“… not the child's fault he has such a foolish mother.”
Without knocking, the old man burst through the front door of the mansion. At the sight of him holding the limp child in his arms, the entire household burst into a frenzy of activity. It was not until some time later that Henry realized the women who hit the child made a hasty departure once they saw that a physician had been called. Amidst the crisis, no one bothered to ask their names.
It was the butler's idea to call Dr. Brewster, a retired Army surgeon who vacationed in the area during that time of year. He arrived in a matter of minutes, face set in a permanent frown, bedside manor intimidating. Yet his hands were gentle as he lifted little Vinson's head from the pillow, pushing and prodding lightly with his fingers. He did everything he could to rouse the boy, but to no avail. Dr. Brewster parted Vinson's eyes gently, taking note that his pupils were fixed and enlarged—not responding to light.
With a tenderness that belied his gruff demeanor, he gently set the boy's head back on the pillow and rose from the bed. “His brain is swelling. This child's condition is serious and will decline with great speed. Where are his parents?”
“At the Kentucky Derby,” the butler gulped.
“Summon them immediately. He needs emergency surgery and will most likely not survive the day,” Dr. Brewster said, stuffing his medical instruments back inside his leather bag. “I will take him to the hospital immediately.”
Henry and the butler looked at one another, understanding what a call to Ned McLean would mean. A dread, only matched by the fate of little Vinson, settled over them both.
“Dr. Brewster,” the old man said as he rested a hand on the doctor's shoulder. “I think it would be a good idea if you made the call to Mr. McLean. He will take this news better from you than he would from any of the staff on the estate.”
The butler gave Henry a look of appreciation, forever earning his gratitude.
“If you think it best,” Dr. Brewster said. “Can you direct me to the telephone?”
Ned spent the greater part of the morning asleep, stretched across the bed on his stomach, still wearing his disheveled clothes. Evalyn cried in the tub, covered to her neck in warm soapy water, the salty tears coursing down her face. They dripped from her chin to the bathwater like a leaky faucet. She let the tears fall as they may. Rubbing would only give her puffy eyes.
An hour later, wrinkled and shivering, she pulled herself from the tepid water. It took another hour just to choose her pale pink satin gown, shin length and well-tailored. She strung pearls around her neck in layers, the familiar weight of her precious diamond resting against her throat.
Evalyn sat at her dressing table, gazing at her pale face, when the phone rang in the other room. She rose hesitantly, and then sat down again; she was in no mood to speak with anyone.
After six rings Ned shouted from the bedroom, “Won't you get that blasted call?”
“No darling, I will not,” she cooed, her voice steady, as she applied another coat of lipstick.
Ned rolled out of bed and stumbled across the room, knocking over furniture as he went. He picked up the receiver.
“Ned McLean,” he growled. “Dr. Brewster, I didn't realize you were back in town.”
Evalyn's hands went limp and dropped to her lap as she strained to hear the conversation in the other room. Her heart pounded so fast that she could hear the blood rushing through her ears. Nothing but silence from the other room.
“I see. Is he all right? The hospital!” Ned gasped.
The faces of her children rushed through her mind as she listened.
“Yes, yes, Dr. Brewster. We can come home immediately. Thank you.”
She heard Ned hang up the phone, but he said nothing. Evalyn finally composed herself enough to rise and walk into the other room. His face was white, and his arms hung at his sides. He did not meet her eyes.
“What happened?” she asked, hearing her own voice quaver despite her attempts at maintaining control.
“Vinson,” he murmured.
“Oh, God!” Evalyn cried, collapsing to the bed. “What happened?”
Only then did Ned dare to look at his wife. He paused for a moment and said, “He merely has a bad case of influenza. They are taking him to the hospital for observation.”
“My baby!” she wailed, throwing herself backward onto the pillows.
“We'll take the next train, Evalyn.”
She sat up, her eyes fierce, “The next train doesn't leave for six hours. I already checked.”
