Hunt at The Well Of Eternity

Chapter 9

“Cierra!” Señor Vladimir Antonio de la Esparza said with a big smile of welcome. “I was afraid you weren’t going to be able to make it!”

“I was delayed,” she said as he put his hands on her bare shoulders and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

“No trouble, I hope.”

“No, just business.” That was an outright lie, of course, and Esparza would realize it if the police showed up looking to question her about Carlos’s murder. Gabriel hoped it would take them a while to get around to that.

Of course, Esparza might already know it was a lie—if he was the one who’d sent the assassins to the museum in the first place.

Cierra turned and held out a hand toward Gabriel. “I hope it’s all right that I brought along a colleague of mine. This is Señor Gabriel Hunt.”

Esparza’s rather bushy gray eyebrows rose. “Of the Hunt Foundation?”

“You may be thinking of my brother, Michael, Señor Esparza,” Gabriel said coolly. “I don’t really get involved.”

“You are too modest,” Esparza said. “My business is communications, but my passion is history and archeology. I’ve been fortunate enough to help numerous museums acquire items for their collections, including our dear Cierra’s, of course, and naturally in the course of those efforts I’ve heard of both the Hunt Foundation and the illustrious Gabriel Hunt.”

He put out a hand. Gabriel shook it. “Illustrious,” Gabriel said. “That’s a new one for me. More often I hear ‘notorious.’”

“Well…one has to be a bit of a pirate to be a successful explorer, eh?” Esparza grinned. “Welcome to my villa, Señor Hunt. Please, make yourself at home.”

“Gracias, Señor Esparza.”

Waiters were moving around the room, carrying trays of drinks. Gabriel’s jaw tightened as Esparza motioned one of the men over. This reminded him too much of what had happened at the Metropolitan Museum the night before. These waiters wore white jackets instead of red, but still, their presence made him tense.

He reminded himself that waiters carried drinks around cocktail parties all the time. It didn’t have to mean anything.

He accepted a margarita from one waiter and sipped it while Cierra made small talk with Esparza. From her appearance and manner you’d never have guessed that she’d gone through a shootout and a friend’s murder less than an hour earlier. He supposed that Cierra’s upbringing in a dangerous area like Chiapas had given her steadier nerves than most people.

Esparza turned to Gabriel and asked, “Are you going to be doing business with the museum, Señor Hunt? Selling some artifact you’ve acquired, perhaps?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve recently put my hands on a nice item Dr. Almanzar might be interested in,” Gabriel replied. “Just last night, in fact.”

Was that a flicker of something more than polite interest in Esparza’s eyes, Gabriel asked himself, or just his imagination?

For a man who didn’t believe in coincidences, he thought, he was asking himself to accept a rather large one: that Cierra would bring him right to the home of the man who was behind the bloody attack at the Met and the ensuing attempts on Gabriel’s own life.

And yet perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence at all. The whole affair was tied in with those flags of General Fargo’s, and the flags’ trail led right to the Museum of the Americas. Esparza’s connection with the museum could have put him onto something that had prompted the violence. Esparza could have found out somehow that Mariella was taking the general’s personal standard to New York and been willing to go to any lengths to stop her from turning it over to the Hunt Foundation.

The hidden flags seemed to burn against Gabriel’s back as that thought went through his head. To incite the ruthless brutality Gabriel had seen since last night, the flags had to be very valuable indeed.

He wondered what Esparza would do if he knew that Gabriel had the flags on him at this very moment.

He didn’t intend for the man to find out. It would be better, Gabriel told himself, if he and Cierra got out of here as soon as they reasonably could.

“You and Cierra are in negotiations concerning this item, then?” Esparza asked, his smile never wavering.

“You could say that. My apologies for keeping her away from your little get-together until now, señor.”

Esparza waved a hand. “De nada. She is here now, blessing us with her loveliness, and this is all that matters.” He reached over, slid that same hand up Cierra’s bare arm, leaned closer to her. “Is this not so, querida?”

Her smile shrank a little, Gabriel thought. He wondered how far she’d had to go in the past to secure Esparza’s help for the museum…not that it was any of his business.

“You’re too kind, Vladimir,” she murmured.

