Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask (23 page)

40

Roux was already on the flight home when Annja’s call came through.

It had been a
long
day. His old bones were aching. He wanted to be in his own bed, in the château, a glass of wine in his hand, cigar tapped out on the ashtray. Content, in peace. He’d been expecting her call. He knew full well she was about to tell him Garin had escaped. He knew his former apprentice far too well to imagine a hole in the ground, no matter how deep, could thwart him.

“He’s been here,” Annja said. She didn’t need to say anything else.

“Ah,” he said. “And?”

“He gave me the mask.”

“Did he, now? Fancy that. Seems like small reward for the things you’ve been through today, though. Is that all?”

“He knows that we know he was behind everything, that he used us and lied to us. I told him not to call again.”

“Good for you. I’m sure he’ll do as he’s been told, too. Until he needs something from you. What are you planning to do with the mask?”

“There’s a professor in Rome, Aldo Zanetti. I promised to show it to him in person. I think he’s earned the right to look at it. Plus, he wants to buy me lunch. After that, I don’t know.”

“Sounds like a fair exchange. For the professor, anyway.”

“Without him, we would still be scratching our heads in Logroño. Garin would have been long gone with whatever he chose to plunder from the shrine.”

“So what do we do about him?” Roux asked.

“We can’t let him hide those things away, especially not the statue. It needs to be somewhere that people can see it, not hidden in some private collection. It should be there for everyone. That’s the nature of great art.”

“Leave it with me,” Roux said, glad that she had given that response. “And enjoy your trip to Rome.”

“Look after yourself,” she said and hung up.

“You, too,” he said to the empty long-distance line.

He knew what he had to do.

He brought up another name on his phone and made the call.

“Elise,” he said when the woman answered, full of charm.

“Roux? As I live and breathe. Twice in as many days. To what do I owe this honor? No...wait...let me guess, another favor? I’m still explaining the last one.” She wasn’t laughing.

“Not this time. This one’s on me. I figure I owed you.”

“You do indeed, you old rogue. So how do you intend to pay me back?”

“In kind.”

She laughed. “You forget, I know exactly what you’re like.”

“Oh, believe me, I may be old, but I never forget. I’ve got some information for you. Might divert some of the flak if people notice you were digging into the Brotherhood of the Burning for me.”

“Go on, make my day.”

“There’s a container leaving out of the port of Almería on a cargo ship tomorrow. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

“Should I be listening to this? This conversation isn’t breaking any laws, is it?”

“Quite possibly. Here’s the important thing. The container is registered in the name of Enrique Martínez.”

“Ah, now, that’s interesting. Any idea what’s inside?”

“Absolutely, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. I’ll say this much—the Spanish will love you. The Italians, too, I should imagine.”

“That sounds very vague. Are you sure about this?”

“I can send you shipping logs, as long as they can’t be traced back to me. They give the ship, date, time and the container number.”

“Ah, an anonymous tip-off. No problem, if that’s how you want to play it, but you could just have rung customs.”

“I could have, but I owe you. I don’t owe anyone in Spanish customs. Though I must admit, I rather like the idea of being in your debt.”

She laughed. He liked the sound of it. Maybe he wasn’t so tired, after all. It wouldn’t be a lot of effort to reroute the plane to an airport not a million miles away from The Hague. “And you really won’t tell me what we’re going to find when we open the container?”

“That would only lead to more questions I can’t answer. Trust me, you want to do this.”

“Okay, I can live with that. Send whatever you have to me and I’ll put something into action. I don’t suppose you’ve got anything on Martínez’s whereabouts?”

He thought about telling her and giving Garin something else to worry about, but ended up saying, “Sorry, I wish I did.”

EPILOGUE

00:00: The Port of Almería

The port swarmed with customs officers and armed police.

The threat was considered high enough to warrant extra support being drafted in. Once Elise had put the word out to Europol, everything had happened so quickly. Wheels that would usually have taken months to grease were in motion without a single squeak within moments of the alert going out. People took new leads on the activities of the Brotherhood of the Burning seriously, especially now that links to the fascist group and the courthouse bombing in Seville had been found. It was surprising the army wasn’t present, too, with orders to shoot to kill. The government wanted this cancer excised from Spain at all costs.

Enrique Martínez was public enemy number one.

As the first wave of officers boarded the ship, demanding to see the manifest, a helicopter circled overhead, an eye in the sky to keep watch for anyone attempting to flee. If Martínez was here, they were bringing him in or gunning him down.

The crew was assembled on the foredeck while the offending container was located and a crane used to lift it from the cargo vessel. The ship wasn’t going to be allowed to leave the port until the container had been searched and the captain had made a statement for the police. The same went for the customs officers who had checked the seals and overseen its loading.

“What’s this all about?” an irritable captain demanded, but the customs officers were there to carry out their instructions, not to engage in conversation. He would have to wait his turn. The crane lifted the metal container and carried it out over the water, moving slowly, since even the officials weren’t sure what they were dealing with. Eventually, the container was lowered onto the quayside, the scarred blue metal seemingly innocuous among the other thousands of containers that would pass through the port that day alone.

“Okay, let’s crack this bad boy open,” one man said.

In an office in The Hague, Elise just prayed that the container wasn’t empty. That wasn’t so much to ask, was it?

Bolt cutters were applied and at last the end of the container swung open. The contents of the simple wooden crate inside left them all breathless when it was finally prized open for all to see.

There was a knock at Elise’s door.

“You’ve got a visitor, ma’am,” her assistant said.

“Show him in,” Elise told her. “I think he’d like to see this.”

She heard a phone ringing. It wasn’t hers. Her visitor answered on the second ring.

“Well played, you old bastard” was all the caller said before hanging up.

* * * * *

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ISBN-13: 9781460344866

Death Mask

Copyright © 2015 by Worldwide Library

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Steven Savile for his contribution to this work.

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