“This exhibition is temporarily closed,” she said as she approached.
Both of them turned to her, but it was the girl that spoke. “I’m looking for Mr. Carutius.” Although she hesitated with the name, as if her mouth had tried to use a different word first, her tone was every bit as serious as the look on her face. “Is he in there?”
Julia peered back at them, wondering what possible business these two could have with the wealthy and influential man. She shuffled through a variety of responses but then sublimated her impulse to put them off, and instead motioned for them to follow her. The woman’s face creased with concern but the girl seemed both grateful and anxious as she fell into step behind Julia.
She led them to a blank access door a few steps down the corridor from the roll-up gate, tapped in her security code and when the electronic lock disengaged, turned the knob.
“I probably shouldn’t be letting you in like this,” she said, but her curiosity was now burning even brighter. Maybe if Carutius was distracted with this pair, she’d be able to figure out why he had really closed the exhibit.
The corridor beyond was conspicuously bland in contrast to the public areas, but it was a short walk to another door that opened in the rear of the exhibition hall. As she reached for the doorknob, Julia became aware of a low buzzing sound, like the noise of fluorescent light fixtures, but amplified several times over, emanating from beyond. Waves of resonance vibrated through the metal skin of the door.
“That’s strange,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. The woman and the girl didn’t seem to grasp how unusual the sound was. Shaking her head, she opened the door.
The atonal sound was considerably louder now, setting Julia’s teeth on edge. A moment later she spied its source, an array of portable speakers lined up in front of the display case containing several pieces of debris from the Sakyamuni Buddha-the smaller and older of the two carvings.
Carutius stood nearby, hunched over a computer monitor, and was so completely focused on what he was doing that he failed to notice the new arrivals. Julia’s attention was drawn to the table and to a bank of little plastic disks that had been positioned to face the display case. She recognized the disks from her time spent in radiometry laboratories; they were film badge dosimeters, designed to warn the wearer of exposure to a potentially lethal dose of x-ray or gamma radiation. Surely he’s not performing the dating tests here, she thought.
“It is you!” The girl had to shout to be heard over the droning sound, and before Julia could think to forestall her, she dashed forward to confront Carutius. “What are you doing here?”
The big man spun around, clearly startled. Julia braced herself for the outburst to come, expecting to be the focus of his rage. She didn’t care; he was up to something, and it was her duty to find out, even if it meant drawing fire from her superiors.
But the flash of anger-if it was even there to begin with-faded as soon as Carutius’s gaze lit on the girl’s face, replaced by equal parts recognition and alarm.
“You?” he gasped.
Julia looked anew at the teenager, wondering how it was possible that this wide-eyed American Indian girl could possibly know the European financier. When Carutius spoke again, Julia realized that whatever the explanation was, it was something beyond her wildest imaginings. It wasn’t so much what he said as his grave demeanor that sent a chill down the curator’s spine.
“Fiona.” His ominous whisper was strangely audible despite the ambient humming. “You shouldn’t be here.”
16
As soon as he heard the thunderous detonation, Timur Suvorov opened the door to the office and swept into the room in a low stance, his silenced Uzi machine pistol, an untraceable black market purchase, leading the way. The improvised flash-bang grenade he had tossed into the small room a moment before had probably incapacitated everyone inside, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He pivoted to the right, scanning the corners of the room, even as his teammate, close friend, and second-in-command, Ian Kharitonov rushed in behind him and cut to the left.
The tactical entry proved unnecessary; the four occupants lay motionless, clustered together in the center of the room. Suvorov allowed himself a satisfied smile. This was going well.
The original plan had called for a dynamic assault on the riverboat, with his small team taking out the sizable security force and then herding the rest of the passengers together in the casino. While the audacious scheme was well within the ability of his Spetsnaz team, Suvorov had felt no small measure of relief when his lookout-an SVR operative who had infiltrated the event-had radioed him with the news that the target had left the main casino and moved to an office belowdecks. Suvorov had deftly crafted a contingency that would minimize their visibility and increase their chances of success by an order of magnitude. The former consideration was particularly important; although they would be leaving a false trail that would point to the raid being the work of a criminal gang, there would nevertheless be a scrupulous investigation by the gendarmerie. There was no telling what telltale clues they might have left behind that would lead back to the Spetsnaz, the GRU and the Russian government. His encounter with Julia Preston at the Louvre for example, was just the sort of thing that could have unexpected consequences. Keeping the mayhem to a minimum would reduce some of the public demand for a comprehensive investigation into the night’s events.
The original plan also would have resulted in dozens of casualties-security personnel, passengers, possibly even members of his team-and while Suvorov understood that was simply the cost of victory, he was pleased that such a level of violence would not be required. It was easy for the politicians, safe in their houses of power thousands of miles away, to say ‘whatever it takes,’ but it was the soldiers who had to live with the consequences. Spetsnaz training had hardened him against the emotional toll of taking lives, but there was no way to exorcise the ghosts of innocent victims lost to collateral damage.
Of course, it was much too early for self-congratulation. Locating and securing the target had been the easy part. Getting off the riverboat with their human prize would be another matter entirely. The noise of the stun grenade would almost certainly bring more security guards running. It was time to get moving.
He hastened to the center of the room and scanned the faces of the unmoving men to identify the target. The picture he had was from an old SVR file; the target had done a very good job of hiding his identity, avoiding surveillance cameras and even erasing all traces of his existence from digital archives. Still, there was enough of a similarity between the man lying before him and the grainy image in the photograph to verify that he had indeed found his prey.
Suvorov allowed himself a grim smile as he thought about the SVR and GRU interrogators in Moscow tripping over each other for the chance to get at the information in this man’s head. He knelt beside the supine form, pleased to see that the man was starting to regain his senses. “Sorry to cut short your party, but it’s time to go Mr. Brown.”
17
King’s ears were ringing from the detonation, but he could just make out a few of the words the newcomer had spoken. Russian, he thought, and that bit of information was enough for him to draw an obvious conclusion. Russian commandos, probably a Spetsnaz team-Russian Special Forces, arguably the deadliest unconventional fighting men on Earth-wanted Brown as badly as he did.
The flash-bang had gone off behind him, sparing his eyes from the blinding brilliance of the flash, but the concurrent shock wave had nonetheless left him disoriented and faintly queasy. He remained motionless as the two black-clad commandos hauled their captive erect and hurried from the office, but as soon as they were gone, he resumed his efforts at getting free.