Gabriel's Horn

by Alex Archer

  Bart stepped behind Annja and wrapped his arms around her. “Annja, come on. Back off. Let them do their jobs.”

  “Just give me a minute,” Annja said.

  “No. This isn’t going to get any easier.” Bart held tight enough that she knew she’d have had to hurt him to get free.

  “Annja,” Charlie called from inside the ambulance.

  “I’m here.”

  “You’ve got to save the sleeping king.”

  The black attendant shut and locked the ambulance doors. He turned to Annja and gave her one final reassuring smile. “He’s gonna be better the next time you see him. You’ll see.”

  Stunned, her mind whirling from everything that had been going on, Annja stood helplessly and watched the ambulance drive away.

  Bart released her and stepped back. He kept his hands in front of him in case he had to defend himself.

  “You gonna be okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Annja answered. She didn’t look at him, and she knew she didn’t sound fine. She didn’t know how she sounded.

  She took a deep breath and let it out. More than ever, she wished she had some way of getting hold of Roux and Garin.

  “Annja,” Bart said.

  She acknowledged him with a brief glance, then quickly looked away. “I don’t really feel like talking right now.”

  “Sure.” Bart stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I get that. I just had to do what I did, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “He needs help.”

  He needs my help, Annja thought. She didn’t understand the whole “sleeping king” reference, but she understood that someone was in some kind of trouble.

  “They’ll give him help,” Bart was saying. “This clinic is really good. I’ve run street people through there before. They care about them.”

  Annja didn’t believe that. When she glanced at Bart, he ducked away from her gaze. He didn’t believe it, either.

  He’d acted to protect her. She knew that. But it didn’t make her feel any better.

  “I can come up,” Bart offered. “Those guys that came after you are still out there.”

  “I know. And no, you can’t come up. I don’t want to deal with that right now.” If Bart came up, Annja knew he’d spend hours justifying his actions to her. He wouldn’t understand that she’d already accepted what he’d done. She just didn’t like it, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

  In a day or two—or three—everything would be back to normal between them. She just needed to know that Charlie was being cared for.

  “You shouldn’t stay here,” Bart said. “If they found you by your debit card, they can find your address.”

  “I know.” Annja turned and headed up the steps.

  “You should get a hotel room and get out of here,” Bart said.

  “If I check into a hotel, I’ve got to show ID,” Annja said. “They’ll log that.”

  “Annja, you can’t stay here.”

  “I know. I know. Just give me some space here, okay?” Annja walked away from him and didn’t look back.

  30

  “How long have you known him?” Jennifer asked, meaning Roux.

  “A long time,” Garin answered. They sat at the small breakfast table where they both watched over Roux.

  The old man sat in the garden. Colorful blossoms covered bushes and plants. Garin couldn’t identify them but he liked them and he knew why Roux sat there in the muted sunlight under the sighing boughs of the trees.

  The old man had always seemed closely aligned with nature, always more at home there and able to make use of it—whether as camouflage or in making herbal remedies—than he’d ever been able to demonstrate to Garin.

  Garin hadn’t ever seen Roux looking so old. The realization was startling, and for a moment he considered going out to check on the old man. But he knew from past experience that would only make Roux angry. Roux would only talk when he was ready to talk.

  “The way he talks about the two of you,” Jennifer said, “it sounds as though you’ve known each other forever.”

  “We have.”

  “He left me thirteen years ago without explanation.” Jennifer pinned Garin with her gaze. “You look almost young enough to be my son.”

  Garin smiled at her. “That’s very flattering, but—if I may be so bold—you don’t show your age.”

  “I don’t hide it as well as you do.”

  “I owe it all to good genes.”

  Jennifer looked doubtful. “He doesn’t trust you.”

  Garin sipped his coffee. “He told you he has reason not to.”

  “Yes.”

  “He does.”

  Jennifer studied him, and wistfulness touched her dark eyes. “That’s the way it is in families sometimes. You always hurt the ones you love.”

  “We’re not family.”

  “The way you fight and bicker? The way you dropped everything when he asked? The way he—and I know how pigheaded and stubborn he can be about asking for help—decided to ask you for help?” Jennifer shook her head. “You could have fooled me.”

  “I was just a poor bastard child when Roux found me. He’s fond of saying that I’ve changed two of the three. I’m rich and I’m grown, but he says my breeding shows through.”

  “That sounds like something he would say when he’s ranting.”

  They watched Roux in silence for a while.

  “You honestly don’t know why he wants the painting?” Jennifer asked.

  “No. I wish I did. It might make it easier to figure out what I’m going to do.”

  “I thought you were going to leave.”

  Garin sipped his coffee. “I am. I just don’t know if I’m going to regret it later.”

  “You mean, if he needs you.”

  “Or I missed out on discovering some of those big secrets he’s been hiding all these years,” Garin said.

  Out in the garden, a cloud passed overhead and blunted the sunlight falling on Roux. The old man gazed up at the sky in annoyance. Then he shook himself and stood. He stamped his feet to restore circulation, then headed for the house. He opened the door and let himself inside. He sniffed, then looked at the stove.

