Carpathian: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers) Page 5

  As his good eye counted the varying degrees of thievery, his limited vision fell on two small items on display that made his stomach roll. Lord Harrington had actually uncovered human remains at Tell es-Sultan. A cursed thing to do at any archaeological find was to openly display remains that have not been studied and guaranteed to be something from antiquity. It was also something that any well-bred museum curator would find hard pressed to put in any exhibit. He saw a few of the English-bred buyers grimace in distaste at the open display of remains. Lee shook his head and decided at that moment this secret auction would remain so forever. These items would not find their way to the private sector because he would destroy it all first if that need arose.

  “I see anger in that one, beautiful eye.”

  Garrison looked down to see the young woman who had been talking with Alice a moment before. Lee had seen her spying him from across the salon and was uncomfortable with the looks she was shooting his way.

  “Then you should look closer, young lady, because what I see is sadness that this is happening. And if you’re here to place your money on any of these artifacts, I would save it; I predict it’s going to be a bad investment.”

  “I was just speaking with your most beautiful companion. I see in her eyes that she adores you.”

  Garrison looked closer at the raven-haired beauty. Her gaze seemed to go right through him. “Again, you better go take a better look, and study my companion a little closer. Soon enough she will reveal her cloven hooves, horns, and vipercated tail.”

  The young girl looked confused for the briefest of moments and then smiled and laughed—a disarming and innocent sound that made Lee look twice at the woman standing in front of him with her arms crossed over her breasts. Her one brown and one green eye took Garrison in from head to toe. The eyes lingered momentarily on the bright red cummerbund.

  “Ah, I see how the game is played with you Americans. Even though you are emphatically in love with someone, you deny it and show nothing but contempt at the mere suggestion of it, even in the face of something so obvious.”

  Garrison Lee was stunned for a moment. He wasn’t used to bandying words with someone so young, but this girl had a way of getting into his thoughts that was just a little unnerving.

  “If I may be so bold, you were a soldier, am I correct?” she asked as she watched Lee’s lone eye for a lie.

  “I and many others.”

  “Not many aboard this pirate ship I think. If the rest of England knew about this very unscrupulous man they would hang him in Trafalgar Square,” she said as her eyes left Lee for the briefest of moments to study some of the human waste that were the bidders of the world’s past. Her double-colored eyes turned back to the general and this time she examined him as if she were looking for a disease. She tilted her head and Lee saw the beginning of a tattoo at the base of her neck that wound its way down into the black dress. “You are a keeper of secrets.”

  “Excuse me?” Garrison said as his smile tried to cover up his consternation at the girl’s prognosticative prowess. “I think your crystal ball may be a little cracked, my dear.”

  The woman placed her small hand on Lee’s lapel. “Leave this ship—immediately, Keeper of Secrets,” she said as her smile was replaced with a seriousness that Lee found disturbing. He slowly pulled the girl’s hand free of his jacket. Her smile slowly returned as Alice joined them, her eyes on the girl.

  “I see, you espouse cryptic things to complete strangers like me and then you go off and flirt with a man that is old enough to be your father.” Alice looked from the girl and then back to Lee. “Or your grandfather.”

  Lee’s brow furrowed once again, only this time without much enthusiasm or threat behind it.

  The young girl who reminded Lee of the Gypsies he met while on assignment during the war smiled even wider as she turned to look directly at him.

  “My crystal ball isn’t as cracked as you would like to believe.” She bowed toward Alice and then to Lee. “Mrs. Hamilton, Senator Lee.” The young woman turned and left without another glance.

  Lee and Alice watched the young girl take her grandmother’s arm and with one last smile at the both of them, the two strange guests of Lord Harrington left the salon.

  “Strange, I don’t think I—”

  “Told her you were a former senator,” Alice finished for Lee.

  “And I don’t fancy being lectured to by a twenty-year-old girl on the politics of world history.” Lee looked down at Alice. “Or anything else for that matter.”

