The Good Thief

12:58. She watched the traffic streaming past the museum, the tourists strolling in and out, and finished off her water. Some of Lindsey’s own handiwork could be seen in the museum, which gave her a thrill. Between her junior and senior years at the Athena Academy, she had volunteered as a gofer and assistant for an art restorer in Pompeii, and two pieces Lindsey had researched and assisted in restoring were displayed right across the street. How cool was that!

Athena Academy. Memories rushed her. The Dianas. The painful shame of losing the senior triathlon. The Dianas had, of course, eventually forgiven her for that awful blunder. She’d even been reinstated as “head daredevil.” But her ten-year reunion was this year, and part of her dreaded going, knowing she’d take terrible teasing. Oh, Lindsey, I’ll never forget how you looked with all that glow-in-the-dark paint splattered over your head. Ha-ha-ha.

She shook her head. Was it ever possible to fully escape shames of the past?

Time? 1:02.

A motorcycle zipped into a spot two doors down from the restaurant. A man she judged to be a couple of years older than she, shut it off and dismounted. He looked toward the restaurant, and Lindsey figured he had to be Marko Savin. She’d not only picked this time and place, she’d told her dad that she wanted Savin to rent a motorcycle, not a car. “I drive a car,” she had explained to K-bar. “Tito is always on a bike.”

Good-looking, she thought as Savin strode toward her. Confident. Maybe even cocky. That could also mean excessive risk-taker, but she would keep an open mind.

He walked straight to her, pulled out the chair opposite, and sat.

“You’re late,” she said before she could stop herself. Now why had that popped out? She hadn’t meant to launch their day with criticism.

“No, I’m not,” he countered, grinning.

Maybe she’d been thrown off stride by his looks. She took in the short-cropped dark brown hair, deep blue eyes, ever-so-male five o’clock shadow and an intriguing scar under his left eye that she immediately wanted to touch, if not kiss.

I’ve been without sex way too long.

She stuck out her wrist, displaying her black watch’s neon-blue time display, at the same moment he stuck out his wrist, displaying his silver watch’s black numerals. They both checked the time, and laughed. His watch said 1:00, hers, 1:02.

“It’s nice we’re both right,” she said, happy for a chance to get back on a positive track.

The waiter arrived. “I’m not ordering,” Marko Savin said. He had one of the most beautiful baritone voices she’d ever heard. His English had a mild Italian accent. K-bar had explained that Savin was born and raised in Venice but had traveled widely.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” she hurried on as the waiter sauntered away. “I appreciate your stepping in at the last moment.”

“When your father calls, I come. I owe him a great deal.”

“He said he found you serving in Kosovo, in the French Foreign Legion.”

He nodded. “The Legion taught me a lot, but it’s a rough crew. Working for your father’s security business is more to my taste. And it let me return to Italy.”

“What we’re doing today should be an easy job. I don’t know if Dad told you what I do as a side venture, when I’m not selling for and promoting NSI business.”

Marko Savin angled the free chair at their table and propped one booted foot on it. He wore a black leather jacket with black jeans. “He says you buy back stolen goods for their rightful owners.”

“Correct. Today I’m purchasing a painting for a million and a half American dollars.” While thinking again how wonderfully deep blue his eyes were, she nodded to the bulky white cotton satchel at her feet. It held a four-foot-long tube which, in turn, held a quality reproduction of the painting. “I’ll trade the tube in this satchel for the tube that has the original. There’s a minor difference in their labels that only I would notice.” On at least four occasions this little bit of confused identification between the original and the copy had worked to good effect for her. A way for her “steal” the painting back if the deal went bad. It might not be needed, but again, better to be prepared for all eventualities than sorry for assuming all would go well.

She explained the history of the Nazi theft of the painting.

Savin frowned. “I don’t get it. You’re paying off a thief, an ex-Nazi, for a painting he stole. Owners shouldn’t have to buy back their own stuff.”

“The owners just want their painting back.”

“Seems to me that’s a job for the authorities. They catch the bad guys, retrieve the art, return it, and punish the crooks.”

“I’m hired when owners discover that the authorities aren’t going to be able to retrieve something the owners very much want returned.”

