The Black Madonna (39 page)

Sir Julius emerged from the rear seat before the police car came to a full stop. The wind rustled his thinning hair and fluttered his pant legs. “How
dare
you attempt to deceive me!”

“Looks to me like we succeeded.” Storm motioned to Emma. Together they lifted the icon and started down the lane toward the landing strip. Away from the police and the guards and the irate British nobleman.

“We'll see about that!” He flapped one arm against the wind and the day. “Seize that item!”

Emma released the icon to Storm and stepped between them. “It's not yours to take.”

“Oh, and I suppose you're going to stop me?” His sneer was strong enough to defy the wind. “The agent who has been dismissed from her agency for refusing a direct order to stay out of affairs that are
none of her concern
?”

Emma took the verbal blow without a blink of her eye. “That's right,” she said. “I am.”

The peer's hand was shaking so hard he twice missed drawing a letter from his inner pocket. “I have arrived with orders for these policemen to arrest you.”

Storm asked, “Are you going to arrest them as well?”

“What are you blathering . . .” Sir Julius turned.

Every tree lining the private lane sprouted an individual. There were more men than women. But the women were clearly as tough as the men.

Sir Julius demanded, “Where did they come from?”

“Poland,” Storm replied.

His laugh held a manic edge. “You think this rabble can halt Her Majesty's government?”

“Absolutely,” Storm said.

The police and the guards had gone silent. Their attention was gripped by the sight of the ragtag group moving toward them.

“What do they expect to do, shoot us down?” Sir Julius raised his voice. “Do you have
any
idea of the firestorm that would be unleashed?”

“No more of a firestorm than your trying to mask the theft of a national treasure,” Storm replied. “They are unarmed. They are taking the icon and they are leaving.”

“What utter rot.” Sir Julius turned to the police. “You there. Stop them.”

The police shouted something in Swiss German and started forward, hands on their holstered guns.

The approaching group unclenched slightly, revealing a man whose face was half melted away. He responded in their own tongue and lifted a leather badge case similar to the one Emma carried.

Emma moved back to where Storm kept the icon anchored against the wind. “He's intel?”

Storm replied, “Swiss military.”

“You knew this since when, exactly?”

“I heard Eric use the satellite phone in the mountain hut. He called down and received permission for us to enter his country. He explained what he was doing and why.”

“And you didn't tell me.” Emma swept the hair from her face. “Shame on you.”

A distant rhythmic popping overhead grew louder. Storm said, “Here they come.”

Sir Julius towered over the two women and the icon. “I will
destroy
you.”

“I'm sure you will try.” Storm waited while a helicopter settled onto the landing strip beside the jet. “And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an item to deliver to its rightful owner.”

She and Emma began walking toward the landing strip. Tanya stepped from the group and helped Emma and Storm anchor the icon against the raging wind. The rest of the group of Poles fell in around them. One of the men began singing. Several others joined in. Storm hummed along, though she did not know either the tune or the language. But it scarcely mattered, just as her prayers did not need to name a man or even her own need, for fear of shattering her hold on the day. She heard Emma begin to hum what sounded like an entirely different tune. Somehow their melodies blended well.

By the time they arrived at the point where the lane joined with the landing strip, Father Gregor and Antonin Tarka had alighted from the copter and moved toward them, their voices joining in the song. All of them were singing. Everyone.

A
T THE SAINT MORITZ POLICE
station they were met by a man in a gray uniform with a colorless expression. Eric snapped off a salute and said to the women, “I must go with him.”

“Will you be okay?” Emma asked.

Eric waited until the man had stepped away to reply, “There are some within my government who do not approve of Sir Julius's actions. They dislike using Temerko and his ailing daughter as pawns. I am safe. What about you?”

“Hard to say.”

“You play the game, you pay the price, yes?” He must have understood the fear behind Emma's tight features, for he added, “Your efforts have averted an international crisis. Sir Julius is of course livid over your blocking his plan to blackmail Temerko. But there must be cooler heads in both his government and your own. They will recognize what you have done as a service to international relations.”

“Let's hope my boss agrees with you,” Emma said.

“I am certain of it.” Eric turned to Storm. “Raphael would be very proud of you.”

“Will be,” Emma said, correcting him. “Will be very proud.”

Storm hugged the man. “Assuming we all survive this, I just want you to know, whatever you need, wherever you need it.”

“I feel the same.” He saluted them. “An honor to serve with you both.”

The Swiss authorities took the two women to the Zurich airport. They were ushered through customs and taken to a room the size of an office cubicle. A stout woman in her late twenties stood by the steel door. She wore a dark blue uniform and a suspicious air. Storm found it easy to ignore her.

Storm sat on one side of a plastic table bolted to the wall. Emma sat across from her. High overhead, an air conditioner rattled quietly. Shadows creased Emma's features, strong enough to defy the room's fluorescent lighting. She stared at her hands, which cupped her phone.

Storm said, “Not checking your messages won't make the bad stuff go away.”

“You think I don't know that?”

Storm reached across the table for Emma's phone. Emma started to draw away, then sighed. That single breath released all her muscles. The hands and arms and shoulders and neck all went limp.

Storm turned on the phone. Dialed Emma's voice mail. Listened.

Emma asked the tabletop, “How many messages?”

