by K. T. Tomb
He was actually sneering at them by then.
Chyna nodded and extended her hand to Evan for a farewell handshake. Oscar did the same and they said their goodbyes.
Back in the Jaguar, Chyna sighed heavily, but said nothing. She waited patiently for her cowboy trainee to offer his opinion.
“What a prick!” Oscar finally said. “What the hell was all that about the ‘rabble’ traipsing around his manor house?”
Chyna smiled. She had seen that one coming from a mile away.
“Never mind him, Oscar. He’s a bit of a dinosaur; from a different time and place in this country’s history. No matter what people think, leopards can’t change their spots.”
***
“Miyako,” said the voice on the phone.
“Moshi moshi,” she replied, sounding exasperated.
“They were just here asking a lot of questions. I skirted around the whole antique curating thing, but they have the file so eventually, they’ll put two and two together.”
“Understood. I’m sure you did your best. It is becoming clear that we are dealing with a formidable opponent in Miss Stone. More drastic measures may have to be taken.”
“Do what you have to; it will be a complete disaster if all of this falls apart after all these years.”
“Indeed,” Miyako agreed. “I’ll call Keiko.”
***
At Sir Robert’s office, Chyna and Oscar had a much more cordial experience as they searched for the information they needed. A pretty, blond research assistant was assigned to guide them through the extensive library of family records.
“What exactly does this guy do for a living anyway?” Oscar asked Chyna in a hushed voice.
“He heads up the Angevin Foundation; just like all the Barons Dordogne before him.”
“Well, that’s a rather cushy gig,” Oscar retorted.
“Why would you say that?” Chyna asked. “We don’t even really know what that entails.”
Oscar raised an eyebrow at her and gave her a look that said ‘Really?’ before waving over the blond woman who was assisting them and asking, “Would you mind explaining to us what it is exactly that the Angevin Foundation does?”
“Of course,” she said very seriously. “The foundation deals primarily with the upkeep, promotion and management of the Montgomery estates in England and France. It also acquires and liquidates estate-specific property and manages the payment of family pensions and donations to family supported charities.”
“Thank you,” Chyna said, smiling to herself.
When the young woman had returned to her corner of the room, Oscar whispered, “It’s still a cushy gig.”
Chyna laughed at his insistence. In reality, she was glad for the explanation; she at least had a clearer idea of what her client did for a living. Now that she knew, she admired his vocation.
“I think I found the police reports,” the researcher said from across the room.
“That’s wonderful, because I just found Sir Williams’ records on the renovations.”
Chyna pulled out a cardboard bank box from a shelf that was marked ‘RENOVATIONS-1978’ from a shelf and threw the lid to one side. There were several three inch black binders which were filled with all the various paperwork that was pertinent to the work at Dordogne; they were all safely filed inside plastic sheet protectors.
After flipping quickly through the first few folders, Chyna was satisfied. She put the cover back on the box and turned to the woman.
“If we need anything else…”
“Just call me and I will send it over to the estate. My name is Elizabeth.”
Chyna smiled at her as she took the police reports from Elizabeth.
“Thank you,” she replied and then to Oscar she said, “Get that box and let’s get going, cowboy. We’ve got a lot of road to cover.”
***
Somewhere out on the M4 near Heathrow Airport, Chyna suddenly had an idea.
“Listen; if we take a small detour, we could go to see Stonehenge on the way back. Do you want to do that?” Chyna asked Oscar.
“Definitely!” he replied excitedly. “But I’d have thought that you would’ve gone there while Tony was here with you.”
“Nah. Stonehenge freaks Agent Stewart out,” Chyna joked. “He thinks it’s one of the few places on Earth that could most certainly be haunted; Stonehenge and Salem, Massachusetts.”
“I tend to agree… with the Salem part, that is.”
“You two are silly. Let’s go!”
When they arrived at Stonehenge, there were still a few tour buses in the parking area. Several large groups of tourists were milling around, taking pictures of the stones and pouring over guide books as they discussed the history of the place.
Chyna made a beeline for the center of the stone formations.
While Oscar milled around the outer ring with some of the other visitors, Chyna lay down on a flat slab in the middle of the circle and looked up at the sky. She felt peaceful as she watched the clouds pass overhead and even heard a few birds calling to each other nearby. After she had taken the few moments she had needed to soak the place in, she sat up and looked around for Oscar. He was standing by a westerly set of arched monoliths, helping one of the tourists take a photograph.
“Please,” a young Japanese fellow said to Oscar. “Would you take my picture with the arch and the setting sun in the background?”
“Sure, buddy,” Oscar replied, taking the beautiful camera from the man and admiring it a little while he took up his position by the tall ancient stone.
It was a brand new Nikon, a D3X; the same model that Oscar had been wanting to get for himself for about a year. He looked up and saw the man had posed and was waiting expectantly for him to take the picture. Oscar aimed and waited for the focus and zoom to calibrate before pressing the shoot button. He took three for good measure.
The man approached and retrieved the camera. He turned it over, looked at it and shook his head at Oscar.