  Alice patted Lee’s thick arm. “Calm down or your good eye will pop out of your head.” Alice smiled at some guests standing near them when she leaned into Lee. “I got a tip that we should leave this ship posthaste unless we want to see this boat turn into a submarine.” Alice looked right at Lee. “And for some reason I believe my source.”

  “I saw you looking at the block of stone.” He turned and faced his assistant. “Get it out of your head. There is no relationship to Vault 22871.” He held up his hand, his cane dangling as he stopped Alice from speaking. “Are you surprised I noticed? Who in the hell could miss that? That block of stone is a hoax—a forgery. I heard some genius in the peanut gallery say it was Anubis, the jackal-headed god that held sway over the dead, until old Anubis was ousted by Osiris, at least according to the Egyptian priests at the time. I don’t think the god Anubis got slammed between two rocks during the actual historic siege of Jericho. This petrified monstrosity is as fake as that thing the Group has in Vault 22871.”

  “That is your opinion; everyone else thinks the animal remains in 22871 are viable. Our best people say there have been no postmortem alterations to the bones—the same alterations that would have had to have occurred to this animal right here. The articulated hips can clearly be seen under the petrified fur. The fingers and claws, Garrison, look at the fingers and claws for God’s sake; they are exactly the same as the remains the U.S. Army recovered in France after World War I!”

  Lee looked around as other guests started to pay them unwanted attention.

  “Calm yourself, Hamilton, I believe you believe it. But this is ridiculous, Anubis, for crying out loud?” Lee wanted to walk Alice to the ancient stone block and take a hammer and chisel to it and prove that this display was nothing more than a curiosity that no one should take seriously. “There is one thing that really tears at my ass when it comes to our own science departments, and that’s the fact that there has never been one of these animals ever found in the fossil record the world over.”

  “After inventorying every item we have in the Event Group vaults you have the guts to say that to me? No fossil record? Just when does that prove the nonexistence of an animal? You of all people should know there are things out there we know nothing of, even the great General Garrison Lee is capable of being wrong once in a few hundred damn years.”

  Lee saw the anger in Alice’s eyes and her words were scathing, almost the same exact speech he had given, no, shouted at his people at the Group since he took directorship of Department 5656.

  Garrison looked around and nodded as people were passing by with their secret bidding envelopes and giving them looks that were making the American feel extremely uncomfortable.

  “Okay, I’ll give you that one, Hamilton, but—”

  “Good evening, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, as well as that of many other men and women here.”

  Lee and Alice looked over at a small man wearing the traditional headdress of the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip—the kuffiyeh, the checkered head scarf seen on every male of the region. That was where the similarities fell off sharply, however. The tuxedo the small man wore was cut perfectly and fit the bearded man to a T.

  “Mr. Kilroy,” he said and then smiled as he turned to appraise Alice. “I don’t think I have had the honor.”

  “Alice, this is Mr. Hakim Salaams Saldine, our resident Palestinian authority on ancient Jericho—Saldine, Mrs. Alice Hamilton, also
an authority it seems on ancient Jericho and the animal life contained behind its ancient walls.”

  Alice ignored the small insult and held her gloved hand out as the man kissed it, making sure not to touch the hand itself.

  “So, you are an authority on Jericho. What is your opinion on the talk of the auction?” she asked.

  The man looked confused at first and then smiled. “I do not offer my opinion on things that are irrelevant, and believe me, my young friend, that is the most irrelevant piece I have ever examined—it is a hoax.”

  “You have been to Tell es-Sultan?” Alice asked as she looked deeply into the newcomer’s reaction.

  “Yes, many times have I ventured to Yeriẖo, I mean Jericho, I’m afraid it has never held that much value to us as a people. It was after all, a place of defeat for us.”

  Alice smiled and nodded at the man, and then she looked at Lee and the smile vanished. The man continued to insult her intelligence and she was getting seriously sick of it. It was time to put General Garrison Lee in his place.

  “You do know where you made your mistake don’t you, Mr. Saldine, if that is your name?”

  “Excuse me?” the man said, trying to keep his features neutral.

