The Stolen Chalicel (3 page)

VerPlanck’s wife, Tipper, had promised to be back by seven, but she was still at a cocktail party downtown. Apparently Tribeca was her new Mecca—she spent all her time there.

He adjusted his cufflinks and glanced down at subtly etched initials—TSV—Theodore Stuart VerPlanck. The Dutch VerPlancks were one of the oldest families in America, setting foot on American soil in 1632. But Tipper had turned the family name into a public joke.

She was a tabloid disaster, constantly in the gossip pages. It had taken years for Ted to admit that his wife was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He had done everything he could, even accompanying her to a fancy rehabilitation clinic.

Six months ago, with bloodshot eyes, she had promised him she was finished with drugs. She would live a more respectable life. And now she was late for the most important gala of the season.

15 Desbrosses Street, Tribeca, New York

T
IPPER
V
ER
P
LANCK TOOK
a sip of her San Pellegrino and looked around the cocktail party celebrating Conrad’s movie release. The überstylish loft took up the entire floor of an old factory building. The apartment had been decorated with a simplicity that telegraphed enormous expense—black leather couches, a slate floor strewn with colorful antique kilim rugs.

Conrad was slouching against the enormous picture window, holding a cigarette away from his body as if to avoid the fumes. Tipper watched him take a drag, barely inhaling. It was totally preposterous to smoke like that—as if you didn’t like it.

Several admirers were grouped around him talking about
Samurai Princess,
his directorial triumph. Conrad, clad in black jeans and red suede skateboard shoes, played the sensitive artist well.

This
was the place to be tonight, and not that dreary gala uptown at the Met. But she couldn’t stay. Tipper walked over and slid her hand around his waist. Conrad put his lips to her ear and spoke seductively.

“Don’t go, Tipper.”

She could feel his breath on her skin.

“Connie, I have to.”

“Nobody will miss you.”

He looked at her with a smoldering gaze.

“
My husband
would miss me. We’re seated with the First Lady, and I promised I’d be on time.”

Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn

I
N THE CONSERVATION
wing of the museum, the large worktables were covered with muslin to protect the artifacts that were undergoing repair. This evening, all of the museum staff had already left. Only the corner office was brightly lit.

Carter Wallace paused in Dr. Hollis Graham’s doorway to observe her. The electronic glow of the computer screen highlighted her blond hair. It was so late! Shouldn’t she be home, getting dressed for the Met gala?

“Holly, what are you doing still sitting here?”

Startled, she looked up at him.

“Oh, Carter, come on in and take a look at this.”

He ambled in and leaned over her shoulder.

The black-and-white image on the computer screen was clearly a human form. To a layman, it would appear to be a medical X-ray. But an Egyptologist would know this was a computer-aided tomography (CAT) scan of a mummy. Every bone of the desiccated corpse was visible.

“What’s this dark patch?” Carter asked, pointing to a shadowy area on the skull.

“It’s
clearly
a fissure,” Holly noted. “Except look here, the opening is larger at the top.”

“So what do you figure happened?”

“I don’t know, but I’d hate to think someone
killed
him.”

She leaned back in her chair and pulled out the number-two pencil
she had wound into her chignon. Her hair tumbled in gorgeous disarray. Carter’s breath caught in his throat. She had absolutely no idea of the effect she had on him.

“Anything else you want to show me?” Carter asked, forcing himself to look back at the computer screen.

Holly advanced to an image of the cartouche. The stucco casing of the coffin was painted deep red, with gold details. This was a rare “red shroud” mummy. His bandages had been infused with a lead-based red pigment, favored by people of high rank during the Roman occupation of Egypt.

“Roman period?” Carter asked.

It was an easy guess. The exterior of the coffin had a portrait of the deceased attached to it, typical of that period.

“Yes, Fayoum region. Isn’t he beautiful?”

Holly moved the mouse, and the arrow traveled across the encaustic painted face, zooming in on the eyes of the young man. He was ruggedly handsome, with a head of black curls and a gold-leaf laurel crown on his head.

“Artemidorus,”
Carter read the Greek lettering, painted in gold across the stucco casing of the coffin.

“He’s on loan from the British Museum.”

“Yeah, I figured. I never saw him downstairs.”

Carter knew every mummy in the climate-controlled vault. Their coffins were aligned in rows, like patients in hospital beds, painted eyes staring up at the ceiling. A real cross section of Egyptian-Roman society—young men, matrons, officials, and even children.

“Do the Brits know the skull is damaged?” Carter asked.

“No. We just found out. I
hate
to tell them. I feel . . . like it’s somehow my fault.”

Carter laughed.

“No need to go all maternal on us. His skull was cracked a couple of
centuries
ago.”

Carter looked at his watch.

“Say, aren’t you going to the Met gala tonight?”

She turned and looked out the darkened window. The streetlights were on.

“Oh, my gosh!”

“You’d better get a move on,” he said, starting toward the door. “I’ll see you there. I think our table is thirty-five.”

“I hope I get there in time. Traffic is going to be a nightmare with the First Lady coming.”

