Why Me?

2

Nestled on a deep soft background of black velvet, gleaming under the bright glare of the overhead fluorescent tubes, the Byzantine Fire shone a lustrous carmine, reflecting and refracting the light. If machines could bleed, a blood drop from Univac might look like this; cold, clear, almost painfully red, a tiny faceted geodesic dome of deep color and furious light. Weighing ninety carats, the Byzantine Fire was one of the largest and most valuable rubies in the world, worth possibly a quarter million dollars merely in itself, not even counting its setting and its history, both of which were impressive.

The setting for the Byzantine Fire was a large and intricately carved ring of pure gold, in which the central figure of the ruby was surrounded by fourteen tiny blue-and-white sapphires. While this perhaps doubled the overall value, it was the stone's history—ranging through religious wars, thefts, treaties, murders, diplomacy at the highest level, matters of national pride and ethnic identity and theologic significance—that raised it beyond all questions of value; the Byzantine Fire was priceless, like the Kohinoor Diamond.

Therefore, security during this first move of the Byzantine Fire in nearly ninety years was extremely tight. This morning, three separate teams of armed couriers had left the Chicago Natural History Museum, traveling by three different routes to New York City, and not until departure had even the couriers themselves known which team would carry the ring. It was now nearly midnight in New York, and the team with the ring had just been met at the TWA terminal in Kennedy Airport by a security escort from the United States Mission to the United Nations. This new group would carry the ring the rest of the way into Manhattan, to U.S. Mission headquarters in United Nations Plaza, in preparation for tomorrow's ceremony, when the Byzantine Fire would be gravely and solemnly returned to the sovereign nation of Turkey (which in fact had never owned it). After which, thank God, the damn thing would be Turkey's problem.

Until then, however, it remained America's problem, and there was a certain tension among the eight Americans crowded into this small, bare room in the security area of the TWA terminal. In addition to the courier from Chicago with the attaché case chained to his wrist, plus his two bodyguards, there were a three-man escort team from the U.S. Mission and two blasé New York City policemen in uniform, the cops being there simply to represent the city and to observe the ritual of transfer. Nobody really expected any trouble.

The Chicago bodyguards began the transfer by turning over their attaché case keys to the New York team, who duly signed receipts. Next, the Chicago courier placed the attaché case on a table and used his own key to remove the handcuff from his wrist. Then he unlocked and opened the attaché case, reached into it, and opened the smaller carrying box within, which was when everybody clustered a bit closer around the table, looking down at the Byzantine Fire, the deep red ruby, the warm encircling gold, the winking little blue-and-white chips of sapphire, all against the black velvet lining of the box. Even the two jaded city cops moved in closer, looking at the ring over the shoulders of the other men. "That's some cherry," one of the cops said.

The balder man from the U.S. Mission frowned at such nonseriousness. "You men should—" he said, and the door behind them opened and four men strode in, wearing black coats and gas masks, lobbing smoke and teargas bombs, carrying Sten guns, and speaking Greek.