He crossed the room, towering over her. “Then I will charter one especially for us.”
Evalyn would not say in that moment that she loved her husband, but she did appreciate him deeply, or better yet, she appreciated that his money could buy most anything—anything except the assurance that her child would be fine.
Ned changed without bothering to bathe, and they left their suite, leaving instructions at the front desk that their belongings were to be packed and shipped back to Washington on the next train.
Less than an hour later, a brand-new passenger train, consisting of engine, one mail car, two baggage cars, three day coaches, two dining cars, five sleeping cars, and caboose, pulled out of the Louisville train depot. There were only two passengers on board.
While Ned and Evalyn McLean traveled through the night on their chartered train, Dr. Brewster was joined by a specialist from Johns Hopkins University, a brain surgeon from Philadelphia, and a physician from Washington. They unanimously decided that the child's only chance of survival lay in a risky operation to relieve the swelling in his skull. It was performed at once, with all four doctors attending the procedure. Despite a combined one hundred years of surgical experience, little Vinson McLean did not survive the surgery.
“Have you read this?” Ned screamed, pushing the New York Times into Evalyn's face.
She turned her face, avoiding the glaring headline that read MCLEAN HEIR KILLED BY AN AUTOMOBILE.
He rattled the paper and held it six inches from his nose. “Let me just read it for you then, my dear.” He took a long gulp straight from the bottle of whiskey in his hand before starting. They had buried their first-born child just the day before.
Sobs wracked Evalyn's thin body. She covered her ears with her hands as Ned read the account of Vinson's accident. Surely, if she could not hear him speak, the words would hold no reality.
“… when news of the death of the boy spread throughout Washington tonight, it was at once remarked that this was another tragedy to be added to the long string of misfortunes that had followed successive owners of the Hope Diamond.” Ned finished the article, his voice rising in a crescendo of anger. “Did you hear that, Evalyn? This is all your fault!”
“My fault! You think this is my fault?” she howled. Evalyn grabbed the paper from Ned's hand and wadded it into a ball. “ I wanted to come home weeks ago. But you insisted on staying so you could fraternize with your little whore! If you had let me come home, this would have never happened!”
Evalyn ducked just in time to avoid the whiskey bottle that spun through the air and shattered on the wall behind her. Ned took a shaky step toward his wife, his hand raised. They locked eyes for a moment, defiant, and then he turned, grabbed his coat, and left the house.
With a wail of agony, Evalyn threw herself face first onto their bed, still wearing the black dress she'd worn to Vinson's funeral the day before. She lay there for some time, sobs wracking her body, until a soft knock rapped on the door.
“Mrs. McLean? Mrs. Florence Harding is here to see you,” the butler announced.
Evalyn mumbled a response, and Florence rushed to her side and curled up on the bed next to her. Florence tried to comfort her, but Evalyn was inconsolable. Finally, Florence rose from the bed and summoned the butler.
“How can I help you, Mrs. Harding?”
“Please bring me some laudanum. I know that Evalyn uses it for the pain in her leg.” The reality was that Evalyn use
d it for a great deal more than that, but neither the butler nor Florence Harding would be discussing that fact.
“Yes, ma'am.” He opened an ornate cabinet in the corner of the room and picked up a beaker of clear fluid. He poured a generous amount into a crystal goblet.
Florence Harding took the glass from his hand and asked, “Is this too much?”
He met her eyes with a purposeful glance. “It is enough to ensure that Mrs. McLean will sleep for a long time.”
“Good,” she said. “You may go.”
“Gladly,” he murmured as he slipped from the room.
“Evalyn, my dear,” Florence said. “I want you to take your medicine. It will relieve all manner of pain that you are feeling right now.”
For the first time, Evalyn lifted her head from her pillow and looked at her friend. Without a word she grabbed the goblet and drained it in a single gulp.
“That's good, dearest; now you just lay right here. I promise to stay with you.” Florence sat on the bed next to Evalyn and rubbed her temples as the grieving mother slipped into painless sleep.
