Library of Gold (21 page)

“Get her gun, Eva,” Judd ordered as he turned back to cover Angelo.

But Angelo had yanked a sharp fileting knife from the magnetic holder above the counter.
“Bâtard.”
He closed in.

Two more gunshots sounded from the kitchen doorway. Freezing in midstride, Angelo reeled, then fell, blood blossoming scarlet across his beige jacket where the rounds had entered.

As the stink of cordite spread through the room, Bash Badawi walked in, his gun still raised in one muscled hand while his skateboard dangled from the other.

“Lucky shots.” Judd grinned at him.

“Lucky shots, my ass. Glad I got here in time for the party. How you doing, Eva?”

“Never better.” Holding Odile’s pistol, Eva crouched beside Roberto and Yitzhak. Her face and green jacket were splattered with blood.

Bash peered across at Angelo’s motionless body, then down at Odile’s. “They must’ve arrived before I did. There was no sign they were here.”

Judd nodded. “How many janitors outside?”

“Four still in action, dressed like joggers. Two others down.” He gave a brief smile, his young face suddenly amused. “I had a bit of a dustup with them.” Then he added soberly, “We lost Martine and Quinn.”

“That’s bad. I’m sorry. How did you get in?”

“I picked the lock. The Polizia di Stato are on the way. I heard sirens, very close. Their focus is going to be on the two janitors in the street and Martine and Carl. The good thing is the sirens and witnesses have probably scared away the last four in the wet squad.”

“But they could still come in the back door.” Judd slammed the dead bolt, then peered out the kitchen’s large window, which overlooked a small rear yard of lilacs and grass. A brick pathway led to the end of a high brick wall, which enclosed the property. There was a cobblestone alleyway on the far side, showing through a wrought-iron gate. No one was in sight.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Judd told them. “Check the woman, Bash. I’ll take the man.” He went to Angelo.

“Roberto needs a doctor,” Eva reminded them. “How do you feel, Roberto?”

“It is over?” Roberto whispered. He was sitting up, leaning against a table leg. His bearded face was pasty, his lips dry.

“Everything’s fine,” she assured him.

“Hold this down for me.” Yitzhak indicated to Eva the bloody handkerchief he had clamped onto Roberto’s shoulder wound. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“This one’s a dead rat,” Bash reported from where he stooped over Odile. “How’s yours?”

“Dead, too.” Judd wiped the handle of Angelo’s pistol and pressed it into his flaccid hand. He searched Angelo’s pockets, leaving the billfold. There was nothing useful inside, not even a cell phone. “Is your gun traceable, Bash?”

“No way. That dumb I’m not.”

“Good. Put the woman’s prints on it and leave it next to her. They’ll look as if they shot each other. Take Odile’s gun from Eva. You need to be armed.”

“No.” Reaching for the kitchen telephone, Yitzhak turned to glare at them. His face was an angry red, and drops of sweat dotted his bald head. “We have to give the police the whole truth.”

Feeling the pressure of time, Judd ignored the professor and told Bash, “As soon as you’re done here, go to the front of the house and check the windows. I want to know what’s happening outside.” Then he focused on Yitzhak. “Hang up the phone, professor. Roberto’s got a flesh wound. We’ll get him medical attention, but not just yet. Sticking around here could be your death warrant. Roberto’s, too. These people have been trying to terminate Eva.”

Yitzhak frowned at her. “That’s true?”

“Yes,” she told him. “Remember Ivan the Terrible’s Oprichniki? That’s what they’re like—utterly ruthless.”

“They’re going to want to find out what you know about us and where we’re going,” Judd said. “They’ll track you down, and as soon as you tell them, they’ll kill you. All of us need to leave—and fast. Can you walk, Roberto?”

“I think so.” His voice was weak. He had been listening, his brown eyes round and frightened. “Yes, it is obvious we must go.”

Yitzhak put the telephone back into its cradle. “Eva, you take one side of Roberto, and I’ll take the other.”

As they supported him, Roberto rose to his feet, and Bash ran back into the room.

“The police are blocking off the street,” he said. “I found the dead woman’s purse in the sitting room. She didn’t have a cell, either.”

“I’d rather not risk going out the back door,” Judd told him. “Yitzhak, I saw what looks like the beginning of a tunnel at the end of your refuge downstairs. Can we get out that way?”

