Tuscan Hoax: An Archaeological Thriller (A Darwin Lacroix Adventure Book 4), page 11
Richard put on reading glasses and scanned the sheets. After a minute, he said, “But Giuseppe’s dead. Problem solved.”
“But he wasn’t the first. We’ve uncovered a forgery ring whose key insider died. They probably have one or more candidates, working their way up the ladder, but it may take years, so they’re looking for another method.”
“Like blackmailing you and Eyrún?”
“Precisely.”
Richard set down the papers, removed his glasses, and massaged the bridge of his nose. His chest swelled, and he sighed. “I’m troubled by what’s going on, Darwin, but I can’t see risking an irreplaceable artifact. His Holiness would never approve.”
“I get it. It’s risky as hell, but you’ve got a serious problem.”
Richard’s eyebrows raised in a “what now” fashion.
“My deeper audit of this list found twenty-one forgeries. It’s not just curators at the top, Richard. There’s corruption throughout the museum ranks. If we don’t stop this, there’ll be nothing real left in the Vatican Museums. And, if word gets out—“
“Stop.” Richard held up a hand. “I get it.” He then asked, “How would you do this? I’m not saying I agree, but how would you send the object out. And who can you trust?”
“Trust is the hardest part, as any corrupt insiders will be for watching for traps. We have to send the object out using the normal process. Do you trust the new head of security?”
“Yes. We recruited him from outside.”
“Good. I’ll meet with him, after you get permission from His Holiness, of course.”
Richard harrumphed. “I’m so looking forward to that conversation.”
“It’s the only way to stop this Vatican looting, and I’ll bet it’s happening in other museums. Our cultural heritage is being stolen and hidden in billionaire’s personal collections. We have to stop this unbridled greed.”
After settling the bill, they walked back through St. Peter’s Square, as Richard said he wanted to feel the energy of the visitors. When they entered the square, he said, “Whether believers or not, people come to this space for a sense of wonder and hope.”
Passing the obelisk, he added, “Each person’s experience is unique, but it’s based on an unbroken chain of collective experience. They go to a theme park or Las Vegas for entertainment, knowing it's a copy. They come here because it’s real.”
Darwin stopped and swept an arm, taking in all of Vatican City. “But what if they learned this was fake? All the originals were stolen.”
Richard stopped and, turning slowly to Darwin, said, “We cannot let that happen.”
33
“It’s that one,” Eyrún said when she, Darwin, Jasmin, and Zac neared the end of a long pier. They were playing her guessing game as they walked past beautiful vessels on the fifty-meter dock. Eyrún had invited them for dinner and to spend the night on a boat she was considering purchasing.
“That’s not just a boat, Eyrún,” Zac said as they approached a gleaming carbon-fiber craft whose acute lines resembled a cigarette boat. Its long, sharp bow ran flat to midship and then raked over the upper deck at an angle that shouted—speed. Windows just above the water line ran the length of its black carbon-fiber hull, and a flybridge, sporting state-of-the-art radar, sparkled in the late sun.
“I know,” said Eyrún, beaming and kicking off her shoes dockside. She bounced up the steps of the twenty-one-meter Azimut S7 and turned to face the others. “Welcome aboard.”
Zac explored like a kid in a new play structure, while Jasmin walked more casually, admiring the galley and the table set for dinner on the main deck. They laughed as Zac flopped and rolled around on the bow cushions outside the bridge windows. He returned to the main galley, and they toured the lower deck, going first to the bow suite with a queen bed.
“Nice,” said Zac. “I can see you and Darwin liking it here.”
“This room’s yours, Zac,” said Darwin.
Zac turned and silently mouthed, What?
Eyrún led them to the mid-vessel master suite, directly below the galley. Six windows grouped in rectangles on each side of the room gave an expansive view from a king-sized bed that faced a massive flat-screen TV. Behind it was an en suite bath to rival a luxury hotel, complete with a separate bidet.
“It’s lovely, Eyrún,” said Jasmin. “Thanks for inviting us.”
