Stolen Heritage: Gripping Crime Thriller (Private Detective Heinrich Muller Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Robert Brown

  The millionaire produced the mug shots. There were a dozen of them, all men. A couple looked like heavies, while the others were run-of-the-mill thugs and lowlifes, plus a few guys who looked more intelligent. None of the photos showed the man who had used an ancient statue to crush Professor Christodolou.

  “Of course it wouldn’t be that easy,” Heinrich said with a sigh, handing back the photos.

  Adonis gave him a sympathetic smile. “We crosschecked the airline records with the criminal database, looking for suspects who left New York City for Athens shortly after the murder. We came up with nothing. He and his accomplice may still be in America, or perhaps he doesn’t have a criminal record.”

  “What about these guys?” Heinrich asked, indicating the mug shots Lambros had placed on the coffee table.

  “All these men have criminal records for crimes ranging from simple mugging to extortion to fraud,” the detective replied. “None have been involved in the illegal antiquities trade before, but it’s a growth market these days and more gangs are getting in on it. Security at our sites and museums had grown lax, and many people in my country are desperate for a quick profit.”

  “Isn’t there an international body that goes after this stuff?” Heinrich asked. He recalled reading an article about it a while back.

  Thalia nodded. “Yes, but they’ve been focusing on antiquities from the Middle East, mainly to stop terrorist groups from profiting from the trade. Groups like the Islamic State and the Taliban have made big money off what they have looted from their nations’ museums.”

  “I thought they blew up that stuff.”

  Thalia made a face. “Some of it, but that’s mostly for show. They’d rather sell it so they can buy more weapons.”

  “Yet another reason to hate them,” Heinrich grunted. “So when are we laying the trap?”

  “At seven tonight,” Adonis said. “I suggest you go to your hotel and get some rest. You must be tired after your flight. We’ll meet at 6:30 at this address.” He handed a slip of paper to Thalia, who beamed a smile at him. “Best not to meet here again in case they check out the house.”

  They got up to leave. Heinrich didn’t like this plan. Too many maybes. He also didn’t like not being in charge. But he was in a foreign country on a case that had landed in his lap. He had no authority to be here beyond having been invited. He got the feeling Montaine wanted to see how well he worked with others. Heinrich knew he had a reputation as a lone wolf, and not a very friendly one at that.

  He and Thalia left together, walked to a busier street, and hailed a cab.

  “What did you think of him?” Heinrich asked as the cab headed for their hotel.

  She smiled. “Oh, I think he’s very capable.”

  “I meant Lambros.”

  The smile died.

  “He’s like a thief, a legal thief. I hate rich people who think that just because they have money they can take their nation’s heritage and hide it away in their houses like that. It’s like he was French and had bought the Mona Lisa!”

  “Yeah, typical selfish rich guy. The kind of people who are ruining New York. But I don’t see why he’s risking himself like this.”

  “Guilt,” Thalia said.

  “Guilt for what?”

  “You see his eyes as he showed us his collection? He’s not buying antiquities just for the investment or as a way to show off to his rich friends. He really does love the past.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you respect him for it.”

  Thalia snorted. “Why should I? He’s part of the problem. If there wasn’t such a big demand for antiquities, gangs like this couldn’t operate. I hate seeing our heritage hoarded in some rich man’s house. It should be in a museum for everyone to learn from and enjoy.”

  “And he feels the same way and so he feels guilty?”

  “Exactly, but not guilty enough to actually share his collection with the people.”

  Heinrich chuckled. “Now you’re going to make me feel guilty for my music collection.”

  “That stuff’s only a century old. Some of these things date back three thousand years.”

  “Some of my friends have recordings that are probably the only surviving copy.”

  “Then they should be given to the public,” Thalia said with some force. Heinrich found her conviction attractive; he didn’t want to get on her bad side.

  “You know there’s a project to put old Edison cylinder recordings on the Internet? Our group participates in that.”

