Monsieur Delacroix stopped, turned to the smaller of the two Texans. 'Young monsieur James. You will stay here, while your brother and I verify the heads.'
Big Drabyak gave his younger brother a reassuring nod.
Monsieur Delacroix then led Big Drabyak down the long torch-lit tunnel.
At the end of the passageway was a magnificent office. One entire wall of it was a picture window offering a stunning panoramic view of the Atlantic Ocean, stretching away to the horizon.
As they came to the end of the stone tunnel, Monsieur Delacroix stopped again.
'If I may have your case, please . . .'
The bounty hunter gave him the white medical transport box.
Monsieur Delacroix said, 'Now, if you would wait here.'
Delacroix entered the office, leaving the Texan bounty hunter standing just beyond the doorway, still inside the stone passageway.
Delacroix crossed to his desk, pulling a handheld remote from his coat as he did so, and pressed a button on it—
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Three steel doors came thundering down into the medieval passageway from slits concealed in its roof.
The first two doors sealed off the ante-room, imprisoning Little Drabyak in the circular stone room, cutting him off from both the upstairs garage and the narrow tunnel containing his older brother.
The third steel door sealed off the office from the passageway— separating Monsieur Delacroix from Big Drabyak.
Small perspex windows set into each steel door allowed the two bounty hunters to look out from their new prisons.
Monsieur Delacroix's voice came to them via speakers in the
ceiling.
'Gentlemen. As you both would no doubt appreciate, a bounty hunt of this value attracts—how shall I put it—some rather unscrupulous individuals. You will stay where you are while I verify the identity of the heads that you have brought me.'
Monsieur Delacroix placed the medical delivery box on his desk, opened it with expert hands.
Two severed heads gazed up at him.
One was speckled in blood, its eyes wide with horror.
The other was in poorer condition. It had been badly burned.
Monsieur Delacroix was unperturbed.
Donning a pair of surgical gloves, he calmly extracted the blood-speckled head from the box and placed it on a scanning device beside his computer.
'And who do you claim this is?' Monsieur Delacroix asked Big
Drabyak over the intercom.
'The Israeli, Rosenthal,' Drabyak said.
'Rosenthal,' Delacroix punched the name into his computer. 'Hmmm . . . Mossad agent ... no DNA records. Typical of the Israelis, really. It is no matter. I have instructions on this. We shall have to use other means.'
Delacroix initiated the scanning device on which the severed
head sat.
Like a CAT scan, the device ran a series of laser beams over the
exterior of the severed head.
Once the device had finished scanning the head, Delacroix calmly opened the mouth of the blood-speckled face and exposed the head's teeth to the laser scanner.
Delacroix then pressed another button on his keyboard and compared the analysed head to a collection of records on his computer screen.
The computer beeped, and Monsieur Delacroix smiled.
'The cross-reference score is 89.337%. According to my instructions, a verification score of 75% or higher is enough to warrant payment of the bounty. Gentlemen, your first head has been successfully verified by cranial shape and known dental records as that of Major Benjamin Y. Rosenthal of the Israeli Mossad. You are now 18.6 million dollars richer.'
The two bounty hunters smiled in their respective stone cages.
Delacroix then pulled out the second head.
'And this one?' he asked.
Big Drabyak said, 'It's Nazzar, the HAMAS guy. Found him in Mexico. Buying M-16s from a drug lord.'
'How utterly fascinating,' Delacroix said.
The second head was blackened with burn-damage, and it appeared as if half its teeth had been blasted out with a gunshot wound ... or a hammer.
Monsieur Delacroix performed the cranial and dental laser tests.
The two bounty hunters held their breath. They seemed to get increasingly apprehensive with Delacroix's examination of the two heads.
The skull and dental records returned a verification score of 77.326%.
Monsieur Delacroix said, 'The percentage is 77%, no doubt due to the extensive fire and bullet damage to this head. Now, as you know, according to my instructions, a verification score of 75% or higher is enough to warrant payment of the bounty . . .'
The bounty hunters grinned.
'. . . unless there is a DNA record of the individual at issue, in which case I am to consult it,' Delacroix said. 'And it appears from my records here that there is a DNA sample for this individual.'
The two bounty hunters whirled to face each other, shocked.
Big Drabyak said, 'But there can't be . . .'
'Oh, yes,' Delacroix said, 'according to my records here, Mister Yousef Nazzar was imprisoned in the United Kingdom in 1999 on minor weapons importation charges. A sample of his blood was taken in accordance with the UK's prisoner-intake
DNA policy.'
As Big Drabyak shouted for him to stop, Monsieur Delacroix injected a hypodermic needle into the left cheek of the blackened head in front of him and extracted some blood.
The blood was then placed in an analyser attached to Delacroix's computer.
Another beep.
A bad one.
Delacroix frowned—and suddenly his face took on a far more dangerous complexion.
'Gentlemen . . .' he said slowly.
The bounty hunters froze.
The Swiss banker paused, as if he was offended by the indiscretion. 'Gentlemen, this head is a forgery. This is not the head of Yousef Nazzar.'
'Now wait a minute—' Big Drabyak began.
'Please be quiet, Mister Drabyak,' Delacroix said. 'The cosmetic surgery was quite convincing; you employed a good plastic surgeon, that much is certain. The burning of the head to remove visual identification, well, that is clever but old. And the restructured teeth were very well faked. But you didn't know there was a DNA record, did you?'
'No,' Big Drabyak growled. 'The Rosenthal head was also a fake, then?' 'It was obtained by an associate of ours,' Big Drabyak lied, 'and he assured us that it was—'
'But you have presented it to me, Monsieur Drabyak, therefore it is your responsibility. Let me be clear. Honesty, in this moment, may help you. Is the Rosenthal head also a fake?'
'Yes,' Drabyak grimaced.
'This is a grave offence against the rules of the hunt, Mister Drabyak. My clients will not tolerate attempts to deceive them, you do understand that?'
Big Drabyak said nothing.
'Fortunately, I have instructions on this,' Delacroix said. 'Monsieur Drabyak the Elder. The passageway in which you are standing, do you know what it is?'
'No.'
'Oh, yes. How silly of me to forget, you are American. You know nothing of world history except the name of every US President and the capital of every US state. A knowledge of medieval European warfare would be somewhat beyond you, no?'
Big Drabyak's face was blank.
Delacroix sighed. 'Monsieur Drabyak, the tunnel in which you now stand was once used as a trap to ensnare those who would attack this castle. When enemy soldiers came through that passageway, boiling oil would be flushed into it through the gutters in its walls, killing the intruders in a most painful way.'
Big Drabyak snapped to look at the walls of the stone passageway around him. They were indeed pockmarked with a series of basketball-sized holes high up near the ceiling.