Softly, he said, “Sometimes we get the answers and we miss them because we are not paying attention.”
“What?” Oscar asked him.
“Akira said you should check the battery and then take my photo again,” he replied, handing the camera back to Oscar.
He was shocked to the core hearing this stranger mention the infamous handle.
Akira was one of the few people who Oscar had ever regarded as an expert; a hacking genius who had been his friend since college. They had met when Akira had attempted to hack into MIT’s social and administrative network while Oscar was a computer science intern there.
Oscar had been in the lab one night when the system came under fire. When no one could stop the attack and the hacker was just about to breach the protocol for the main servers, Oscar had told the department head to blast the entire school with an email announcing that the main server would be down temporarily for maintenance but Internet access and email would be unaffected.
As soon as the email had been sent, Oscar simply pulled the switch on the power supply breaker to the server and watched as the unit powered down and the hacking ceased. When the room had been cleared of spectators, he rebooted the system and plugged into it on his laptop. The hacker was still lurking, trying to finish his malevolent task. He tried to attack Oscar’s computer and after the battle that ensued between them, which ended in Akira’s loss, they became instant friends and had remained so ever since.
When Oscar took the camera from the man the second time, he felt along the bottom until he found the battery cover release and pressed the button. When the cover popped open, a micro SD memory card fell into Oscar’s hand. Surprised, he pocketed the tiny piece of plastic, closed the little door and handed the camera back to the waiting man. He took it from him and put it back around his neck, turned around and walked away from Oscar without another word.
Chapter Five
When they pulled up in front of the doors of Dordogne manor house, it was raining and
quite cold. The freak weather had taken them both by surprise when it had erupted from the skies just outside of Keynsham. Chyna parked the car under the shelter of the porte-cochère and they allowed themselves to be ushered inside by Marcus and several other staff. They were clearly happy to see Chyna return.
In the comfort of the foyer, she introduced Oscar to everyone and immediately turned her attention to Marcus.
“We were at Sir Robert’s office earlier, but he wasn’t there. The ladies there wouldn’t tell us where he was, either.”
“And correctly so, Miss Stone. They would have been assisting you strictly based on Sir Robert’s instruction and would have assumed that, had he wished you to know of his whereabouts, he would have informed you himself.”
“Indubitably,” Oscar interjected sarcastically, with a fake accent.
Marcus actually rolled his eyes before he replied.
“I understand the general lack of protocol in business in America, but here in Britain, we still stick rather rigidly to the old ways of doing things. Discretion at all times is paramount. It is quite crucial for those of us in service, especially when serving nobility such as Sir Robert.”
Oscar felt that he had been ‘discreetly’ put in his place, but he knew the valet was right. Chyna gave him a look that clearly stated he should try to keep his mouth shut momentarily; wisely, he did, allowing instead to be shown his way upstairs to his rooms.
While Oscar got settled in, Chyna shed her clothes and took an indulgent shower. Though she had enjoyed the extensive hospitality of the four closets of clothing and footwear that was at her disposal at Châtellerault Castle, there was something priceless for her about being back in her black tank top and jeans. Out of habit, she had been strapping the holster of her SIG Sauer M-11 pistol over her shoulder when she heard the dinner bell ringing. Chyna undid the buckle, placed the gun into the closet safe and locked it.
No firearms at the dining table, Miss Stone, she thought as she recalled Marcus’ disdainful comment the first night they had dined with Sir Robert at the estate. As she walked down the hall, Chyna remembered that Oscar had been excited to tell her something while they were on their way back from Stonehenge, but just as he was about to spill the beans, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. While she had placed all her concentration on the road, which was almost impossible to see, Oscar had focused his on the GPS navigation system, which was experiencing a signal problem, to ensure that they were still moving toward their destination and not getting lost. She couldn’t help but wonder what he had wanted to tell her.
She knocked on his door as she made her way down to the dining room and heard him reply almost instantly.
“Come in!”
Chyna turned the knob and pushed on the door.
“I’m coming in,” she said, announcing her entry.
“That’s what I said you oughtta do, ain’t it?” Oscar yelled from the bathroom.
Chyna laughed as she took a seat in the large leather chair at the desk. There were times that she completely forgot quite how ‘country’ Oscar really was. Maybe it was his name. What self-respecting farm boy from Tennessee had a name like Oscar? Joe, Tom, Marty, Travis seemed more fitting for someone of that background. But Oscar was no regular country cowboy; he was a nerdy one who had excelled in high school and college in computer science and technical engineering. Chyna thought it possible that he could tell her anything she needed to know about horses and cattle ranching, but she was positive he could talk her into near insanity about networks, interfaces and gadgets.
Oscar emerged from the bathroom fully dressed, but still rubbing his hair dry with a towel. He looked relieved to see her, but Chyna thought he was probably just grateful to be out of the rain and showered and clean.
“I have something to tell you from earlier today at Stonehenge.”
“I know. You tried to get started, but the rain cut that short.”
“Yeah, it sure did. Let me get at that computer, please.”
