Solomon's Throne

by Jennings Wright

  “That was the only vault that mattered! Bosto!” Xavier slammed down the phone receiver, but still gripped it hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Picking it up again, he punched in a number.

  “Gideon? Please come to my office. Now.”

  Gideon Quinn knocked lightly on the heavy mahogany door, and entered when he heard “Chegar!” from the other side. He had been not yet arrived at the office when all hell broke loose, and had only gotten snatches of information on his way up: “Mr. Xavier’s gone mad!” “There was a break in at the Lisbon office…” “I don’t know what was stolen, they say it was something from his private collection.”

  Oh boy, thought Gideon. My day is about to get very interesting. As head of security for the London and DC offices of Xavier International, Gideon suspected he was about to walk into a maelstrom. Lisbon, the original headquarters of the firm, and the only office not under his control, was contracted out to the leading security firm in Europe. The security system was absolutely top of the line, and he knew that Mr. Xavier had paid more for it than the known pieces of art he stored there were worth. Obviously there was something else there that justified the expense… He suspected he was about to find out what it was.

  Xavier was still staring out the window at the small church across the street, his hands gripped tightly behind his back, his posture rigid. When he turned, Gideon stifled a quick gasp of surprise. His boss was always impeccably attired and groomed, his clothing expensively tailored and cared for, his Mediterranean skin clean shaven, his thick black hair expertly cut and styled. Now, however, his tie was loose and flipped over his shoulder. His jacket was tossed onto a coffee table, apparently over a cold cup of coffee. His hair was spiked up on one side from running his hand through it.

  “Sir?” Gideon stood just inside the door.

  With a wild gesture, Xavier waved Gideon to the leather sofa. “Sit. Sit. Meu Deus!” He started pacing again while Gideon sat down.

  “I understand the Lisbon office has had a burglary?” Gideon felt off balance at Xavier’s obvious distress. He had never seen this man, normally a powerful, confident presence in any room, come unglued. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, and what, short of the murder of a loved one, could have caused it. “Was anyone injured?”

  Xavier sat in the leather armchair as if his legs had been cut out from under him, energy sapped. “No. No one was there. The system failed, but felizmente no one was at the office. It was quite early this morning…” He rolled his head back and forth against the chair, the disbelief and anger all too visible.

  “I have not yet spoken to the police detective. They called, of course, to report the break in, and they have one of the thieves in custody. Emil de Castro has been at the office, and has talked to the detective in charge. Only one vault was broken into…” He stopped, words temporarily failing him. “The system was supposed to work! Droga! The vault that was hit has a 28 number code. The code is random, and is changed every week. I know it, and the security firm’s computer that generates it knows it, and no one else is supposed to be able to discover it.” He sighed. “In addition, my fingerprint is required. In order to thwart someone trying to remove my finger, the scanner requires that the finger exert a calibrated amount of pressure, as well as my exact body temperature. There is, of course, a randomized laser nest throughout the vault room, as well as a live camera feed over each individual vault, with a fish eye lens that can capture 18” around each unit. Each vault has its own keypad and code. To even enter the basement, which was originally a root cellar and is made of thick stone, there is a keypad with a 14 digit code. The rest of the house has a standard but high end system of glass break sensors, motion detectors, and door and window sensors. All of that was breached. All of it. Inconvievable.”

  Gideon just stared. It was obviously an inside job. If the only person in Xavier International who knew the codes was Luis Xavier, then de Castro had a breach. But that alone couldn’t be what had caused this earthquake in his boss’s demeanor.

  “What was stolen, sir?”

  “Something that has been in my family many generations. It is…secret. I do not know how anyone could have known what it was, or that it was there. But they must have. They must have.”

  “Yes sir, I would say that is the only conclusion, since that was the only thing taken. Someone knew something—at least that there was one vault with especially valuable contents. With the additional security on that vault… Well, it would be a logical conclusion.”

  Xavier closed his eyes. “I am praying that it was an educated guess by someone connected to the security firm. The only people, besides myself, who know what that vault contained are my own family… My wife. My son.” He rubbed his forehead. “That is all. That is all…”

  “So he wouldn’t tell you what was stolen?” Rei Quinn asked her husband, looking at him over her cup of coffee. They were sitting at a table at the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen in Hyde Park, taking their lunch hour together.

  “Not yet. He wants me to talk to Emil de Castro, and to the police detective. He’s trying to find out if the thieves knew what they was taking, or if they were just running a gamble that it was something big. He knows he’ll have to tell someone eventually, if he has any hope of getting it back…” He forked some beef pie into his mouth. “I’ve never seen him like that before, I can tell you. He was devastated.”

  “Bless his heart,” Rei said. She, also, was an employee of Xavier International, although in her job as an art restorer, she rarely saw the big man. “I hope it’s not his wife or his son. Isn’t he at university? That would be unbearable. Have you talked to anyone yet? What do you think really happened?”