“My pleasure.”
“I gotta see the tech,” said Zac. He bounded up the spiral steps to the helm and jumped into one of the side-by-side chairs. Eyrún slid into the other, tapped the power on, and explained the data in the three flat-panel displays as Zac ran his hands over the steering wheel and trim control. He wiggled from side to side in the wraparound leather seat.
“I know,” said Eyrún. “It feels like my Macan.”
“What’s it got under the hood?”
“Three Volvo Penta engines with eight hundred horsepower.”
“Nice.”
“Each,” she added. “It’ll do close to forty knots.”
“Holy...” Zac’s voice faded as he tapped the displays, and he stopped for a moment as Eyrún explained the fuel auto-balancing that kept the vessel trim at high speed.
Darwin rolled his eyes as they geeked out, and then he invited Jasmin forward to explore the bow deck. Minutes later, Eyrún called to them, “Shall we make a toast?” They followed her to the stern and down to a teak swim deck, where Champagne beckoned. “You do the honors, love,” she said to Darwin.
As Darwin untwisted the muselet, Zac asked, “it’s beautiful, but how do you get to shore? You can’t beach this baby?”
“Nope.” Eyrún tapped a button on the hull, and a section of the stern lifted. “Voila. The garage.” She waved a hand at a jet ski and Zodiac parked side by side as the Champagne cork popped, launching into the harbor. The bubbly spouted onto the wood.
Darwin filled their glasses and toasted. “To Eyrún and many more adventures.”
She blushed as they repeated, “To Eyrún.”
“What about a name?” asked Jasmin.
“Hypatia,” Eyrún said without hesitation.
The early-summer sky darkened at quarter to ten as Darwin brought out a cheese plate. Eyrún shivered as a breeze wafted across the harbor; the thin fabric of her dress was not enough against the cooler evening breeze. He reached under a deck cushion storage locker and handed blankets to her and Jasmin.
“Thanks,” they said as they pulled the light polar fleeces around their shoulders.
He returned to the galley to put dessert in the oven, and Zac said, “That’s bull.” The women laughed, but Darwin’s head was behind the refrigerator door during the comment that provoked Zac’s response.
He smiled at their convivial dinner and slid chocolate lava cakes into the oven. His busy brain churned freely and morphed the word “bull” into “aleph,” the ancient symbol for the letter "A" that looked like a bull’s head. Wait. He paused after closing the over door. How did I miss that? The forger. Eyrún had told him that Jasmin had mentioned a forger known as the Albanian Master, who signed works with an aleph. But in the chaos after Eyrún’s arrest and his subsequent focus on the extortion request, he had forgotten about it.
Jasmin laughed at another of Zac’s jokes as Darwin served a dessert wine. He popped a bit of pungent blue cheese in his mouth while waiting for an opening in the conversation. As the aroma of chocolate lava cake drifted from the galley, he asked Jasmin, “What do you know about the Albanian Master?”
“There’s one from left field,” said Zac.
Darwin realized their confusion and explained the missing context for his question.
“A little,” said Jasmin. “I think most of it’s myth. I first encountered him twenty years ago in graduate school when our professor asked us to identify a vase with an aleph on its base. We guessed a workshop in ancient Greece and were astonished to learn it was a forgery.”
“How did he get the name?” asked Zac.
“No one knows. I heard it stemmed from the Albanian government’s support of antiquities forgery to get foreign currency. When communism collapsed in the early nineties, vases with amazing quality began showing up at auction, each one with an aleph. Then, in ninety-seven, a high-profile piece turned up at the Louvre."
“The Louvre?” asked Eyrún.
Jasmin turned to her. “Many collectors and museums have been fooled. I was taken in once by one of his unsigned works.”
“But why sign some pieces and not others?” asked Darwin.
“I think to throw people off. Keep them guessing.” Jasmin sipped her wine. “But his work is so perfect you need detailed chemical analysis and carbon dating to detect the forgeries. And, even then, it’s difficult because he uses ancient materials.”
