The Final Cut

by Catherine Coulter

  so we will know rebirth and rejoice.”

  Saleem would say anything to get away now. “I will remember.”

  His grandfather’s voice strengthened, echoed throughout the room. “The stone gifted to our people by Surya through Krishna is in three pieces. The largest piece you’ve now seen for the first time. The second piece resides in Tower of London, stolen by the British marauders who knew not the true power of the stone. And the third piece, the reassembled parts from the cut Koh-i-Noor, disappeared in 1852, when Queen Victoria had the stone recut to please her people. You and your father must find the two stones and bring them home, and reunite the three stones together again.”

  He fell back against the velvet chair, exhausted. His eyes closed, and Saleem wanted desperately to run from the room.

  Yet he wanted to touch the gleaming stone again, hear the shouts and the screams, feel the power and the excitement.

  The stone had spoken to him. He had heard its voice.

  Saleem’s hand crept toward the box, and his grandfather’s eyes shot open. His voice was strong and clear.

  “This is your destiny, Saleem. Your life will be consumed by this quest, as it consumed me and now consumes your father. Know this: all before you have failed. But if you do succeed, Saleem, you must see the stone home.”

  “Home?”

  “Back to India, to the Kollur mine. You must unite the stones and throw the diamond back into the earth, in its proper place. If you do so, our land will rise again and prosper, using its strength to make the soil strong. You will be recognized as a hero, as the one who restored us to our appropriate place of strength in the world.”

  He hugged the boy to his chest.

  “May luck be with you always, Saleem.”

  • • •

  The following day, Saleem’s father took him aside in the gardens.

  “You were given your duty?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Do you understand what it means, Saleem?”

  He shook his head. “No, Papa.”

  Robert Lanighan sat on a stone bench, beckoned his only son to sit beside him.

  “When I was your age, your grandfather told me the story of the lost stones. I too did not understand the significance of this task. You are very young, Saleem, but it is time for you to be strong, like me.”

  He’d roared then, like a lion, making young Saleem giggle.

  “You try.”

  Saleem roared and roared, stomping around the gardens until his father was bent over in laughter. This happiness felt better. Saleem liked to see his father laugh.

  He drew him close, into a hug. “Your grandfather died last night, an hour after he passed along the legacy to you. You must always keep him close, Saleem, in your heart. His love, and mine, will keep you pure. You are now a man of the Lanighan family. We will carry on where your grandfather left off. Somehow, we must find the missing stone and take back the Koh-i-Noor from the British. We must unite the three stones.

  “One last thing, Saleem. There can be no personal gain from this quest. Always remember your role, your duty. No man himself may hold the power of the united stones. It will cause madness and despair. Only the land is capable of sheltering the diamond. If I do not succeed, and you do, you must swear to me you will see the diamond home.”

  “I swear it, Father.”

  And he meant every word, when he was eight years old.

  Years later, when his father had fallen ill, he became frantic to obtain the two missing pieces. He commissioned thieves to steal the Koh-i-Noor from the Tower of London, but they failed again and again, until the British began to suspect who was behind it. Nor could he ever find the part of the diamond that reassembled itself after Queen Victoria’s final cut. He sent Saleem across the globe following dead leads, but the third stone always remained hidden.

  At the end, when it was clear he wasn’t going to survive, he bade Saleem come to the hospital. Fragile from his illness, his skin paper white, he took Saleem’s hand in his.

  “My son. I have failed. My failure means my death. I have no more time. You must dedicate yourself to the search. You know the power of the stones, and you will need it. I tell you now, bring them together and heal yourself.”

  “I am fine, Father. I haven’t been sick since I was a boy.”

  His father shook his head, pain flooding his eyes.

  “You are not sick now, but you will be, for I have seen it. Find the third stone, Saleem, liberate the Koh-i-Noor from the British, and unite them. Only then will you save your own life.”

  63

  Geneva, Switzerland

  Rue de Lausanne

  Friday afternoon

  Kitsune walked northwest through the city until she spied an anonymous street that backed to an elementary school. She followed the Rue de Navigation, through the turnstiles that accessed the walkway, stopping cars from interrupting the children at play in their schoolyard, then up a quiet one-way street.

  She took a room at the Hotel Kipling, stashed her bag in the room’s safe, showered and dressed, then went next door to the Lord Jim Pub on Rue de Lausanne to have some food before the meeting with Lanighan. It was an English-style pub, full of afternoon revelers drinking microbrews and shouting their drunken opinions at a football match playing on all of the bar’s big-screen televisions. She ordered bangers and mash and wondered, as she had many times, if this would be her last meal. She saw Grant’s face and forced away the sadness and regret.

  The food arrived. She forked warm mashed potatoes into her mouth, savoring the salty onion gravy, as authentically British as any she’d had near the River Thames.

  She ate slowly, enjoying the meal.

  Part of her preparation to steal the Koh-i-Noor diamond was to become an expert, to learn every single aspect of its storied history, even the lore. Especially the lore. She’d found deeper legends, ones she’d only half believed, rarely spoken of, long forgotten in the stone’s tragic path through documented history.