“Isn’t that sort of interfering with a criminal investigation—for money?”

His questions were starting to annoy her. “When the authorities can’t deliver, people hire me. They’re willing to pay a substantial retrieval fee. The fee is, of course, gratifying, but the real satisfaction—the reason I take the risks—is because I get to see the joy on my client’s faces when I return what they loved and thought they had lost forever. I can assure you that I only work for legitimate owners or their representatives.”

“You said the guy is a Nazi! Pretty much scum.”

She glared at him. “The seller isn’t a Nazi. His grandfather was. But, yeah, I’d deal with a Nazi. I deal with whoever has what owners want returned. And that’s why you’re here. Sometimes things can go sour. So, you in or no?”

Savin stared right back, then shrugged. “Sure.”

“Okay. Here’s the action,” she continued. “You and I go to the meet, you on the bike, me in my rental car. We arrive a minute apart—you first—and we make no connection. They aren’t to know I have muscle behind me. I’ve made my reputation—I am the best and intend to stay that way—by never coming armed and making certain that buyers and sellers get what they expect. I presume you’re carrying.”

He patted his chest where under the leather jacket she assumed he had a gun. She’d already figured out from the bulge on the calf of the leg propped on the chair that he carried a knife.

“That’s fine,” she continued. “But there’s to be no use of weapons unless it looks like someone is going to kill me. Okay?”

“Got it.”

“What I do, and my reputation, depends on being clever, not violent, but I will get the painting back, and I will not get killed doing it.”

He smiled. It made his blue eyes twinkle.

From the white satchel she pulled out a map of the Capodimonte Park grounds. She explained where he would park and where Gottschalk was supposed to meet her—on an access road about a hundred and fifty yards away.

“If I need help, I’ll jab my fist into the air. Or,” she slid a small black box to Savin across the table and as he reached for it, his finger brushed the back of her hand. She felt a quick spurt of warmth to her face, her body’s response to a profound sense of pleasure at his touch.

Stunned, she drew in a slow breath, then, “If I press this,” she touched the center of a silver moon pendant, “the green light on your box will go red.” The slim moon disk contained a built-in transponder, activated by a three-second touch.

“Don’t come in unless I signal, okay? Any questions?”

He shook his head, then said, “I like your earrings. They’re exactly the color of your eyes.”

For a moment she couldn’t find words, surprised at the sudden shift of topic and tone. Her earrings, a gift from K-bar and her mom when she graduated from the Academy, were half-inch, oval studs set in silver. “They’re gray star sapphires. From India.”

“Very beautiful.”

She felt herself warming, knew that her face was reddening. How embarrassing.

She checked her watch. “It’s time to go.” She lay ample euros on the table, grabbed the satchel and, keeping her eyes off of Marko Savin, headed for the street.

Chapter 2

Lindsey drove the rented red Fiat uphill from the center of Naples through heavy traffic. The city spread across hills that allowed those spectacular vistas of Vesuvius rising in all its imposing splendor, an ancient sentinel watching over the bay, its peak shrouded in clouds. Everything was going well, even on schedule.

She kept Marko Savin in sight all the way to Capodimonte Park. With Tito, she stayed focused on the deal, but thoughts of the surprising rush of pleasure she’d felt at Marko Savin’s touch kept intruding.

K-bar had said Savin wasn’t married. She couldn’t resist wondering what his “type” might be. She had always wanted to share her passions and joys and hardships with a special companion. So far, however, the only man she’d ever had a serious relationship with wanted her to quit taking the risks involved in her art buybacks. And he hadn’t even known about the sometimes extremely dangerous courier jobs she did, in secret, for the U.S. government as an Oracle agent.

She knew other Athena women who had sacrificed their lives of high risk for family, but that would never be Lindsey. Retrieving art, sometimes masterpieces, stolen and precious to their owners, gave her life meaning. Most of her assignments as a courier were important, some critical to U.S. security, and that also gave her life substance. This was who she was.

Saying no to the possibility of love and a family of her own had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Sometimes, alone at night, she would get the blues and think she’d made a mistake, but, she’d inherited her mother’s cheerfulness, and in the morning she’d look forward to the day’s action.

