Typhoon Fury

13

“What are you doing?” Udom demanded.

Trying to keep my hands from shaking, Beth Anders thought about saying as she hunched over the painting with armed men surrounding her. Instead, she said, “I’m checking the edges of the Manet.”

“Why?” asked Tagaan, who she’d learned was Filipino. He was holding the bronze eagle finial, which was apparently his. She tried to stay far away from him since he smelled of rancid garlic.

“The paintings stolen from the Gardner were cut out of their frames, which are still hanging in the museum. High-quality scans were made of the remaining canvas borders so that they could be matched up with the paintings to verify that they were the originals. It’s as unique as a fingerprint. I have a contact at the Gardner who gave me a copy of the scans.” She held up her phone and showed them the image. The magnified edge was clearly visible. “Although the painting itself could be forged, it would be virtually impossible to duplicate the color pattern and weave of the sliced canvas edges.”

After she examined all four sides of the painting in various spots, she had no doubt the painting was the one that had been stolen. In any other scenario, she would be shaking from excitement at holding such a rare and valuable piece of lost art instead of trembling with fear.

She must have gone on too long because after a few more minutes Udom growled, “That’s enough time. Tell us your conclusions.”

She stood up and looked at Raven, who nodded almost imperceptibly for her to go ahead. Udom looked at her expectantly, while Tagaan seemed to have no concerns about what she’d say.

“After carefully inspecting the painting, I must conclude that it’s the original.”

“You are certain?” Udom asked.

“No doubt.” She showed him when the scans matched up with the painting’s edges. “See? They line up exactly. This is definitely Chez Tortoni by Édouard Manet.”

At his instruction, Udom’s men lowered their guns, and Beth had to prop herself on the desk to keep from keeling over in relief. He handed her a wad of hundred-dollar bills, which she put in her purse without counting.

“As we agreed, five thousand dollars,” Udom said. “We may ask you to perform this service again in the future, so I expect you to keep quiet about this.”

Tagaan stepped forward. “What is your estimate of its value?”

“If it came on the open market, it would fetch anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five million U.S. dollars at auction.”

“We can’t use a range,” Udom said. “We need a number for future transactions.”

“Then I would put the value at twenty million.” She looked at Tagaan. “May I roll it back up for you? It’s very delicate.” As an art historian, she would have preferred the painting remain flat for transport, but she knew that would be asking too much.

He furrowed his eyebrows at her, then nodded and handed her the tube.

Beth tried not to wince at the damage she might be doing to the painting as she carefully rolled it on the desk. She slid it into the plastic tube and capped it. She hated to give back such a masterpiece to a dirtbag like Tagaan.

Udom reached out and said, “I’ll take that.”

Tagaan glared at him. “What are you doing? We agreed to this meeting so that we could set the value of the painting for future trades.”

“You forget, Tagaan, that you owe us for the shipment that was lost in transit to Singapore. An entire shipload of product destroyed. This painting is our rightful payment.”

Tagaan was fuming and seemed to forget he had spectators. “That wasn’t our fault, you hudas. Our informant at Interpol told us they would be inspecting that freighter. You should have had it unloaded faster.”

“We paid for delivery and the shipment didn’t get delivered. Consider this a refund.”

For a tense moment, every person in the room was frozen. Beth didn’t know what to do with the tube, but handing it to either one of them seemed like suicide. In the end, she didn’t have to decide.

Beth had never been in a car accident, but she now understood what people who’d gone through one meant when they said it appeared to happen in slow motion.

She perceived both groups of men drawing their weapons as if they were moving through molasses. She was aware of every acute detail, from the jackets being flung aside to get at pistol holsters to the shouts in two different languages.

She caught a glimpse of Raven slamming into her and flinging her to the floor as guns fired in all directions, chewing into wood, drywall, and bodies. Beth wanted to put her hands over her ears to shut out the deafening gun blasts and the shouting men, but her arm was against her side, pinning the tube to her body.

The door swung open, and the bouncer stationed outside ran in, gun blazing.

“Come on!” Raven shouted in her ear as she dragged Beth to her feet and pushed her into the hallway.

She involuntarily turned to witness the carnage and saw one of Udom’s men pointing his pistol at her. Before he could fire, a bloody hole appeared in his forehead and he went down like a sack of cement.

It was only then that she registered the shot had come from behind her. She turned in astonishment to see that Raven had fired the pistol she had shown to Beth when she slipped it into her rear waistband back at the hotel room.

“Move!” Raven yelled and yanked the door closed behind her as they ran into the hall. Shots poured through the door, but they tore harmlessly into the wall.

As they scrambled downstairs, the huge bouncer at the front door was coming up, his gun drawn.

“Oh, my God!” Raven cried out to him, sounding hysterical. “They’re killing each other up there!”

That spurred the bouncer to run faster. He tore right by them without giving them another glance.

When they reached the ground floor, Beth heard the door above slam open and more gunshots in the hall. There was a huge thump, which sounded like the bouncer collapsing. It was followed by heavy footsteps heading their way.

“Outside!” Raven shouted and took Beth by the arm.

They sprinted for the exit. As the evening approached, the street scene had gotten livelier and more crowded. As they ran onto the road, Beth crashed into a woman, who went sprawling and cursed at her in Thai.

“Sorry!” Beth yelled instinctively before Raven pulled her away.

As they rounded the corner, screaming erupted behind them, probably from the emergence of menacing killers from the club brandishing pistols.

“We’re not going to make it to the car,” Raven said. She wasn’t even breathing hard, while Beth’s lungs ached from the adrenaline, shock, and exertion.

“What do we do?”

Raven steered her over to an idling motorcycle, whose owner was buying some food from a street vendor. She threw her leg over the seat and shouted, “Get on!”

Beth shoved the tube through her purse strap, hopped on behind Raven, and grabbed her waist.

Raven revved the throttle and laid down a skid mark as they accelerated away, leaving the owner shouting as he ran after them with a skewer of pork in his hand. Beth had a death grip, as she hung on.

She turned to see Tagaan sprinting toward them at full speed. It was obvious he wasn’t going to catch them, so he stopped abruptly and raised his pistol. Beth ducked as they swung around a corner. Two bullets ricocheted off a wall, and then Tagaan was out of sight.

Raven took three more quick turns and merged with traffic on a busy boulevard. They were now one of a hundred motorcycles cruising down the road.

“Nice work back there,” Raven said over her shoulder. “For a civilian, that is. I’m impressed you didn’t panic.”

“I didn’t?” The vibration of the motorcycle must have masked her shaking.

“You have your passport with you, right?”

“Always,” Beth replied. “Why?”

“Because we can’t go back to the hotel. We need to get out of Thailand as soon as we can.”

“That’s okay. Everything in my room is replaceable. But we’ll have to figure out what to do about the painting.”

“You want to turn that over to Interpol now? We just heard Tagaan say they had a mole.”

Raven had a point. If his gang still had the other Gardner paintings, a report to Interpol might make them too hot to handle. They could all be destroyed to wipe out the evidence.

There was still the microtransmitter Beth had attached to the finial. “Tagaan was holding the bronze eagle when we left. We can track it.”

“If they really have an informant at Interpol, they’ll know as soon as we start following it and deactivate the transmitter.”

“That’s why we’re not going to Interpol,” Beth said.

“Then how are we going to recover the other paintings? We can’t do it on our own.”

“The guy who gave me the transmitter can help us. I consult with him on art that he acquires for his firm. His name is Juan Cabrillo.”