One Last Thing Page 5

  “I’ll review the footage regardless, if you don’t mind. And whatever you have from the exterior cams during that time period.” It was going to be a long, useless day.

  “Please do.”

  “I’m also going to have to take a look at where the icon was kept.”

  The archbishop hesitated before he answered. “No one is allowed there but a select few of us.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  He held up one hand. “Yes. I will make that exception.” He led her to the abbot’s office, where she spent the next couple of hours scanning the security-cam footage. Like the archbishop had said, the brief images of the thief weren’t much help, and there were no images of him from any of the exterior cams. Reno, the EOO’s crack computer op, might get something more with his enhancement software, so she asked the abbot’s secretary for a copy of the footage.

  When she finished, a waiting elder monk led Switch on a twenty-minute walk through a maze of courtyards, passageways, and winding corridors, down into the underbelly of the monastery. They passed countless frescos, murals, and spectacular icons dating back hundreds of years, and she was tempted on several occasions to pause a moment to study one or another. Not for any religious reason, but the art historian within her had rarely before seen such an impressive collection.

  Finally, they reached a long, underground hallway lined with large painted panels, where the archbishop was waiting for her. She recognized the place from the surveillance-cam footage.

  “I trust that everything you are about to see will remain in strictest confidence?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  He turned to the massive panel he was standing next to, which depicted Christ with outstretched hands, and ran his hand beneath the right side of the frame. A loud click opened the panel like a door, revealing another door, this one made of steel. “This is the way the thief got in,” he said, then nodded to the elder monk.

  The monk took a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and swung it open.

  Switch stepped inside. The steel door hid the tunnel system, which had been carved out of rock and earth and reinforced by wooden beams. A string of dim lights every twenty feet or so illuminated the interior enough for her to see that this main passageway had several branches leading away on either side.

  When she stepped back into the hallway, the elder monk locked the door again and returned the covering panel to its original position.

  “Thank you, Father,” the archbishop said, dismissing the monk. The man nodded to his superior reverently and retreated silently back down the hallway. Once he’d disappeared from view, the archbishop went to another panel farther down, this one depicting the Holy Mother and Child. He felt along the frame again until he released its hidden latch and swung the panel open.

  Behind this painting was another solid steel panel, devoid of knobs or locks. The only way to gain entrance was to punch a code into the high-tech security panel beside it. “The thief must have great knowledge with such things,” the archbishop said, pointing to the access panel. “He cut wires to disable it without setting off the alarm. We had a technician in immediately to fix it. I am the only one to know the current code.” He started to reach for the panel but hesitated. “Would you mind?”

  She turned her face away while he punched in the numbers, though the security system was one she could have cracked in her sophomore year at the EOO.

  A whoosh of the door sliding open, then the archbishop’s voice. “After you.”

  She stepped inside and scanned the room, dimly illuminated by a trio of tall candles. The security-cam footage had been too narrow to give her a real picture of the chapel, which was unlike any other she’d seen in Greece.

  Orthodox chapels, even small ones like this, were usually highly decorative places, the walls replete with numerous gilded icons and other relics and with kneeling benches and rows of votive candles for the faithful. But this one had plain stone walls and flooring and contained nothing but a small wooden altar. Though not remotely religious, she felt strange, almost oddly awestruck, and couldn’t explain why. “It was placed over here.” She approached the altar.

  The archbishop cleared his throat. “Yes,” he whispered.

  Atop the altar was a thick piece of wood. As she pulled out a pair of latex gloves and put them on, she asked, “Have the police dusted this for fingerprints?”

  “No,” he replied. “We could not afford the publicity it would involve. That is why we called you.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll do it now, though I expect the thief was smart enough to wear gloves.” She removed the fingerprint kit from her daypack and carefully dusted the surface of the wood with powder, then used her lifting tape to preserve the half dozen prints she found. She also dusted the top of the altar and came away with several more good examples, probably all from monks. The archbishop remained silent while she worked, though he didn’t look pleased with the mess she was creating with the powder.

  When she was done, she picked up the piece of wood for a better look, handling it with care by its edges. A bit larger than a typical piece of printer paper, it was heavier than she expected and very old, with a rough groove carved across the middle. She turned toward the archbishop. “The stand for the icon?”

  His eyes were wide with distress. “Please…p…put that down. It is very old.”

  Switch carefully set it back in place on the altar and took off her gloves. “I can see that. When was the icon last seen?”

  “I personally visit it every afternoon around five, after the last visitor ferry departs the Holy Mountain.”

  “So no cars can come in or out after that?”

  He shook his head. “There are few cars on the mountain. Only ours and a few service vehicles, which come in by ferry.”

  “How about by boat?”

  “It’s possible, but we have regular coast-guard patrols along the coast and video surveillance.”

  “CCTV cams there as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have recordings for last week and this week?”

  “We keep them for two weeks. They get erased today.”

  Switch turned around so fast the archbishop stepped back. “Tell them not to touch the recordings. I have an idea.”