  “Good,” Thalia said and smiled. “That’s the right attitude.”

  Heinrich felt better, but shrugged in mock humility. “Not that the website gets many hits.”

  “Most museums don’t get many visitors. It’s the fact that those things are preserved that counts.”

  As soon as they got back to the hotel, Heinrich checked his email. Still no message from Jan.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he looked up the shipping number for the Spitfire model. “Damn it,” he said again when he saw that it had already been delivered.

  Why hadn’t the kid emailed him? Should he call the halfway house and check that Jan was OK? No, he’d better not. Those guys would just think he was being a pain. But he should contact Jan somehow, shouldn’t he?

  He had no idea what to do.

  “OK, focus,” he told himself. “You can’t help that kid until you have a job here, and that won’t happen unless you get your shit together and crack this case. Go to bed, get some sleep, kick some ass. You can fix this later.”

  Heinrich got into bed and forced himself to relax. He’d taught himself discipline on the job. Being a detective required patience and the ability to relax when necessary, as well as to stay up when necessary. To hell with circadian rhythms.

  He was just easing into a half sleep when he sprang up and rushed to the computer.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he fired Biniam an email. He wanted the hacker to check the security of the online registry. He should have remembered to do that before. He could tell he was slipping, and he didn’t have the luxury to slip.

  Forcing himself to not check his email for messages from Jan, Heinrich got back into bed, closed his eyes, and started taking slow, deep breaths. After a long struggle, he slept.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Heinrich hadn’t liked this plan before, and he really didn’t like it now. The “antiquities shop” turned out to be a storage shed in a warehouse and light industrial district in a dusty Athens suburb. Two long rows of storage sheds faced each other across a narrow lane. They were squat concrete structures with metal shutters for doors, each connected to the other with no spaces between them. That left nowhere for them to hide and keep an eye on the millionaire. They ended up having to hide around the far corner of the row. The shed the antiquities people were using was dead center in the row, a good hundred yards away.

  Heinrich, Thalia, and Adonis stood with their backs against the wall, hidden from view of the row of sheds but in plain sight if the thugs drove in with reinforcements.

  There was nowhere better to stand. The two plainclothes officers stood in a similarly bad position at the other end of the row of sheds. Adonis wanted to have men on both ends so they could cut off the smugglers’ retreat. Heinrich had protested, saying that this plan guaranteed that if anyone else came, they’d be spotted. Adonis overruled him.

  Heinrich had also asked for a gun, but the pretty boy had overruled him on that too. Hardly surprising. The guy didn’t have the authority to hand out firearms to foreigners. This meant that besides the three cops, the only people who would have guns would be the criminal gang. Wonderful.

  At least pretty boy and his flunkies were well-armed with Beretta M9s. They were reliable semi-automatic 9mm pistols with 17-round magazines. The only problem was that if they had to fire at the opening to the storage shed, they’d be close to their maximum effective range, and Heinrich had no idea how much these guys practiced on the firing range. From what he’d seen o
f the lane, there was no cover between their position and the gang’s storage unit. Therefore, they had no chance of moving in closer.

  Heinrich shook his head. This didn’t feel right. This didn’t feel right at all.

  Even worse, they could barely hear the wire that Lambros wore. It was at the extent of its range and the concrete sheds weakened the signal.

  Each of them had an ear bud so they could listen in, but between the crackling, unsteady signal and the unfamiliar language, Heinrich could barely follow the conversation.

  Lambros was having a friendly chat with someone whom Heinrich could barely make out. The signal was so bad, only Lambros’ voice came through enough to piece together sentences. The criminals’ voices sounded like a vague mumbling. He heard the sound of a shutter opening, which they could pick up with their unaided hearing as well, and some more conversation. One or two voices added to the conversation, but they were even less clear, as if they came from people standing farther away. Heinrich made out something about Corinthian ware and mosaic fragments. On the drive over, he’d made Thalia teach him a bunch of archaeological terms.

