Black River (24 page)

O’Brien said nothing for a moment. His phone rang in his pocket. He removed it and glanced at the number. Dave Collins calling. O’Brien answered and Dave said, “Sean, I just spoke with Charlie Simmons…the guy who owns the sixty-foot Hatteras docked two slips down from me. Anyway, he said he saw your Jeep in the marina lot. Are you on property?”

“Yes, I’m talking with Kim.”

“Better cut it short and come take a look at this.”

“Take a look at what?”

“Nick and I are flipping through the news channels, domestic and international. And all of a sudden, what do we see on tabloid TV? We see you display your pitcher’s arm. Looks like you just threw out the first pitch in what is becoming a tense global game. Although you managed to hit an open garbage truck with that microphone, to quote our friend, Nick, you just landed in a big pile of shit because all hell is breaking out over this diamond—or the diamond’s possibility of it being identified as the Koh-i-Noor. You need to see this because that bright, flashing stone is a lightning rod, attracting fire and tension as to who really owns it. And now saber rattling between two powerful nations is happening.”

T
he black Jaguar sedan moved through London traffic en route to the Palace of Westminster and the Parliament House of Commons when Prime Minister Duncan Hannes’ mobile phone vibrated softly in the inside breast pocket of his tailored suit jacket. Although the caller ID was not displayed, Hannes wasn’t hesitant to take the call.

All his life he’d leaned into challenges. Never back away. It was time this threat was quashed like an annoying insect. Keep the bloody bastard on the line long enough to give M15 time to lock down a more precise location. He answered. “Yes.”

“It is so unfortunate that the proverbial cat is out of your bag, Duncan.” The man’s voice had dreamlike coolness. It was as if a master hypnotist was about to instruct the most powerful politician in Britain to swim naked across the English Channel. “However, there is no real controversy until tangible evidence is brought forth. All else is simply scuttlebutt. Nothing but unproven rumor in an election year. The video with the alleged Crown Jewel diamond could easily have been faked. The contract mentioned in the video hasn’t been seen in public. I can keep it that way, Duncan. I can deliver to you the paper with the unverified signature of someone who held your position 160 years earlier, Lord Palmerston. I’ll wrap the diamond in it. All you have to do in return is make the deposit into the account. Nothing will ever surface. No embarrassment to the Royals. No re-writing of history. It all fades quietly away. And you, Duncan, become the silent hero. A true knight in Her Majesty’s kingdom.”

“How can you negotiate without the goods?”

“Who says I don’t have them?”

“I do. Your call is rubbish, tantamount to the threat of blackmail without the cards on the table. You’re nothing but the joker.”

“I will show you the cards, but now when I spread them on the table it will be for the world to see. And you, dear Duncan, will go from what could have been a knightly position to a mere jester in Her Majesty’s court.”

The caller disconnected.

Duncan pressed four numbers on his mobile phone. A man with a low voice said, “We have every word, sir. Hold a minute and we’ll triangulate a possible location.”

“Please be expeditious. I want this bastard picked up. If England still had beheading, I’d personally stick his bloody head atop a post on the London Bridge.”

“Sir—”

“Yes!”

“The call came from a disposable mobile near Orlando, Florida.”

“Is Randolph James there?”

“He’s standing next to me.”

“Put him on the line.”

“Mr. Prime Minister, we’re getting closer.”

“James, find this man and find him quickly. Send your best man or woman. Find this person and bring him here.”

The Jaguar slowed and stopped in front of the entrance to the House of Commons. Prime Minister Duncan Hannes looked out the car window toward a mob of news reporters gathered to meet him. At that moment, four months before his reelection bid, they looked more like a pack of wolves. He knew they were here to ask him questions about the video of the American who says he found and read the contract between England and the Confederate States of America.

“We’ll find him, sir.”

“James, after 160 years, why does this suddenly appear on my watch, and four months before the elections?”

“Sir, the American whose reported to have found the contract and the diamond was killed on a movie set. The local police are carrying out their investigation, but we suspect his death was probably murder.”

“Did I just speak with the man who killed him?”

“Most likely, sir. We will know for certain when we track him down. We have one of our best field agents on the hunt.”

O
’Brien sat with Dave and Nick in
Gibraltar
, Dave holding the remote control and channel surfing, his Internet-capable TV streaming newscasts from around the world. He stopped and paused the picture of a newscast coming from the BBC and said, “Sean, how did one of those tabloid TV shows shoot video of you tossing the reporter’s microphone into the back of that garbage truck? Were you ambushed? And there you stood with the widow and child of Jack Jordan, the poor bloke who was killed on the movie set. The kid looked really frightened.”

“Laura Jordan is being threatened. Someone called after the video went viral, before she met with the news media, and told her to say nothing about the diamond and or the Civil War contract.”

Dave grunted, glanced at the stationary image on his TV screen. “Sounds like Laura ought to be telling this to the police.”

“She’s talking with them. I first spoke with her because she and her husband owned the painting I’m trying to recover.”

Nick sat on one of the bar stools, crossed his hefty arms, and said, “Maybe the same person who snatched the painting stole the diamond and killed her husband. Sean, that puts your hunt for the painting smack dab in the middle of some deep dung ‘cause look at the shit that’s gettin’ stirred up over this diamond and the Civil War contract.”

