The Looters (35 page)

Twenty-four hours had passed since I escaped from the warehouse and ran into an FBI car. Literally. I’d gotten little sleep since then and was too worn-out to be nervous. I was just plain dead tired. Beat. Mentally trashed.

Having the bigger vehicle, I survived the accident with just a powder dusting from an exploding air bag and wide-eyed fright. But FBI Special Agent Nunes was in a particularly foul mood. Not that I blamed him. He looked like he’d been punched in the face—his nose was red and swollen, his eyes black. Well… he
had
been punched in the face.

I was lucky that serious injuries from air bags were rare. As it was, he wasn’t happy with the near-death experience. He had interrupted his questioning of me earlier to comment on the accident.

“I’ve shot it out with killers on the street without fear. But I saw my own death when you came around the corner in that big truck.”

I almost laughed at his melodramatics yet managed to keep my humor suppressed and my facial expression completely sympathetic. My father would’ve told me never to annoy an angry man who had a badge and a gun.

Special Agent Jones, to my surprise, had escaped unscathed. As she glared at me with sleepy eyes, I realized that she wasn’t overly happy with me, either. I suppose a wrecked federal agency car entailed preparing a mountain of paperwork.

Having recovered a truckload of Iraqi museum pieces in the process had not completely endeared me to them. When I asked for some credit, Nunes said, “You’ve left a trail of death and destruction on two continents. The fact that I’m listed only as wounded on the casualty list is nothing short of a miracle.”

I needed a miracle, too. It occurred to me that just maybe he would have been in a better mood if the FBI had recovered the hoard rather than a 125-pound—give or take a few—woman with no gun.

“Why won’t you believe me when I tell you that I am completely innocent?” I asked.

“Why won’t you tell the truth?”

Good question. Actually, I had told him the truth. More or less. I left out a few details… like standing around while Neal got castrated. Nunes never asked me about Neal, so it was a certainty that Neal never reported it, at least not to the police. That was a relief, but I wondered what Neal told the ER people about how he lost a testicle. Not that it was hard to imagine why Neal wouldn’t tell the authorities that he had been tortured to reveal where his partner in crime had millions of dollars in stolen antiquities stashed. And had left a few dead bodies lying about. As Coby pointed out, that kind of candor would put Neal in a prison cell really singing soprano.

Also, I had lied about one or two other things, particularly when I told Nunes that Stocker’s partner, the man I had encountered in Malaga and who had helped me track Stocker to the New York warehouse, was Viktor Milan of Zurich. That fit with what I had told Nunes on the telephone from Malaga when I’d thought that Coby really was Milan. And I claimed complete ignorance about how this mysterious Swiss knew where the antiquities were hidden.

Actually, blaming Viktor Milan flowed smoothly off my tongue because it was essentially true. I left out that Milan was an alias for a guy named Coby Lewis and some treasure-hunting ex-SEALs.

Nunes bought the Viktor Milan connection, which wasn’t surprising, since the name figured in the Semiramis controversy from the get-go. And I gave Nunes an accurate description of Coby, without volunteering Coby’s real name… if that was his real name.

The accusation that I was lying went back to Nunes’s theory that I had a working criminal relationship with Lipton and Milan. Nunes wanted to link me to the looting of the Iraqi museum and knowingly purchasing the stolen items for the Piedmont. That scenario came with several murder charges, because I would be part of a criminal conspiracy.

My outrage and cries of innocence were genuine when it came to the Lipton/Milan steal-sell-murder conspiracy.

“You keep insisting I was in on the theft with Lipton and this Milan person. That simply isn’t true.”

“You bought a number of items off of Lipton that came from the museum in Baghdad. You stocked the Piedmont’s collection with dirty pieces.”

“I bought a number of items that Lipton offered for sale…
with provenances
. So did a lot of other collectors and museums.”

I didn’t know how many others there were, but it was a sure thing Nunes didn’t know, either, since no one knew exactly what had been stolen from the museum. “I had authorization to pay full value for each item. I’m sure you’ve had a chance to check my finances to find out that not only didn’t I receive kickbacks, but I was living beyond my means.”