No one in this life gets everything.

She pulled over and waited, carefully watching for one minute. Maybe she could risk some fun and adventure with this man. No ties. She would very much like that—if he showed any interest. He had seemed to. Why else comment on her earrings and her eyes with a look that said he couldn’t stop mentally undressing her?

When the sixty seconds had passed, she drove through the entry and through extensive grounds with spacious lawns, now brown with winter, passing groves of leafless trees and a number of old buildings, including the palace that was now a museum, all of them tied together by looping access roads.

Heinie Gottschalk was waiting at the prearranged spot, seated in the back of a black Alfa Romeo sedan, parked as directed and accompanied only by his driver. She’d agreed that Heinie could bring one man with him and had said, “Sure, he can be armed.” Her main line of defense against treachery by Heinie, or any seller, didn’t rest on strong-arm measures. She could be counted on by both sides to be an honest broker, no violence, no treachery and total discretion.

She parked the Fiat in front of the Alfa Romeo and turned off the motor. A hundred and fifty yards away, Marko sat on his bike, apparently studying a map or newspaper.

Carrying the white satchel with its slightly protruding tube, she strode to the Alfa. The driver stepped out and opened the rear door behind the driver’s seat. Lindsey slid inside, sharing the seat with Heinie. He was perhaps twenty-five with neat shoulder-length blond hair and a flashy pinstripe suit. The diamond stud in his ear had to be at least a carat and a half.

Heinie spoke English, in which he was fluent. “So, we’re ready to trade?”

“Let me see the painting,” she countered. As he reached for it, she slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and palmed the tiny GPS transponder, the size of a dime. She had to slip it into the tube with the genuine painting and quickly because in the end, he might refuse to leave her alone with Cleopatra.

He handed her the tube she had supplied to him. “I need to have a few moments in private to inspect it,” she said.

“Why the fuck would you need to inspect it? You think I try to cheat you? I know your reputation and I deal in good faith.”

“Others have tried to cheat. Before we part, you will be able to verify that the wire transfer has been made. Right now I verify the painting’s authenticity. It’s all part of keeping everyone honest.”

“What’s in your tube there?”

“The tube has an accurate copy of the painting, in case I need to check any details. You may search it if you’d like.”

Heinie didn’t move, as rigid as if he were made of stone.

“If I can’t inspect the painting in private, Heinie, I won’t wire the money. You need to let me do my job. You and your man should stand at the front of the car.”

Finally he opened his door and hauled himself out. He signaled and the two of them moved to the front of the car, looking across the grounds. Looking toward Marko, actually.

Lindsey had studied art and art forgery. She knew all the techniques used to establish whether a statue, painting, lithograph, or other work, was the genuine article: pigment analysis, infrared analysis, or X-ray fluorescence to determine the age of the canvas or if metals in a sculpture were too pure. Sometimes these methods could pick up the artist’s fingerprints left in the paint. “Craquelure” was the study of the distinctive network of fine cracks on very old pieces that were virtually impossible to replicate. She could even identify unique brushwork and perspectives to see if these were consistent with known genuine pieces. The problem with this was that forgers made the same analysis, and great forgers were able to re-create them. Even experts could be fooled. But none of these fancy techniques were needed for the Artemisia.

She opened the tube he’d given her, tilted it, and the painting slid into her hands. As she set the base of the tube on the floor, she dropped the GPS into it and heard it hit with a quiet thunk on the bottom.

She unrolled the painting just enough to expose the back side, lower right corner. From her pocket she took a small lighter, and held it close to the painting. Her client had informed her that only the family knew the painting had been signed on the back using urine with the three words, Owned by Genovesa.

Invisible writing had a long history. Milk, vinegar, fruit juices and urine, all had been used and all darkened when heated. The words soon appeared.

“Hello, honey,” she said, longing to pull it out and gaze. She put away the lighter, returned the painting to its tube and knocked on her window.

Heinie returned to her. “Satisfied?” he asked in a sulky tone.