  “Who made breakfast?” Roux demanded.

  “Garin did,” Jennifer said.

  Roux harrumphed. “Didn’t anyone think to invite me?”

  For a moment, Garin thought about arguing and pointing out Roux’s own quarrelsome nature when he got in a snit. Then he realized that it would only be a waste of breath. Roux would never admit he was at fault.

  Instead, Garin caught Jennifer’s arm when she started to get up from the table. “I’ll fix his breakfast,” he said.

  Roux eyed him with bright challenge. “Can you resist the urge to poison it?”

  “That’ll be hard.” Garin reached into the refrigerator and took out the batter he’d set aside. He’d known Roux would want breakfast.

  “I’ll be watching you carefully,” Roux admonished.

  “I wouldn’t expect any less.”

  As he went about his preparations, Garin remembered how many times he’d fixed the old man’s breakfast while they’d ridden together on horses, then in trains and in cars as they’d explored the world and searched for the talismans for which Roux claimed to be a caretaker.

  For most of those years Garin had resented the obligation of making breakfast and taking care of the baggage, even when Roux had been the only thing that had stood between him and certain death at the hands of bandits, wild animals or simply starvation.

  They’d been through a lot together when they’d been together. Even now their lives weren’t totally separate. Since Annja had claimed Joan’s sword, they’d been drawn together on several occasions.

  But as he fixed breakfast, he couldn’t help thinking that this might be the last time. What surprised him most was how sad that might be, and how much relief was involved.

  “What are you going to do?�
�� Garin asked.

  “I’m going to pursue the painting.”

  “The painting wasn’t real.”

  “Not that one. You have to look beyond what we’ve discovered so far, Garin. I’ve told you that since you were a boy. You have to think beyond what you believe you know, because you don’t truly know even that.”

  Maybe poison would have been good, Garin thought. He refused to be baited by Roux’s mysterious comment.

  Jennifer, however, wasn’t so inured. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I’m talking about the painting that sold at the auction.” Roux poured himself a cup of fresh-brewed tea Garin had prepared and sat at the table with Jennifer. “Someone brokered the sale. Someone painted the painting. I want to know who that was.”

  “You think whoever made the copy knows something about the original,” Jennifer said.

  “Yes,” Roux replied.

  “Unless,” Garin stated pointedly, “it was merely someone who had enough knowledge of the painting to take advantage of old fools looking for it for reasons they don’t care to share with anyone else.”

  Roux glared at Garin. “As you know, I keep my own counsel in many matters. I always have. This is one of those matters.”

  As he looked at Roux, Garin knew he didn’t want anything to happen to the old man. At least, he didn’t want anything to happen to him today.

  Tomorrow might be another matter.

  And he also knew what he was going to do. Without another question or even another word, he finished making Roux’s breakfast. Then he rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

  When he was finished he rolled down his sleeves, got his coat from the back of the chair where he’d left it and made himself presentable once more.

  “I’m going to Istanbul,” Roux said. “I was thinking that you might get some of your mercenaries and have them—”

  “No,” Garin said.

  Roux regarded him with an owlish expression.

  “I’m done working in the dark,” Garin said. “I’m done being treated like a child, and I’m tired of paying men to die for you for something I don’t understand. If you want me to help you, then you tell me why we’re doing it and what that painting means.”

  Anger ignited in Roux’s eyes. “Then I don’t need your help.”

  “That’s fine.” Garin forced himself to turn to face Jennifer. “My advice to you is to run. Whatever it is that you think you feel for this old man, whatever you think you owe him, you don’t. It’s too costly. He’s mean-spirited and thinks everyone but him is stupid and a dullard.” He paused. “If you remain foolish or beholden to him and he lets you, I wish you only the best. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  Without another word, Garin left the house. He didn’t look back. It was a struggle not to do that. Even worse, the silence that followed him out of the big house was crushing in its emptiness.

  But he knew what he was doing. He had a plan. It wasn’t necessarily a good one, but it was the best that he could do.

  31

  In the end, not having anyone else she could call, Annja called Stanley Younts, the bestselling writer she’d met while searching for a friend’s murderers. He was able to arrange a well-secured hotel room at a moment’s notice.

  The hotel staff was in awe, though many of them were disappointed when they found out the author himself wouldn’t be there. Stanley had a lot of fans.

  “I’ll reimburse you for the hotel room,” Annja had offered. “When I get the final bill, I’ll cut a check. After this confusion has been cleared up. I don’t want these people trying to find me through you.” She had worried that they might track her bank-account activity.

  “It’s no sweat,” Stanley had said. “Stay at the hotel as long as you like. It’s on me.”

  Judging from the ornate lobby and the attentiveness of the staff, Annja knew the hotel stay was going to be expensive. “I can’t let you pay for this.”

  “Sure, you can,” Stanley said, and she could hear the broad smile in his voice. “Did I ever tell you how much I made off that book I loosely based on our little adventures chasing that relic?” “No.”