“How does that work?” asked Zac.
“Melt old metal or use ancient clay for an object’s base. Most curators sample from the bottom. The material tests as ancient, and they believe its age. Once it’s laundered through auction and museums, no one looks at it again.”
Darwin’s watch vibrated, and he went to the galley. After serving each of them a cake with vanilla gelato, he attacked his own plate. He spooned the gelato and oozing chocolate pastry into his mouth and savored its hot and cold goodness.
For the next few minutes, the only sound came from water lapping against the starboard hull. Halfway through her cake, Eyrún asked, “Does anyone know where the Albanian Master is now?”
“Not that I know of,” said Jasmin. “But every couple of years, a new piece turns up at auction. They’re famous on their own and fetch high prices.”
“So, it’s no longer a problem if people know they’re buying fakes,” said Zac.
“For collectors, no,” said Jasmin, “but his unsigned pieces end up in museums. It devalues ancient works.”
“And Nahla’s his primary dealer,” said Eyrún, her face flushing.
Darwin clenched the napkin on his lap, wringing it like a wet towel.
“Anyone for an after-dinner swim?” asked Zac.
They turned and stared at him like he had spoken in Swahili.
“I’m kidding. You’re getting wound up. Let’s get back to celebrating the new boat.” He pushed away from the table and went into the galley. Seconds later, he began dancing as music erupted from invisible speakers, vibrating the deck from a hidden subwoofer. Jasmin joined him.
Eyrún and Darwin cleared and stowed the table, leaving the rear deck wide open. Between songs, Zac uncorked another bottle of Champagne, and they danced and drank as the lights of Ajaccio shimmered in the dark harbor.
Eventually they moved the party below decks, where Zac capped off the evening by saying, “If this cabin’s rockin’, don’t bother knockin’.”
Inside the master cabin, Eyrún washed her face as Darwin gazed out the port-side windows. A minute later, she slid behind him and dipped her hands into his pockets, searching. “Let’s properly christen the boat.”
34
On the Tuesday after their weekend boat party, Darwin caught up with Max Keller, the new head of Vatican security. Unlike his predecessor, who had risen through the Swiss Guard’s ranks, Max had come from a corporation that managed executive and institutional security. After the debacle where the former head had become corrupted by an internal rogue Church faction, the pope had decided on an outside leader.
Darwin had found a refreshing air in the security offices. It seemed less about guarding an ancient order and following mysterious, time-worn protocols and more about providing appropriate levels of access to valuable assets. Employing this new business-like mindset, Darwin approached Max to support his case to send out the Etruscan oinochoe wanted by the blackmailers.
“Darwin,” said Max, rising from behind his desk. While a shade taller than Darwin, he had the build of a rugby forward. His thick neck and broad upper body filled out a crisp white shirt beneath a dark blue suit. Deeply bronzed skin spoke of a man who spent much time outdoors. A white Van Dyke beard stressed his square jaw and complemented his equally pale hair.
They shook hands and sat at a small table. Darwin laid out the situation and his plan to send out the requested vase as a means to track the perpetrators.
Max stroked his beard for nearly a minute before asking, “And you’re sure there’s a broad group involved?” His voice was as gravelly as a bucket of rocks.
“Based on the audit data compiled in these spreadsheets, yes.”
“Okay. We’ll follow your plan, but since the normal restoration request process, as you said, takes at least a month, I’d like one of my trusted people to validate the data and see if there’s anything we’ve overlooked.”
“It needs to be discreet,” said Darwin, biting his lip.
“Don’t worry. I have so many audits going on that no one will notice a few more questions. This is good work.”
Their business wrapped up, and Darwin moved to go. Max asked, “I heard you had a rough encounter with Miguel, the former security head.”
“That’s an understatement.” Darwin’s calf sometimes still throbbed from the injury that had slowed his escape while Miguel was trying to kill him.
Three weeks later, their lawyer, Astrid, said the court had delayed their hearing again. And Darwin found that even with the pope’s consent, the Vatican bureaucracy moved at the pace of an institution whose mission concerned all eternity. Max Keller confirmed rushing the process would raise eyebrows.
