The Black Madonna (22 page)

Antonin Tarka said, “And could this obsessive interest of his be behind the theft of our national treasure?”

Father Gregor said, “Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Raphael Danton appears. He represents a
second
mystery buyer.”

“And Danton selects you as his dealer,” Antonin Tarka said. “Of course, we were delighted with the choice, given your grandfather's reputation. And your own.”

Father Gregor asked, “Can you determine the name of Danton's new buyer?”

“I'll ask. But he has every right not to tell me.” Storm found a certain satisfaction in having her concerns voiced by another. “Do you have any idea who Rausch represents?”

“We have been trying to determine that,” Tarka replied. “So far, we have come up with nothing.”

Father Gregor asked, “Perhaps your friend the Homeland Security agent can help us?”

“The American intelligence community is apparently in the dark like everybody else.” Storm hesitated, then she asked, “Can I tell her why we're here?”

Both men frowned. “The more people who know, the greater the risk of this becoming an international crisis.”

Tarka said, “Perhaps that is what the Russians had in mind all along.”

“They are devious,” Father Gregor said in agreement. “Brutally so. Our own history is testimony to that. But they also possess a certain Siberian logic. And I fail to see how they might gain from creating a public scandal.”

“They steal it,” Storm said, thinking out loud. “Then they offer to help you find it. And when it's recovered, they have a lever to pull you away from the West.”

Both men stared at her. Tarka asked, “You have experience dealing with Russian treachery?”

“I deal in treasure,” Storm replied. “There's no market more devious than mine.”

A bell sounded from high overhead. Father Gregor touched her arm. “The next mass will soon begin.”

“I'll meet you outside.” Storm stepped away from the men and started down the central aisle. She moved against the incoming tide of penitents, a multigenerational horde that poured through the rear doors.

Every surface in the vast hall was covered. Walls, pillars, all the way up to the ceiling a hundred feet and more overhead.
Canes and crutches and miniature icons and rosaries and folded prayer shawls and letters. Tens of thousands of letters, all set in cheap frames, many of them so ancient the yellowed pages no longer held any words. This was more than testimony to answered prayers. Storm felt like she walked through a cave that hearkened back to another era, one where humans struggled against forces so potent the people were left utterly powerless. Their fates were gripped by forces that cared nothing for their hopes, their dreams, their lives. They had no recourse except to pray. The church was a lone haven, the ancient icon in the sacristy a single gateway to a power that might, just might, be able to save or heal or return them to happier times. Sunlight through the eastern windows sparkled over the immense array of desperate testimonies. Storm felt as though she was surrounded by everything that defied her Western mind, her ingrained beliefs in self-determination and personal freedom.

When she emerged from the front portals, Father Gregor and Antonin Tarka waited for her just beyond the throngs pressing politely for space inside the church. For the first time, Storm felt as though she could connect to the forces that had etched the two men's features. Tanya stood some distance farther away, a stalwart woman who shared a similar conviction.

Storm walked up to them and said, “Thank you for bringing me here.”

T
HE CAVE WAS THE SIZE
of a county lockup. The air was spiced with bundles of clove and cinnamon and dried herbs hanging from head-high shelves bolted to the stone walls. The ceiling was just high enough for Harry to stand upright. Burlap sacks of beans and brown rice and dates and dried fruit were stacked against the walls. More shelves held canned goods. Wadi boiled water over a paraffin cooker and made instant coffee. They all drank from the same lone mug.

Wadi refilled the mug, added more sugar than Harry preferred, and said, “Soon as Ahmed left for Aqaba, they took me. Morning and night, guards walk me to the latrine. The rest of the time, I am here.”

The cave was floored in sand fine as face powder. Illumination was supplied by a battery-powered lantern. Harry shifted his back against the wall. His entire body burned. “Who is after you, Wadi?”

“Some people. Very angry. They pay much money to have me.” The Palestinian looked around the cave. “I think maybe soon enough I wish I was back here again.”

“Let's pretend we've still got a reason for having this conversation,”
Harry said. “I'll start off, you tell me when I get it wrong. How's that?”

Wadi continued his silent inspection of the rock walls.

“Little honesty up front. I was hired by the Israelis to identify a source of extremely high-quality counterfeit artifacts.”

Ahmed groaned, “This is the man I decide to trust.”

“That was then and this is now,” Harry said. “This thing has moved way beyond fake treasures. Hasn't it, Wadi?”

The man did not respond.

“So I'm brought into contact with a guy operating out of Hebron,” continued Harry. “Just as the deal is going down, I get a signal from Hassan, my driver. I ram you into the wall, which probably saves your life. Then somebody lights up the night sky.”

Wadi asked, “Why you are saving me? This I do not understand.”

“I hate counterfeits with a passion,” Harry said. “But a man who can make this level of copy is a true artist. I couldn't just let you go down.”

Wadi hefted a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers. “One moment I am wondering why you push me into the wall. Then a fireball blasts where I am standing one second before. You are between me and the bomb, so the flames hit your face and not mine. I am not knowing whether you live. Then I look down, and the only thing that is left of my guard is his ID. Right there at my feet.”

“I'd take that as a sign,” Harry said. “No question.”

“When I hear sirens, I drop his ID on your chest. In Hebron clinic, Palestinians get first beds and best treatment.” Wadi looked at Harry. “I am thinking much of this, sitting here in my prison.”

Harry pressed on. “But making counterfeit artifacts, no matter how valuable, wouldn't have this level of beast tracking you.”

Emma added, “Not to mention that suddenly we're getting alarm calls from all over the place. CIA, Homeland Security,
some high-powered secondary buyers, Polish priests, invisible Russians, the works.”

