Authors: Graham Brown
Three men waited there, two holding guns.
“This way,” the thin man said, leading them on and following the hall to the right.
The corridor led them to a stairwell with a curved archway at the top. Old city architecture, cut from the sandstone.
“Where the hell are we going?” she asked.
The thin man stopped and turned. He glanced first at Najir but then responded to Danielle.
“The auction is down below. Forty steps. If madam cannot make it or is uncomfortable, I can inform the host that she has canceled. However, the deposit will not be returned.”
Danielle exchanged glances with Najir and then stepped through the door.
“Madam will be fine,” she said. “She just likes to know what she’s getting into.”
Their host stepped aside and held the door. Danielle went through first, with Najir following. They descended the stairs in semidarkness. Literally and figuratively they were getting in deeper, and Danielle felt less and less properly dressed for the occasion.
“We are passing through six thousand years of history,” Najir said. “Down below are the first extensive catacombs ever discovered in Beirut. Phoenicians buried their dead there, as did the Romans centuries later. Some crypts are believed to contain the bodies of Crusaders from Europe.”
“Just as long as we don’t end up buried down here ourselves,” Danielle said.
Finally the stairwell bottomed, and a few steps ahead they reached an iron gate that might have been built during the Crusades. Two men stood guard, weapons at the ready. They let Najir and Danielle pass through the gate.
“You sure about this?” she asked.
“We’re safe here,” Najir said.
During her time with the NRI she’d been through dozens of encounters and emergency situations. Her training had included survival school and other tests, the result of which was a supreme confidence in her ability to deal with any situation. But her instructors had a favorite saying, one they all seemed to repeat:
The good operatives can get themselves out of any situation; the great ones avoid the situations in the first place
.
As she looked at the gate and the walls and the narrow stairwell, Danielle felt herself walking into a trap, despite Najir’s confidence.
Najir nodded his agreement and the two moved out into the hall, which ran in both directions. The floor and walls were wet, and water pooled in places.
The name Beirut meant “the Wells” in ancient Phoenician, and for good reason. The city had a high water table
and wells did not have to be drilled too deep to reach good, potable water. Here in the catacombs of the old city, they might have been close to that water table.
Not another soul was in view, but twenty yards farther a door beckoned. Muffled sounds were coming from beyond it. Najir knocked.
A bolt was heard sliding and then the door opened to reveal a large, brightly lit room filled with a dozen people, all dressed for the party upstairs.
The room was sandstone, like the rest of the catacombs, but swept clean. Modern track lighting illuminated the space, computer terminals were set up here and there, and a small wet bar stood in one corner. Alcoves ran off the main room in spots and another gate barred the far end. Walking in felt like entering a very private lounge.
A moment later the tall, thin man appeared, a new look in his eye. No longer the humble servant, he walked with an owner’s pride in his step. Apparently he’d entered the room some other way.
“Now that we are gathered,” he said, calling the group to attention, “please take your time and examine the items for purchase.”
With an ancient key he opened the gate at the far end and the group filed through to examine the prizes.
Danielle moved slowly, trying to make some sense of things. The first two items appeared to be Greek or Minoan masks. The small clay Gilgamesh statue was the third item in the lot and the copper scroll was fourth. A clay tablet with Sumerian writing on it and the stone head of a statue from the first Persian Empire came next.
Standing next to these items was a four-foot staff with an iron tip on one end and silver barb on the other. The spear was known as a dory; this was the weapon of a hoplite soldier from Sparta, allegedly from the Greek golden age.
The final items were writings on papyrus. They would
need cleaning and restoring to be read, but if the information sheet was accurate they were written in Aramaic, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In a twist that Danielle found strange, some of the items were authenticated by newspaper reports and even insurance claims detailing their thefts from various museums and collections. All except the copper scroll.
“You see anything you like?” Najir asked.
“Not sure I like any of it,” she said. “But Bashir was interested in that scroll.”
“He called it the find of a lifetime,” Najir said.
“Why is there no authentication?” she asked.