I figured my best defense would be the bankruptcy I’d have to file to keep bill collectors from yapping at my heels. My expensive apartment, hot car, designer clothes—spending way beyond my means because I was always expecting them to expand—were my vindication. Who knew my financial ineptitude would finally pay off big?

“My only connection to the stolen museum pieces was my desperate attempt to recover them because I was being falsely accused of conspiring to steal them. The truckload of pieces I risked my life to recover was obviously from the museum heist, though you have no documentation to connect them.”

I felt confident that Iraqi museum curators would identify them as belonging to the museum.

“You’ve also never established that a single piece that I bought for the Piedmont came from that theft,” I said, continuing my defense. “There are thousands of legal artifacts for sale every day around the world. I was in the business of acquiring pieces in a lawful manner. If Lipton sold me a stolen piece with a phony provenance, I was duped. But you haven’t any proof even that occurred.”

Nunes stared at me with a blank look on his face. He still didn’t believe me. Or didn’t want to believe me. A confession from me would wrap up so many loose ends for the Bureau.

From his point of view, the evidence was missing because my partners in crime had destroyed it. Stocker’s London attack had torched any incriminating evidence Lipton had been sitting on. And Milan was a shadow figure who possessed nothing: no office, no filing cabinets full of incriminating records, no computer disks or hard drives, no evidence of a human body. I wondered if Nunes had figured out yet that Milan was just a name on paper.

I had no clue as to what was recovered at the warehouse or in the back of the truck along with the antiquities, and Stocker didn’t strike me as a record keeper who would’ve kept a list of what had originally been stolen from the museum.

Nunes’s dilemma was understandable. He was a good cop who was absolutely certain that every piece Lipton sold me came from the heist. In retrospect, Nunes was probably right. But all he had was burning suspicion, not proof, at least not yet. And that was my salvation. I kept hammering away at his lack of proof.

The law’s all about the evidence, not the truth, the lawyer told me last time I was arrested. Innocent people are found guilty every day because of the way the evidence stacked up against them. Well, thank God it worked the other way, too.

“You’ve asked me a million questions,” I said, trying to sound sincere. “May I ask you one thing?”

He rolled his eyes. “If your question is how do you get out of this mess, you can start by telling the truth.”

“Don’t I get any credit at all for battling a homicidal maniac and recovering national treasures that belong to the Iraqi museum?”

A thin crease in his lips left the impression of a sneer rather than a smile. “You have three things in your favor. The first is that you called me from Malaga and told me about the Viktor Milan connection. You’re not that good of an actress to have faked being so scared.”

“Thank you. It was frightening out there all alone doing the work of police officers on two continents.”

“Perhaps if the police officers on two continents knew what you knew about the crimes, you wouldn’t have had to be all alone. Anyway, the second thing is that you called me before you went into the warehouse. It did occur to me that had you found anything at the warehouse, you would’ve made yourself scarce before you called it in.”

I kept a straight face. “The third?”

“Bullet holes indicating someone, presumably Stocker, had shot at you, and a gate smashed in making your escape. Agent Jones,” he indicated with a nod to his head, “believes you’re telling the truth about your daring rescue with the antiquities, hopping aboard that truck and crashing through that gate like a stunt driver.”

The other agent’s features were frozen as she struggled to keep her eyes open. None of us had gotten any sleep.

“And what do you think?” I looked him square in the eye.

“You’re either the world’s greatest liar or the luckiest woman on earth.” He leaned forward. “I don’t know which. I find it unimaginable that you walked into that warehouse bare-handed and fought a mad killer who was armed to the teeth. Ballistics is checking out bullets recovered at the scene. I’m betting there was another shooter.”

“I told you that another person appeared. I didn’t have time to stick around and get a good look at him. Maybe it was Viktor Milan.”

“You know, I find this Milan guy a bit weird. Every time you need an alibi or an excuse for something, his name pops up.” He sighed and pursed his lips. “If you hadn’t called me before you went into that warehouse…”

He sounded as if he regretted that I had called him. I guess everything added up better if I was simply an accomplice.