Ahmed said, “Polish priests do not find us here. This is somebody with many allies in Jordan.”

“And much money,” Wadi said. “I hear the guards say I am worth half a million dollars alive.”

“So here's what I think happened,” Harry said, looking at Wadi. “You were approached by somebody who wanted you to do some work. Something that required a counterfeiter as talented as you. But like any decent smuggler, you saw a chance for even more profit. Somehow you got an idea who was behind this whole deal. And you threatened to go public. So they decided to take you out. The bomb was meant for you, and I got caught in the backdraft. How am I doing so far?”

Emma said, “You should be working for Homeland.”

“I'm happy with my own craft, thank you very much,” Harry replied.

“Oh, sure,” Ahmed said. “Look where it brings you now.”

Harry asked, “Who's your artist, Wadi?”

When the man remained crouched over the little stove, Ahmed supplied the answer. “His daughters. They live in Damascus with their mother. They are best I have ever seen.”

“Which brings us to the million-dollar question,” Harry said. “Who did you manage to get so angry they've tracked you here to the back of beyond and caught us all up in the same net?”

Ahmed struggled to rise. “This does not matter if we stay trapped here.”

“It matters,” Harry said, watching Wadi Haddad avoid his gaze. “It matters a lot.”

“First we escape,” Ahmed said. “Then we see what matters.”

“I checked the door,” Emma said. “It's bolted shut. And I heard guards talking on the ledge.”

“Door. Guards. Hunh.” Ahmed stood unsteadily, cupping his badly bruised forehead with one hand and bracing himself against the cave wall with the other. He shuffled toward the rear
of the cave. “I tell you before, my family control the oasis since this was Bedu kingdom.” Ahmed kicked a burlap sack holding dried beans. “We must move all this.”

“Is just beans,” Wadi protested.

“No, mate. It's a back door, is what it is.” Harry turned and grinned at Emma. “I'm liking this guy more and more.”

When the sacks were shifted and the sand scraped away from the floor, they peeled back a rattan mat to reveal an ancient trapdoor. Harry asked, “Where does this go?”

“You see,” Ahmed replied. He motioned to Wadi, who heaved on the door. Below, all was dark. But a soft puff of wind promised freedom. “I go first.”

“Maybe I should take it first, help you down,” Emma said.

“American agents know footholds in secret tunnels?” Ahmed unfurled his headdress and tied it around the lantern's metal base to keep it from scraping on the rocks. He slithered feet first into the tunnel and winced at the pain in his head. “You step where I step, breathe when I breathe.”

“Hold it right there,” Emma said. She scrambled through her purse, came up with a small packet, which she tore open. She offered Ahmed a palm holding two pills. “Secret agents always carry Advil.”

Ahmed grinned in Harry's direction. “She have sister, this one?”

“Sorry, mate. One of a kind.”

“That's very good. My wife, she is one jealous lady.” Ahmed swallowed the Advil dry. “My head is better already. Okay. We go.”

THE TUNNEL WAS SCARCELY LARGE
enough for Harry to maneuver through. The descent gradually grew both steeper and more claustrophobic. The lantern was a dim glow up ahead. At the steepest point, the tunnel was carved with niches that formed regular foot- and handholds. Harry descended the tunnel as he
would a ladder. Though his ribs complained loudly, he could not stop grinning. A hundred or so bearded bandits above them with assault rifles on auto. A hundred miles between them and the nearest road sign. For company he had a smuggler, a counterfeiter, and a woman who had come halfway around the world to save his sorry hide. And there wasn't a hope of ever getting paid for his troubles.

No question about it. This was living large.

Where the tunnel leveled off and began to widen, Ahmed cut off the lantern. Harry spotted a dim glow in the distance. The way the light flickered and cast ruddy shadows, he figured it for a campfire. Their footsteps were cushioned by sand as soft as confectioner's sugar. The firelight caught tiny diamond-flickers in the walls, suggesting mica or quartz mixed with the sandstone. Then Ahmed hissed them to a halt and moved forward alone.

Harry gingerly felt about his chest. The climb down had shifted something internal. Harry did not feel broken so much as permanently bruised. But the adrenaline surge was enough to push his discomfort aside. At least for now.

At Ahmed's signal, they slipped forward, silent as the firelight shadows. They emerged through just another tight crevice, one of millions that dotted the hillside. Their path was a ledge that snaked in and out of sight. In the distance, a dozen or so people gathered around a fire. Then they slipped around an edge and entered a new landscape, one illuminated only by a quarter moon. Below them the palms whispered soft warnings. The oasis waters were dark as blood.

They descended another series of narrow steps, clinging to the rock face with desperate fingertips. When they finally reached ground level, Harry would have danced a jig if his body hadn't been aching so badly. Wadi had no such impediment, however, and he flung his arms upward and mouthed a silent greeting to the stars.

Which was when the guard rounded the corner.

It was hard to say who was more astonished, the bandit or the escapees.

Emma stepped forward and hammered the guy between the eyes.

The guard's eyes gave a little butterfly-flutter, but he refused to go down until she chopped him at the juncture of jaw and neck and ear.

Ahmed caught the man and Wadi the gun. Both Arabs flashed Emma grins of approval and dragged the guard into a natural alcove. They lashed his hands with Emma's kerchief, stuffed Wadi's into his mouth, and used Ahmed's belt for his legs.

Ahmed kept the Suzukis between them and the group clustered by the fire. He led them into a side alcove, which held a single vehicle, one so massive it completely filled the chamber. When Harry realized what he was looking at, he huffed a quiet laugh.