When she found she had a talent for investigation, her unique skill set put her in high demand in the art world. Not only did she save insurance companies millions by recovering artwork, her knack for identifying suspected forgeries allowed her to supplement her income by authenticating art for prospective buyers and auction houses.
Beth had built up a reputation in the art black market as well. After being recommended to Udom by someone else she’d worked with, he had asked her to authenticate and appraise a very valuable painting, one she would immediately recognize. She didn’t work with just anyone, so to prove his seriousness, he had sent her a photo of the eagle finial next to a recent newspaper as a calling card.
“May I,” she said, reverently moving toward him with her hands outstretched.
He held it out for her. “That’s what you’re here for.”
She took it and suppressed a shiver of excitement at holding what was an almost mythical object in the art world.
In 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was robbed in the largest private property theft in history. Thirteen works of art were stolen, including paintings by the masters Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and Manet. All told, the paintings were valued at five hundred million dollars, and a five-million-dollar reward for their return remained unclaimed. The eagle finial alone, which had topped a pole carrying a Napoleonic flag, would fetch a reward of a hundred thousand dollars.
For decades, it was feared that the artwork had been destroyed by the thieves, and many had given up hope of ever recovering the paintings, which still had their spots waiting for them in the museum. But the finial was proof that at least some of the art still existed.
It was breathtaking to hold the eagle Beth had memorized from photographs. The detail in person was even more striking, but she had to remember she had larger goals than this one object.
She opened her purse to take out a jeweler’s loupe to examine the finial up close, but she already had no doubt it was authentic. Her real goal was to attach the microtransmitter in her palm so they could track it back to the paintings.
It had been rumored for years that drug smugglers used valuable paintings as collateral in their trades. A painting was much easier to roll up and transport on an international flight than millions of dollars in cash, so the art supposedly made its way back and forth between the gangs as a sort of currency. The only problem was verifying that the art was real so that they wouldn’t be left holding a worthless counterfeit. The bronze finial was obviously being used to verify the provenance of the paintings to be used in the trade.
Beth had considered bringing Interpol in to carry out a raid, but she was afraid they’d lose their one shot at finding the paintings. So she’d come up with the plan to find the whole lot at once.
The transmitter was smaller than the tiny SIM card in her phone. It was flexible, almost transparent, and had a strong adhesive backing on it. All she had to do was place it inside the finial’s flagpole sleeve without anyone noticing, and then they could be on their way. Once the finial went back with its owner to its original storage location, she’d bring in Interpol for a raid to recover the paintings and her reward.
“Well?” Udom asked.
With her thumb, Beth pressed the transmitter into the sleeve of the finial, when she saw the men’s attention trained on Raven. It would go undetected unless someone were looking for it.
She looked up at Udom. “I can verify conclusively that this is the object stolen from the Gardner Museum.”
Udom looked at one of the non-Thais and smiled. “It looks like we’re in business, then, Tagaan.”
Tagaan, who must have been the leader of the other group, nodded and stepped forward holding a plastic tube. He removed a rolled-up canvas from it and unfurled it on the desk.
“Tell us how much this is worth,” he demanded.
Beth couldn’t keep her jaw from dropping at the sight of it. Tagaan had casually spread out a ten-by-thirteen-inch masterpiece called Chez Tortoni by the impressionist Édouard Manet.
“Yes, tell us,” Udom said, and, with a nod to his men, they all drew pistols and aimed them at the visitors. “You said you had a test to verify it’s real. Prove to me that we aren’t being cheated with a counterfeit.”
Beth looked to Raven, who seemed as calm as ever, but it was clear the mental gears were working furiously behind her eyes. She gave Beth a reassuring glance, which helped ease her back from the edge of panic to mere terror.
As Beth walked over to the Manet, she understood how much was riding on her appraisal. If the small painting lying on the drug dealer’s desk was a genuine Manet, it was valued at twenty million dollars. If it wasn’t, they were all dead.
12
VIETNAM
While Linc, MacD, and Eric kept their guns trained on the entrance from the dining car, Juan had his eyes on the Oregon.
“Where’s that drone, guys? We’re approaching the last tunnel before the river.”
“We see you, Chairman,” Hali said. “The NSA analysts finally got the data from the flash drive downloaded. Murph just launched it from the deck.”
“Eddie, what can you tell me?”
Eddie’s low whisper responded, “They bought my idea. We’re in place.”
Juan could see the drone flying in only because he was looking for it. Instead of heading for one of the windows, Gomez brought it in directly behind the train so that it wouldn’t be seen by the Chinese, who were no longer distracted by an ongoing firefight.
The drone flew in the open door and neatly settled on the seat nearest Juan. He opened it and removed the flash drive. The drone whirred to life again and disappeared the way it had come just as the train went into the tunnel.
Juan gathered with his team and got confirmation everything was ready. This would be the most dangerous part of the mission. If they didn’t play their parts exactly right, they wouldn’t live to see another day.
Juan opened the door to the dining car and peered in over the sight on his P90 submachine gun.
The MSS agents were gone. Only the dead bodies of the triad soldiers remained, some on the floor, others draped over the seats.
Juan crept in a few feet, scanning for agents who might be concealing themselves farther down the car. As he crabbed forward, he balanced himself by placing a hand on each seat cushion as he passed.
When he reached the place where he’d been sitting with Jimmy Su, he yelled, “Clear!” That was the signal.
Eddie, who was pretending to be one of the dead Ghost Dragons, leapt up and grabbed Juan around the neck, pressing a machine pistol against his temple. Juan dropped the P90, and Eddie kicked it backward.
Eddie shouted something in Chinese, and three MSS agents jumped up from their hiding places. Zhong was in front, and all three had assault rifles pointed at him and Eddie.
