To Catch a Thief (25 page)

T
HE DOORKNOB SHOOK
.
Portuguese curses rained down on the hapless guards outside.

Dakota shoved his portable drive and cable into a pocket, secured the zipper, straightened the desk and motioned Marie to the window. She hesitated, glancing back at the door, then leaned over the desk, flipping three switches on a sleek security panel. “The alarm at the exterior is disabled.” She watched Dakota pry a screw free from the wooden frame, ease the window open and lean out. Candlelight flickered in the ballroom below, but otherwise every room was dark.

Overhead the notched outline of the parapets jutted out like an angry mouth. Dakota turned back to Marie and pointed up, pulling out a rope.

The doorknob shook. Drilling noises echoed out in the corridor. Marie shook her head, waving him out, her jaw set.

The doorknob spun free and the drilling became a furious whine. There was no more time to argue. Dakota climbed through the window, cast out his doubled rope and caught the edge of the parapet. Glancing back, he saw Marie ease the window shut behind him and then disappear into the shadows near an ornate Victorian settee.

As he reached a notch in the high tower, angry voices rumbled in the room he'd just left. Light spilled through the window. Two shadows moved back and forth like restless moths.

Footsteps crossed the room. Voices rose in muffled argument and then a door slammed. Twenty seconds later the window slowly rose.

Marie Okambe climbed out, gripped the rope and worked her way silently upward hand over hand, her long silk skirt pulled tight at her knees. By the time Dakota helped her up onto the parapet, applause was ringing from the candlelit ballroom.

The bidding had begun.

N
ELL TOOK
a deep breath, listening to staff cross the hall outside the bathroom where she hid.

The outside door swung shut.

Nell waited in the last stall, sweat trickling down her neck.

No shouts. No alarm bells.

Always a good sign. But why had the electricity failed?

Carefully she peeked into the darkness, listening to the drip of water from a faucet. When she was certain the room was empty, she straightened her uniform, picked up a garbage can full of used paper towels and carried it outside, looking as if she was in a hurry.

T
HE BIDDING WAS FIERCE
,
but soon the pace slowed in the time lag needed for translation. At twenty million one buyer dropped out. At thirty million two buyers from South America withdrew. Others faded back against the walls of the ballroom as the price kept climbing. Now Okambe was left to bid tensely against a financier representing the head of a South American cartel and a Japanese collector who spoke flawless English.

Suddenly the bidding jumped to fifty million. Okambe made an angry gesture and his fingers tightened on the wheelchair. When he saw his daughter across the noisy room, he gestured sharply and steered his chair toward the door to the patio. Luis Gonsalves looked back as if noting his departure while the bids kept rising.

Nine minutes later Martim's etched silver gavel finally fell. Da Vinci's preliminary chalk sketch for the
Mona Lisa
had commanded a stratospheric price of sixty-seven million dollars from the Japanese buyer, who left the ballroom with Martim to arrange for an immediate wire transfer from an account in Switzerland.

Not everyone was happy with the results of the bidding, and Bujune Okambe was the least happy of all.

Outside low thunder rolled over the loch as the African wheeled toward a group of buyers arguing with Luis Gonsalves and cut in. “I would have paid more if your son had not changed his mind and insisted on an immediate wire transfer. We
all
could have paid, is that not correct?”

The other bidders nodded angrily.

“The auction should be reopened.” Okambe banged the arm of his wheelchair. “We are agreed that the rules were both unclear
and
unfair.” Amid a chorus of fierce agreement, he glared at Luis Gonsalves. “Call your son back and we will continue.”

“It is not possible. My apologies to all of you, but the sale is finished.”

“Your son gave us only twenty-four hours to prepare the funds for transfer.
Impossible
.” Okambe seemed to sink into his chair, glowering. “Those were not the terms promised to me by Jordan MacInnes. He lied.”

As he spoke, MacInnes entered the room with a guard on each side, and Okambe watched him in growing fury. “He knew this would happen. He gave his word that the bidding would be equal for all, do you hear? Either the auction resumes now or Jordan MacInnes pays for his betrayal.”