Oscar was referring to his laptop that was sitting on the desk in front of Chyna. She stood up and let him get into the chair and switch the machine on.
“While I was looking around the place, this guy came up to me and asked me to take his picture. I did, but when I was handing him back his camera, he gave me a message from a friend of mine. A hacker named Akira. He sent me this memory card.”
“Now that’s something you should have told me about immediately, Oscar. One of the main rules of field investigation is that you never keep your partner in the dark.”
“I know, Boss Lady.”
“No, you see, that’s just it. I don’t think you guys do. Lana forgot some of those basic rules in Iraq and that’s what got her kidnapped. Maybe I ought to have them written out for you guys so you can memorize them once and for all.”
“Relax, Chyna. Let me finish. I think when you see this, you’ll forgive me for my indiscretion.”
“Okay, go ahead. I’m sorry. Even I seem to be breaking the rules these days.”
“Really?” Oscar said as he tapped at the computer’s keys. “Which ones?”
“Just one, Oscar. Rule number one: don’t ever lose your cool.”
Oscar laughed, but stopped immediately as the memory card loaded and the document list came up on the screen. He double clicked on the first file and watched keenly as it popped open.
Chyna began reading and it wasn’t long before she realized what she was looking at.
“How did he get these?” she asked Oscar, stunned.
“I have no idea and I don’t know if it would make sense for me to ask him; he probably won’t tell.”
“Well then, how did he know that these would be helpful to you?”
“Forgive me, Boss Lady; I broke that same rule again.”
Chyna gave him a warning look and Oscar immediately started telling his tale.
“When Mrs. Spencer told us about the designer and how she and Sir William cataloged every item that was in his collection, I got to thinking about what someone with less than honorable intentions would be able to do with a list like that.”
“Why did you think that?”
“It seemed that someone would have thought to mention the curator and the catalog before, since, to me, it seems like a huge piece of the puzzle. So why didn’t anyone say something before Mrs. Spencer?”
Chyna answered for him.
“Because no one had a copy of it, so they wouldn’t know it existed unless they had been there like Mrs. Spencer.”
“Exactly. I thought about it all day; both the list and the list maker. When we were at Poitiers Design and the Angevin Foundation, I really hoped that the list would turn up, but from our skim through the file, it didn’t seem to be included in anything. So, I posted a query on a little site that hackers use when they’re looking for information. I guess Akira saw it, figured out the code and started looking. This is what he found.”
“Well, though effective, I know you realize your tactics are less than customary. However, the information you’ve managed to get out of it is a really great lead. These are unusually descriptive, but that might be because the cargo was extremely valuable.”
Chyna scrolled through the pages and then closed the file.
“I’m going to need you to cross-reference each of those descriptions with all the artifacts which have been reported stolen, lost or missing over the last forty years.”
“Sure thing.”
Oscar ejected the micro SD card from the laptop and slipped it into his pocket.
Chyna frowned at him and said, “Never keep pertinent evidence on your person unless it is absolutely unavoidable.”
“Awww, come on, Boss,” Oscar whined.
“I’m definitely writing out the rules when we get back to Istanbul.”
***
After dinner, Chyna called Sir Robert on his mobile number; the connection was spotty and he sounded far away.
“Sir Robert, Chyna here. How have you been?�
�
“I’ve been fine, Chyna. What’s happening there?”
“We found some documents that I think explain what happened to the armor. The problem is it doesn’t tell us who was responsible for the theft. I’d like to come and meet with you tomorrow to show you what we’ve found. In my estimation, our work at Dordogne is completed, anyway.”
“This sounds very serious, Chyna, but presently I’m in Bordeaux at Poitiers Estate. I have business to conduct for the vineyard here.”
“That’s fine, Sir Robert. We’ll be there in the morning.”
Chyna didn’t wait for a reply from the baron; she simply hung up the phone.
***
The next morning, Chyna left the estate with Oscar and made for the airport in Bristol. She had just barely managed to secure seats for them on an early morning commuter flight into London and then on, commercially, to Bordeaux.
When they arrived at the vineyard, Sir Robert was just finishing his meeting and he smiled when he saw them approaching.
“This must be Oscar Cunningham,” he said. “You seem to have made quite an impression on the young ladies in my office.”
“Really?” Chyna asked sarcastically. “I have no idea why. Good morning, Sir Robert.”
“Good morning, Chyna. Shall we get down to business?”
“Certainly.”
Robert went to a side table and took out three wine glasses which he placed on the table near them. He returned to the piece of furniture and opened a built-in refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of barely red wine and opening it expertly.
“Beaujolais nouveau,” he announced. “The vintage is usually produced up north in the Burgundy region, but it is our newest experiment here. It’s what brought me to the vineyard this week; we’re trying to take it to market for the season.”
Sir Robert poured the wine and settled in as Chyna and Oscar relayed the events of all their recent adventures and then they pulled out the printed copies of the papers from the memory card. Sir Robert looked through each of them very carefully, shaking his head in bewilderment. His eyes widened as he read the page with the detailed description of a distorted suit of pre-medieval French armor.
