“Someone who thinks a tattoo of a dead goat on his head is stylish,” Nick said. “Did you two follow us here?”
“No,” Jake said. “We were just out looking for a drink.”
“In this neighborhood?” Kate asked.
Jake looked around. “What’s wrong with it?”
Kate gestured to the tunnel with her baton. “Guys like that.”
“So we met some of the colorful locals. It’s what gives a place charm.”
“Charm?” Kate said. “They had knives and axes.”
Jake shrugged. “Billy Dee has a machete, and he is very charming.”
“This is true,” Billy Dee said.
“I think you guessed that we were here to see Diogo Alves and you wanted to make sure we came out alive,” Kate said.
“You can handle yourself just fine,” Jake said and shifted his gaze to Nick. “You, I am not so sure about.”
“I’m more dangerous than I look,” Nick said. “But I appreciate you both showing up, regardless of why it happened.”
“Me, too.” Kate bent down, closed her baton against the pavement, and returned it to her pocket. “And now I’m going back to my luxurious suite. I have big plans for the rest of the evening.”
“That sounds promising,” Nick said. “What did you have in mind?”
“Room service,” Kate said.
Nick tossed his keys onto the sideboard in the small foyer, then locked and bolted the door to the suite.
“Honey, I’m home,” he yelled.
It was nine at night and Kate was on the couch with her iPad. She was barefoot, wearing a too-big T-shirt and gray sweatpants. “Why do you always yell when you come in?”
“I don’t want to surprise you and get shot or garroted or whacked with your baton because you think I’m an intruder.”
“You are an intruder,” Kate said. “You’re intruding on my peace and quiet. When is something going to happen? I’m going goofy sitting here with nothing to do. It’s been three days.”
“You could be a tourist.”
“I did that.”
“You could get some exercise.”
“I did that, too,” Kate said.
“We could pretend we’re actually married,” Nick said.
“I don’t think so.”
“What have you got against marriage?”
“It’s not marriage. It’s you! You have no respect for the law.”
“I respect some laws.”
“You’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. What kind of a future would we have? What would I tell the children?”
Nick went to the refreshment center and poured himself a whiskey. “We’re talking about a pretend marriage, right?”
“Of course.”
“With a pretend future and pretend kids?”
“I might have gotten carried away.”
Nick took his drink to the couch and sat next to Kate. He took a sip of the whiskey and smiled.
“What’s with the smile?” Kate asked.
“I’m enjoying myself. Good whiskey. Nice room. My pretend wife snuggled next to me.”
“I’m not snuggled.”
Nick slid his arm around her and cuddled her into him. “Now you are.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Kate said.
“Too late. I have lots of ideas. Would you like to hear some of them?”
“No!”
“Where’s your sense of adventure? What about bravery?”
“What about reckless stupidity?”
Nick gave her a squeeze and took another sip of the whiskey. “I heard back from my contacts in Berlin and Paris today. They had names of potential buyers, but none of the names were on the chocolate list.”
“So we’re left with Alves.”
“I have some other lines out there, but Alves is the most likely to help us.” He glanced down at her iPad. “What are you looking at?”
“Rodney Smoot sent us some stills taken from the underwater footage of the golden table and piles of coins. They’re peeking out from the silt and are totally convincing. There’s nothing about them that would indicate they’re digital creations.”
The shipping container that held the render farm computers was delivered on the afternoon of the fourth day Nick and Kate were in Lisbon. An hour later Nick got a message that Diogo Alves wanted to meet at the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Anatomy.
The institute was in an old building that smelled of age and medicine, of dust, rubbing alcohol, and formaldehyde. Nick and Kate walked down a long, empty hall to the last room on the floor.
They found Diogo Alves sitting on a stool in the center of the small room, surrounded by thousands of jars of human organs and body parts floating in liquid. The jars filled glass cabinets and covered all the tables and counters. There were even some on the floors. Shafts of sunshine from the barely open shutters refracted through the prisms of the glass jars and liquids to make the organs glow with an eerie supernatural vibrancy.
“What is this place?” Kate asked.
“For centuries, scientists have been saving human body parts to study,” Alves said to Nick and Kate. “This is a collection that showcases the many different methods of anatomical preservation. What the scientists chose to save, and how they did it, is even more interesting than the organs.” Alves sat back and held his hand out to the jar directly in front of him. “Allow me to introduce my great-great-great-great-grandfather and namesake, Diogo Alves.”
The jar contained a perfectly preserved human head, its face pressed up so close to the glass that it appeared to be kissing it. The resemblance between the living Alves and the head in the jar was uncanny. The living Alves might as well have been looking at his own reflection in a mirror instead of at a head in a jar.
“How often do you come here?” Nick asked Alves.
“At least once or twice a week, usually more. How many men do you know who can visit with one of their forefathers?”
The disembodied head was wide-eyed with a look of surprise.
“He looks like he wasn’t expecting to die,” Kate said.
“I like to think he was seeing beyond,” Alves said. “I cherish this opportunity to spend time with him. I come here to get Diogo’s advice on things. He’s a very wise man.”
“He talks to you,” Kate said.