Dave nodded and lifted one hand. “But is it authentic? Sean, Ike Kirby is probably the best person in the nation to help Laura Jordan determine if
the contract is genuine. Give me her number, and I’ll ask Ike to call her to set up an appointment.”

“Okay. But I’ll reach Laura first in a few minutes to tell her to be expecting his call.” O’Brien wrote her number down on a napkin and slid it across the table to Dave.

Nick finished his beer and said, “Dave, turn up the sound. It’s time my man, Sean, got a reality check.”

“Indeed,” Dave said, looking from the TV screen to O’Brien. “As cold and horrific as the killing was on the movie set, assuming the victim was murdered, wait until the international bounty hunters begin following the same trail you’re following, Sean. This scavenger hunt becomes deadly when the bounty is priceless. If these guys take prisoners, it’s only to break arms and legs like that garbage truck smashed the microphone.” Dave pressed the remote and the newscast continued.

The news anchor, a platinum-haired man in his early sixties, said, “The Royal Family is having no public comment on the discovery of what is certainly one of the most coveted and valuable diamonds in the world, the Koh-i-Noor. The viral video, now with more than 130-million views, shows a diamond, apparently identical to the infamous Koh-i-Noor, lifted out of a strongbox off the bottom of a tropical river in Florida. The video is a clip from a documentary in production about the American Civil War, and the presenter—a man who was later killed in an accidental shooting on a movie set—claims that the UK entered into a contract with the Confederate States of America at the start of the war, England apparently helping to fund the Confederate war effort. He contends that he discovered an old contract that spells out how the famed diamond was on loan to the Confederacy in some kind of a top-secret collateral agreement. Prime Minister Duncan Hannes laughed when asked about both the diamond and Britain’s alleged involvement with the Confederacy.”

The image cut to the prime minister getting out of the back seat of a black, chauffeur-driven Jaguar as the car stopped in front of the British Parliament building. The prime minister answered the reporter’s question with a smile and slight chuckle. “The diamond in question, the Koh-i-Noor, is where it’s been for many, many years…in the late Queen Mother’s crown, which is on display with the rest of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of
London. And, as far as the supposed connection between Great Britain and the American Confederacy, I assure you the purported contract is a complete fabrication. Queen Victoria and the British government, at that time, were wholly neutral during the American Civil War. Neither Her Majesty, nor her government took sides.” He cocked his head, smiled at the reporter and said, “Whilst I don’t mind answering questions to ludicrous hoaxes, if you have a more current and important topic, I’d be delighted to respond.”

The image cut back to the reporter standing in front of the Tower of London. He said, “The flip side to all of this is the huge, renewed pubic curiosity about the diamond. The Tower of London was forced to restrict entrance after three p.m. today to accommodate record crowds. Seems that everyone, tourists here in London, and British citizens, are queuing up to get a close look at the fabled Koh-i-Noor…if it’s the actual diamond. Dylan Anderson, BBC, London.”

Dave smiled and stirred his cocktail. “The prime minister has a great poker face.”

O’Brien crossed his arms. “Meaning you think he knows more than he’s saying.”

“Indeed. An old British friend of mine, an intel analyst, called me. Someone is blackmailing Prime Minister Hannes. The blackmailer, a man who says he has the Civil War document and the diamond to back it up, threatens to release both. That means history books with reference to the Civil War will be rewritten or amended. The Royal Family gets dragged into a 160-year-old mess, and India demands the return of a diamond they say England stole.”

Nick made a long whistle. “No wonder the prime minister looks constipated.”

Dave smiled. “Sean, my old colleague asked me if you do work-for-hire.”

“Did you volunteer me?”

“Never. Certainly not without speaking to you first.”

“I’m sure the UK has agents to deal with this situation. They’re probably already here.”

“Yes, but they haven’t sent multiple agents, only one man. And he’s on the trail—a trail that could lead him to you, only because your association with the widow of the man who found the booty.”

O’Brien nodded. “My only link is because Laura Jordan and her husband found and bought the painting in that Deland antique store.”

Nick ran his fingers through his thick hair and said, “Yeah, man, but that little antique store might as well be a freakin’ Pandora’s box ‘cause look at what’s happening. And now some blackmailer is about to lay the cards on the table, and one of those cards is the queen.”

Dave said, “Nick, that information stays between the three of us. It’s confidential.”

“Already forgot it.” He grinned and sipped a beer.

O’Brien said nothing.

Dave pushed further back in the couch. “Of course Duncan Hannes is going to deny, make light of, and downplay any British association with the Confederate States of America, even long after the Civil War. The war was, and still is, undeniably the worst wound in American history. Less than a century earlier, we fought to leave the reins of the British monarchy, and later we can’t even agree on how we’ll govern our young nation so an internal war erupts, the result left us with a broken nation and almost 700,000 dead. More killed than in all U.S. wars combined.”

Nick tossed a piece of feta cheese to Max and said, “Too much blood spilled. Sean, you’re my blood brother for life ‘cause you saved my life pullin’ those bikers off me. It’s my obligation to you and God to raise the caution flag on the track when I spot evil in your rearview mirror, brother. This has all the DNA of something really dark. A horrible Civil War. A secret contract. A diamond in the roughest of the rough. And that damn painting. It’s not too late to tell your client ‘thanks but no thanks.’ I bet the diamond pulled out of the river is just a fake and all this will amount to nothing.”