  “The ancient word Jericho is thought to derive from the Canaanite word Reaẖ, which you obviously should know already. I mean, since you are an authority and all and obviously a Palestinian.” Alice smiled again. “This little Virginia farm girl learned at an early age in Bible school taught by her uncle, that Reaẖ in Arabic, or Jericho if you will, is pronounced totally different. It’s spelled with a Y, not a J, which was clearly enunciated when you said the word very crisply.” Alice smiled as she made a show of looking around the room. The man shifted from one foot to the other. Lee rolled his good eye, knowing Alice was hanging them both out to dry.

  “What is your point, madam?” the man with the headdress asked, looking over at Lee, who just grimaced, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

  “Mr. Saldine, you are no more Palestinian than Garrison Lee here. You are Israeli intelligence, maybe just a policeman, but definitely no Palestinian. When you pose as another nationality, at least make sure you stick with their language, not your own.” Alice dipped her head and moved away.

  “Who in the bloody hell is that?” the man caught in the lie asked.

  “She’s a royal,” Lee said as he started to go after Alice.

  “A royal?” the Israeli asked.

  “A royal pain in my ass—Hamilton, wait a minute.”

  Alice stopped on her way to the salon staircase. She turned to face her employer.

  “When are you going to stop this unrelenting testing of my knowledge? It took me all of a minute to figure out who your buddy was. Trust, Garrison, that’s what’s missing in your soul, trust.” She started to turn away but Lee grabbed her arm.

  “Look, his name is Ally Ben-Nevin. He just took over the Gaza region for state security. He’s here to keep the Palestinian people and his own from having their shared history vanish into rich American, European, and Chinese mansions.”

  “And you’re telling me he knows who you are?” she asked, skeptical at the very least.

  “Of course not, President Truman would have me hung from the Washington Monument if that little secret got out. No, Hamilton, he thinks we work for the State Department.”

  “I’m shocked that you’re competent enough to pull that little deception off without getting caught.”

  “Okay, that’s about enough of—”

  The tremendous explosion rocked the Golden Child from bow to stern.

  Alice was thrown forward and Lee wasn’t far behind. As the ship listed sharply to the starboard side, Garrison pulled Alice aside as the giant block from Jericho tilted crazily on its steel pedestal. Alice was able to get her legs free at the last second as Garrison pulled on her for all he was worth. The stone block hit the carpeted deck and then after a moment’s hesitation the massive weight of the block smashed through the teak wood and then crashed into the bowels of the ship. Lee was stunned as a giant geyser of water shot through the opening and slammed into the ornate chandelier. Water and glass cascaded onto the men and women trying to pick themselves up off the deck.

  “I believe our host may have angered someone. I do think this bloody ship is sinking,” Ben-Nevin said as he helped both Lee and Alice to their feet.

  With water already lapping at Lee’s ankles he reached into his jacket and pulled an old Colt .45 automatic from his hidden place beneath his bright red cummerbund. He turned and looked at Alice and just winked with his good eye.

  “Now you know why the giant red cummerbund, Hamilton.” Lee nodded his head at Israeli intelligence agent Ben-Nevin and then gestured toward the large staircase where people were making their way out of the salon. “May I suggest we see if there’s another mode of transportation back to Hong Kong?”

  Around them horns and sirens were blaring and men and women were screaming. Lee just started pushing women and men toward the stairs. Alice turned and the last thing she saw of Lee was him disappearing into the panicked crowd of secret bidders. The lights flickered and then went out to the accompaniment of more screams and shouts. Somewhere in the darkness a gunshot sounded. Then that was followed by another. Garrison found a woman on the flooded floor and assisted her to her feet. It was the haughty French woman who had given Lee a most distasteful look earlier in the evening.

  “This is unacceptable, unacceptable!” the woman screamed as she tried to push Lee’s hands from her.

  “Well, you’re going to find out there’s a hell of a lot more that’s unacceptable in a minute if you don’t get your fat ass up those stairs.” He slapped her hard on her behind, sending the shocked socialite through the water. As Lee watched her leave he saw a small black-painted wooden statue float by in the churning water. His eyes widened when he saw the wolf’s head and the articulated hands depicted on the carved wood. Lee reached out and grabbed one of the surviving auction pieces and then shoved it into Ben-Nevin’s jacket pocket. “Get this to your people and tell them they’re hemorrhaging antiquities and the bloodsuckers are getting rich. Now go!” Lee pushed Ben-Nevin away even as his eyes didn’t understand.