  “I left messages all over Lisbon, but no one’s called me back. Luis and Emil are heavy hitters there, with their old families and their old money… I’m sure there’s a lot going on at the moment. Obviously it was an inside job. Theoretically we could say a hacker, but I doubt it. The codes are randomly generated by a computer. The computer is not connected to any outside feed other than power. The code is encrypted automatically, downloaded to a thumb drive, sealed in courier package, and delivered to the London office weekly. Luis opens it on a small laptop kept for that sole purpose. It isn’t connected to the internet or a phone line, either.”

  “So far so good,” Rei said. “Very cloak and dagger.”

  Gideon nodded. “Yep, so hacking is out. At least hacking from an external site. But it’s got to be an inside job at Tavernier Security—the rest of the system was too complex. There was another keypad with a 14 digit code. A randomized laser nest on the floor. Live camera feeds that suddenly died without tipping off anyone in the monitoring station. The entire building’s security was compromised, and no one would have known except for the one thing that is not in the original plan: the alarm that sounds after the door is closed, if Luis’ fingerprint is not scanned within 5 seconds of the lock engaging. That was added as an afterthought, and never put into the file or even on the invoice.”

  “Is that vault checked regularly?”

  “No, that’s the irony, at least as far as the thieves were concerned. If they’d gotten away from the building, it might have been months before anyone knew a theft had occurred. Maybe even longer. With all the security, and with the biometric component of the system, Luis only checks the contents when he’s in Lisbon, has extra time, and remembers… Whatever’s in there isn’t something he uses or needs, that’s for sure. It’s one of those ‘my father’s father’s father’ kind of things. Probably Luis thought it was kind of stupid after so many years, but he wasn’t going to be the one in that long line of Xaviers to drop the ball.”

  “There’s another irony—it wasn’t stolen until he put it in that super expensive vault… Gotta hate when that happens.” Rei tossed her crumpled napkin onto her plate and pushed it away, smiling.

  Gideon grimaced and nodded. “Seriously.”

  Gideon sat back in his chair, his feet up on his desk, the telephon
e to his ear. He didn’t have a nice little church to look at. In fact, he didn’t have a window at all, since his office was on the inside wall of the townhouse style building. “So he hasn’t said anything?”

  “No, nada. He prays.” The Portuguese detective sounded disgusted.

  “He prays?”

  “Certo… He prays. And I think he is speaking Latin when he is praying. He does not eat. He sleeps, and he prays. That is all he does. He does not even look up when we talk to him. Just praying.”

  “And there is nothing on him in Interpol? Maybe he’s American?” Gideon tossed a pen onto the desk and closed his eyes.

  “No, he is not American. He is from Europe, somewhere. Italy maybe. Portugal. I don’t know. Bad teeth. Americans never have bad teeth. And how many of you Americans pray in Latin?”

  Gideon laughed. “True. So you have absolutely nothing, except that you know he was one of the men who broke into office.”

  “Yes, we know he was there. He was dressed all in black, and had many ah…maquina… equipments for stealing with him. They ran out the back and he fell on his face in the street after he fell over the fence. Broke his leg, but it is not a bad thing, and he does not seem to be in pain. But who can tell with all the praying!” There were rustling sounds in the phone. “He does have a tattoo on his arm, between his wrist and his elbow. It is letters, CA, in a kind of circle. We can find nothing on Interpol or any other police service about it—maybe it is his wife’s initials and means nothing.”

  “Will you email me a copy of that? And his photo? Maybe he was around the London office, too… Can’t hurt to ask.”

  “Certemente. I will call you if he says anything, or if we discover who he is. But I am not very hopeful, signor.”

  Gideon hung up the phone. Nothing. A tattoo, and a penchant for praying in Latin. Those do not an ID make. Sighing, he hit the speaker button and dialed again. His ear hurt.

  “Alo.” The voice on the other end was deep, and obviously agitated.

  “Hello, Signor de Castro. It’s Gideon Quinn from Xavier’s in London. Any news?”

  “No. Nothing. We have determined that it had to have been arranged by someone at one of our offices, most likely here in Lisbon. We conduct background and financial checks on all our employees, and update them annually, and we have no one who stands out. No one with too much money or a new car. No one is acting strangely. No one’s computer has been sanitized. We will have to check our employees’ home equipment ah… discreetly, of course, but I do not have enough manpower to do that quickly and I am afraid we have a big risk of our perpetrator cleaning up after himself before we get to him.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Si. It is a very big problem, very bad. It is bad for my old friend, certamente, and it is very bad for Tavernier Security. And si, for me. Also for me.”

  “Keep me posted. Sure would be good to catch the bastards now, before they disappear completely.”

  “Vai fazer. Will do. Tchau.”

  They disconnected. Gideon sat staring at his ceiling for a few minutes. Once again he punched a button on the phone. There was a beep, followed by a woman’s voice. “Yes, Mr. Quinn?”

  “Is Mr. Xavier available, Cynthia?”

  “One moment…Yes, he says he has ten minutes if you come now.”

  “Great, be right there!” Gideon swung his jacket off the back of his chair and slid into it as he left his office.