  “May I pick this up?” Lambros asked. Heinrich thought he sounded nervous, and that he was speaking too loudly and clearly for normal conversation.

  Heinrich thought he made out someone saying, “Of course.”

  “Wonderful piece of Corinthian ware. And these mosaic fragments are very well preserved. How much are they?”

  Heinrich couldn’t hear the response but thought he caught the word “thousand.”

  Then he heard a rough voice ask a quick question that Heinrich didn’t catch. Adonis’s eyes went wide. He talked into a mic to the plainclothes officers guarding the other end of the lane.

  “Be ready to move in if they find it,” he whispered.

  “What did he say?” Heinrich asked.

  “One of the gang asked what was in his inside suit pocket,” Thalia said.

  Shit. That mic had been hidden pretty well. Had Lambros shifted the wrong way or accidentally opened his suit?

  There was a babble of voices. Then a new voice cut in, rough and authoritative. A hiss of static drowned out whatever he’d said. Heinrich heard a scuffle and what sounded like a string of swear words.

  Then the millionaire’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “This one is a masterpiece! This one is a masterpiece!”

  The code phrase. Lambros had recognized one of the criminals in the mug shots.

  The wire cut off dead.

  “Move in!” Adonis told the plainclothesmen through the mic, then turned to Thalia and Heinrich. “You two stay here.”

  Adonis pulled out his pistol and rushed around the corner.

  “Fuck that,” Heinrich muttered. He turned to Thalia. “Stay here.”

  He ran around the corner, crouching low.

  What he saw did not look good.

  Adonis was several paces ahead of him, holding up a badge with one hand and his gun with the other while shouting something in Greek that was meant to sound intimidating. The two plainclothesmen rounded the opposite corner.

  At the center of the row, nearly a hundred yards from either end, two men bustled Lambros into a parked van. A third tore the wire off him and threw it on the ground. Two more men rushed out of the storage shed, guns drawn.

  These were not little Berettas, but AK-47s. They did not look impressed by pretty boy’s display of authority.

  “Fuck!” Heinrich said, diving for the nearest cover, which was nothing more than the doorway of the nearest storage unit. The shutters were set in from the wall a mere four inches. Heinrich flattened himself as much as he could.

  Adonis went prone and let off three shots in quick succession. In response he got a hailstorm of semiautomatic fire that chewed up the asphalt and knocked fragments off the brick wall near Heinrich’s head.

  Adonis fired once more, then rolled to the meager shelter of the doorway just ahead of Heinrich.

  Heinrich dared a peek, just in time to see the two plainclothesmen dive back around the corner, chased by a spray of bullets. Lambros and the three guys who had been manhandling him had already disappeared into the back of the van. One leaped out of the back, holding a set of keys. Adonis aimed and took him down with a single shot.

  “Nice one!” Heinrich called. He didn’t like the pretty boy, but he had to give credit where credit was due.

  One of the guys holding an AK cut off any further conversation by sending a burst in their direction. Heinrich pressed himself against the shutter, arms up to take any bullet that would otherwise shatter his skull. A second burst kept him in that position. To his amazement, none of the bullets hit him.

  There was a lull. Then, through his ringing ears, Heinrich heard the revving of an engine.

  He peeked and saw both the AK guys in the front seat. The one on the passenger side had poked his weapon out the window.

  The van peeled out, heading right for them. The gunman in the passenger seat let out a wild burst. The bullets clanged off the shutter above Heinrich’s head as the van swept past.

  The lane was narrow and the van had to slow to barely ten miles an hour as it took the turn. Just then, the back door popped open. Heinrich had a brief glimpse of a terrified Lambros trying to jump out. A pair of arms reached from the dark interior and pulled him back inside.

