact.

  The dish was fourteen inches long, eight inches wide, and about an inch and a half deep. The base mirrored the bowl’s oblong shape, too pointy at the ends to be called a true oval. She turned the chalice over and inspected the wax filling the base. Storm scraped the surface with a fingernail. Her impression from the other day was confirmed. The wax was new. She had thought long and hard about this and come up with only one reason why someone would reseal the base of a carefully stored artifact. Whatever they had discovered inside was meant to be kept secret.

  She took the paring knife she had brought from her kitchen to carve away the wax, being careful not to touch the surrounding gold. The wax was pliable and came out cleanly. Three inches into her excavation, she stopped. And stared.

  “Ms. Syrrell?”

  She jerked. “Yes?”

  The guard made no move to open the curtain. “There’s a gentleman out front asking for you.”

  “Tell him to wait.” She listened to the guard’s soft footfalls, then scooped up her camera and photographed the exposed interior.

  Deeply inscribed onto the interior was a set of letters. She photographed the inscription from a variety of angles. Then she lowered the camera and whisper
ed, “Well, hello there.”

  She had seen that inscription before.

  CURTIS ARMITAGE-GOODE WAS MANY THINGS. He was foppish, superior minded, master of the subtle put-down, a throwback to a bygone era of princelings and courtiers. His wardrobe tended toward navy blazers with foulards and matching silk pocket kerchiefs. He could send an insomniac into a total snooze with his blow-by-blow retelling of deals, as he had done to Storm on their one and only date. But his clientele was as aristocratic as he pretended to be. And while he would deal in any article that would turn a tidy profit, his personal passion was books.

  Storm returned the chalice to the vault and extracted the illuminated manuscript. She carried it to the alcove and covered it with her jacket. She then walked through the vault, ensuring she was alone.

  She greeted Curtis with “Thanks for coming. Show him some ID and sign in. There’s something I want you to see.”

  “Don’t tell me you have more.”

  Storm asked the guard, “Is it possible for you to let me know if someone else shows up and wants to enter the vault?”

  Clearly this was not the first time he had been asked that. “Sure thing, Ms. Syrrell.”

  “Thanks. This way, Curtis.”

  Back in the alcove, Curtis watched her fasten the drape into place and observed, “Rather soon to be fitting me out for a coffin.”

  “Keep your voice down.” Storm set one hand on her jacket, draped over the waist-high counter. “Here’s the deal. I’ll give you right of first refusal on the Dürer.”

  “I have a German museum curator, a major client, who is willing to make a cash offer—”

  “I’m not interested in talking about the deal today.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure. Three months at least. Maybe more.”

  “I say, you can’t possibly expect my client to sit on such a pile of cash that long.”

  “Curtis, listen to me. You can’t have it. Not now.”