by A G Stevens
“More like five,” her husband countered. “The kitchen staff alone...I hear she flew Molec in to oversee the whole operation, and he doesn’t leave Mexico City for anything less than three.”
He heard a click in his earpiece, then Zed’s voice chimed in. “You know who these people are, right?”
They didn’t look familiar. “No,” Blaze said, answering both Zed and the people before him.
“Oh yes,” the woman said. “It’s a whole thing with him.”
“Well, lucky you,” Zed told him. “They’re Paul and Marian Follet, valued at half a billion. She’s the heir to the Follet oil fortune, if her mummified father ever kicks off. As the legend goes, he sold his soul for the deed to the field, then bought it back when he made his first million. Paul is her...husband.” Blaze chuckled. “Ask her about Chef Andre Molec. See where it leads. This should be fun...”
“Chef Andre Molec, you mean?” Blaze asked, heeding Zed’s instruction.
The small group turned and glared at the stranger in their midst. “Is there another Molec?”
Blaze smiled and pushed his glasses up. “I don’t imagine there is.”
“I couldn’t get him for my sixtieth birthday celebration,” Marian said, frowning, “and I offered him twice what Helene paid—I’m sure of it. He’d already committed to that damned Met Gala.”
“Timing is everything, dear,” Paul said, laughing carelessly, “even when it comes to birthdays.”
“Well, as much as Nicholas paid for the mask,” Marian continued, “another couple million to have Andre Molec in the kitchen is pocket change to present it properly.”
Millions for a chef seemed entirely unreasonable. But no more unreasonable than anything else he’d seen so far. “Oh yes,” Blaze said, playing along. “A small fortune for that one.”
“That piece is pre-historic,” Paul said. “He practically stole it for less than twenty million.”
He heard Zed laughing in his ear. “These people are like cartoon characters.”
Paul and Marion shared a glance that told Derek Blaze he was out of his depth, even though Liam Keller should have been fully immersed in the milieu. “You’re the insurance agent, aren’t you?”
Blaze finished chewing and swallowed hard. “I am, yes.”
Marion’s eyes lit up. “So you’ve already seen it?”
“I...have.” His encounter with Helene in the treasure room had ended with a satisfied sigh, but no opportunity to replace the real one with the clever fake. Which was all the better, since the real mask would be the one presented at the gala now. Savant and Zed were right; the less scrutiny during the event, the better for all involved. So the presentation would feature the real Tlaloc, and he would be busily planning the moment of the switch on the fly now that everything was underway. None of that was likely to make for easy cocktail conversation.
“How was it?” Paul asked.
Blaze smiled weakly. “Worth every penny.”
Marion leaned in. “Is it as magnificent in reality as it is in images?”
“Oh, it’s...a spectacular addition to his collection,” Blaze explained. “Chilling how those jade eyes seem to stare into your soul.”
The couple glanced at each other happily. “Thank god,” Marian said. “Nicholas tends to overstate the wonder of his little treasures. And it has to be one of the ugliest faces in prehistory. But you, as an expert? Well, if you say it’s spectacular, then we’ll take it on good authority.”
Paul laughed. “Really, we were just hoping we hadn’t gassed up the plane and flown to the Caribbean for nothing. It would make the second time this month.”
Blaze chewed the rest of his canape and tried not to strangle the arrogance out of them both.
He broke from the Follets and found a quieter corner to update Zed. “You’re seeing everything here...it’s wall-to-wall. There’s no way I can make the switch until this room clears out.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Zed informed him. “The presentation is happening momentarily, then the gallery empties and all the fat cats head to the main dining room for langostino and pulque.”
Blaze found that unlikely. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yes,” Zed confirmed. “The menu is traditional Meso-American fare. I take it you didn’t read that in the dossier.”
“Sorry,” Blaze apologized sarcastically. “I was too busy learning all I could about Nicholas Parrick, the man, the myth, the mystery, and his other various treasures. It left me precious little time peruse the activities list or the menu.”
“I don’t know why Savant says your wit grates on her,” Zed told him. “I think you’re a kick in the head.”
Blaze was not terribly surprised. “Sounds like something she’d say.”
His eyes found Gabrielle again, standing across the room near the Thunderhead display. This time, she was in the company of Dawes. Their conversation appeared far less formal than her discussion the day before with Helene. Then Dawes took Gabrielle’s arm gently and guided her away from her station, walking her toward a door that led out of the treasure room entirely. “Do you see this?” Blaze asked.
“I do,” Zed answered.
“I think she’s more than just an assistant,” Blaze told him.
“Okay,” Zed agreed. “The visual on that does look a little tricky. But maybe they have security concerns to discuss...”
“Both Helene and Nick’s head of security keep finding her at opportune moments.”
“What’s her name?” Zed asked.
“Gabrielle Zamora,” Blaze told him.
“I’ll run a check.”
Dawes rubbed Gabrielle’s shoulder as they reached the door, and her troubled brow softened. “Thanks,” Blaze said. “I’ll see what I can find out from this side.”
“Don’t get distracted by this,” Zed implored him.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously.”