  Heinrich was up and running in an instant. The van made the turn and began picking up speed. One of the antiquities thieves tried to close the back doors to the van but in his haste he shut them in the wrong order. They wouldn’t close, one bashing against the other. He opened them a bit to fix his mistake …

  … and ended up making a worse one.

  Because Heinrich was on him. He leaped for the door handle and grabbed it, feet scrabbling for purchase on the asphalt as the van accelerated and the door swung open. The man who had been trying to close the door gave Heinrich a startled look, then turned away for a second. Heinrich tried to use that moment to clamber into the back of the van, but all he could do was hang on.

  When the guy turned to him next, he was holding a tire iron.

  “Aw, crap,” Heinrich muttered.

  Then he got another stroke of dubious luck. The van made a sharp turn, swinging the door closed. Heinrich would have loved to vault into the back of the van and immediately kick the asses of the three guys inside, but nothing ever worked out quite the way he wanted it to. He found himself flung against the rear of the van, his legs hitting the edge and swinging him down so that he inadvertently head-butted the tire iron guy right in the groin. That gave him enough time to grab the poor bastard and crawl over him into the van …

  … and straight into the fist of the next antiquities thief.

  The guy gave him a sucker punch to the face. Not a bad throw, but the thief didn’t have enough muscle behind it. Heinrich had been punched so many times inside and outside the ring that it took a lot more than some middle-aged loser to take him down.

  Because in the brief glimpse inside the van’s interior, that’s what he saw—three regular guys and the kidnapped millionaire. These must be the brains or the assistants to the operation. The two heavies were up front with the heavy artillery.

  Yet three against one was always bad odds. Heinrich had to get this done quickly. He scrambled to a kneeling position, taking another punch from the guy in front of him, and then let fly with a right cross that laid out the idiot flat. The back of his head made a satisfying bang on the van’s metal floor.

  Just to his left lay Lambros, disheveled and obviously terrified. The reason for his terror was obvious. The third thief crouched at his head, brandishing a wicked-looking hunting knife.

  Heinrich had no room to dodge the knife, only to back away. He bumped into the man with the tire iron and felt a red-hot trail of pain as the knife slashed against his left forearm.

  Ignoring the pain for the moment, Heinrich grabbed the tire iron guy, who was still moaning about his abused groin, and swung him
around as a shield. That accomplished two things: one good and one not so good. The good part was that Mr. Tire Iron took the thrust of the knife in his side. The bad thing was that as Heinrich swung his human shield, he swung the tire iron into the back of his own head. He ended up on the floor as Mr. Tire Iron dropped his namesake and clutched his side, hissing with pain.

  Heinrich grabbed the tire iron, but his head was swimming from the impact of the blow. He had no time to attack before the guy he had knocked to the floor blindly lashed out with his feet and knocked the tire iron out the open back of the van.

  Heinrich pushed Mr. Tire Iron into the arms of the other two, followed with a punch that landed on one of them (he didn’t have time to see which), and grabbed Lambros.

  “Jump!” he shouted.

  Lambros glanced out the back. They were going at least thirty miles an hour and picking up speed with every second. To his credit, Lambros didn’t hesitate. He knew the better of two bad options when he saw it.

  The millionaire jumped, landed badly, and rolled along behind the van for a moment before coming to a stop.

  Heinrich was about to join him when he took a kick to the head. An instant later someone grabbed him.

  He flailed out, fist hitting flesh. The knife waved in front of his face, red with the blood of two men. He grabbed the wrist and twisted. Someone punched him but Heinrich focused on the more important task of disarming Mr. Hunting Knife before he got stuck for real. Another punch made his head swim, but he had the satisfaction of twisting the man’s wrist at an unnatural angle and seeing the knife clatter to the floor.

  He was about to grab it when the driver slammed on the brakes. The door shut with a thump, plunging the interior of the van into darkness.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Heinrich didn’t waste any time. In a three-versus-one fight, being in complete darkness was an advantage. His opponents didn’t know whom to hit, and he could hit anybody.