Tuscan Hoax: An Archaeological Thriller (A Darwin Lacroix Adventure Book 4), page 13
Focusing on the tire tracks some twenty meters away, he mentally worked through the scene. The delivery truck with the Vatican piece arrived three days ago. He ran the light over the unbroken dust on the floor again. He pivoted to the bench. But they didn’t come back here… He turned back toward the front doors and ran through the timing. The GPS dot was here less than thirty minutes. They must have received the crate, sent the delivery driver away, and then loaded it into the SUV we followed to Milan. So, these crates can’t be connected to the delivery, which means someone else used this workbench. He puzzled over any connection, like if the driver of the SUV used this warehouse but infrequently.
The office door closed, and Darwin pocketed the waybill fragment as the owner walked over.
“You found something,” he said, looking at the bust. “Weird sculpture. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Me, either. Anything in the office?”
“Nothing besides old furniture.”
“Can I have this bust?” asked Darwin. “We may be able to learn something from it.”
“Si. It looks like a practice piece. Worthless unless done by Cellini.” The owner laughed.
Darwin wrapped the bust in some of the packing material, and, as the owner locked up, he mused, If nothing else, Eyrún’ll get a kick out of this thing.
On the quick hop to Ajaccio, Darwin placed the bust on a table and lay the waybill next to it. His NetJets membership allowed him to avoid a commercial flight transfer in Nice, and his Vatican credentials expedited the customs processes. The one other passenger looked up, but then she returned to her laptop.
Using the translation app on his mobile, he determined the object had shipped from Alexandria, and he held the paper to the window to read handwritten letters in the bottom corner: “YRNM.” Someone’s initials? He set the paper down and focused on the bust, rotating it, but even in better light, nothing stood out. Strangest thing, he thought as he carefully lay it down to look at its base.
He inhaled sharply. The woman looked up. Darwin smiled and wiggled his fingers like he had whacked one on the sculpture, and she went back to work. An aleph had been carved on its base. After comparing it to the photo from the kylix in Los Angeles, he determined the two symbols’ proportions matched.
Were these carved by the same person? The aleph in the basalt had been chiseled, and the one on the kylix had been carved in soft clay. It’s plausible the Albanian Master carved it, but…
He snapped a photo and messaged it to Eyrún, asking if Jasmin could look at it. Then, as the small jet began its descent into Ajaccio, he re-wrapped the bust and gazed out the window, contemplating the frequency with which alephs had turned up.
39
Eyrún paused halfway through reading an email from the lawyers, sat back, and massaged her temples. She considered legal documents an exercise in obfuscation. An urgent change order from the builder lay beside her laptop, and, earlier in the day, an uptight provincial official had insisted the ACA hire more local archaeologists, despite there being no qualified candidates. Why does everything have to be so hard?
Then she pictured the bust Darwin had brought back from Rome last night. Over dinner, he had ranted about possible connections to the vases seized by the antiquities authority. She had tuned most of it out as wild speculation. At least Jasmin is helping.
Her thoughts drifted to their trip to Capri. She had woken up at first light on their last morning, energized from a deeper sleep than she had had in months. The craft was utterly still. She slipped out of bed, dressed, and climbed the steps, grabbing a blanket on her way to the flybridge, where she drank in the view. The glassy surface reflected the dawn sky, and the sun’s rays were just hitting a fishing boat as an orange-tinged cyclone of gulls whirled above it.
Sitting now at her desk, she scrunched her toes, recalling the cool feel of the teak decking and the freedom to motor anywhere in the world. She forced herself back to the email, but Hypatia’s shiny carbon fiber hull kept interrupting her concentration. After rereading one paragraph a third time, she looked across her desk at a book on nautical radar. There’s so much to learn. Her heart fluttered. I can’t think here. She snatched up the book and pushed back from the desk.
“I need to run an errand, Hervé. I’ll be back after lunch.”
“D’accord,” he said, looking up briefly.