“Not at all, not at all. Your beauty outshines that of any woman here…and your intelligence is far above theirs as well.” He looked at Gabriel. “I’ve always believed that intelligent women are the most attractive, Señor Hunt. What about you?”

“I can’t argue with that,” Gabriel said. “Unfortunately, Dr. Almanzar and I have to continue our business, so we’ll be leaving—”

“So soon?” Gabriel might have been mistaken, but he thought that Esparza’s grip tightened on Cierra’s arm. She kept her face carefully impassive, though. “That is a great pity. Are you certain it cannot wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m sure,” Gabriel said. His nerves had been crawling ever since he entered this luxurious villa, and by now his instincts were yelling for him to get out.

“Well, one cannot stand in the way of history, can one?” Esparza leaned in and kissed Cierra again on the cheek, then shook hands with Gabriel. “Farewell, Señor Hunt. I hope to see you again soon.”

“I’m sure we’ll run into each other,” Gabriel said. He took hold of Cierra’s other arm, and for a second she was caught between them, as if they were about to have a tug of war over her.

But then Esparza let go of her, and Gabriel steered her toward the door.

“What was that all about?” Cierra whispered to him as they weaved their way through the crowd.

“Esparza had something to do with what happened at the museum,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice low.

Cierra stopped short. “What? Are you really loco, Gabriel? Vladimir is the museum’s biggest benefactor.”

“Then he probably knows all about General Fargo’s flag and the legend of the gringo warlord, doesn’t he?”

Frowning angrily, Cierra stared at him for a moment, but then Gabriel saw doubt begin to creep into her eyes. She was smart enough to know that what he was saying made sense. Or at least that he had no reason to lie about it.

“And he fits the description of the other man who went to Florida to try to find out more about the general,” Gabriel went on. “Do you know any of his associates who look like the man I bayoneted?”

“Of course not! The very idea is insane.” She paused. “Of course, I don’t know everyone who works for Vladimir…”

“I didn’t think so.”

“But that doesn’t mean—” She stopped and looked back the way they had come. Gabriel did, too, and they saw Esparza standing on the other side of the room watching them. His affable smile had disappeared, and now he had the look of a predator about him, an intense stare that had locked in on his prey.

“Dios mio,” Cierra breathed. “You could be right. He’s always been very generous when it comes to the museum, but he has a reputation for ruthlessness in his business.”

“And in getting anything else he wants, I’d bet,” Gabriel said. “Let’s get out of here.”

She clutched at his arm. “If he is who you say…will he allow us to leave?”

“I think he will. He won’t want any trouble in his own home, with all his fancy friends around.”

Gabriel was aware of Esparza’s hawk like gaze following them all the way out of the ballroom. As they passed the bodyguards, he had to wonder if either of them had been among the groups he’d traded shots with several times recently. It was certainly possible.

Danger seemed to lurk in the shadows along the driveway, but Gabriel and Cierra reached the jeep safely. “Hold on a minute,” he said as she reached for the door handle.

He knelt to take a quick look under the vehicle. When he saw nothing unusual there, he lifted the hood and checked under it, too.

“You thought he might try to blow us up?” Cierra asked in an astonished tone.

“Not really. Again, there would be too many awkward questions for him to have to answer, even for a man of his wealth and power. But it never hurts to make sure.”

As they climbed into the jeep, Cierra asked, “Where are we going now?”

“Take me back to the hotel and drop me off there. Your part in this is over. Esparza won’t bother you. He may suspect that I told you some things I shouldn’t have, but he can’t know for sure. And he probably thinks he can continue to make use of you in the future, so he won’t get rough with you.”

Her voice was chilly as she said, “No one uses me, Señor Hunt.”

“I just meant that he needs you to remain at the museum.”

Cierra started the jeep and backed up, then turned around and drove out through the massive gates at the entrance to the estate. She started down the winding road toward the bottom of the hill.

Gabriel heard the high-pitched growl of motorcycle engines behind them even before they were out of sight of Esparza’s villa.

“Son of a bitch,” he said as he reached under the seat for his gun. “I was wrong.”

“The notorious Gabriel Hunt, wrong?” Cierra said. “About what?”

“Looks like Esparza wants me dead bad enough that he doesn’t care if you have to die, too.”