“I think so, but it may not be easy.” Yitzhak’s voice was strong. With Roberto’s uninjured arm draped over his shoulder, he had returned to his normal self.

Eva took the gold
scytale
and fragment of Arabic Judaica, and she and the others went ahead. Judd tore up the top and bottom of the cardboard box with Charles’s writing and Eva’s name. Stuffing the pieces into the garbage disposal, he turned it on, then threw the Styrofoam bubbles and the rest of the box into the trash. He peered around the kitchen to make certain they had left nothing behind. Last, he checked the window—and dropped below the counter. He rose up slowly, just enough to see out again.

Men were at the rear gate. One wore a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants; the others were dressed in jogging shorts and T-shirts. The big man in the sweatsuit tried to open the gate, but it was locked. Muttering to himself, he took out picklocks.

Judd raced to the stairs under the broad staircase and descended into the brick-lined cellar. Voices sounded, floating up from the ragged hole in the floor. He started down it, stopping to drag the brick trapdoor over the opening. It was heavy, but he leveraged it up and settled it into place. With luck, none of the killers would discover Yitzhak’s secret domain.

He hurried down to the bottom, where Jupiter and Juno gazed regally from their thrones. The silence was luminous in the ancient room, a stillness that seemed to wrap around him and promise safety. But there was no safety yet.

Everyone was gathered at the street-side end of the long room, where rubble was strewn and a brown wall of dirt rose to the ceiling. Bash and Eva were throwing rocks out of the way. What had been a small tunnel was now much larger.

Eva saw him. “Are Angelo’s men in the house?”

“Not yet, but they will be in minutes.” Judd hurried toward them.

The tunnel was about four feet high and three feet wide. There was darkness on the other side, and he could hear the sound of distant running water. Five flashlights lay in a row on the marble floor.

“You must lead,” Roberto told the professor, who was still supporting him. “I can walk by myself. Judd is right. I am fine—just messy looking.” He glanced at the bloody handkerchief he was holding to his wound.

The professor nodded. “We’re going under the street. Take your flashlights.” He handed one to Roberto and picked up one for himself. Hunching over, he moved into the darkness.

“I’ll go last,” Judd told the others, thinking about the janitors who might be smarter than he hoped.

Bash grabbed his skateboard, and Eva slung her satchel onto her back. They disappeared into the burrow. Judd paused. When he heard nothing from above, he crouched and hurried into the darkness, his flashlight shooting a cone of light. The air began to smell of moss and damp.

The small group was waiting for him at the end.

“You need to see this,” Eva told him.

He squeezed past to look out at a natural underground tunnel, black and seemingly endless, a crude dirt bore through ancient Rome. It was more than six feet high and twelve feet wide, carved out over the millennia by a freshwater stream that rushed past at high velocity. As he beamed his flashlight over it, it sparkled like mercury.

He moved his flashlight again. There were dirt banks on either side of the stream, not far above the fast-moving water. The banks were dangerously narrow, only a foot wide in places. Walking would be treacherous. They would have to go single file.

“The stream follows the street?” he asked.

“Yes, at least part of the way,” the professor answered. “I believe it feeds into the Cloaca Maxima—the Great Drain—west of here. That’s an ancient sewer that runs beneath the Roman Forum. Several of the city’s underground streams feed into it.”

“How do we get out of the tunnel?”

“We should find a place to exit somewhere along the way. We can’t be the only homeowners who’ve discovered the stream. Roberto and I explored once, but we didn’t go far. It didn’t matter before . . .”

Judd nodded. “Sounds like better odds than what’s waiting for us in the house. Yitzhak, you lead again. You know the signs that’ll tell us we’ve got a way to escape. Then Eva and Roberto. Bash and I go last, in case we’re followed. Let’s move out.”

31

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

The swank cocktail party was on the thirtieth floor of the stunning Burj al-Arab—the Tower of the Arabs, the world’s tallest and arguably grandest hotel. The suite soared two full stories, boasting a spiral marble staircase, miles of twenty-four–carat gold detailing, and expansive windows showcasing panoramic views of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Two Saudi princes in flowing white
kanduras
had just arrived via the twenty-eighth-floor helipad below, flying in from St. Tropez with full entourages.