  He took her back to the abbot’s office for more hours of watching mind-numbing security-cam footage. Shortly after midnight, she stood and stretched. “Dead end,” she said out loud and to no one. She was tired, and no amount of coffee could help keep her eyes open. More pressing than sleep, however, was the urge to take the restricting bandage off her chest and take a long, hot ba… She lost her train of thought when she spotted the enormous yacht. “I know you.”

  Switch paused the video. On and off the job, she’d had cause to socialize among the most affluent in Greece, and a life aboard her sailboat, endlessly touring the Aegean, meant she knew virtually every big boat. “What was your name again, beauty?” She couldn’t readily decipher the lettering on the bow of the floating monster so she zoomed in as much as the computer would allow. The pixels blurred the name but she could still make it out.

  “Of course. The Pegasus.” The superyacht belonged to a multibillionaire shipping magnate, Konstantinos Lykourgos. “Since when do you sail these waters?” It was common knowledge that the man preferred the southern Greek isles, with occasional trips to Italy and Turkey. To her knowledge, his superyacht had never been spotted in Halkidiki before. “Worth looking into.” She got a copy of that footage as well.

  Chapter Four

  Thessaloniki, Greece

  TQ waited impatiently as the hotel waiter laid out her lunch on the terrace. From the seventh floor, the view of the Thermaikos Gulf and distant Mount Olympus was breathtaking. She could have chosen to stay at the even more luxurious Met or Excelsior hotels, but neither had the ambience of the Electra Palace. The five-star arch-shaped hotel, ideally situated in the very heart of Thessaloniki, featured a rooftop terrace garden and
historic Byzantine architectural details.

  She checked her watch. Her man would arrive any moment with the Theotokos, and so would her personal authentication expert. It wasn’t part of the deal to have the icon validated, and had she not been interested in it for herself, she wouldn’t have bothered. But no way was she going to let the Greek have one of the world’s most priceless treasures.

  Like Lykourgos, she wasn’t interested in selling the icon, nor the satisfaction of bragging about her coup to other collectors, because both could land her in jail. Greece had gotten very strict about illicit trading in antiquities, and penalties could be extreme. She simply wanted it because she could have it; she wasn’t buying the billionaire’s crap about it being the cure for his cancer.

  At this point in her life, very little mattered to TQ but money and her priceless collection. She used to care about her idiot brother Dario, but now that he was dead, she had no further obligation to anyone, which left more time for matters of significance.

  Her one-eyed Asian servant came to stand mutely beside her. The girl had certainly become much more meticulous and obedient, TQ thought, since she’d stabbed her in the eye for announcing two minutes early that her bath was ready. “Talk.”

  “Your appointment is here.”

  TQ rolled her eyes, irritated that the girl wasn’t being more specific. A blind servant, however, was completely useless, and they took such a long time to train. “Which?”

  “He wouldn’t give a name, just that he has what you asked for.”

  “Why is it so difficult for you to be specific right away?” TQ stood. “Must I pull everything out of you?”

  The woman cowered in fear, her whole body trembling. “I’m sorry, Madam. I didn’t know you had more appointments.”

  “Why would you, you brainless weasel?” TQ pushed her aside. “Now get out of my way and go make yourself useful.”

  The girl bowed and stepped back. “Yes, Madam.”

  “Start with ironing everything in my closet,” she said, though the servant had been ironing her whole wardrobe for the past five days and had only finished that very morning.

  “I’ve already ironed everything, Madam.”

  TQ stopped and turned to look at her. “What did you say?”

  The girl bowed deeply from the waist, the shaking of her body even more pronounced. “Right away, Madam.” Looking panicked, she ran off in the direction of the master bedroom.

  “Is your intellect the result of incest?” TQ yelled. “Let my guest in, first.” She followed her into the suite and went to sit at the antique desk.

  The man came in and stood in front of her, holding a satchel to his chest. He waited there patiently, not speaking.

  “Get on with it,” she said. “I despise faux dramatic tension.”

  He smiled. “My money.”

  She opened the top drawer and pulled out a stack of euro bills. “Five hundred thousand.”

  He nodded and placed the satchel on the desk. “The Theotokos.”

  “Well, let’s see it, then.”

  He carefully pulled the icon out of the case and placed it on the desk, facing her.

  The icon was even more spectacular than she imagined. Solid gold and quite thick, it depicted the Virgin Mother with a beatific smile, her face ringed by a massive halo. “My, my. What an amazing piece.” She smiled. “You did good,” she remarked, looking up at him.

  He was staring at her mouth with a look of dismay on his face.

  She’d seen that expression before. “Yes, I don’t smile very often,” she said, “So it may seem—”

  “Reptilian.”

  “I was going to say awkward.”

  “Unnaturally reptilian.” He averted his eyes.

  TQ stood. “Leave.”

  The man grabbed the brick of bills. “My pleasure.”

  Once alone, TQ marveled anew at the artistry of the icon, obviously many centuries old but very well preserved. She already had a spot picked out for it in the private museum that was her penthouse apartment in Houston. The Theotokos would be displayed in its own custom glass case in her office, next to the gold burial mask she’d had smuggled out of Luxor, Egypt.

