The Pretender's Gambit

The sword was crude and beautiful at the same time. Over three feet in length, with an unadorned cross-guard, the handle wrapped in leather, the sword was a weapon, not a showpiece. It had been forged for battle, and Annja was intimate with its abilities. She joined her two hands together as she stepped forward and swung.

Catching the morning light, the blade sang through the air in a horizontal arc that sheared through the machine pistol a bare inch above the man’s hands. Gaping in disbelief, the man stared at the useless weapon he held as the pieces tumbled to the sidewalk.

Before the man could react, Annja set herself and lashed out with a roundhouse kick that lifted the gunman from his feet and bounced him off the side of a nearby parked car. The vehicle’s anti-theft alarm screamed and echoed along the street.

Annja released the sword, letting it go back into the otherwhere and disappear. The other man pushed himself up, but his injured wrist gave out on him and he crashed back down to his chest. Annja stomped on his hand as he reached for the dropped pistol, then picked up the weapon herself.

Backing away, Annja pointed the pistol at the second man. “Roll over onto your stomach. Lock your fingers behind your head. I’m sure you’re familiar with the drill.”

Without a word, the man did as he was ordered. The first man lay unconscious. Three uniformed police officers sprinted up the street toward Annja.

Out on the street, the driver of the approaching car slowed, then saw that the odds had shifted. Ducking down, the man pulled toward an alley and drove away.

The police officers pointed their weapons at Annja. One of them addressed her in a too-loud but calm voice. “Ma’am, put down the weapon.”

Annja complied, then laid on her stomach the same way the man she’d captured was. Handcuffs closed around her wrists and she kept telling herself that Bart would get her cut loose as soon as he was able.

Being handcuffed didn’t bother her so much, though. It was the thought of the elephant, lost out there, people chasing after it for some unknown reason, and she was getting behind in that pursuit.

Chapter 7

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Shaking her head, Annja made an effort to stop rubbing her bruised wrists. Although the pain had subsided, they still throbbed from the constriction they’d suffered while she’d been brought down to the police station. The policeman who had put the handcuffs on had put them on tight and time had passed before Bart could get free of the paramedics and the investigators and arrive to release her. “I’m fine.”

Bart squinted up at her as if taking her measure. “You don’t look so good.”

“Me?” She frowned at Bart, who was sitting on the other side of his desk in the detectives’ bull pen. All around the station cops were fielding reports and filling out forms. Evidently Benyovszky’s murder and the shoot-out at the diner hadn’t been the only things going on tonight. The conversations and the constant noise distanced her from the memory of the old man lying dead in his apartment and the violence in the diner that had spilled out into the street. “You’re the one who got shot.”

In the uncertain glare of the fluorescent lighting, Bart looked pale and haggard. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and breathed shallowly. His shirttails were out and his tie hung in a coat pocket. “The vest stopped the bullets.”

“The vest doesn’t stop the impact. That’s still like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.”

Bart grinned at her ruefully. “How would you know something like that?”

Actually, Annja had experienced that same injury on occasion, as well as getting shot. Things hadn’t been dull since the sword had come into her possession. She didn’t know if the increased danger was just her lifestyle or a byproduct of having the sword.

“There was a special on the History Channel about body armor,” she replied. “You should go to the emergency room and get checked out. In addition to the bruising, the hydrostatic shock caused by the impacts could have cracked your ribs or torn muscles.”

“I’ll be fine.” Bart opened a desk drawer, took out a bottle of pain relievers and shook a couple tablets out into his hand. He swallowed them down dry and grimaced, at the taste or the pain, Annja wasn’t sure which. He put the bottle back in the desk drawer. “There’s a line at the hospital. There always is. If this is still hurting in a few hours, I’ll go in.” He took a breath gingerly and winced. “In the meantime, I’ve got a case I’m working on that just blew up big-time, and I still have no idea why people are shooting up the neighborhood over an elephant statue we can’t find.”