The Mark Hotel,
East Seventy-Seventh Street, New York

J
OHN
S
INCLAIR KNOTTED
his black silk necktie and smoothed it down under his collar. Most of the time he wore his clothes with casual indifference, but tonight, with Cordelia on his arm, he had made a special effort.

For the black-tie gala, he was breaking tradition by
not
wearing a conventional tuxedo and bow tie but, rather, a black velvet dinner jacket. Sinclair, with his lean, six-foot-four-inch physique, carried it off with the confidence that comes to a man who spent his time in the natural elements.

Sinclair had rejected the traditional patent-leather shoes that were normally worn with a tuxedo. Again, he went with something simple—black calfskin slip-ons made by Adriano Stefanelli, the same cobbler who supplied the Holy See with red shoes for the pope.

As a last touch, he fastened on the black crocodile band of a 24K dress watch. The wafer-thin timepiece was a legacy from his father, the founder of the global financial firm Sinclair International. That watch was the only thing of value Sinclair had ever accepted from his family. It served to remind him of how precious time was, and how important it was to live his
own
life.

Sinclair checked the length of his cuffs in the mirror. Tonight was going to be interesting. He hadn’t gone to one of these New York social events in quite some time. Life had been rough over the last fifteen
years—first the death of his wife, then his estrangement from his parents and the move to Europe. Hopefully by now the New York crowd had forgotten the past.
He
was ready for the future.

Cordelia came to him in the mirror.

“John Sinclair,” she said with a smile. “I do believe you were preening just now.”

He turned to face her.

“Of course I was. I need to look my best if I am going to escort the prettiest girl to the ball. Shall we go?”

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

T
HE
M
ETROPOLITAN
M
USEUM
chief of security couldn’t take his eyes off a wall of monitors. After a thirty-year career as an NYPD cop, he
knew
when something was wrong—like tonight.

But nothing turned up on the scans. A collection of fifty video screens rotated live pictures of all the rooms in the museum. He could also see heat-sensor silhouettes of the guards doing a last-minute security sweep.

During the evening, some galleries would be monitored only electronically. To hell with the Picassos! All manpower would be needed for protecting the First Lady. And she’d be moving among a crowd of a thousand people.

The Feds were supposed to help. All week the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been collecting the Social Security numbers of the museum staff, checking for any criminal convictions. They had turned up a museum guard who had overstayed a visa from twenty years ago. Ridiculous! With all the
real
terrorist threats in this city, why were they wasting their time on some perfectly respectable Polish guy with three kids?

There was only one obvious flaw in the whole security setup for this evening. For the price of a thousand bucks, a terrorist could gain access to the First Lady simply by
buying
a ticket to the gala.

Vojtech tried to delay getting out of the van as long as possible. The other waiters pushed past him, trailing their plastic-covered jackets. He finally stepped out and followed them as they made their way to the side entrance of the museum.

As he trudged along, Vojtech looked up at the imposing facade of the Met—a bastion of wealth and privilege. Even the traffic on Fifth Avenue appeared to be slowing down to pay respects.

He started to sweat, thinking about their plan. It was like acting in a play, and the performance was about to begin. The organization Common Dream had been planning to do something like this for months, yet nothing had happened. Their leader, Moustaffa, kept urging patience. But Vojtech had decided to take things into his own hands.

Why should they wait? Tonight he and two others would go ahead. It was important to prove that they were not passive. They were warriors.

Vojtech stood nervously at the side entrance of the museum for an identity check. In front of him, a line of waiters and waitresses snaked out to the sidewalk as a uniformed museum security officer marked off names on a clipboard. With the cocktail hour approaching, everyone needed to get in quickly.

Here at the service door there was no dog to detect anything in Vojtech’s duffel bag. The police had posted their K-9 unit—dogs trained to detect explosives or ammunition—at the main entrance. The door also didn’t have an X-ray machine to check bags. Everyone entering here had been preregistered. This was going to be only a quick, perfunctory verification of ID.

A week ago, each caterer, florist, and service provider had given the authorities the names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and descriptions of their workers. Vojtech’s employer, Fantastic Fetes, had exhausted the ranks of its own family members in providing ID data for all its illegal workers.

“Name and last four digits of your Social?” the guard said to Juan.

“Salvio Manucci, 8256.”

“Next?” the security guard said to Vojtech.

Vojtech pointed to the name he had been assigned—Mario Manucci.

“7761,” he said.

The guard marked off his name without looking up.

Carlyle Hotel, New York

G
AZING OUT THE
window in her suite, Lady Xandra Sommerset noticed that traffic on Madison Avenue was at a standstill. It was much too early to leave; her wristwatch showed only 7:30 p.m.

She was planning to pull up to the curb several minutes
after
the other arrivals. That way, the TV crews could record her grand entrance—solo and dressed to kill.

Restless, Xandra slunk back across the suite and sank into an armchair. She untied the sash of her emerald green robe, allowing it to fall open. Underneath she was naked. Since childhood, her favorite outfit had been her birthday suit. The feel of fabric on her skin had always been irritating. Moustaffa once remarked that making her wear clothes was like dressing up a wild animal.