“Where’s the flash drive?” Zhong demanded in English.
“If you kill me, you’ll never find it,” Juan said.
“It’s obviously still in the dining car somewhere,” Eddie said, “or he wouldn’t have come back in here.”
“Can you be sure about that? How do you know I didn’t toss it out the window somewhere along the way?” Juan made it sound like a bluff.
“What if we don’t kill you?” Eddie said. “What if we just hurt you?”
Then, with lightning speed, he jerked the gun down and shot Juan in the foot.
• • •
ZHONG WAS ASTONISHED when David Yao shot the American in the foot, primarily because he thought the machine pistol wasn’t loaded.
Blood erupted from the American’s foot and he went down howling in agony. Yao pulled him back up and pointed the gun at his head.
“Tell us!” he shouted.
“All right, I’ll tell you,” the American gasped. “But how do I know you won’t kill me?”
&
nbsp; “I’ll kill you if you don’t tell us,” Zhong said. “You can be sure of that.”
“Then my men will kill you.”
“They can try.”
A strange look came over Yao’s face, and he began dragging the American backward toward the rear of the train.
“Come with me if you want to live,” Yao said.
Zhong moved forward. “Yao, what are you doing?”
“I think you’re going to kill both of us when you get the flash drive. I’ll make him give it to you, but then I’m going to take my chances with asylum in the United States.”
Zhong laughed. “You think they’ll give you asylum after what you’ve done?”
“If I save an American agent, they might.” He withdrew into the space connecting the dining car with the one behind it and stopped. He pressed the gun harder into the American’s temple. “Now tell them where the flash drive is or we all die together.”
The American gritted his teeth, but his eyes flicked over to one of the seats near where Zhong and his men had found a Lenovo laptop during the search of the dining car.
Zhong smiled. With his assault rifle still pointing at the two of them, he edged forward and knelt beside the seat. He pushed his hand deep into the seat cushion and ran his fingers along the back until they brushed against hard plastic. He removed it and saw that it was the flash drive. The serial number on it matched the one that had been stolen.
He grinned and was about to give the order to fire when the American surged backward, pushing Yao with him. With Yao’s balance thrown off, the machine pistol fired into the air, and they both tumbled to the floor in the next car.
Then the section between the cars exploded.
The coupling must have been the target because the brakes squealed on the car behind them and it began to fall back. That was the Americans’ exit strategy all along, and it was the reason they had the explosives to sever the link to the cars carrying Zhong’s other agents. The car with the Americans would come to a stop near the beginning of the bridge they were now crossing.
Gunfire came from Americans in the receding train car, but Zhong didn’t care about a fight with them anymore. They could do what they wanted with Yao. It didn’t matter now that he had the flash drive.
He plugged it into the adapter on his phone and initiated the memory wipe just in case the Americans had more surprises in store up ahead and tried to recapture the flash drive. In thirty seconds, the app responded that the flash drive had been completely overwritten seventy-five times. Now no computer on earth could recover the data it had carried.
Zhong smiled and pocketed the flash drive to show to his superiors. He also had Jimmy Su still alive to interrogate and find out how the Ghost Dragons had stolen the drive in the first place.
He notified the pilots to have the helicopters meet them at the rendezvous point. But he’d teach a lesson to the agents who’d let themselves be cut off from the rest of the train. They could hike out of the jungle and hitch a ride home.
• • •
AS HE WATCHED the train disappear, Juan said, “Is everyone all right?”
He got four affirmatives.
Eric knelt down by the blood-soaked bullet wound in Juan’s foot. “That’s cool. It looks so real.”
“When I told Kevin Nixon what we were planning, he didn’t think it was so cool knowing he’d have to patch up my prosthetic foot yet again.” To complete the illusion, the blood was his own, drawn by the Oregon’s doctor, Julia Huxley, the day before and sealed in a packet inside his boot.
He leapt to his feet, none the worse for the experience, and clapped Eddie on the shoulder. “That was some nice acting back there. You almost had me convinced you were a Ghost Dragon.”
“I’m just glad I was able to get my hands on one of the spare magazines.”
“I did like the expression on Zhong’s face when he realized the gun he gave you was no longer empty.”
“You should have seen the look on Jimmy Su’s face when he saw David Yao alive and kicking, literally,” Eddie said. “He must have thought his own men betrayed him and didn’t kill Yao as ordered.”
“Well, you can go back to being yourself, and Yao’s remains will be ‘discovered’ in about a week when the Navy gets rid of the body. If anything, Zhong will think the triad got back at him for his betrayal.”
“You know, I think you should keep some of those tattoos,” MacD said, pointing at Eddie’s neck. “The dragon looks pretty awesome.”
“No, thanks. I’m washing them off as soon as we get back to the Oregon.”
“Speaking of which,” Linc said, “we should get going. I don’t want to be here when the Vietnamese find out what we’ve done to their train system.”
“Good point,” Juan said. He called Hali. “Is the RHIB still where we left it?” They had pre-positioned the rigid-hulled inflatable boat before the mission started, prepped for a quick getaway should one have been required.
After a moment, Hali replied, “Thanks to Gomez’s drone, we’ve got eyes on it. It’s still hidden in the bushes by the river’s edge.”
“Then tell Max to lay in a course to Guam.”
“He says we’re ready to go when you are.”
“Thanks.” Juan hung up and said, “Let’s get moving. I’m starving.”
They got out of the train car, which had traveled twenty yards onto the trestle. He saw Eddie peering over the side at the water far below.
Juan stopped next to him and smiled. “Aren’t you glad we didn’t have to go to Plan D?”
Eddie nodded and grinned back at him. “I think a nice hike down the slope is going to be much more relaxing than jumping from a moving train.”
13
THAILAND
“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.