Marie Okambe listened, her eyes narrowed. She turned as a uniformed waitress pushed a cart along the wall and moved directly into Okambe's path. Furious, the old man drew a Browning Hi-Power handgun with Hogue grips from a small space hidden between the spokes of his wheelchair.

The thunder was louder now, low and booming over what might have been the hum of motors.

Nell MacInnes, whom Marie had recognized in spite of the black uniform, gave a sharp cry as the gun rose. The American woman rammed her cart against the wheelchair, but Marie blocked her, shoving her back against the wall.

Jordan turned at his daughter's cry, his face going pale. Then the Browning cracked and while Nell looked on in horror, Okambe triggered four shots in quick succession into her father's chest.

B
LOOD WELLED
over the front of Jordan MacInnes's white shirt as he was thrown back toward the wall. He staggered, clutching his side.

The guards simply watched him fall, their eyes expressionless. No one made a move to help. Nell broke free and ran to him, but her hands came away slick with blood. Her father's eyes did not open.

Someone shouted from the front of the courtyard and then armed soldiers in black gear poured through the castle gatehouse and over the walls, their radios crackling. Nell didn't look up as two soldiers flanked the old man in the wheelchair, who protested loudly as they escorted him away. Nothing seemed to make sense, not the noise or the angry protests. All she could see was her father's lifeless face and the dark stain that covered his chest.

Nell tried to shake him, every movement clumsy. Something told her that if she shook him long enough, he would wake up and smile and tell her the world was a fine place.

But he didn't wake up. She knew he wouldn't ever wake up.

Panic burned in her throat and her low, broken moan seemed to come from someone else. She tried to grip her father's shirt, but her hands kept pulling free, slick with his blood. The sight made her close her eyes, the room suddenly going black.

A hand brushed across her shoulders. A low voice called her name. Nell looked up to see one of the soldiers leaning down beside her.

“You're safe now, ma'am. Why don't you come with me?” He was American, and something about his calm sense of focus reminded her of Dakota.

Two other men in black lifted her father's body onto a stretcher and carried him toward the courtyard.

“I
can't
leave. He's just unconscious,” she whispered hoarsely. But Nell knew it was a lie, knew she would never joke or argue or laugh with her father again. In a matter of seconds everything was cut short. Shaking, she grabbed the wall for support.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The good guys were supposed to high five and tell loud jokes, walking away with all the glory. But now that glory was gone, and all she would have were pale memories.

“Ma'am, it would be best if you came with me. Are you hurt?”

She looked up slowly. The man in a black tactical suit was speaking slowly, as if she couldn't understand complex sentences. Maybe she couldn't.

The ballroom was empty now. Someone had set up portable lights on the table. All the buyers were grouped outside near one door, surrounded by more men in black uniforms. Nell could hear the staff being questioned in the adjoining service area.

Where was Dakota? She ran a shaky hand across her face. Why was there still no sign of him or the art? She closed her eyes and breathed a prayer for his safety.

“Ma'am, would you like something to drink? Water—a cup of tea?” The tall man was leaning down beside her, his eyes very patient.

“Dakota?” she managed to ask, half-afraid of the answer.

“He's fine, ma'am.”

Relief washed over her. Slowly Nell stood up, clumsier than she had ever been. Her thoughts seemed to balloon out and fragment as she followed the soldier through the beautiful old ballroom, past more grim Special Forces troops holding automatic weapons as they questioned the nervous buyers. There was no sign of the old man in the wheelchair. Nell didn't know what she would say to him anyway. She could scream and claw his face, but what good would it do now?

Her father was dead, and nothing would change that.

The finality of it crushed her heart.

At the far side of the courtyard, a tall figure emerged from a low door, arguing with one of the British soldiers, and Nell saw that it was Dakota, wearing some kind of black diving suit. The relief hit her again, along with deep emotions that she still didn't have a clear name for.

