Provenance

“Question you concerning a certain artifact that vanished during a very recent attack on a luxury cruise liner off the Netherlands Antilles,” he said. “Despite the play the incident received in the global media, certain details have been altogether glossed over. As you’re no doubt well aware, Ms. Creed.”

“Oh,” she said, almost under her breath.

“I am, as I believe I have indicated, well-connected. My society possesses resources far in excess of my own. We were able to ascertain that you were aboard the vessel, despite the fact your name appeared nowhere on the passenger lists. Indeed, the cruise line had no record of you in their computers at all.”

She had blessed Garin for his efforts in making them disappear from all the attention, both official and media, focused on the hijacked ship. Now the law of unintended consequences had apparently swung around to whack her in the back of the head.

“That disparity, combined with your mild international notoriety in connection with a rather sensationalist television series which concerns itself with arcane matters, led us to suspect you might be involved in the disappearance of our holy relic.”

“I might be offended at that characterization of me,” Annja said, “except nobody’s ever referred to me as notorious before. I kind of like it but, did you say holy relic?”

He nodded. “What disappeared from the Ocean Venture—was stolen, to be quite candid—was an artifact of great antiquity. It has been in the possession of my society for centuries. It is a casket, containing the bones of a certain very holy man. Legend says they possess miraculous abilities.”

He made a dismissive gesture with a well-scrubbed pink hand. “But that, of course, is legend. Whatever the case, it does hold a great religious significance. For us,” he hastened to add.

Pieces fell into place in Annja’s head so hard she could almost hear them click. “So the hijacking was just a cover all along,” she said. “I thought there was something wrong with the whole setup. I mean, aside from the screamingly obvious.”

“Indeed. As closely as we can piece the story together, the people who attacked the ship legitimately, if I might use the word in such a context, intended robbery and extortion. It appears unlikely they realized they were being employed as a noisy and, in the event, highly lethal diversion. The men who stole our relic appear to have been most helpful in alerting the would-be pirates to the prospect of hijacking the Ocean Venture, as well as in planning the operation.”

He tipped his splendid head to one side. “They might have been wise to question their benefactors’ motives a little more closely. Then again, pirates are not historically noted for their wisdom.”

“So you thought I was one of these benefactors, who helped set up the raid—the real raid?”

“Not I, personally. Certain more volatile members of our confraternity, however, did jump to such an ill-advised conclusion.”

She sighed. “And I thought getting flamed in the network chat rooms by Kristie Chatham fans was the biggest downside of my gig for Chasing History’s Monsters. So I take it you’ve decided I wasn’t involved?”

“Yes. I speak for all our brothers in this. Leaving aside certain persistent rumors flying among the passengers and crew—which I will say, I now find less incredible than I might, in light of your actions last night—no one with the ability or the connections to disappear off that vessel like a will-o’-the-wisp could possibly be involved in the attack or the theft. A party with access to such resources would have no need of employing such crude means to rob us, frankly. Or having chosen to set in motion such a scheme, taken the ridiculous risk of actually being on board when the operation occurred.”

“That makes sense,” Annja said. “In hopes of stemming speculation, I’ll just say that I’m fortunate in my friends. And that’s all I’ll say.”

She hoisted her cup to her lips with both hands, sipped, then frowned down at the dark liquid as if she saw tadpoles swimming in it. Unaccustomedly she was drinking it black today. It fit her mood.

She returned the cup to the tabletop with exaggerated care. “So what do you want of me now, Mr. Millstone?”

“First, to express how truly sorry I and all my brothers are that these things were done to you. That you were put in the horrible position in which you found yourself. We are willing to pay substantial sums by way of reparation.”

She held up a hand. “I wouldn’t feel right.”

He nodded briskly. “I suspected as much. Very well. You are an archaeologist of some repute and achievement despite your tender years. You also have investigative talent, as manifest in your work for Chasing History’s Monsters. And, clearly, you have certain highly advantageous connections. We should like to hire you to recover our stolen artifact, Annja Creed.”

“No,” she said without hesitation.

He smiled. The expression was almost bittersweet. He actually seemed like a nice man. She knew well just how little that could mean.

“If you would be so kind as to give the matter some thought—”

“My home was invaded, Mr. Millstone. Men died. All as a result of this little mix-up of yours. I killed them. I won’t pretend or evade. Nor for that matter do I feel the trauma we’re all assured will overwhelm our lives and swamp our fragile psyches should we ever take the life of another human being. I may be horribly hard-hearted or maladjusted, but what I honestly feel about that is, if somebody attacks me, what they get is what they have coming.”