One morning over breakfast, Darwin suggested to Eyrún, “Let’s get out of here. Take Hypatia for a long cruise.”
“Where should we go?” she asked, smiling and setting down her mobile.
“Dunno.”
She collected a navigation chart from a nearby counter and unfolded it as Darwin moved the breakfast dishes. The map had a dozen Post-it notes fixed along the Italian Peninsula. “I’ve been thinking of some places,” she said, smoothing the chart across the breakfast nook.
They began their adventure three days later with a plan to circumnavigate Corsica, both for Eyrún to see the diverse seaside cities of her new home and to deepen her feel for Hypatia. In the weeks since purchasing the yacht, she had thrown herself into online training for its radar and other instruments. She had also tutored under Marc Denis, going on day trips out of Ajaccio Harbor. Darwin, who had boated around Corsica since childhood, further explained the currents and coastal waters between Corsica and Sardinia.
Six days into the journey, after looping clockwise from Ajaccio, they departed Bastia on the northeast coast and motored across the Tyrrhenian Sea toward Naples, Italy. Eyrún piloted at a modest twenty knots, this being her first venture into the wide-open ocean and shipping lanes. She knew from years of rally driving in Iceland that intimately knowing your machine made the difference between winning and not, or worse, making a fatal mistake.
The journey took twelve hours, and they pulled in, exhausted, just before eight. They moored at a marina’s guest berth and had dinner in a dockside restaurant before collapsing in the master suite. After sleeping in the next morning, they visited the ruins at Herculaneum. Darwin was eager to see the newest unearthed mosaics, and Eyrún wanted to study the physics of the long-ago pyroclastic surge that had buried the city. Darwin tried to find the location where his forebear Pasquale had unearthed a box of Roman scrolls, but too much had changed in the nearly three centuries following his discovery.
After a day of wandering and eating in Naples, they boarded Hypatia and picked their way along Italy’s southern coast, anchoring in quieter harbors. Some nights, they dined in waterside restaurants, but mostly they cooked for themselves using ingredients purchased in local markets. Four days later, they reached the Amalfi Coast, where, with the tourist season in full swing, the harbors teemed with holiday-goers. To get away from the hordes, they motored farther offshore to the island of Capri.
Ten days into their journey, they had thoroughly relaxed. Eyrún, now adept at navigating Hypatia, probed the islands' towering cliffs and, where they could not get close with the yacht, explored the sea caves with the Zodiac. On their last night before returning to Ajaccio, they anchored in a twenty-meter-wide cove enclosed by vertical walls. The rock dove deep into the impossibly clear azure water, and the gentle swells slapping against the granite echoed in a high arch. Dinner had been a simple branzino over greens, served with a Gewürztraminer that Darwin could only describe as hedonistic. Its lychee and grapefruit notes dazzled their palates.
As they finished the meal, a full moon crested the cliff, its granite concentrating the light in the cove. The luminous sea bounced moonbeams into the arch’s dark spaces, which appeared to Eyrún like a nighttime cathedral vault. They stood on the teak swim deck watching the shadows play. Darwin brought his gaze down to her dark hair, radiant in the silver light, and slipped his hands around her waist. She turned and kissed him. After a moment, she pulled back and sighed, and her eyes motioned toward the bow. Darwin took her hand, and they eased along the gunwale to the wide cushions, where they made love bathed in the lunar spotlight.
Early the next morning, the sea was dead calm, with not even a breeze rippling its surface. Eyrún piloted them to open water and pushed down the throttle. Hypatia flew over the Mediterranean near its thirty-six-knot top speed, closing the 230-nautical-mile gap in just over six hours. Darwin watched the radar for vessel traffic. She slowed as they entered the channel separating Sardinia and Corsica and kept their speed low until they aligned with the Port Vecchio to Marseilles ferry route, where she went full throttle again and arced northward to Ajaccio.