“Either it came directly from an excavation, not uncommon, or from a private collection,” Najir said.
That sounded like a prime setup for a hoax. She studied the scroll’s description. Forty inches long and marked with raised writing, it lay curled up like a poster or a giant metallic Swiss roll. A set of photos purporting to show the script unrolled looked like they’d been taken by an amateur in bad light. The abstract data listed no place of origin and nowhere could she find any type of translation suggesting what information the scroll held.
“If no one has looked at it—no one from the archaeological world—how do we know it didn’t get hammered out in someone’s garage?”
Najir shrugged. “Caveat emptor.”
“Buyer beware.”
He nodded. “You do what you must, but as I told you, Bashir is normally a seller. He does it to raise funds for the opposition in Iran. If he was planning on spending money, it would have to be for something very important.”
Important to him, Danielle thought. But why it would matter to a geneticist or a doomsday cult trying to infect the world with a plague she couldn’t possibly fathom.
“I could use a drink,” she said.
“I’ll get it,” he said. “Make sure not to stare; it will only increase the cost. There’s bound to be a shill or two down here somewhere.”
Danielle smiled to herself, glancing around at the other patrons. She counted eight groups in all. Three couples and two men by themselves, all looking like the Mediterranean version of old money. In addition there were three other groups, including two Arab men—power brokers or their minions by the look of things—and a younger European man who sported a large ring and expensive suit but who didn’t quite look the part of a dilettante.
As the man picked up a glass of wine, Danielle studied his hands. They were rough, with thick callous pads edging the top of his palm. This was a workingman, a proxy, not someone spending his own money. Maybe that’s the way it worked down here.
Najir returned with two glasses of champagne. He looked disappointed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I know some of these men,” he said. “I’m afraid this is going to be an expensive evening.”
Danielle laughed and took a sip of the champagne. She hated to admit it but she was starting to have fun.
A moment later, the thin man ushered them into one of the alcoves. Expensive chairs and a small table were placed there; matching setups graced each alcove, one for each of the bidding groups.
He placed an iPad in her hand. “This will tell you the bid on each item,” the thin man said. “You can see each additional bid as it comes through.”
“But not who makes the bid,” she guessed.
“No, madam. Our buyers prefer to retain their anonymity.”
“As do I.”
The man scooted off, heading to the next alcove, and Najir sat down. He leaned over the table.
“You’re not going to bid on everything, are you?”
“I might,” she said. “But I promise not to
buy
everything.”
Najir took another sip of champagne, seeming only slightly mollified.
A high-toned bell rang. “The bidding will now commence on item one,” the thin man said.
Danielle studied the iPad. Within seconds, four bids appeared. As each new bid topped the old, a green bar tracked upward toward a reserve mark. The current bid was $120,000 for the Sumerian tablet.
“This is a pretty sophisticated setup,” Danielle said. “How much do you know about it?”
“The thin man runs it,” Najir said. “The art comes from all over, but mostly from Iraq. Sites there are still being looted, even as other items are discovered and returned. Some have been stolen, recovered, and returned several times already.”
Danielle looked back at the iPad. The bid had reached $200,000, the reserve mark. It quickly went above that.
She noticed that the bids were numbered, just like the paddles at a regular auction. A good trick: it maintained anonymity while allowing the bidders to know whether they were bidding against one person in particular or the whole group, facts that tended to trigger different types of pride responses and drive the bidding higher.
The first item closed at $280,000.
Out in the center of the room, two guards secured the prize in a felt-lined, polished wooden box, and the thin man’s voice came through the hall.
“Bidding begins on the head of Persian goddess.”
This time Danielle pressed in a bid, $100,000: half the reserve.
“Be careful,” Najir said.
As they spoke, the price doubled and then doubled again. To Najir’s relief, Danielle laid off as a heated competition developed between two parties. It went back and forth several times until one of them withdrew.
“Four hundred and seventy thousand for a head,” Danielle mused. “Wonder how much you get for the whole body?”