  As the eighty-plus guests and crew fought their way through the jumble of broken artifacts and buffet items, Lee saw that the water was rising far faster than the men and women were moving. The ship must have taken a shape charge directly to her waterline and possibly one to her keel. A very professional job if he were correct.

  The last twenty men and women were close to the top of the stairs when something blew. It knocked several people back and over the top of the darkened stairs. Lee saw agent Ben-Nevin hurled into the far wall where he hit and slid into the water and then slowly regained his feet. Garrison pulled the intelligence agent to his feet and pushed him toward the now bent and burning stairs.

  The fire was now spreading across the ceiling of the salon. Lee’s escape was blocked both at the main salon entrance and the exit leading to the galley.

  “Oh, this is good,” he said as he shoved the Colt back into his pants and then scanned the interior of the darkened and fire-lit salon for Alice, but she was nowhere to be seen. For the first time in many years, Garrison Lee was frightened. Frightened that he had lost someone he really cared about. He shook his head as the flames and the water were coming close to meeting in the middle, one from above, the other from below.

  As he fought his way back into the center of the salon, he knew then that he loved Alice, had from the very first moment he had laid his one good eye upon her in the hospital in Washington, D.C., in 1945 when she had come to inquire about the husband she had lost in South America during the war. Why he thought the most beautiful woman in the world would, or even could, love a man as scarred as physically and emotionally as Lee, he could never figure out. But Lee knew he had to try. As flames reached from above and water from below Garrison Lee made a quick decision and then dove headfirst into the
gaping hole where the stone block and its strange animal had vanished when it crashed through the deck to the spaces below.

  “You!” The shout came from behind Lee just as he surfaced into chaos on the third deck. As he turned he saw their host, Lord Harrington, standing between two of his guards. They had guns pointed his way. The Englishman was soaked and his hairpiece looked as if it had hit an iceberg. “I don’t know who you are, but you did this!”

  Lee was beginning to wonder if his real identity and intentions had been stenciled on him. First the girl and now this antiquities thief seemed to be excellent guessers at his true vocation. Garrison felt the weight of the old Colt .45 in his cummerbund but knew he would never reach it.

  “Who sent you?” the Englishman shouted as another, even larger geyser of seawater shot through the massive hole in the deck. Garrison saw his opportunity as he was obscured at the last second by the eruption. He pulled the gun, ripping away the hated cummerbund, and dove for the water. Lee surfaced and with the biggest guess of his life took a chance and started shooting as soon as he surfaced. The first two .45 caliber rounds missed. The third struck one of the armed men and sent him backward into the roiling water. The Englishman’s eyes widened as Lee took quick aim at the second man and fired. The bullet caught the man dead center of the forehead. He slowly eased himself back down into the water, not feeling anything in his now dead brain. Garrison moved the barrel toward Lord Harrington.

  “No, no,” he shouted, raising his arms.

  Normally Garrison would have had no compunction in shooting the thief, but he also realized that it wasn’t his job. He lowered the .45 automatic. The look on Harrington’s face was decidedly relieved. That was short-lived however when as Lee looked on in stunned silence a three-foot-long aluminum shaft slammed into Harrington. The small spear protruded from his chest as he stared down at the instrument that had killed him. He slowly looked up at Lee, who grimaced as he realized the man had been murdered right in front of him and amid the chaos of the sinking Golden Child. As he watched Harrington also slid beneath the water. Garrison looked around, aiming the gun in the darkness and the flickering electrical shorts, and saw what he was searching for. The girl smiled, lowered her diving mask, and then tossed the spear gun toward Lee. The young woman with the strange eyes waved at Lee and then vanished into the rolling water. Garrison saw one of her fins swipe at the air as she kicked away beneath the shattered deck.