Annja decided not to press the issue and risk reminding Bart that she was just a civilian pushing into police business. Friendship would only carry her so far, and she knew Bart wouldn’t bend regulations any further. She massaged her wrists again. “Do you have anything on the two men who were arrested at the diner?”

“I do.” Bart stood with effort and picked up a file folder from the desktop. “Come with me.”

* * *

“HIS NAME’S FRANCISCO CALAPEZ.” Bart peered through the one-way glass into the interview room at the man sitting alone at a desk.

Calapez sat in a straight-backed chair that was bolted to the floor. Other than the two chairs, one across from the other, and the table, the room offered nothing more in furnishings or accoutrements. Hands cuffed to the table in front of him, one of them sleeved in a temporary cast, Calapez looked uncomfortable and half-asleep.

Holding her arms across her chest because it made the bruises on her wrists throb less painfully, Annja peered through the one-way glass. “What’s he saying?”

Bart shook his head. “Nothing. He started yelling lawyer as soon as we sat down to talk to him. We only got a name because his prints rolled up in the system. We’re not even certain that’s his real name yet. We’re still awaiting verification on a true ID. According to the files I’ve seen, and there may be more hits coming in soon because this guy, whoever he turns out to be, has got a record in Europe that’s coming in to us in pieces.”

Annja thought about that. “What kind of history does he have?”

“Guy’s a strong-arm, probably a killer, but no one’s ever pinned that on him.”

“He told me he didn’t kill Benyovszky.”

“How did you have time for a discussion in the middle of everything that was going on?”

“He brought it up. He asked me if I knew who killed Benyovszky. Calapez wants the elephant.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

“If the guy’s going to shoot at you—and he did—” Bart pointed to his chest “—it’s a safe bet he’s going to lie to you, too.”

“I don’t think he killed him.”

Bart sighed, but carefully. “Neither do I. If Calapez had killed Benyovszky and taken the elephant—which this all seems to focus on, he would have disappeared. We took his shoes when we brought him in because we noticed dried blood on them.”

Annja glanced down at Calapez’s sock-covered feet.

“The lab has the shoes now, but there were traces of blood in the tread, and I’m betting that blood at one time pumped through Maurice Benyovszky.”

“No bet.”

“The lab will take a while getting the results back to us, though. So for right now, I can’t put Calapez in Benyovszky’s apartment. Which means all I have him on is a weapons charge and intent to murder at the diner.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“I hope so. Depends on the judge and how much money Calapez can get his hands on. If this guy makes bail, he could be in the wind and we might never see him again.”

“Even after him blasting away inside the diner?”

“Yeah. Until we can prove he killed somebody, we can’t leverage enough to guarantee he’ll be held without bail. If we could prove he was a threat to national security, we could lock him down tight.”

“But Calapez could walk away from this.”

“He could.” Bart grimaced.

On one hand, Annja couldn’t believe Calapez could be released, but on the other she knew that things often happened just as Bart described. When he was feeling particularly irritated at his job, he sometimes stated that the justice system protected criminals more than it protected citizens. Of course, that took a really bad day for him to bring that up.

Annja thought about that for a moment. “Can you connect Calapez or the other man who was arrested to Fernando Sequeira?”

“No.” Bart grimaced. “But I think the three of them would fit well together. Sequeira isn’t a squeaky-clean television and radio mogul in Lisbon. I did a background check on him. When it comes to television and radio programming, Sequeira is something of a golden boy. However, he’s got a bad habit of stealing artifacts from other countries, making illegal acquisitions. According to Interpol, Sequeira has hired people to get things for him off the books. They couldn’t make a case stick against him because he took care of his hired help.” Bart paused for a sip of the coffee he’d brought into the room with him. “But he’s never been indicted for murder.”

“So why do these guys fit together?”

“Sequeira’s name came up in the bidding on Benyovszky’s site. Calapez is in town asking about the elephant. Sequeira likes getting things. Calapez likes getting money for getting things for people, and he’s been suspected of retrieving artifacts for Sequeira before. The math is easy.”

“If Sequeira has a lot of money—”

“He does.”