“I wish the hell we’d gotten your pal Stocker. Scotland Yard would like him, too.”

“He isn’t my pal. My friends don’t try to kill me. Why are you keeping me a prisoner when I should be getting a medal?”

“Ms. Dupre, before I’m through with you, I will make sure you get everything you deserve.”

What a threat that was!
I leaned back and closed my eyes. God, I was tired. I could have just laid my head on the table and passed out. My mind was groggy and my adrenaline level way down, sure reasons to make mistakes at a time when I was playing hardball for my freedom.

The door opened and someone handed Nunes a piece of paper. After reading it, he said, “Fingerprints taken from the truck and warehouse ID’d Stocker as a former Navy SEAL. Discharged for a personality disorder. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s an understatement of his mental condition. What did he tell you about his Navy career?”

I groaned with frustration and disgust. “Special Agent Nunes, that’s about the tenth time you’ve tried to get me to tell you things about Stocker that I don’t know so you can prove your theory that I did know him.
I never met the man.
Unless you count him trying to kill me a couple of times. And those were done without a formal introduction.

“I don’t know if I was targeted because he was following me… or because I was following him. But please listen. I didn’t even know a creature like that existed until he came into Lipton’s gallery to murder me and everyone else. I never ever spoke to the man, not before he grabbed me when I poked my head through the doorway at the warehouse.”

I was so frustrated I could scream. And I showed it. I leaned across the table and locked eyes with Nunes. “Is that clear? Never, never, ever even spoke to him before he had tried to kill me a couple times. And he barely said anything at the warehouse. If there is anything that will hinder your investigation, it’s trying to get to Stocker through me.”

Nunes had obviously spent decades listening to people lie to him, so it was good that I wasn’t lying about the most important thing: I was not involved with Stocker, Lipton, and the others in stealing, storing, and selling the antiquities.

I could tell from Nunes’s body language that he was at least half-convinced that I was telling the truth. He had been much tougher in his questioning and attitude after he had picked me up fleeing Abdullah’s apartment. It was a giant leap for him to believe that I had walked into the warehouse and wrestled the antiquities away from Stocker. It had been a giant leap for me, too. But it was the truth and nothing but.

Of course, if Coby hadn’t made a sudden appearance, Stocker probably would have put a bullet in my back as I was running for the truck. That was the main reason I kept Coby’s name out of it. That and the fact that my own feelings about Coby bordered on the sentimental or maybe something stronger.

What had happened to Stocker—and Coby, for that matter—after I burst out the gates was a mystery. For sure, they had plenty of time to get away, because Nunes was busy recovering from the crash, taking me into custody, and checking the truck. When Nunes opened a crate in the back of the truck and saw a museum piece, he knew he’d struck pay dirt.

“Look, I know it’s hard to believe. All I really intended to do was check the warehouse a little closer to make sure the stuff was there before I called you. I got lucky with that pepper spray ring when I squirted Stocker right in the face. Otherwise I’d be dead. God was watching over me. It wasn’t my time to die. Now can I go?”

Nunes edged forward, just inches from my face. “You’re lying to me. And it will end up getting you life without parole.”

I flinched back.

“Your passport is in the personal effects folder at the property desk with your purse. I’m keeping it,” he said as he stood up.

“Keeping my passport? Why are you—wait, you’re letting me go?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course. Your public awaits you. Word has gotten out about the recovery of the antiquities. A horde of news media people are waiting to interview you.” He leaned forward and sneered. “You’re a celebrity. Maybe as big as a talking political head or a reality show wife swapper. That TV host Cassie claims you used a secret code during an interview to signal her that you knew where the stolen Iraqi pieces were being held.”

Oh my God.

He stretched and then grinned maliciously down at me. “Stocker’s still out there. When he tries to kill you again, let us know.”

Agent Jones opened her eyes wide and said, “He will try again; you know that. Is there anything you’d like to tell us before he does?”

“Yes. Find him before he finds me.”