“More than we have to spend,” Najir insisted.
In the center, the guards boxed up the statue’s head, placed a wax seal against the edge of the case, and marked it.
“A seal,” Danielle said. “For authentication.”
“A formality,” Najir said. “You don’t steal from this kind of people, not if you want to stay alive.”
The bell rang a third time and the bidding commenced on the Gilgamesh statue. It went quickly, and then they were on to the fourth item: the copper scroll.
The initial bid came in at $100,000.
A bid of $150,000 came in from number four.
Danielle bid $200,000.
Number eight bid $250,000. Number four raised that to $300,000 and Danielle topped them both.
Najir glanced at the number but said nothing.
The bid hit $500,000, from number four again.
Then $550,000 from Danielle, $600,000 from bidder number two, and $650,000 from number four.
“Be careful,” Najir said. “They’re baiting you.”
Danielle didn’t think so. In fact, she felt more like she was baiting them. If Bashir wanted this item so badly, forcing someone to bid into the extreme might make them a suspect in what had happened to him and Ranga.
A $700,000 bid came in from number eight, instantly topped by number four to the tune of $850,000. It seemed a huge raise, almost unnecessary; a nervous bidder trying to knock others out of the game, throwing money away.
She felt Najir wince as she entered $875,000 on the
touchscreen and then $925,000 after number four answered.
“I’d like to know who that son of a bitch is,” Danielle whispered, but none of the alcoves faced any of the others. No bidder could be seen from where they sat, and even if they could be, the small taps of a finger would be hard to make out.
When $975,000 came in Danielle tried to top it, but a red bar on the iPad flashed. She tried again, but the same red bar popped up.
The thin man appeared. He whispered discreetly.
“Does madam have additional equity she wishes to pledge?”
She looked at him and then at Najir. “
Does
madam have additional equity that she could pledge?”
Najir clenched his jaw. And then slowly, appearing as if it pained him, he nodded.
“What limit?”
“Full credit,” he said. “Three million dollars.”
The thin man looked pleased. It seemed a killing was about to be made.
“Though we don’t intend to use it all,” Najir added, glaring at Danielle.
The thin man tapped his own iPad a few times and the bar on Danielle’s screen turned green. She’d noticed that bidder number four had topped her by smaller amounts each time. She hoped that meant he was running low on funds.
She took a deep breath and typed in a new figure. One that would turn Najir green.
She pressed Enter and the screen cycled. The new bid was $1.5 million.
A collective gasp wafted through the room, emerging simultaneously from the other alcoves. Najir hung his head at the sound. He seemed to guess.
Danielle turned to show him but he held out his hand.
“I don’t even want to know.”
She turned back to the screen, waiting for number four to top her bid. Waiting, and wondering what she might do if he did. And then …
The screen went gray and a window popped up indicating that she had been awarded the scroll. It requested a code for verification—in effect, an electronic signature.
With a little trepidation she handed the iPad to Najir.
“At least you’re getting five percent,” she said.
“Making five percent on my own money is a good way to go out of business,” he said. Despite looking stricken, he typed in his code.
The deal was done. Danielle now owned the copper scroll Bashir had been interested in. Whether she had just wasted a million-five or gotten something worthwhile, she had no clue.
Before she could even think about it, there was some commotion down the hall.
It sounded like anger—no doubt from bidder number four. Sharp words were being exchanged, albeit in a hushed tone.
A glass smashed and Danielle heard the sound of someone stomping off. The heavy door opened, and then closed with a reverberating thud.
The thin man came to the center of the room, where he could be seen from all the alcoves.
“Bidder number four has decided to withdraw,” he said. “But the auction will continue.”
Danielle wished she knew who bidder number four had been; perhaps she could pry it out of the thin man. She had a hunch it was the false dilettante. She tried to lock his features in her brain: six feet tall, broad shoulders, dark curly hair, and wide-set brown eyes; his teeth were uneven and at least two were chipped. When she got the
chance she’d describe these details to Moore and have someone back at the NRI run the profile.