Eyrún parked in the owners' section at the harbor and tapped her key fob on the dock’s security gate. Heatwaves radiated off the creaking, weathered boards as she walked, and her heart beat faster as the flybridge and its black radar array came into view.
While she happily shared everything with Darwin, this was her own special space. She thought of the attic in her parents’ Reykjavík home, where she would get away from the stress of having to be the adult after her father died. But that sad memory faded as she boarded the craft and climbed to the flybridge in the bright sun. She gripped the steering wheel and looked across the bow. This is mine.
A few minutes later, she wandered through the vessel, making sure the cleaning crew had done a proper job. Then she remembered Marc had suggested an engine inspection after the yacht’s first long voyage. She descended the short ladder down to the engines and ran a hand over each Volvo’s manifold. The compartment smelled of fresh paint, adhesives used in construction, and lubricants. The pristine engines had less than a hundred hours on them, and she knew most of that was from her recent trip.
Eventually she got hungry and made a note to call the marine maintenance company. Then she went to the galley to prepare a plate of cheeses, charcuterie, and fruits and carried it to the outside deck table. A few bites in, her gaze drifted to the marina office, about fifty meters away, where a woman was getting into a Zodiac. What?
She grabbed binoculars from a drawer and confirmed her suspicion. It’s Jasmin. Where’s she going? The bright orange craft crossed to a megayacht anchored in the deeper water. That’s new. The three-deck, all-white craft had arrived sometime since yesterday.
She zoomed to the limits of her iPhone camera and snapped photos. Looking through the binoculars again, she watched a man welcome Jasmin onboard. They kissed each other on both cheeks before going inside. Who’s that? They didn’t greet like lovers. A client, maybe? She knew Jasmin catered to the wealthy.
Eyrún went back to eating, lifting the binoculars every couple of minutes, but she saw no activity. A half-hour later, Jasmin was still aboard the megayacht, and Eyrún had to return to the ACA. Driving along the harbor road, she mentally added this newest conundrum to her issues list.
40
Late that afternoon, after attacking the problems: answering the lawyers, talking the contractor down from ridiculous fee changes, and dropping the official’s complaint in the desk side bin, Eyrún was about to start a new actions list when her mobile rang.
“Bonjour, Marc.” She had messaged him earlier, asking if he knew anything about the megayacht.
They spoke for a few minutes about her trip. She told him about the cliffs on Capri and asked about nighttime radar navigation before turning the conversation to the megayacht.
“It’s a magnificent vessel,” said Marc. “Norwegian builder. In the market for a bigger one already?”
“Hypatia is big enough for me. Any luck finding out its owner?”
“I looked up its IMO number. That’s the International Maritime Organization; your yacht also has one. It’s flagged in Monaco and registered to a… Let me look… Here it is. Eshmun Holdings SARL. Does that help?”
“Not really. I was hoping for a person’s name.”
“Sorry. It’s not much to go on. I can ask around.”
“No, that’s okay. I appreciate your help.”
Marc described how she could look up vessels in the IMO database, and they spoke a little longer before disengaging.
After the call, Eyrún stared over the harbor from her office window, pondering what she had seen at lunch. Multiple possibilities ran through her head—none of them fit Jasmin’s reasons for being in Ajaccio. Eyrún had seen her walk by Hervé’s desk not long ago, and, glancing down at her list, she decided a conversation with Jasmin topped the priorities.
“How’s it going?” Eyrún asked after knocking lightly on the lab’s doorjamb.
Jasmin was peering into a microscope, and she sat up. “Slow. There’s not much to learn from it besides the aleph on its bottom,” she said, referring to the bust Darwin had brought back from the warehouse. “It’s elegantly sculpted, but I’ve never seen a work like it.”
“Did the Albanian Master carve it?”
“I can’t tell. Anyone could have copied the mark. If it were marble, I could at least learn where it was quarried. I know nothing about lava.”
“Maybe I can help. Some lavas have unique geology.” Eyrún took a seat on a stool at the lab bench.
After Jasmin described the bust’s sculpting technique and explained how she knew it was Roman, not Greek, Eyrún steered the conversation toward the megayacht. “I appreciate you volunteering to help the interns. They seem to enjoy your real-world experience.”