Gee, might he have been raised as a spoiled brat? She ignored him and pulled out her BlackBerry. He watched her intently as she keyed in the information that would transfer one and a half million American dollars to a bank in the Cayman Islands. She waited. Finally she read aloud, “Transfer complete.”

It was his turn to verify. He started to punch keys in his own communicator but the driver, looking behind them, yelled, and as he fumbled to pull his gun, a hulking figure in black rushed him. The door beside her flew open and a big hand yanked her out of the car. Another grabbed Heinie. She stared into the black barrel of a Beretta semiautomatic pistol. The hulk in black slugged Heinie’s driver. He dropped to the ground. In the distance a motorcycle roared to life.

“Du verdammten schwein,” a gray-haired old man screeched at Heinie.

A dark-gray Daimler now blocked the Alfa Romeo. There were four of them, including the old man. She figured the old guy had to be Heinie’s granddad.

Hellfire and damnation!

Two of the old Nazi’s goons grabbed both tubes and her satchel. Another clubbed Heinie with the butt of his own gun. Heinie’s yowl was earsplitting and he fell to his knees.

Clearly the old man intended to steal the painting back from his grandson. She pointed to the tube holding the original and shouted, “Sie konnen nicht mit dem Bild—”

She was going to tell them that she had placed an incendiary in the container, and she would incinerate the picture rather than let them take it again. Not true, of course, but she’d used the ploy before to get the upper hand. The key, after she calmed everyone down, was to offer more money.

Instead, Marko Savin, racing in a loud roar across the lawn, distracted everyone. Heinie’s driver, having regained his senses, pulled his gun and blew a hole right between the eyes of one of the old Nazi’s men.

Chaos! The old man and his remaining two guards sprinted to their car, each clutching a tube, as Heinie staggered to his feet. Lindsey ran after them, but had to duck behind the Alfa Romeo when both goons turned and started firing.

Marko brought the motorcycle to a sliding stop on its side with the motor still roaring. Ducking bullets, he dived behind her Fiat. The old Nazi and his goons made a U-turn, running up onto the lawn on the other side of the access road, and burned rubber as they headed toward the park’s exit. Both tubes were gone. Artemisia’s Cleopatra. Gone.

Chapter 3

Lindsey stood dumbstruck for a second and then turned to Marko, furious. “I didn’t give you the signal.”

“I consider drawn guns a signal.”

“They wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“How the hell can you know that?”

“Later! We have to catch them. Take the bike.”

He had the good sense not to argue. She leaped on behind him and hugged his waist. They reached the exit. No sign of the gray Daimler. They could go right, left, or straight ahead, heavy traffic in all three directions.

“What now?” he called back to her over the motorcycle’s noise.

She pulled out the BlackBerry, pushed three buttons, and picked up the signal from the GPS. “Left,” she said. “And hit it. Go through stops when you can.”

Her pulse raced as he wove in and out around cars, bicycles, pedestrians and buses. They started south on the Corso Amadeo Di Savola, but soon the GPS signal indicated that the Daimler turned west. She pointed right, toward the next cross street.

“I see them,” he called out. “Two blocks ahead.”

For agonizing minutes, they made headway, then traffic would interfere and they’d drop behind only to gain again. After fifteen minutes they reached the section of Naples called Vomero, an elevated area filled with views in all directions where they kept up the crazy cat and mouse in a heavily commercial area with all sorts of offices and pedestrians.

They sat waiting at a red light, the Daimler only a block ahead. “Hang on,” Marko called to her.

He gunned the bike and they blasted straight through the cross traffic, barely avoiding a truck.

The light turned green for the Daimler; it moved ahead. Marko skimmed the outside of their lane and then swung into oncoming traffic to go around two trucks blocking their way. She looked forward over his shoulder, right into the grill of an oncoming van whose driver was frantically honking his horn. She sucked in her breath as they zipped back into their own lane. She could hear the van’s driver cursing.

They were within a limousine’s length of the Daimler. “I’m going to stop their car,” Marko yelled, and she sensed he’d drawn his gun.

“It’s too dangerous for pedes—”

She heard the shot. The Daimler’s left rear tire blew, and the car jerked left and then back to the right. Normal traffic parted to flow around it. The driver pulled the Daimler to the curb and everyone bailed out, including the old man.