  During her studies, she’d come across an old parchment that posed the idea of the three stones. When she’d read it, she’d shaken her head and dismissed the idea as absurd, possibly the result of an opium dream. Now she worked to recall the story, picking over the words to find the truth behind them.

  According to the parchments, Sultan Aurangzeb was a visionary. He knew others would kill him for the diamond. To be safe, he had Borgio split the stone in two, and while publicly parading the smaller stone known as the Koh-i-Noor, he’d secreted the much larger stone in a place no one knew.

  Over the centuries, this secret was passed down from father to son. While the Koh-i-Noor was fought over, bled over, stolen, and retrieved at the cost of hundreds of lives, the larger piece was kept hidden, safe, its whereabouts passed down from generation to generation.

  The parchment claimed a long-ago prince’s son was born blind, and when the father pressed the stone to the child’s forehead, his sight was restored. If the stone could heal—but that was ridiculous.

  Could Saleem actually believe this?

  Three hundred and fifteen years later, according to the parchment, when Prince Albert had Coster cut the diamond down further, the dust was collected, placed in a velvet bag, and stowed in a safe to be used to edge a skaif to cut more diamonds. This was the normal course of things; any time a diamond was cut, the dust was collected and recycled.

  The next day, when the bag was retrieved to be put into service, the young lapidary who picked it up felt something bulky within. The parchment claimed that the diamond dust had reformed into a small stone. Shaken, the fellow shared the story with his wife and fled to Germany to put the stone in his family’s safe. He was found dead on the train to Berlin, his body stripped of its treasure.

  And so the third and final piece of the diamond was lost to history forever.

  Three stones. A legend only the most dedicated fans of the Koh-i-Noor even knew existed. To hold the three stones in your hand was to have the pow
er of ten thousand men. Its measure was greater than gold, and the man who owned such power would control his destiny, and the destinies of many others.

  The curse, though—she had to believe it was real. Every man who’d believed himself lord and steward over the Koh-i-Noor met with a bad end. Only God or a woman could wield the power properly, that part of the warning was quite clear.

  Legends. Stories meant to entertain men, to educate, to foster a desire to hunt treasures long lost to the mortal world.

  One stone, cleaved into three pieces. One piece, now in her possession, sought after by a man who clearly believed in the magic of merging the three stones.

  If the fragments of stories Saleem’s father had shared with her were true, his family had held the largest piece of the diamond for more than four centuries.

  Kitsune knew where the third piece was hidden, because Mulvaney had told her.

  Only a true descendant of the original Indian line would have the power to unite the stones.

  Kitsune shook her head. She knew what the prophecy foretold, but it all seemed too incredible to believe.

  She paid her bill and checked her watch. It was time to meet with Lanighan, then leave her old life behind forever.

  64

  Geneva, Switzerland

  Hotel Beau-Rivage

  Friday, early evening

  One conversation thirty years ago had set him on an exhausting path. Unite the stones, and it will heal man.

  To hell with man.

  From his sixteenth year, Saleem wanted the god’s diamond, not for India, but for himself. Saleem’s father had been right. Saleem needed the stones united to heal himself.

  He often wondered, if they had retrieved the Koh-i-Noor and its mate in time, would his grandfather have truly been healed? He’d seen the man’s face clear of its wretched pain and age when he held the one large piece, seen it with his own eyes.

  Would his father, saddled with kidney disease, have lived beyond his sixtieth year?

  Would Saleem himself have sickened in his teens, his body have been pumped full of the poison that put him in this desperate position now? Cured, alive, but unable to father a child?

  And last month, at his annual physical, a ritual he took very seriously, his latest blood work showed an overabundance of white blood cells. The leukemia he’d battled as a teenager was back. He was running out of time.

  With the three stones united, he would be healed and forever immortal. Not only would he have the Koh-i-Noor this very day, he also finally had in his possession the lost seventy-seven-carat stone from Antwerp. If his father had any idea his old friend Andrei Anatoly held his diamond all these years, he would have killed the man himself.

  No matter. Anatoly was dead, and the smallest piece of the diamond was now safe in a Paris warehouse, awaiting its brothers.

  He would return to Paris, open the locked box, marry the three stones, and be healed. Then he would sire a son.

  Behind him, he heard a soft knock at his door.

  65

  Saleem opened the door to his suite. Two years since he’d seen her last, and she still took his breath away. But something was different, wrong. Her beauty was diminished. She was only a woman after all, not the mythical creature he remembered.

  And then it hit him.

  “Your eyes.”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “A necessary evil. May I come in, or are we going to do this transaction in the hallway?”

  He stepped back and allowed her entrance. He stuck his head out the door, looking right, then left. The hall behind her was empty; she’d come alone, as instructed.

  He shut the door and turned to see her watching him. She set her backpack down on the table and opened it.

  “You have the Koh-i-Noor.”

  “Of course. Let us do our business and go our separate ways. You are prepared to transfer the funds?”

  “Let me see it first.”

  She held out her hand. There was a small envelope, only a few inches big, inside her palm. “Money for the key.”