“Seventeen from Tip, four from Harry.”

“Leave our lad for the moment.” Emma's voice sounded strangled. “Let's face what Tip has to say.”

Storm listened to the first few messages, then cut the connection and sighed.

Emma swallowed hard. “Bad, huh?”

“How do I reach Tip?”

“Number two on the speed dial.”

The phone in America rang once, then Tip MacFarland
barked, “You missed the D-Day landing, so you decided to set up your very own Normandy, is that it?”

“This is Storm Syrrell.”

“Why aren't I speaking to Emma?”

“Because.” Storm hesitated, then decided the man deserved the truth. “She's terrified.”

Emma turned and stared at the sidewall.

“The lady should be.”

“That's very helpful, Tip.” Emma looked so small and frightened, Storm could not entirely keep the fury from her voice. “She's done nothing wrong, and you know it.”

“She defied a direct order from the director's office.”

“Because of the CIA's maneuvers. Their aim was to let a Russian oligarch keep possession of a Polish national treasure. Which the Russian had stolen. But the Langley brigade and their pals in England didn't care about that, or the uproar that threatened to engulf central Europe. All they wanted was a way to pull the Kremlin's strings.” When Tip remained silent, she pressed, “Did they happen to mention how Emma helped restore the icon to its rightful place, an act that earned her the thanks of the Polish nation and the Catholic Church?”

Tip spoke slowly. “You're telling me you have documented evidence you could take public.”

“I don't make threats, Tip. Unlike some people.”

The growl softened a notch. “Let me speak to her.”

Emma did not reveal a thing as she accepted the phone and said, “Webb here.” She listened awhile, gave a soft yes, another, and then hung up. Emma stared at the phone in her hands and said, “I may have to lie low for a while. Drop a ways down the pay scale. Find a cave and pull a rock in behind me. Tip mentioned Tasmania.”

THEY TOOK THE BULLET TRAIN
to Weisbaden. Storm had intended to travel straight back to London. But two things
changed her mind. Harry revealed that he had undergone what sounded like fairly major surgery. Then there was the small item of marriage. As in, Emma and Harry. They both wanted Storm to witness the occasion. Harry had arranged for the ceremony to take place in the hospital chapel. Storm agreed to make a quick detour, then hurry to Raphael's bedside.

Storm's reunion with the wayward lad was made more poignant both by his weakened state and by Emma's untrammeled joy. Emma sat in the chair by his bed, held his hands, and glowed. Storm stood where she could watch them both and yearned.

They overnighted in a hotel by the main gates of the air base. Storm did not sleep well. The next morning Emma appeared wearing the same dress and jacket she had last donned in Basel. The outfit was wrinkled and road-weary, but it did not matter. Emma's face shone with a luminescence that left Storm wanting to weep—with joy for them, with worry over her own state, with relief and exhaustion.

While Emma went upstairs to check on Harry, Storm bought flowers from the hospital gift shop and followed the signs to the chapel. The chapel lighting was muted, the colors soothing, the seven pews empty. A single votive candle burned upon the altar. Storm set two bouquets to either side of the stone cross and wished it was in her power to accent the day further. Fireworks, perhaps, a hundred of their closest friends and an angelic choir and a twenty-one-gun salute. Because that was what her friend deserved.

Storm took a seat in the front pew and checked her watch. The time meant nothing. She opened her phone, speed-dialed Muriel, and spoke the question yet again. “How is he?”

“Raphael has had a bad night.”

The air was suddenly filled with glass shards, each breath a scarring experience. “What happened?”

“I have no idea.” Muriel tried for a professional air but achieved only a monotone flat as pounded iron. “I can't see any change. But I met with the doctors. They say his vitals are not holding up as well as they had hoped. Whatever that means.”

Storm forced herself to swallow down the wail. She found herself speaking with the same dull flatness as Muriel. “Can I speak with Raphael?”

“Of course. Here he is.”

Storm heard the rustling sound as the phone was settled against his ear. She felt a surge at heart level and knew the current between them was so strong it could defy even the dead air. “Hello, my darling. The pilgrimage is over. The one I did for us. I think it's maybe the finest—”

She stopped. Everything welled up inside her, pressing against her heart until the walls burst. She said what she had not allowed herself even to think. Until now. “I want a home with you, Raphael. I want a yard with a bougainvillea hedge and palms that rattle in the night winds. I want a porch and a swing. I want us to watch the water sparkle at sunset. I want children, Raphael. I thought I would never say those words. But I do. I want to give you your heart's desire. I want to know the joy of loving you for years and years . . .”

There might have been a sigh, a quiet rush of sound. Almost like she could hear a man whisper her name.

Storm managed her farewells to Muriel, then sat cradling the phone. Raphael's absence was an empty ache, almost large enough to swallow her whole. Even so, her words to him echoed through the empty chamber. Words Storm had always assumed would never be true, as far as she was concerned. Somehow, her present had become at least partly severed from her past, enough so that she could reach beyond her upbringing and declare herself ready to love. Before this day, this very hour, she would have called such things impossible. Storm wiped her face
and wondered if this was what it was like to come face-to-face with miracles.

Then Harry's nurse pushed open the chapel doors. She smiled at Storm, as though finding only rightness in a woman's tears. The nurse said, “We're ready to begin.”