32
“I NEED TO MAKE A CALL.” ABBY PUNCHED A SERIES OF NUMBERS INTO the keypad and held the phone to her ear. “Wait here.”
Alex watched this new, fascinating woman leave the small café.
“Yes, this is Dr. Abigail Mitchell with the Smithsonian. I need to speak with Director Heaton please,” she said, turning her back to Alex.
He strained to hear the rest of what she said, but her words drifted in and out of earshot.
“I'm in Paris… . Yes, I'm fine, but I need your help… . a plane, chartered, if possible… . I know it's a lot to ask, but this is huge… . Let me know if you can make it happen… . Oh, there's one more thing.” She looked at Alex from the corner of her eye. “I'll need a doctor to meet me on the tarmac. Make sure he has sedatives.”
In his dealings with her, Alex approached their relationship with the assumption that Abby was a helpless victim, an unfortunate casualty in their plot to steal the diamond. He realized that he had treated her as such, with slight disdain. But as he watched her in action now, Alex wondered how he could have gotten her so wrong.
Normally, he kept a firm grip on his emotions, but his pain and the day's events had sent them ricocheting in a dozen different directions. The only constant was an overpowering affection for Abby that even now he struggled to admit was love. For the first time in his life, Alex Weld desired something he could never have. He had destroyed any possibility of a relationship with her by his actions the day before.
“Alex, are you okay?” Abby asked.
“Don't think so. Lightheaded,” he murmured. Sweat dripped from his brow and splattered onto the tile floor. It took him a moment to focus on Abby. He hadn't noticed her return to the table.
“Listen to me.” She placed her hands on his cheeks and pulled him closer. “Do you have your passport with you?”
“Back pocket.” Her face faded in and out.
Abby pulled the passport from his jeans. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Do you trust me?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Then don't argue.” She pulled his ball cap lower on his head, led him through the hotel lobby, and hailed a cab.
“Dangerous,” he mumbled. “Cabs … crazy drivers … putting your life in their hands.”
Abby helped him into the backseat of the car and reached over to buckle his seatbelt.
“Can you think of a faster way to get to the airport?”
“Nope.”
Alex Weld fainted.
When the cab arrived at the airport, a stretcher waited for them beneath the private jet, along with two paramedics and a physician.
“Dr. Mitchell?” the doctor asked, sticking out his hand. “My name is Aaron Baxter. I was told you were in need of medical assistance.”
Abby pointed to Alex, now slumped over in the seat. “Not me. Him. He's been shot. I think the bullet grazed his temple.”
Alex was barely lucid by the time they got him secured aboard the Citation II, a private chartered plane that Director Heaton had secured for Abby. After laying Alex flat on the floor, they ran an IV, cleaned his head wound, and pulled out the makeshift stitches. Because of the doctor's skill in restitching the wound, Alex would barely notice the scar when it healed.
Thank God for Interpol. Abby was grateful for the ability to bypass airport security. She watched the procedure, also thankful that Alex remained unconscious. The surgeon tied off the final stitch in Alex's scalp.
“Dr. Mitchell, we only gave him enough sedatives to knock him out for the duration of the surgery. I won't be accompanying you on this trip, so I can't give him any more general anesthesia.”
“I understand.”
“He'll wake up in the next hour or so, and he won't be feeling very well. Are you comfortable administering oral medication and tending to the bandages?”
Abby nodded. “I'll be fine.”
“Once you arrive at your destination, he'll need additional medical care.”
The paramedics disposed of the bloodied bandages and tape, and Dr. Baxter handed Abby a bottle of painkillers.
“I was told these orders came straight from the top,” Dr. Baxter said. “Director Heaton himself?”
“That's right.”
“So what did this guy do? They must want him pretty badly if they're putting him on a flight in this condition.”
Abby furrowed her brow. “Yes,” she said, “Alex Weld has been wreaking havoc for quite some time.”