Martin Chapman, the director of the Library of Gold, turned his attention from the flurry around them to watch a Russian exporter and his mistress take calls on ten-thousand-dollar cell phones encrusted with diamonds. Chapman smiled, amused. Still, he would never allow such gaudy affectation in his employees.

Dressed conservatively in a three-piece, side-vented suit, Chapman excused himself from a group of international bankers and walked off. He wore his vast personal fortune with the natural ease of Old Money, although he damn well had earned every penny himself.

Winding through the partygoers, he savored the undercurrent of excitement and raw avarice. But then, this was Dubai, epicenter of a storm of commerce, with free-trade zones, speed-dial corporate licensing, no taxes, no elections, and almost no crime. It was said the city’s bird was the building crane—skyscrapers seemed to sprout from the desert sands overnight, most apartments and offices presold. Eager and filthy rich, Dubai was perfect for Chapman, who was here to raise money.

“Appetizer, sir?” Dressed in a money-green tuxedo, the server kept his gaze lowered.

Chapman chose Beluga caviar piled on a triangle of toast and continued on. From religion to crime and terrorism, everything in Dubai took a backseat to profit, and the profit was enormous. Even before Haliburton decided to move its world headquarters from Houston to Dubai, Chapman knew it was time to pay attention. So he had added to his string of homes, buying a villa in exclusive Palm Jumeirah—and had begun making friends.

It was time to go to work. He headed for Sheik Ahmad bin Rashid al-Shariff.

The sheik’s black mustache curved upward as he dismissed a bevy of bronzed blond celebutantes and smiled at Chapman. He lifted his bourbon glass in greeting.
“Assalaam alaykom.”
Peace be upon you.

“Alaykom assalaam.”
And peace upon you. Chapman did not speak Arabic, but long ago he had memorized the correct response. “I’m enjoying your party.”

Sheik Ahmad was a dark wisp of a man in his mid forties, elegant in a gray pinstriped suit. A cousin of the emirate’s ruler, he had been partially educated in the United States, with an MBA from Stanford. Earlier that day he had personally taken the wheel of a white Cadillac limousine to escort Chapman around several of his building sites. But then Chapman was no ordinary visitor. He headed Chapman & Associates, once the richest private equity firm in the United States. It had dropped from some $98 billion in assets under management to a mere $35 billion in the economic crash, but all U.S. equity funds had been eviscerated, although his perhaps more than others. Chapman was counting on his Khost project to put him back at number one, where he belonged. Even more important, it would please his wife.

“Yes, the usual financiers and industrialists,” the sheik said. “A sprinkling of the idle rich. They’re like saffron—zesty and attractive, entertaining for working stiffs like you and me. There are several of you private-equity people here, too.”

Private equity
was the sanitized term for leveraged-buyout firms. In the first four months of the year, Chapman & Associates had spent and borrowed far fewer billions of dollars than in its heyday, as he had searched out underperforming or undervalued companies to buy. With every deal, a new war chest had to be raised, so he was constantly on the money circuit, charming, cajoling, rattling off figures as he seduced those he targeted with his strong handshake and visions of a glorious future. Since he retained a larger interest in the company than anyone, he took a hefty percentage from every new transaction.

He ate his caviar, dusted his fingers on the cocktail napkin, and dropped it onto the tray of a passing waiter. “I was speaking with some of them earlier. They’re eager to go on personal tours of Dubai with you, too.”

The sheik laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Martin. You’re happy to give away my wealth, even to your competitors. As usual, they’ll be too small for me, as you already know. By the way, I’ve made my decision about your proposition.”

He paused to increase the drama and hint his answer might not be what Chapman wanted.

Without hesitation, Chapman gave an understanding nod and countered, “Yes, I’ve been thinking about the buy-in, too. Perhaps it’s not right for you. I think I should withdraw the invitation and save us both embarrassment.”

Sheik Ahmad blinked slowly, his hooded eyelids closing and opening like those of a hawk perched in a banyan tree, awaiting prey. But his prey was Martin Chapman.

He smiled. “Martin, you are too much. Playing my game, are you? I’ll come to the point. I want in. It’s five hundred million dollars, yes?”

“Three hundred and twenty million. No more. Still, that will give you twenty percent.”