“My brethren and I,” he said, “would be the last to disparage such a sentiment.”

“But I don’t take it lightly.” I never do, she thought but did not say. “Your little elves were very efficient about scrubbing out the bloodstains on my hardwood floor. No doubt you’ve got proprietary technology for that, too. The moral stains do not wash out so easily.”

“The men who died considered themselves sacrifices for a holy cause,” Millstone said.

“I don’t believe in human sacrifice.”

“I see. So that is your final answer.”

“It is.”

He rose. “I regret your choice. I have to say, however, that I greatly respect it. I hope you will reconsider. I wish you good day, Ms. Creed.”

7

Annja couldn’t let it go. That simply wasn’t in her nature.

She went straight home—or straight after taking a few fairly routine detours to ensure Mr. Millstone, or his any of his more hotheaded “brothers” less convinced of Annja’s innocence than he, weren’t tailing her. She fired up her computer and jumped online.

Blast him, the painfully well-groomed and unctuous Cedric Millstone, with his white wavy hair, had snagged her interest like a rose thorn in white silk stockings. But it was straight down her line—an ancient artifact with strong mythical associations, stolen by men ruthless enough to stage the hijacking of a ship full of three thousand innocents. A bloodbath waiting to happen—just to cover their real crime. That was heavyweight, she thought.

Anyway, she told herself, I feel as if I’m already caught up in this. She was rationalizing again, she knew—up to a point. When men bust in through your skylight at midnight, it’s fair to say you’re caught up.

She went first to Google Earth, a delightful resource. She knew its publicly available satellite imaging frequently captured pictures not just of boats but even aircraft in flight. Rumors persisted online and in the coffee shops that some showed less conventional objects moving over the earth, and were quickly suppressed by secret government order. Ridiculous conspiracy theory, so far as Annja was concerned. Her passionate attachment to civil liberties wouldn’t let her echo certain fellow skeptics, who demanded such rumor-mongering be outlawed. But she understood where they were coming from.

Having come up with the longitude and latitude of where the hijacking had taken place, she quickly found an image time-stamped not two hours earlier of the Ocean Venture, still anchored in place while authorities from at least three nations swarmed over it looking for evidence and endlessly interviewing witnesses. She felt a stab of sympathy for the passengers and crew. Still, there were worse places to be trapped for several days. The liner was stocked with not just necessities but luxuries for a week or more out of contact with land.

The images showed nothing of the hijacking itself. She quickly found an online forum, however, that had sprung up in response to the attack. Through it she was able to locate several archived pictures from different satellite services showing the attack itself. Three big powerboats were moored to the liner’s square stern. From them the attackers had apparently fired grapnels over the taffrail and climbed aboard undetected.

The pictures had been snapped at fifteen-minute intervals. Apparently that part of the Caribbean was much photographed. In the third image in the sequence a fourth ship was visible floating alongside the others. It was a bigger vessel, eighty feet long or so, and looked like a power yacht.

By the fourth image it was gone.

Annja sat back and smoothed her hair from her face. Her sound system played Evanescence, just too low to make out Amy Lee’s haunting vocals. She considered the situation. After a few moments she got up and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of cold water from a bottle in the fridge. Then she returned and sent copies of the pictures of the interloping vessel to several friends, with a carefully worded request.

Two hours later she was roused from reading a geology textbook by the chime announcing she’d received e-mail.

The return address belonged to a Romanian acquaintance of hers in Berlin, although the domain was not a German one. When she saw that she made sure her antivirus library was up-to-date. Just on general principles.

The e-mail had several attachments. Annja ran an antivirus scan on them. When they checked out clean she clicked on the most intriguing, by reason of its extension.

It was a music file, cryptically named “001.mp3.” When her media player came up it started playing a song she recognized as being not that much younger than she was. It was an old Van Halen hit.

The song was “Panama.”

Frowning, she looked at the other attachments. Then she put the notebook computer aside and sat back to digest what she had learned. By habit she clicked her television on to a news channel.

It showed an oblique helicopter shot of a white-and-blue aircraft broken and burning with billowing orange flames in a marshy-looking area. “Near Kearny, New Jersey,” the newsreader was intoning, “where it crashed on takeoff from Newark Liberty International Airport late this afternoon after both engines failed simultaneously. The airplane, a private Gulfstream V jet, was registered to millionaire financier Cedric Millstone of Boston, Massachusetts. The Federal Aviation Administration has just confirmed that Millstone himself was on board the aircraft, as well as an assistant and three flight crew. There were no survivors….”