  “Well, between you and me and the wall, it’s an obscene amount. And it’s still rolling in. You just kick back and enjoy yourself. If you want, I can recommend some good bodyguards. I can send you one of my guys.”

  “No. That’s all right. I just need a place where I can stay incognito. I can handle this.” If she couldn’t, Annja didn’t know what she was going to do. But she knew she couldn’t depend on other people. That had never been her way.

  “It’s your call,” Stanley said. “But if you need anything, you know the number. Don’t hesitate.”

  “I won’t. And thanks, Stanley.”

  “My pleasure. Just make sure you take care of yourself. This sounds like a story I want to hear someday.”

  Annja just hoped that the story had a good ending.

  AFTER ARRIVING at the hotel, Annja had started with the phone. She called art galleries in Istanbul first, asking about Thomopoulos, the man who had touched up the painting of the Nephilim, rather than Tsoklis, the man who had painted it originally.

  If Roux had been tracking the painting for years, Annja felt certain he would have found any information that might be had there. She had to take a different route.

  By seven o’clock that morning, after nearly five hours nonstop on the phone and on the computer, she had one of the first connections she needed.

  “What did you say your interest in Thomopoulos is?” the woman at one of the Istanbul art brokerages asked. She sounded older and British. Her name was Liz Sharpe-Withers.

  A busybody, Annja thought. That was a problem when dealing with people instead of a dig. An archaeologist sifting through the earth worked to satisfy her own curiosity, not assuage that of others. Ultimately, in the archaeologist’s point of view, they would all be served if her questions were answered.

  But not answering could offend those whose help was necessary.

  “I’m doing research into Thomopoulos’s influence on other artists,” Annja said.

  “Who’s this for?”

  Annja thought for just a moment, then seized on what she figured would be the most exciting and the hardest to confirm. “Steven Spielberg is putting together a new movie. Kind of a follow-up to Schindler’s List.”

  “Well, that’s exciting.”

  “It is,” Annja agreed. People loved being involved with movies. While she’d been in Prague with the special-effects crew, she’d heard a lot of the younger members of the crew pitching movie ideas to each other.

  “But what does that have to do with Thomopoulos’s artwork?” Sharpe-Withers asked.

  “The film centers around all the art Hitler’s soldiers ‘liberated’ from various families during the war,” Annja said.

  “That’s a hot topic.”

  Annja knew that it was, and it was the perfect cover for what she was doing.

  “In my research I discovered that Thomopoulos had worked on a painting Hitler’s troops had hunted for during the Second World War.”

  “There was such a painting. It was originally painted by—let me think—”

  “I’ve got it here in my notes,” Annja said, and she paused as if she were checking her notes instead of simply knowing the name. “Tsoklis.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Sharpe-Withers paused. “It’s also very strange.”

  “It is?”

  “That painting was supposedly sold in the Hague yesterday. It’s been in the news. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it.”

  “Really?” Annja checked some international news sites. She found a headline that promised details about a “bloody break-in and art theft” in the Hague. Photos of the victims, Mrs. Ilse Danseker and an unidentified man, were featured prominently.

  “Yes, it’s—”

  “I have it here on the Internet,” Annja said. She scanned the information quickly,
searching for Roux’s or Garin’s name or description. Neither of them was mentioned.

  “The police there appear to be quite stymied,” Sharpe-Withers said. “Also, the painting that the unfortunate woman—”

  “Ilse Danseker,” Annja supplied.

  “Yes. Her. Anyway, that painting appears to have been the catalyst for the break-in.”

  “But it was fake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought the painting was lost,” Annja said.

  “Apparently it was in a private collection for some time. That’s what usually happens with art pieces. Something as old as this, families will sometimes hold on to it for generations.”

  Annja’s pulse quickened and she felt some of her fatigue evaporate. “Do you know the seller?” she asked.

  Sharpe-Withers hesitated. “I could probably find out, now that this has all come to light. Of course, no one may be talking. It’s possible that the owners fell on hard times and had a forgery created of the original so they could sell the forgery and keep the original.”

  Annja knew enough about the art world to know that was a frequent scam. But with all the verification possible these days, such things were harder to pull off. To complicate matters even further, several paintings believed to be originals were either copies by the original artist or knockoffs by others equally gifted and from the same time. Even museums had forged art hanging, sometimes with the knowledge of the curators.

  “If you could do that,” Annja said, “I’d be very grateful.”

  THREE AND A HALF HOURS later, Annja scored again on an e-mail from a small museum. An assistant curator was familiar with Thomopoulos and his work, including the painting of the Nephilim.

  The man, Anil Patel, had left a phone number. Annja called at once, hoping to catch him before he left for the day.

  “Until the murders at the Hague yesterday,” Patel told Annja in a clipped Indian accent, “I’d thought the Nephilim painting was merely a legend. Or a rumor.”

  “I wasn’t sure.” Annja paced the large hotel room. She wanted to go out, get away from the room and simply be in the wind. Usually she could take days and weeks of being alone, but now she wanted to see, hear and feel other people around her. “It would have been a shame if it were, of course. But for the purpose of the movie, it doesn’t really matter.”