“—then why didn’t he just outbid Charles Prosch and acquire the elephant without anyone getting hurt?”

“I’ll be asking him that, if the DA’s office ever gets through Sequeira’s lawyers so I can get a face-to-face with him. The man’s put up shields that are keeping our enquiries at bay.”

“He must be hiding something.” Annja knew Bart had to be thinking along the same lines.

“Maybe.” Bart shrugged and winced. “Sequeira’s also the kind of rich that likes to have privacy and can afford it. He’s got a history of avoiding publicity except when he wants to shine the spotlight on himself. Could be he just doesn’t want to deal with us.”

Annja looked at the man in the interview room, watching as Calapez calmly picked at the temporary cast. “I suppose since Calapez isn’t talking, neither is the other guy you have in custody.”

“You’d think they were twins with a limited vocabulary from the way they shut down so quickly to lawyer up.”

“What’s the other guy’s name?”

Bart shook his head. “We don’t know. His prints aren’t on file anywhere. He’s young enough that he may not have been in trouble before now. After tonight, though, we’ll have his prints, so he’ll be in the books for anyone who needs to know.”

“I don’t think either one of these two guys, or any of the other guys working with them, killed Maurice Benyovszky.” Annja pulled at her coat, her mind active and restless.

“Neither do I.” Bart looked unhappy. “Doesn’t make sense for them to kill Benyovszky, grab the elephant, then hang around to shoot me and wreak havoc in a local diner.”

“That means Benyovszky’s killer is still out there, and more than likely has the elephant.”

“I know. We’re going to be working the murder scene, the shooting at the diner, and we caught another squeal about a murder in an apartment building across the street from Benyovszky’s building. One of the neighbors checked in on a guy named Felix Montgomery, found out he was dead. Other neighbors say they saw him in the building as late as eleven o’clock. So the time of death was sometime between eleven last night and this morning. Someone had rammed a blade into Montgomery’s neck at the base of his skull and killed him.” Bart touched the back of his neck to indicate where the blow had been delivered.

“A knife kill like that means training.”

Bart glanced at her in consternation with raised eyebrows.

“Discovery Channel,” Annja replied, realizing she was entirely too knowledgeable and calm about the violence. Bart wasn’t privy to everything she had done since gaining possession of the sword.

“You’re watching way too much television.” Bart swung his focus back to the prisoner. “And one of the things Calapez did before he’s been doing whatever he’s been doing for the past eight years is mercenary work. He signed on with the Portuguese Army when he was eighteen, served in special forces for a few years, then mustered out. So somewhere he would have gotten that kind of training.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Hang on to him as long as we can. Unless an attorney shows up here, I can lose Calapez in the system for seventy-two hours before I have to bring him before the judge. I will have to take him in for medical treatment, but I can finesse that, too. I don’t know if we’re going to be any closer to an answer by then, but we’ll keep working the case. That’s what we do.”

Someone knocked on the door. Bart told them to enter.

A young plainclothes cop stepped into the room. “Unis caught the Asian guy who was at the diner, Detective McGilley. The guy who approached you and her.” He nodded at Annja. “Sergeant Vogt wanted me to let you know.”

“How did the unis find him?”

The guy smiled mirthlessly. “They didn’t catch him. He walked up to them and turned himself in. There’s nothing to arrest him on, but we’re holding him as a material witness.”

“Do we have a name for him?”

The detective checked the folder he was holding. “Nguyen Rao. Says here he’s a professor in Cambodia.”

“That’s the same name he gave us at the diner,” Annja said.

Bart nodded. “Did Mr. Nguyen say what he’s doing in New York?”

“He’s not really talkative. He asked to speak to you both.”

“Where is he?”

“Got him in an interview room.”

Bart headed for the door and Annja followed at his heels. This was twice the man had reached out to them.

* * *

NGUYEN RAO SAT in the interview room and looked serene. His hands rested palms-down on the desk that looked like a twin to the one in Calapez’s room. His eyes were open and staring at the one-way glass, but he appeared to be asleep. Or really, really relaxed. Annja didn’t know how a man could do that after nearly getting shot down just a short time ago. Then again, she was pretty calm herself, but she’d had a lot of experience at that sort of thing.