  She was so intent on the icon she didn’t immediately notice that her servant had stepped back into the room. “What?”

  “Mr. Collins is here, Madam,” the woman meekly replied.

  Her trusted authentication expert. “What are you waiting for? Show him in, and bring us some refreshments.”

  *

  Near Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Jack Harding folded the last of the laundry, happy to see no trace of the bloodstains on Cass’s favorite black jeans. She’d been alarmed when Cass had returned from her latest mission as Agent Lynx, until she learned the blood wasn’t hers. “Okay, my share’s done,” she called out. She didn’t mind folding, but placing the clothes back in drawers and closets was worse than being back in Israel having her teeth pulled out with pliers.

  “You know what would make my life a whole lot easier?” Cassady Monroe, her partner of nearly five years, joined her in the utility room off the kitchen.

  Jack frowned. “Is this about the laundry? Because you know I hate putting clothes back.”

  “No, this is about your father.”

  “Here we go.” Jack rolled her eyes. Cass had been harping on the same subject since Montgomery Pierce had admitted to being Jack’s dad in the aftermath of Operation Guardian, when that bitch, Theodora Rothschild, had kidnapped the president and planted a double in the White House. Granted, he’d orchestrated and participated in Jack’s rescue from TQ’s torture chamber, and had even insisted she recover from her injuries at the home he shared with Joanne Grant. But she still couldn’t forgive him for abandoning her in Israel all those years ago, or for lying to her about her parentage all of her life. Not to mention how many times he’d put Cass’s life in danger.

  “So, it would help simplify my life if you’d answer the phone when he calls you,” Cass said.

  “Nah, I don’t see that happening.”

  “I love you, Jack, but I’m not going to play family counselor.”

  “Didn’t ask you to.”

  “No, but your father thinks I should.”

  “Then stop answering his calls.”

  “I can’t do that. The man is trying very hard to reach out.”

  “Yeah, heartbreaking.” Jack turned back to the table full of folded clothes. “So, anyway, everything’s in neat piles like you requested,” she said proudly. “See, I can learn.”

  “Jack.” Cassady sighed. “Just talk to him. He wants to get to know you, that’s all.”

  Jack loved her so much it hurt, but the constant talk about Pierce was getting on her nerves lately. “Let it go, Cass.”

  “I can’t let it go when he calls three times a day, because if you don’t pick up he calls me on my cell.”

  Jack shrugged. “Get a new number.”

  “Get a new attitude,” Cass shot back.

  Jack took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “Just because the guy feels guilty for being an asshole and has some fucked-up, misplaced need to be my father, I’m not required to play the part of his daughter. As far as I’m concerned, the guy is nothing more than a sperm donor. I was…am a mistake, the consequence of a ten-minute unsafe-sex session that resulted in unwanted offspring and nothing more. I therefore feel absolutely no obligation to humor his geriatric need for father-daughter bonding.”

  “I’m not asking you to bond or even treat him as a father. All I’m saying is that my life would be a whole lot easier if you spent five minutes on the phone so I wouldn’t have to mediate and pass on information between and about the two of you.”

  “I never asked you to.”

  “No, but you imply it when you ask me what he was going on about and if he mentioned you, every single time he calls.” Cass was getting angry, which didn’t bode well for what Jack had in mind for the evening.

  “I guess I’
ll have to stop doing that, then. I just ask because I feel you want me to.”

  “That’s bull and you know it, Harding.”

  When Cass reverted to calling her by her EOO-given surname, Jack knew she was fast approaching implementation of the silent treatment. “Fine. Next time he calls, I’ll take it.”

  “Next time, and every other time, because I’m done playing matchmaker.”

  “Good.” Jack felt defeated and scolded and hated it.

  “Great.” Cassady turned to leave. “And try to sound somewhat civil, because the guy isn’t well.” She left the laundry room.

  “What does that mean?” Jack yelled after her.

  “It means, I think he’s sick,” she called back, and Jack heard a door slam.

  *

  Halkidiki, Greece

  Next day

  Switch carried her Greek coffee topside for better cell reception. She’d anchored the Nostos off Neos Marmaras, some distance from the scattering of fishing boats that were plying the blue water for the anchovy, mackerel, blue fish, bogue, and dozens of other species they would sell to markets and tavernas along the coast.

  “As expected, my visit to the Holy Mountain proved useless and time consuming,” Switch said to Montgomery Pierce.

  “Of course it did.”

  “The icon will show up in twenty to thirty years, and by then, whoever’s taken my place can return it to whoever has taken the archbishop’s.”

  “Can’t say we didn’t try,” Pierce replied. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, just one more thing I want to look into. It’s a shot in the dark, but let’s just say it’s tickled my curiosity.”

  “Oh?”

  “The monastery’s security cameras showed the Pegasus anchored in front of the Holy Mountain.”

  “Pegasus?”

  “One of the biggest yachts in the Med, owned by Konstantinos Lykourgos.”

  “Who is?”

  “A Greek shipping magnate. Worth billions.”

  “Go on.”