Then her blank sense of loss returned and she kept walking toward the massive gatehouse, with its arrow loops and portcullis and beautiful mullioned windows, rich with Scottish history.

None of it mattered.

In the darkness, her foot struck an uneven cobblestone. As she stumbled, Nell pressed one hand to the cold stone, her hip thrown against the wall. The sharp contact made her wince and realize there was something in the pocket of her borrowed uniform. She reached down, frowning at the metal shape in her fingers. Long and heavy and very worn.

Nell frowned.

A key?

No key had been in the pocket earlier. She had checked them for a cell phone or a kitchen knife as soon as she'd taken the uniform, but all the pockets had been empty.

The metal felt cold and heavy against her skin. How had it gotten in her uniform? She had been moving constantly since the moment she had changed.

Nell realized that three other big men were surrounding her now in a protective circle. They all had the same quiet sense of authority that Dakota did, and she trusted them immediately.

The nearest man held open the door of a black sedan. “If you would have a seat, someone will take you to a hotel where you can rest. Is there anyone you'd like us to contact for you?”

There was no one. Her father was all the family Nell had.

The man waited for her to answer, calm and polite, but she wanted to explain that any questions could wait, that she needed to be alone so she could cry. But Nell didn't have the strength to answer. Her hands closed tightly around the strange key as the first burning tears coursed down her face.

D
AKOTA WATCHED
her in the car, saw her white face and frozen expression. Saw the tears she was holding back by sheer will.

He gestured quickly, making sure that the American Foxfire men carrying her father's body took a different route so Nell wouldn't have to watch him being loaded into a van. Then Dakota walked out under the gatehouse arch.

His superior officer, Wolfe Houston, closed the door of the big black sedan and crossed to Dakota. “She's holding up pretty well, considering.”

“Don't let them debrief her yet,” Dakota said curtly. “Her father just died, damn it. Let Teague fill our counterparts from London in.”

Wolfe Houston studied Dakota through narrowed eyes. “That sounds personal, Lieutenant.”

Dakota watched the black sedan move down the long gravel driveway and said nothing.

“I figured it was bound to happen someday. Even to you,” Houston said wryly. “Let me run interference with Ryker for you.”

“Probably a good idea.”

Neither man spoke as three members of the Foxfire team carried a Plexiglas case with great care out of the ballroom. The
Mona Lisa
was just as haunting and enigmatic as ever, sealed in her protective world. Would the experts and academics ever resolve the mystery of Michelangelo's connection, or would the theories simply fuel more debate?

Not his problem.

Dakota looked down. His elbow had a four-inch gash, courtesy of a guard he'd dropped on his way down from the tower and he had a few loose ends to tie up, but the mission was materially complete. He would have a final harsh conversation with Okambe and question his daughter before the old man was taken into custody, then head off to meet Ryker's chopper. The hard drive data would provide all of Martim Gonsalves's criminal and terrorist contacts, which Izzy would analyze down to the last passcode and pixel. That information would be priceless to more than one government.

Time to go, pal.

Don't have to like it.

You just have to do it.

Dakota knew it was time and yet he stayed right where he was, feeling the cut along his elbow burn and the blood dry on his scarred hands. He couldn't have managed the climb half as well without Nell's help, and maybe not at all. Given the way things had turned out, he wanted to tell her that and thank her officially on behalf of the British and U.S. governments.

But it wasn't going to happen. She was already heading down the driveway. Wolfe Houston had a good man escorting her to the nearest hotel, and he would remain as her protective escort until Izzy could ask her some final questions.

Across the courtyard, Wolfe Houston called his name, holding up a satellite phone. “Call for you, Smith. It's the man.”

Ryker.

Dakota frowned as he watched the black sedan cruise away. No way could he miss a call from Ryker.

Duty warred with emotion, and slowly, painfully duty won. The data secured in his watertight bag mattered more than his own wishes and more than Nell's personal heartache. He swore that someday he would tell her why.