“Diogo doesn’t speak to me directly, of course. But yes, I hear him, the way some people I suppose hear God speaking to them. Sometimes I could swear he’s actually looking at me, that his eyes follow me as I move around the room.”
Kate was sure if she stared at the head long enough, she’d think the eyes were following her, too. And then she’d get sick and throw up.
“You should be honored that I invited you here to share this intimacy with me,” Alves said.
“I certainly am,” Nick said. “I know that allowing us to be here with you means that you take us, and our business relationship, very seriously.”
“Thank you, Nick. The people I contacted on your behalf entertained your proposal because they have personal relationships with me. If you have misled me, and cheat these people in any way, they will blame me for it. And then I will seek Diogo’s advice on how to deal with you.” Alves gestured to the jar. “My ancestor is not a forgiving or merciful man. Some of these jars contain recent donations to the collection from people who have disappointed me.”
Kate couldn’t help but glance at the nearest jar. A big floating eyeball stared back at her. She knew the chance to deliver this threat was the real reason Alves had summoned them here.
“Don’t worry,” Kate said. “We’re all going to get very rich from this. Nobody is going to be disappointed.”
“I hope so.” Alves reached into his breast pocket and handed Nick a slip of paper. “Here are three names. If you wish to contact them, I will make the arrangements. My commission will be deducted before you receive any funds.”
“Works for me,” Nick said.
“Let me and Diogo give you a p
iece of advice. Think very carefully before you take the next step,” Alves said. “These are not men who suffer fools. But they do enjoy making fools suffer.”
Nick and Kate returned to the ship, booted up Kate’s MacBook at a table in the mess hall, and ran the three names that Alves had given them against Ryerson’s list of chocolate customers. One name was common to both lists. Demetrio Violante.
“I’m not surprised,” Nick said, sitting across the table from her.
“You know him?”
“I know about him. The same is true for every person who was suggested to us. I’ve sized them all up for fleecing at one time or another.”
“I didn’t know it was such a small world.”
“The kind of person who has tens of millions of dollars to play with and is still greedy enough to take outrageous risks to acquire even more money is also the perfect mark for me.”
“Was,” Kate said. “You aren’t swindling people anymore. What kind of hustle were you thinking about running on Violante?”
“A real estate scam,” Nick said. “I considered selling him a resort development that’s a ghost town now near Puerto Banús. The financing collapsed and it was abandoned when it was half-completed.”
“But you don’t own the land.”
“I don’t let insignificant details like that concern me.”
“What made you think Violante would be interested in the property?”
“He showed up in Marbella a few years ago with lots of cash, ambition, and good luck. Within a few days of his arrival, he managed to buy one of the biggest and most successful construction companies in the Costa del Sol for next to nothing.”
“How did he manage that?”
“The founding partner of the firm accidentally set himself on fire at a Marbella gas station and blew the place up.”
“That’s an unusual accident.”
“The police say he lit a cigar while filling up the tank on his Bentley, which was odd, because he didn’t smoke. The gas station, which was completely destroyed in the massive explosion, happened to be on a key piece of property that the construction company needed to build a condo complex. But the owner’s stubborn refusal to sell had forced them to scuttle the project.”
“Let me guess. After the ‘accident,’ the remaining partners in the construction company suddenly decided to retire and the gas station owner sold the property.”
Nick nodded. “And the detective who investigated the death and determined that it was a tragic accident later moved into one of the new condos. It’s funny how things just manage to work out for some people.”
“Hilarious,” Kate said. “Let’s see what Lester Menendez looks like now that he’s Demetrio Violante.”
“You won’t find any photos. Violante doesn’t allow his picture to be taken. He’s very concerned about his privacy.”
“I’m sure he is,” Kate said. “Even with a new face and body. Where does he live?”
“On a peak outside of Marbella. It’s like a fortress. The only way to access it is from a private road or by air. He has a completely unobstructed 360-degree view from his property. He can see all the way to Africa. There’s no way to reach his place without him seeing you coming.”
“Which means he’s probably got a secret escape tunnel.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“If you knew so much about Violante, how come you weren’t aware of his passion for chocolate?”
“There were a lot of things I didn’t know about him. For instance, I wasn’t aware that he was actually one of the most powerful and sadistic drug lords on earth.”
“Would knowing that have made you scrap the con you were thinking about?”
“The risk might have made it even more enticing to me. But the point is, I only knew the big picture. I would have learned the small details before mounting the con.”
“More than what we know going into this one?”
“A lot more,” he said.
“Doesn’t that scare you?”
“I’m protected by an ex–Navy commando, a retired pirate with a razor-sharp machete, and a senior citizen with a garrote in his underwear,” he said. “Why would I be afraid of anything?”
Reyna was naked and supple, with smooth, natural curves, a flat stomach, and long legs that she leisurely kicked, propelling her firm body across the lap pool. Her string bikini bottoms were draped carelessly over the arm of a patio chair and her ever-present AK-47 was propped against it.
Demetrio Violante sat in a silk bathrobe on his balcony, watching his bodyguard swim while he snacked on black chocolate truffles filled with champagne and flecked with twenty-four-karat gold flakes. The chocolate was delicious, and it pleased him to know that he was so rich that he crapped gold.