Blaze would have loved to argue that he was a consummate professional, and that Zed’s implication was entirely out of line. The memory from the day before of Helene Parrick clutching the curtains just a few feet from where he stood as they consummated their passion kept him from asserting that. His easy surrender to Nicholas Parrick’s request to falsify the insurance valuations made it difficult to protest, too. “There’s something sinister happening here. You don’t think I should investigate that?”
“Does it pertain to the mission?”
“Well, no,” Blaze admitted. “It seems personal more than anything.”
“Then don’t get involved. Rich people mistreat their help all the time.”
“I don’t like seeing it happen right in front of me,” Blaze replied. “I can’t know about it and not do something to make it right.”
“You’re a spy, my friend,” Zed reminded him, “not a knight on a shining steed.” It was whimsically-phrased, but it was not a joke. “Minerva and Savant are already wary of your methods. You need to keep focused on the task at hand.”
“He’s right, Agent.” Savant’s voice joined the conversation. “Retrieve the mask, stage the replacement, and signal for extraction. That’s the entire mission. Anything more than that could be considered insubordination.”
A thousand arguments against that flashed through his head. One in particular rose to the surface. “Why would the head of security have such an intense conversation with his boss’s personal assistant after Helene herself had such a fiery confrontation with her yesterday? And then the two leave together during a party they’re both supposed to be on call for? This doesn’t sit right with me.”
Savant didn’t answer.
“I’m going to check things out and see what else might be happening behind the scenes of this gala,” Blaze told them as he moved toward the door. “There are at least a dozen dignitaries here from all over the world, mingling among the celebrities and billionaires. If there’s some sort of security issue developing—something that might compromise the entire mission, let’s
say, as well as the safety of these people—it would be in our best interest to find out before I reach my hand into the candy jar, don’t you think?”
“Whatever reconnaissance you engage must not interfere with your core objective here, Agent Blaze,” Savant reminded him, relenting. “Do you understand?”
“I’ll keep my nose clean and my head on straight, yes,” he said sharply.
Savant breathed heavily. “And keep your comm link on at all times—visual and audio.”
Blaze turned and started for the door when he was met with the presence of Parrick and Hanson. “There you are, young man!” Parrick said cheerfully. “I was hoping I’d find you before the unveiling?”
“I...” Blaze fumbled. “I was hoping to find you, too. Just heading off to search, actually.”
Parrick winked. “Let me save you the trouble, then. Are you ready to revisit my magnificent treasure again, but this time with all the pageantry it deserves? It’s a guaranteed showstopper.”
Blaze gritted his teeth at losing his opportunity to tail Gabrielle and Dawes. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to catch up with them now. “I...am entirely too ready, Nick,” Blaze said, mustering a nervous Liam Keller smile.
“Better you should see it in the glorious theater we’ve prepared for the moment to register its true value...the one we came up with post-assessment. Thank you again for being so accommodating.”
“My pleasure,” Blaze said.
Parrick’s smile fell. “I just want you to know just how much I appreciate the work you’ve done for me. For you evaluating these beloved things of mine to their true value, not just their financial value.”
Blaze smiled and nodded.
“Damn,” Zed said in his earpiece. “He’s setting you up for a little insurance fraud, isn’t he?”
Savant jumped in. “If you’re thinking of getting involved in this aspect of your mission, let remind you firmly and definitively that your directive is to switch the masks, not to figure out why he’s trying to defraud Davenport-Frasier.”
“Maybe he has a point, Savant,” Zed offered. “If there’s an ulterior motive behind the fraud that impacts the value of the mask, we should make certain of that before he leaves the island. We’ll never get another chance.”
Savant had little argument to make; there were two House operatives extoling the importance of pursuing an unexpected lead on Blaze’s assigned mission, for reasons they hadn’t anticipated. She was resolute, but she wasn’t foolish. “Proceed with caution then, Agent Blaze. Zed: I’ll trust you to stay on call with him the whole time.”
“Consider it done,” Zed told her.
“Here comes the fun part,” Parrick told Blaze as his attention shifted back to the gala.
The lights dimmed, and the exotic prehistoric atmosphere of the treasure room took a turn for the even-more dramatic. A digital projection of a thundercloud appeared on the ceiling, drawing everyone’s attention as it roiled across the room like a full-blown storm approaching within the walls. Braziers stationed around the room lit themselves, a roar of flames punctuating the flute-and-drum soundtrack now circulating the room. The animal cries and howls escalated, and a single shaft of light broke from the ceiling, illuminating the veiled case below that held the Tlaloc mask. A thunderclap as loud as real life shook the room as Parrick walked to the display case. “The god of thunder was worshiped by the Aztecs as a giver-god of life and rain and sustenance,” he said, his voice amplified and deepened by the sound system until it boomed. “But his beneficence wasn’t without its cost...he was a vengeful god as well, and just as surely as his rain would nourish the fields, his floods would wash away the world if he wanted it to. His power was ultimate...and capricious. Sound like someone we know?” He paused and waited for the requisite laughter, which came in gales and added to the storm symphony.
Blaze watched the door that Gabrielle and Dawes had disappeared through, waiting for their return.