Bart thumbed through the file that he’d gotten on the man. Annja read the folder’s contents over his shoulder.

There wasn’t much. Nguyen Rao—that did appear to be his real name—was a professor attached to the most prestigious university in Phnom Penh. He was thirty-two years old and also worked as a curator for the national museum.

Annja took out her tablet and tapped in Rao’s name, quickly locating several papers he’d written on Cambodian history ranging from the country’s pre-history through the Khmer Rouge. Many of those papers included a photograph of Nguyen that matched the man in the interview room.

“Is he legit?” Bart peered over Annja’s shoulder as she skimmed through the papers Rao had written.

“He is, if these papers are all truly his work and not part of a cover.”

“You have a suspicious mind.”

“Tonight has created a little paranoia, I suppose.” Annja smiled at him.

Bart smiled back. “Paranoia’s good for you. Sometimes they really are out to get you.” He cut his eyes back to the tablet PC. “So he’s like you? An archaeologist?”

“Not quite. He’s more of a historian.”

Bart returned his attention to the man on the other side of the one-way glass. “If he’s a historian, then what’s he doing here in New York looking for that elephant piece?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“I’m going to.” Bart left Annja standing there and walked to the door down the hall.

Chapter 8

Rao sat quietly at the table. The handcuffs felt cold and tight around his wrists, but the weight and the idea that he was restrained didn’t bother him. He knew he could escape the handcuffs easily enough, but getting out of the building without being recaptured or shot was a different matter.

He hadn’t gotten caught earlier. Once he’d seen that Annja Creed had overcome her captors, he’d allowed the police pursuing him to overtake and arrest him. He wanted to talk to the policeman again, the one who had investigated the old man’s murder. Rao needed to know what had become of the elephant piece Benyovszky had listed on his site.

The door opened and Rao looked up at the arrival. The young detective, Bart McGilley, entered the room with a file in one hand and a cup of coffee in another. His expression was neutral, but Rao easily read the tension in the other man’s movements.

McGilley set his coffee and the file on the table, then sat, as well. As he moved, he carried himself gingerly.

“Are you in pain?” Rao remembered the man had been shot in the diner.

“I’m fine.” McGilley’s answer was flat and final. “You should be worried about you.”

“I have not done anything wrong, therefore I do not see anything I should be concerned about.” Rao was pretty certain that fighting to defend himself was allowed in the United States. The laws here could be exasperating, but he thought he was correct about that. He had not killed anyone, and he had been attacked first. “I only turned myself in because I knew there would be questions as to my involvement in the violence at the diner.”

“We’ll see about that.” McGilley stared him in the eye. “They said you wouldn’t talk to anyone but me.”

“You, or Professor Creed. Is she still here?” Actually, Rao wanted to talk to the woman more. He wanted to know how much she knew, if she could add anything to the amount of knowledge he had about the elephant.

“You’re talking to me.”

“Of course.” Rao made himself be patient. The wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly in any country.

“Tell me about the elephant you’re looking for.”

“It is an object that I would like to have.”

“Why?”

Rao considered that for a moment, thought that his business and that of the temple need not be discussed with the American police and decided to withhold a replay regarding those interests.

“Did you hear the question?” the detective asked.

“I did.”

“Then talk to me.”

“I choose not to. That has nothing to do with the events that occurred at the diner.”

A flicker of anger darted through the detective’s eyes. The corners of his mouth tightened in displeasure. “Things will go easier for you if you cooperate.”

“I am cooperating. I turned myself in. Surely you can see that I am cooperating.” Rao kept his voice calm and easygoing, offering no threat nor confrontation.

“I need to know about the elephant piece.”

“I will not discuss that.”

“A man was killed last night, probably for that elephant. You understand how that is important, something I should know.”

“I did not kill him. I have not been inside Maurice Benyovszky’s building. Your investigation will confirm that. Or, at the least, not be able to put me inside that building.”