From where he sat, he could look out over his lushly landscaped hilltop property to the whitewashed walls and terra-cotta rooftops of Marbella, to the peak of Gibraltar, and to the shores of North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. Spectacular vistas, Violante thought, but not as spectacular as Reyna.
He watched her leave the pool and stretch out on a chaise longue. He liked to look at her. It was part of their foreplay. He studied her strong cheekbones, and her lips. It was a face shaped by evolution and DNA, not by implants and a scalpel. He especially appreciated that because he was now sewn into an uncomfortable costume of flesh.
In less than an hour Violante’s driver would deliver the Hartleys. He hoped the Hartleys were the real deal because he was bored. He needed a new adventure. Acquiring the Santa Isabel treasure was especially appealing. He knew every detail of the shipwreck. He’d been obsessed with it as a child. Of course, there was no way he was going to pay the Hartleys the millions they wanted. Nor would he let anyone live who knew that the astonishing fortune had been found. The Hartleys, their crew, and even Alves would all have to die, but only after he’d made sure they hadn’t told anybody else about the gold. That part would appeal to Reyna. She was really a delightfully sick young woman.
Nick and Kate were driven into Marbella by Violante’s chauffeur in an S-Class Mercedes along the aptly named Golden Mile. The boulevard was lined with ocean-view mansions and led into a shopping district filled with famous names such as Versace, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. The streets were clogged with Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and BMWs.
The driver steered them out of the city and headed north on the A-376 up into the Sierra Blanca hills. It wasn’t long before the housing developments thinned out and the only homes left were widely spaced modern-day castles on private hilltops separated from their neighbors by deep gorges.
They turned off the highway onto a winding single-lane strip of asphalt that climbed steeply, and precariously, up the hill. The road ended at a large iron gate set into a high stone wall with cameras mounted on the top and a small security booth out front, manned by an armed guard.
The guard peered in to look at the driver, gave Kate and Nick a quick once-over, and waved them through. The gate yawned open onto a cobblestoned driveway that cut through lush tropical landscaping and led into a courtyard ringed by eight garages. An elaborate fountain with a sculpture of Neptune holding a trident was in the center of the courtyard.
The sprawling two-story house was typical Spanish Mediterranean, with brilliant white stucco walls and brown-orange terra-cotta tiles on the roof. The exterior architecture included lots of arches, elaborate wrought-iron railings, rounded pillars, awnings, and balconies of all sizes, all adorned with overflowing flower boxes. It was a surprisingly floral touch for a bloodthirsty killer.
Kate noted the large satellite dish on the roof. She doubted it was used for watching ESPN and pay-per-view movies. It was large enough to contact extraterrestrial life.
Violante was waiting on the front steps to greet them. He was tall and slightly pudgy, and dressed in a loose white linen shirt and slacks. His wet, slicked-back, artificially brown hair had an unnaturally orange tint that matched the terra-cotta tiles. His tig
ht, plasticized face looked to Kate more like a computer-generated videogame character than an actual human being.
“Thank you for coming to Marbella. I am Demetrio Violante.” He gestured to the woman standing beside him. “And this is Reyna Socorro, my head of security.”
Reyna’s pixie-cut hair was platinum blond, and contrasted sharply with her pitch-black eyebrows and deeply tanned skin. She was also dressed in white linen, with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder as casually as a purse. Kate could tell from the way Reyna’s flinty eyes studied them that the rifle wasn’t a fashion statement. This woman was a killer.
“You’ve got nothing to fear from us,” Nick said, shaking Violante’s outstretched hand. “We’re harmless archaeologists bearing gifts.”
“You can never tell,” Reyna said, looking at Kate. “It’s the ones who appear harmless who are often the most dangerous.”
“Thank you for sending the car to pick us up,” Kate said, though she knew they’d done it more as a security precaution than as a courtesy. They wanted to control how and when their guests arrived. “It was very kind of you.”
“We know we can be hard to find,” Violante said. “Intentionally so, to be honest. Please come inside.”
They followed him into a grand two-story gallery filled with natural light that flowed from overhead skylights, down through a transparent Plexiglas floor. A lap pool ran under the floor like a river, through the house and out into the garden. More light spilled in through the gallery’s huge windows, intensifying the effect of the white-on-white furniture.
Kate squinted against the glare and thought it would be a miracle if everyone in the house didn’t have cataracts.
To the left of the gallery was a book-lined study, and a guest bathroom, the door ajar just enough so Kate could see it was larger than her sister’s kitchen.
“I thought you might enjoy something sweet while we talk,” Violante said, leading them across the gallery.
The gallery opened to an outdoor living room that overlooked the Mediterranean. It was an unusually large covered balcony with overhead fans and comfortable white-on-white cushioned wicker furniture. A table in the center of the room was piled high with a huge selection of gold-flecked and gold-covered chocolates arranged around bowls of fresh fruit and a burbling chocolate fountain. It was the most amazing display of chocolate Kate had ever seen. She half-expected Oompa Loompas to come dancing out to introduce it.
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