  “Mr. Xavier… I’m not seeing a lot of action in Lisbon. I know I’m not technically in charge of security there, but I’d feel better if I was on the ground, seeing what happened first hand. And it would probably be best if I knew what was stolen…” Gideon looked his boss in the eye. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t easy for him to ask. But he took his job seriously, and he could see the obvious distress in his employer. If he could get the thing back? Well, one step at a time. But he was hoping Xavier would let him try.

  “I don’t know. It has been a secret for so long… Since 1683. And in my family alone. It is bad enough that I have failed to keep it safe.” Luis Xavier looked exhausted, with purple smudges under his eyes and a drawn pallor.

  Gideon was sympathetic, but impatient. “If I don’t know what it is—if no one knows what it is except you and your family—we can’t possibly get it back. Your son is 20 and a student; I don’t think he will be able to find it, do you? Or your wife?”

  Xavier just stared at Gideon. He’s losing it, Gideon thought. He’s almost broken.

  “Sir. I know this is a terrible shock to you, and you feel responsible. I want to help you, and I would like to try to get it back. But “smaller than a breadbox” is not a description that could possibly lead to a successful outcome. You have trusted me with your business for five years. I’m just asking you to trust me with this, and let me help. Please.”

  Xavier scrubbed his face with his hands, and when he looked up, Gideon knew he’d made the decision. “There is a leather pouch. Inside the pouch there is a scroll, which they told me is vellum. A very fine skin, probably of a young goat. A letter is written, in ancient Greek, on this scroll, and it is a letter from the Apostle Paul to the church in Jerusalem. It is… highly controversial. It has not been authenticated by any scholars, but my ancestor into whose hands it fell believed it to be real for a number of reasons. Not the least was that the man who gave it to him was murdered for it, and my ancestor was chased halfway around the world himself.” He went over to a built-in bar and poured himself a tumbler of mineral water. He looked out at St. Stephens, his anchor in the storm, then turned back to Gideon.

  “There is a translation of the letter in the pouch, but the pages on which that was written are crumbling. I do not handle those pages now, and only with special gloves. The translation is in Portuguese. Also there is a journal, an old leather bound volume written by my ancestor. That has been kept out of sentimental value, and I am worried that the thieves might destroy it. But the letter… Deus nos ajude. God help us.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lisbon

  Present Day

  Gideon left the police station, discouraged. Detective Azenha was right—the thief wasn’t talking. He hadn’t talked in two days, and showed no signs of weakening resolve. He sat in his cell, still, and to all observers appeared to be in a trance. When moved to an interrogation room, he folded his hands on the table and muttered prayers in Latin. When given a tray of food, in any location, he ignored it completely. He sipped water from time to time, and performed basic bodily ablutions. That was the extent of his cooperation.

  Azenha had emailed a photograph of the tattoo the man bore on his forearm, and it was, indeed, unusual. Gideon hadn’t found anything online that was similar to it, and seeing it in person hadn’t shed any light.

  It could mean anything. His mother’s initials. A gang or other society name. It wasn’t in any known criminal database, and with no further information—even a nationality—they were unlikely to solve the case with it.

  Additionally, de Castro had found nothing in the investigation of his employees. No one had quit coming to work. No one was acting suspiciously. They had so far covertly visited the homes of over half the staff that had access to even a small part of the security system information for the Xavier International office building, and had found nothing unusual. In short, they were no further today than they were yesterday, and Luis Xavier was, by turns, sinking in despair and rattling the windows in rage.

  Gideon’s cell phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me,” Rei said. “Listen, Mr. Xavier just called me to his office. I don’t know what’s up, but since he pulled me out of the preservation room, it’s got to be about whatever was stolen, right? The letters and stuff are old—maybe he’s worried about the thieves exposing it, or handling it? I don’t know—what should I do? What do I say? I hardly know the guy, Gid… He runs the company, but he doesn’t actually handle the art.”

  “See what he has to say. Try to get him
to tell you what was so important about the letter, for one thing. All he said was it was supposedly written by Saint Paul. Maybe you can reassure him that the parchment and book are probably ok.”

  “Yeah, ok. He kinda scares me, especially now… I’ll call ya back.”

  Gideon strolled down the street, looking at the GPS on his phone to figure out the route to get him to the Cathedral. He was lost in frustrated thought, pondering once again the implications of such a targeted attack on a particular vault. Was it the vault or the letter? That knowledge was key to recovering the stolen property—if he could ever find out what significance the stolen property actually had. Right now, there was just no way to know.

  He had taken an informal tour of the Cathedral, admiring the windows and stonework. His heart wasn’t in it, as much as he normally enjoyed these amazing architectural tributes. The more he thought about it, the more he became certain that the theft had to be about the specific items in the vault. It was too much of a risk otherwise, when there was so much valuable art so much more readily accessible. In the time they took to rob one safe, they could have stripped dozens of canvases from their supports, rolled them up, and been gone. There were hundreds of thousands of dollars in paintings and sculpture in the Lisbon office, not counting the pieces stored in the other basement vaults. The company bought, collected, restored, leased out and sold art to businesses and individuals all over the world. It just didn’t make any sense that all the easy money was bypassed for whatever was behind an unknown curtain. Then again, all that preparation and money to steal a letter didn’t seem to make much sense either.