“Are you boasting?”

“I am merely stating the truth as I see it.”

“Professor Nguyen—” the detective laced his fingers together on the table “—maybe you don’t understand your circumstances. Potentially you’re in a lot of trouble here.”

“Have I broken any laws?”

“None that I’m aware of, but you’re at the center of a murder, and that makes you a material witness. I can hold you on that alone for a time.”

Rao had not known that. That revelation did make things more complicated.

“Tell me about you and Calapez,” McGilley went on.

“I do not know anyone named Calapez.” Rao guessed that must have been the name of the man inside the diner, the one who had come at him shooting. Rao was not lying. He did not know the man’s name, which was what he had stated, but he had known the man was also after the elephant.

“You seemed to know him earlier.”

“Calapez is the man who was in the diner.” The name of the man was new to Rao. He filed it away. “He had a weapon and seemed intent on using it. I reacted.”

“I saw you when you recognized him. I know you knew him then.” McGilley laced his hands around his coffee and Rao knew the man was drawing warmth from the hot liquid. “He knew you, too.”

“He has said this?” That would be interesting, and it would mean that the man who had sent Calapez to get the elephant knew more than Rao and his superiors had reckoned.

“I’m asking the questions.”

“Of course. I meant no disrespect. I did not know the man’s name until you mentioned it now.”

“How do you know him?”

“Only through a chance encounter earlier. He struck me as a violent man. A killer. I am certain that if you look into his background you will discover this for yourself.”

“Where did you encounter Calapez before this morning?”

Rao considered that quickly and thought that he would not be risking too much by telling the truth. “In Phnom Penh.”

“When?”

“A few days ago.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I do not know.”

The detective frowned in irritation. “Where did the two of you meet?”

“We did not meet.”

“Where were you when you saw Calapez?”

“In the museum where I sometimes work.”

The detective checked the file. “At the national museum?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know what Calapez was doing there?”

“No.”

“Between you and me, I don’t think Calapez is much of a history buff or art lover.”

“I do not get that impression either.”

McGilley paused for a moment as if to let that sink in. “What brings you to New York?”

“I came to see Mr. Benyovszky, as I told you in the diner.”

The pupils of the detective’s eyes dilated, giving away his excitement even though he remained stone-faced. “Did you and Mr. Benyovszky know each other?”

“No. We had exchanged email and a few phone calls.” Rao knew that would check out if the police checked Benyovszky’s phone records. He did not want to get caught in a lie. That would complicate matters regarding the recovery of the elephant.

“You should really tell me about the elephant.”

Rao didn’t reply. He had learned what he could from the policeman. They knew nothing about the elephant. McGilley asked more questions, but Rao remained silent. Finally, in frustration, the detective got up and left the interview room.

* * *

“WHAT ARE YOU going to do with him?” Annja watched Nguyen Rao through the one-way glass.

Bart’s aggravation showed in the hard lines along his jaw and the stiffness of his neck. He tossed the folder onto a nearby table. “I’m going to sit on him, hold him as long as I can. Sooner or later, someone will come looking for him, and when they do, I’ll know more.”

“Maybe I could talk to him. He did offer to speak to me, too.”

Stubbornly, Bart shook his head. “No. That’s what this guy wants, for whatever reason, and I’m not agreeing to any of his demands. I want him to sweat, let him sit in a box for a while to soften him up. I’m betting he feels more like talking then.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll discuss you talking to him. If he still wants to.”

Annja knew Bart wasn’t going to budge on his decision. “What are you going to do until then?”

“I’m going to go home and get some sleep. While Nguyen Rao is sitting in a cell, freaking out and realizing I’m serious about holding him, I’ll be getting the rest I need. When I talk to him again, I’ll have a clear head and I’ll probably know more. I’ve got guys working on his background. We’ll find whatever Nguyen is hiding. We might even have the elephant by then, too. If we do, the balance of power in our discussion will probably shift.” Bart looked at her. “You need to go home, too, Annja. I appreciate all the help, and I’m sorry to have gotten you out of bed.”