“Do you want him restrained?”
She gave the doctor a fierce look. “I can handle him.”
He chuckled and threw his hands up in mock surrender. “I believe you.”
When the medical staff exited the plane, the small flight crew prepared for departure.
Abby settled into her seat, and the pilot came back to confer with her.
“Dr. Mitchell, air traffic control has requested our flight plan.”
Abby tapped her fingers on the tan leather armrest. “That poses an interesting problem.”
“How's that?”
“We don't exactly have one at the moment,” she said.
The pilot frowned and cocked his head to the side. “We're about to become airborne with no destination?”
She offered a shrug. “We're awaiting orders from Interpol.”
“I see. Could you wait a moment?” He turned on his heel and walked back to the cockpit.
After a few moments, the pilot returned. “I've informed air traffic control that we're a diplomatic flight awaiting instructions. They've cleared us, but they still ask that we give them a ballpark idea of our heading for security purposes.”
“All right,” Abby said. She pulled her iPhone from her pocket and zoomed in on the grid of lines and blinking dots. She analyzed the screen for a few moments. “Will it suffice to tell them we are headed toward the continent of Africa?”
33
TABLE MOUNTAIN SQUATTED ABOVE CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, engulfing the entire northern horizon. At a mere 3,500 feet above sea level, it was not tall enough to be intimidating, but its flat top and sheer rock faces gave it a certain landmark character. It was perhaps the contrast of blue ocean, white beaches, and lush vegetation that made the gray shale and sandstone monolith so impressive, as though angry gods had chucked the mountain from the heavens and it just happened to land at the mouth of Camps Bay on the southern tip of Africa. It loomed over the busy maritime city.
Isaac and the Broker remained silent as they drove through the bustling streets of Cape Town, the car darting in and out between clumps of tourists that loitered in the road. They had ignored one another for the greater part of the trip, and a fierce tension had settled between them. Held silent by their pride and ambition, neither wanted create an involuntary truce by speaking first. So they plodded forward at a snail's pace in the Black Audi, Table Mountain inching ever c
loser.
“To the hotel,” the Broker ordered, speaking directly to Wülf. “We will take a cab from there.”
Wülf nodded and navigated the vehicle through the narrow streets toward the Cape Grace Hotel, a prime five-story, red brick resort that sat on the Bay.
Isaac faced the Broker and narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Do you want witnesses?”
“No.”
“Then we go alone.”
Wülf rolled to a stop beneath the hotel portico and opened the back door. The two men slid out, surveying their surroundings.
“Call a cab for us. You know what to do.” The Broker met Wülf's gaze.
“Yes sir,” he said, and then disappeared into the lobby.
Ten minutes later a chauffeured sedan pulled to the curb, and they climbed in.
“Destination, sir?” the driver asked.
“Table Mountain,” the Broker responded. “Take us to the tram.”
“Very well.” He pulled into traffic and crawled through the tourist-clogged streets. Within a few moments they slipped onto a two-lane country road and wound their way toward the monolith that hovered over the city.
The Cocktail Bar at the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town could only be accessed by an aerial cableway that traversed a vast gorge laden with groves of cluster pine. The rented sedan pulled into a parking space at the lower cable station on Tafelberg Road, five miles outside Cape Town. Isaac Weld and the Broker left the car and headed toward the tram.
Camps Bay Tabernacle nestled snugly in the tourist district of Cape Town, almost hidden among the shops. But it caught Abby's eye as she and Alex drove the rented Jeep through the city, following the GPS signal. It was an old structure of crumbling brick covered with cracked plaster. The large wooden doors stood open, and within she caught a glimmer of candlelight.
“Did you see something?”
Abby forced her eyes back to the road. “No. Just looking.”
She had visited Cape Town a few times, but on none of her trips had she ever driven. As in Europe, South Africans drove on the opposite side of the road, and the driver sat in the right-hand seat. Later, she and Alex could compare notes to see who was more shaken by the experience.
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