Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9)

Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9) Page 30

“All right, all right.” Heavenly held her arms up in mock surrender. “I tried to be nice.”

“So now you’re going to be not nice? I have that to look forward to?”

She shrugged like she had a secret she had no intention of sharing and pulled her jacket off the chair. When she finished putting it on and zipping it up, she placed a rose-colored business card with her name and cell number—and nothing else—on the kitchen table and slid it toward me.

“I’ll be seeing you,” she said.

“Heavenly, I’ll tell you what the guys I play hockey with would say—keep your head up.”

I escorted Heavenly to the front door and watched her drive away before reactivating my security system. I was wondering how much an upgrade would cost when my cell phone rang.

“Harry,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“I have some background on your target, but I have to make it quick. The wife is waiting downstairs. We’re going to dinner.”

“Give her a kiss for me.”

“Not a chance. Now, McKenzie, I checked a few sources. Your friend Jonathan Hemsted is a Foreign Service specialist attached to the U.S. Commercial Service Office in the Bosnia-Herzegovina Embassy. Before that he was stationed in Haiti.”

“What does he specialize in?”

“He’s an economics officer working to expand U.S. trade in the region. This guy Branko Pozderac, he’s involved with the privatization of state-owned entities. That’s probably how they hooked up.”

“I didn’t know we had any trade in the region.”

“About forty million worth.”

“You’re kidding? The Twins’ infield is worth more than that.”

“Just telling you what they told me.”

“Would Hemsted have anything to do with recovering stolen artifacts—allegedly stolen artifacts?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Harry said. “The State Department might file a report or request assistance, but they’re not going to investigate or recover.”

“Who would?”

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation. McKenzie, we have an Art Crime Team. We have an Art Theft Program. We have special prosecutors assigned by the Department of Justice. We sometimes work with other organizations like Homeland Security, Interpol, or even Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Which raises the question, what the hell?”

I told him that I would explain, but his wife was waiting.

“Make it fast,” he said.

I did.

“I have so much work on my desk,” Harry said. “I think I’ll take a look into this anyway.”

“How much juice do you think a Foreign Service specialist working in a shit hole like Bosnia has?”

“That depends on his boss.”

“His boss is the secretary of state.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“You’re a peach, Harry. Give your wife my love.”

“Hell no.”

I returned to the kitchen table and finished my coffee. I liked it so much that I had another mug, this one laced with Irish whiskey. And then another. That and the two ales I had earlier weren’t nearly enough to make me drunk, but they did give me an excuse for what I did next. I called Mr. Donatucci.

“Have you heard from the artnappers?” I asked.

“Nothing yet. Why do you ask?”

“You said you could set up a meeting with someone who could give me tips on how to authenticate the Lily. Can you still do that?”

“You’re going for the Lily after all,” Donatucci said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Peer pressure.”

SIX

Perrin Stewart punched a code into a keypad and hit ENTER. Nothing happened.

“I hate these things,” she said.

“Patrick Tarpley didn’t have any trouble,” I said.

Perrin gave me a hard look and cursed softly—some people don’t appreciate sarcasm. She tried again. This time a tiny green light blinked on top of the keypad, followed by a metallic sound as the door unlocked. She held the door open until I passed through, then closed it tightly behind her. Her heels made a tick-tock sound that echoed off the white walls, white ceiling, and white tile floor of the brightly lit corridor, and I didn’t know which I wanted more, earplugs or sunglasses.

“I’ve seen hospital operating rooms with less light,” I said.

“It’s all environmentally responsible, too,” Perrin said. “We earned a LEED Gold designation for the building design. That was partly my doing. I saw it not only as a matter of reducing our carbon footprint but also of saving money. Our energy bills are a third of a typical building this size.”

“I need to ask a question that might offend you.”

“All right.”

“How sure are you of your people?”

“If you’d asked me last week, I would have vouched for all of them. Now … Why do you ask?”