The three thieves ran into the cross street. Marko stopped the bike. Lindsey jumped off. Together they dogged the three men who suddenly veered left. The men ran past the ticket booth to the Via Toledo Funicular, and shoved their way into a car. Lindsey watched in horror as the door closed behind the three men, and the funicular began to descend. Another cable car would not arrive and then begin the steep descent, she knew, for at least ten minutes. All three men grinned back at her. One held up one of the tubes.

We’re going to lose them! I’m going to lose the Artemisia!

Her stomach twisted.

“Shit!” Marko said.

Lindsey scanned their surroundings, fighting disappointment, and saw that a long flight of stairs descended alongside the funicular. She pointed.

“The bike,” Marco exclaimed.

They ran back to the bike, and Marko drove them to the head of the sidewalk. “Hold on tight,” he said, stating the obvious.

They bumped their way down the stairs, which thankfully had few people coming up. Almost all the foot traffic was heading down and Marko stayed well to the left, yelling in Italian for them to clear out of the way.

She ignored the shocked stares of the people they passed. She accidentally bit her tongue, tasted salty blood. Too soon they had to detour to a side street, then an alley, but they didn’t lose sight of the funicular. Finally they caught up and as they passed the cable car, she took perverse pleasure in the amazed looks on the faces of the three men. She prepared herself for one hell of a fight.

“No gun,” she said to Marko, thinking of the hordes of people who would be waiting at the bottom to board.

Marko nodded.

When the three thugs entered the street, Lindsey and Marko sprang after them. The old man didn’t even try to run. She singled out the smaller thug, and Marko headed for the larger one. They were, apparently, woefully out of shape. Her man turned and charged her. She landed a forward kick to his diaphragm and he went down with the follow-up chop to the back of his neck. She kicked him over onto his side and, as he gasped for air, she grabbed the tube he carried, and took his gun.

Marko dispatched the man with the other tube, apparently with the same ease. He mounted the bike. Panting, laughing and flushed with a sense of triumph, Lindsey hopped on behind, clutched both tubes fiercely, and they took off. Hot damn, she’d done it again.

“Ooo-rah!” she whooped as they passed a row of plump elderly women in black dresses waiting in line at the funicular.

Given all the havoc they had left in their path, perhaps including a dead body in the park, witnesses might be describing a woman in black leather and red hair and a man also in black and looking like a criminal. The authorities might very well be watching all transport stations, so they ruled out getting onto a plane dressed as they were. She had used a fake ID and paid cash for the Fiat so she left it to the police to return it. She and Marko picked out a small, no-name store that sold men’s and women’s Levi’s jeans and sweatshirts. At another store they bought new clothes and duffel bags for their leather ones. She bought a cheap black wig and black eyebrow pencil and he bought reading glasses. At 4:30 p.m. they caught a flight back to Florence.

On the plane, with her treasure secure in the bin overhead, Lindsey ordered that Chianti she’d missed with her pizza, and Marko joined her. She explained what she had intended to do in case of trouble—threaten to incinerate the painting if the old Nazi and his gang thought they could take it from her, and offer them more money instead. “It’s worked for me before.”

“Tell you what. I apologize. I acted from the gut when I saw the gun.”

“Well, I admit that you saved my client any extra money.” She smiled. She liked a man who felt strong enough in his masculinity to actually apologize. She sipped the wine, thinking that Marko was earning points rapidly. He’d shown himself to be bold. Smart. Courageous. And a damn good fighter.

“Your dad told me you were tough,” he said and then laughed, that beautiful baritone. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that karate kick.”

She shrugged with a smile. Like K-bar, he was impressed with her daring.

“I’d like to see you again, Lindsey. Would you like to go skydiving tomorrow? I have a buddy, a hotdog instructor.”

Her hand froze in midair. She slowly lowered the wineglass. She’d never been skydiving. The idea was…pretty intimidating. She felt her chest tightening, a sure sign her body didn’t really like the idea. Why had he picked skydiving, for heaven’s sake?

“According to K-bar you’re a real risk-taker,” Marko added. “Ever been skydiving?”