“Of the tributes created to honor this deity, none are quite so magnificent as this.” Parrick motioned to the veiled case. “The one I’ve recently acquired after what feels like a lifetime of pursuit. But in my humble estimation, no treasure that ever comes without a little chase is ever worth having. I think the gods would agree.” There was a round of applause and agreement from a roomful of people who enjoyed the same privilege Parrick was describing. “Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all come here from far and wide to witness. I present to you...Thunderhead.” He snapped his fingers, and the veil lifted in one silent sweep, sucking into the ceiling and revealing the mask. Its emerald eyes glimmered in the spotlight, and the crowd was duly awed.
They applauded again, rapt in the magic of the moment, and as they closed in around the case, Blaze took the opportunity to slip out of sight and make his way toward the door, and toward Gabrielle and Dawes.
T E N
Blaze could hear the swelling music through the walls as he moved cautiously down the darkened hall that led away from the treasure room and deeper into the heart of the compound. He realized he had no weapon to defend himself from Parrick’s incredibly well-armed security detail. It would be easy enough for any of them to take him out if he stumbled on a guard while searching for Gabrielle and Dawes. No amount of hand-to-hand combat would save him from a machine gun barrage, and it quickened his breath to know he’d be dependent on only his physical prowess to keep him safe. But he’d done it before, most recently in the Halex lab, and he knew it was possible. Granted, that was in a familiar, fully-lit corridor, and where he was now was the stark opposite of that. But the possibility existed that it could be done.
That was all he needed.
He stepped quietly, pressed up against the wall to keep from stumbling along the way.
“You’ve gone dark,” Zed said in his ear.
“Affirmative,” Blaze whispered.
“I see nothing on your visual at all.”
“I think they’ve dimmed everything for the grand reveal. I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”
“Hopefully that means Parrick’s security cameras can’t see any of you, either.”
Blaze slid down the hallway, turned a corner on his right, and saw a lighted doorway like a beacon at the far end of the path. “Going silent. Headed for something.”
“Careful, pal. You don’t—”
“Have a weapon?” Blaze finished. “The thought had occurred to me.”
Zed sympathized. “Sorry we couldn’t send you in with anything they wouldn’t confiscate. And what sort of insurance assessor brings a gun to an appraisal, anyway?”
Blaze smirked but kept his demeanor staunch as he shifted to the left wall and inched closer to the doorway. He heard Dawes’ voice coming through. “Your second thoughts about all of this aren’t going to fly, Gabrielle.”
“You say it like I’ve changed my mind about dinner, Sam,” Gabrielle’s voice responded.
“No...I say it like you’ve changed your mind about the biggest risk you’ll likely ever take in your life.”
There was a pause. Then, Gabrielle’s voice again. “That’s my point; it’s too big a risk. They’ll know. They’ll find out.”
“We have the inside track on this,” Dawes said firmly. “Hell, as much access as we have to everything, we are the inside track on this. Everything has been prepared for. There’s nothing to worry about. We just do it, and it’s done.”
“And we just run away?” Gabrielle wasn’t convinced about whatever this was.
“You already know how this goes,” Dawes reminded her. “We disappear, and we start over again. We won’t have to worry about anything.”
“Except spending the rest of our lives wondering if they’re tracking us, hunting us down,” Gabrielle pleaded. “We’ll be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”
“But we’ll be doing it from Bali,” Dawes said. He was lighter, jovial. Joking, almost.
Blaze leaned a bit closer, trying to get a glimpse inside
the room.
“Our lives will never be the same,” Gabrielle said.
“You’re right. They won’t. But we’ll be together. We’ll get ourselves all set up away from Thane.” Dawes’ voice dropped. “We’ll be done with this ridiculous life, living in someone else’s private fantasy. Trapped forever. Doing their bidding. We can finally live our lives the way we want to, with each other.”
Ah...it’s just a lover thing, Blaze thought.
“They’re never going to let us go,” Gabrielle said. “They’re more powerful than that. And you know how unforgiving they are.”
“Which is why we’re going to leave no trace,” Dawes reassured her.
“Once we do this, there’s no turning back,” Gabrielle said. “I just want to make sure we’re ready for it. That I’m ready for it.”
“You left your life before to come here,” Dawes said. Blaze saw him step toward Gabrielle and pull her into him. “You can leave your life here to try somewhere else.”
Blaze made ready to move back to the party and let the two have their privacy. “That was different,” Gabrielle said. “I hadn’t stolen a priceless relic and cashed it out when I came here.”
He halted. Scratch that. It’s more than a lover thing.
“Think of that as part of the adventure,” Dawes said. “We’ll be fugitives, running from one island to another.”
Gabrielle was not impressed. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
Dawes exhaled roughly. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Maybe you can keep being an adrenaline junkie, but that’s not what I want out of this.”
“Then what do you want?” Dawes asked
Gabrielle was silent for a few seconds. “I want to be free of these horrible people.” She looked away from Dawes.
“Then this is how we do that.” Dawes tilted Gabrielle’s chin until her gaze met his. “And I’ll protect you the whole way. Okay? I’m not just head of his security. I’m head of your security, too.” He leaned in and kissed her passionately.
