The Hypnotist

FORTY-FOUR

Even with a gun in hand, the guard didn’t have a chance; he was outnumbered and he found out just how outnumbered pretty fast. Lucian and Richmond spun around, Glocks pointed at him while Jeffries came from one side to grab his pistol and Agent O’Hara came at him from the other and wrestled him to the ground.

Just steps behind the first guard, a second guard ran in.

Right into the four FBI agents who were ready for him.

Sellers and Jeffries cuffed both men’s hands and feet. O’Hara taped their mouths shut. But what to do with them? Lucian couldn’t waste a man to stay with them. He motioned instructions to Sellers. A gun was better at herding than a dog any day, and with incentives at their back, the two men shuffled obediently along.

The first door Lucian tried led to an empty kitchen. The second led to a dimly lit room with dark gray walls and a dozen black leather lounge chairs set up in rows facing a movie screen almost too large for the space. There, two men in FedEx uniforms wielded crowbars and hammers as they worked at prying open the large wooden crate that had come out of the belly of the courier plane a few hours before.

“FBI,” Lucian called out. “Drop your weapons. You’re under arrest for trafficking in stolen goods.”

“We don’t have any weapons,” one of the FedEx men called out, and then dropped the tools.

The second did the same.

“Down, now. On the floor.” Lucian’s words shot out like rapid gunfire. “Hands behind your back.”

Both FedEx men dropped down and in doing so revealed a third man, who had been standing slightly behind them and out of view. He was well over six feet tall with black hair threaded with silver strands that shone in the indirect light. His eyes were light gray and looked almost like steel as he turned his gaze on the troupe of agents that had just invaded his space. The surprise in his eyes turned to indignation.

“You are trespassing.”

The same instincts that enabled Lucian to identify the authenticity of a painting in a few seconds informed him he was looking at the Monster who had defaced the Matisse painting and had been negotiating with Tyler Weil and the Metropolitan Museum.

“Step away, please, sir,” Lucian ordered.

The man remained where he was.

“You’re under arrest for trafficking in stolen goods. You can make this as easy or as hard as you want. It’s up to you.”

“Stolen goods? I’m afraid you’re wrong.” The man glanced back at the partially opened crate and as Lucian approached he could see an emotion in the silver eyes he recognized immediately-longing. “This was a very fair trade.”

“Holy shit, Lucian,” Richmond said under his breath. “Don’t you know who he is?”

Lucian had no idea. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Darius Shabaz,” he said, pride evident in every syllable.

Shabaz? Lucian pictured a cobalt-blue sky with white clouds, heard a clap of thunder and saw the emerald letters appearing on the movie screen in his mind as, with each flash of lighting, the letters burned and built into the completed logo: Sha…Shabaz… Shabaz Productions.

This was who had devised the exchange of the sculpture for the four paintings? The movie producer?

Lucian pulled out a pair of handcuffs. What was going on? He ran through a dozen scenarios. Could Shabaz have had something to do with Solange’s murder? Was he somehow connected to Malachai? The only parts of the puzzle that now made sense were all the professional disguises-the men in the Los Angeles hotel room, the fake FedEx trucks, the choreographed action.

“Darius Shabaz, you are under arrest,” Lucian intoned. Shabaz remained still but bowed his head as if in prayer, his posture slumped and his shoulders rounded as if hearing his name had broken something in him.

Lucian was only two feet away from the producer when he felt the floor tremble, saw the walls shake and heard a deep rumbling.

“It’s an earthquake!” Shabaz yelled out, as Lucian, Richmond and the three FBI agents fell into a wide crack that had opened up in the floor.