  Saleem said, “Key? Key to what? Where is my diamond?”

  “Safely stashed away where you will be able to claim it. As soon as I’ve confirmed the money is in my accounts.”

  Was she indeed planning to betray him? Well, he’d been warned, and he was ready for her. “Why have you not brought the diamond to me?”

  Kitsune pulled back her hand.

  “Did you honestly believe I was going to walk in here and hand you the stone? Do you take me for a fool, Lanighan? This is how business is done. You know the proper procedure. I see the weapon you carry under your coat. Did you plan to shoot me dead the moment you have your diamond?”

  They were circling each other now, Kitsune watching his hand carefully for any sign he was going for the gun in his pocket. He was not the same man she’d met two years earlier. There was something different about him.

  He’s desperate, she thought, finally recognizing the problem. But why? What had happened over the past two years?

  It didn’t matter. Mulvaney had warned her she shouldn’t trust Lanighan.

  “I will ask you once more. Where is my diamond?”

  “The Koh-i-Noor is safe. You transfer my money, and I will tell you where to take the key. I keep my bargains. I always have. Do you?”

  He was becoming enraged. She recognized the signs and took three steps back, put her weight on her back foot, ready to defend herself.

  He whipped the gun from his pocket and jabbed it toward her chest. “I have been warned of your duplicity, your intention to take my money and the Koh-i-Noor. I will not allow you to do this. I want my diamond, and I want it now.”

  She spun, pivoting on her left foot, and her right leg clipped the gun from his hand, sent it skidding across the floor. She followed with an elbow to his jaw, snapping his head back, knocking him into the table. She darted across the room to the weapon, raised it, aimed as he turned and started toward her.

  Her voice was ice. “Stop. Right now. Or I will shoot you, Lanighan, and you will get nothing.”

  He dropped his hand to his side. His rage was barely controlled. He said between clenched teeth, “It seems the warnings against you were correct.”

  “Who would say that about me? I always play by the rules. You’re the one acting like an amateur. Now, I’m going to watch you transfer the money, then I will give you the key, and we will part ways, each satisfied our end of the bargain has been upheld.”

  “Very well. Give me the key. An act of good faith.”

  Without lowering the weapon, she tossed him the small envelope.

  “It is a five-minute walk from here. Now transfer my money.”

  “You will come with me.”

  She shook her head. “If you try to walk out this door without transferring my money, I will shoot you dead and keep the diamond for myself.”

  “Where is the diamond now?”

  “Bank Horim. You can see it from here, Saleem. Go out on your balcony and look to the right.”

  He considered her for a moment, then shrugged and went to the balcony. The outside air was biting, and the sun was disappearing rapidly. He turned to the right and saw the pulsing blue and white lights half a mile away.

  “Kitsune. Come here.”

  “So you can throw me off the balcony? No, thank you.”

  “Come here now!”

  She edged carefully toward the open door. She saw the lights immediately, realized there were police ears in front of the Bank Horim.

  Her mobile rang, a secure number. It was Marie-Louise Helmut.

  The older woman’s voice was a whisper. “People are asking about you.”

  “What people?”

  “An America FBI agent and an Englishman from Scotland Yard, plus a French FedPol agent. I am holding them off as long as possible, but they know you were here, and they are bringing warrants. I will not be able to stop them from opening the box.”

  Drummond had found her. Sh
e’d known he would; deep down, she’d known. But how? How had he found her here?

  Kitsune couldn’t allow them to open the box, not while the stone was inside.

  Kitsune said, “You must open the box yourself and remove the contents.”

  “I cannot, the FedPol agent is still here.” Then Helmut said, “I did send the man and woman to Sages, as you instructed. If only the third agent would leave, I could retrieve the contents of the box unnoticed.”

  Kitsune’s heart sped up. A chance, then.

  She said, “Do what you have to do. Make it happen.”

  She turned to Lanighan.

  “There is a problem, but I am handling it. Meet me back here in two hours.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, turned and left so quietly he wouldn’t have known she’d even been in his room if he hadn’t seen her with his own eyes.

  66

  Geneva, Switzerland

  Sages Fidelité

  Friday, early evening

  Sages Fidelité was not a bank, it was simply a small building with a counter separating the foyer from three walls of floor-to-ceiling safe-deposit boxes. Mike and Nicholas burst in the door at a run, and the attendant behind the counter jumped to his feet and threw his hands in the air. He looked so scared Mike had to bite back a laugh. This was going to go better than it had at Bank Horim.

  The boy was the assistant manager, a gawky youth who didn’t look old enough to shave. Tomas was his name, and he was happy to share all he knew, though, alas, it wasn’t much.

  He looked at the picture and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, she came in this afternoon and rented a box. She paid up front, the nonresident of Switzerland rate, for two years. Then she put something in the box and left.”

  “Let us into the box.”

  The wide Adam’s apple bobbed. “Without her key, there is no way to open it.”

  Nicholas banged his fist on the counter. “Find a bloody blowtorch, then. Get the box open, right now. And let us see the paperwork.”