“You’re welcome. I enjoy working with them. So much energy and ambition. Almost makes me want to pick up a trowel again.”
“My geology work had me spend a decade covered in dirt. Can’t say I miss it,” said Eyrún, pausing a moment, then continued. “I went out to my boat for lunch today. Needed to get away from the stresses here.”
“I know the feeling.”
“There’s a yacht in the harbor that looks like a small cruise ship. I thought Hypatia was big.” Eyrún studied Jasmin’s eyes for a reaction. Seeing none, she added, “While eating my lunch, I saw a Zodiac from the megayacht pick someone up from the marina. I got curious and grabbed my binoculars. It looked like you.”
Jasmin’s head dropped, and when it came up a moment later, her eyes were flooded. “It’s my ex-husband’s yacht. He forced me to come in person or he wouldn’t sign the divorce papers.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and her voice shook. “I just want it to be over with. I hate him. I—” She broke down, sobbing. "I didn’t want to tell anyone. I just thought it would be done with and he would go away.”
“What a bastard. I’m sorry,” said Eyrún. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“You’ve done enough by letting me work here. It keeps my mind off him, and Zac makes me feel safe. But please don’t tell him. He’s a wonderful man, but his military background… I don’t want him to do anything.”
“Sure. No problem,” said Eyrún, but she was distracted by the incongruity of Jasmin’s emotional reaction just now and the greeting she had witnessed earlier. It didn’t look like someone she hated.
They talked until Jasmin’s mood settled. Then she thanked Eyrún, saying, “Meeting you and Darwin helps me see what a relationship should really be like.”
Eyrún carried the bust back to her office while pondering Jasmin’s last comment. Despite all the mounting frustrations in her professional life, her marriage was her foundation. She set the sculpture on her desk and looked at the photo on her mobile of Jasmin boarding the megayacht as she considered her story about the man. It doesn’t line up, but neither does it make her guilty of anything... But she shows up with just the right experience exactly when we needed it. We need to know more about her.
A reminder from her laptop alerted her to a meeting in five minutes, and she set down her mobile to prepare for the call.
41
Eyrún was working on her list of actions when Darwin came in an hour later. “Ready anytime you are, love,” he said, noticing the bust had been returned to her desk.
“In a minute,” she said, not looking up.
Eyrún’s minute sometimes took five, so he unslung his shoulder bag, dropped it onto a two-seater sofa, and sat on the other cushion. He watched her as she peered at her laptop with a furrowed brow, and as she looped a wayward lock of hair behind an ear, he smiled, happy just being with her.
The bust drew his focus again. Bands of light and shadow from the afternoon sunlight angling through the blinds sliced its gray surface. Its proportions were as fine as any he had seen, but his bewilderment returned. Why waste time carving basalt?
Darwin grabbed the sculpture and sat back down, turning it slowly as he contemplated its origin. He knew Eastern cultures carved the Buddha and other deities from lava. Turning it upside down, he traced the aleph with a finger. Jasmin had said that it closely matched the Albanian Master’s mark, but she couldn’t be certain.
In addition, she had found no organic residue embedded in the bust to use for carbon dating, and the rock’s age could not be narrowed to any period within the human Holocene Epoch. Darwin's thoughts settled on the more relevant issue: Is it related to the Vatican theft? If so, how? His gut hummed affirmatively with the same sense that had earned him his Great Finder nickname. The answer’s here. I feel it. Someone left this in the warehouse for a reason.
But as an answer seemed to come into focus, it blurred again, moving just out of reach. He let the sensation go, knowing it would come back. It always does, he assured himself. Flipping the bust upright, he stared at the face. Its exact proportions and graceful lines were so perfect it seemed cast from a living man—mid-thirties, confident, and with a full head of hair. The delicately carved eyes, while blank, as was the style, looked past the observer, evoking command. Probably one of the caesars.
He was reaching for his mobile to Google it when Eyrún said, “I’m ready.”
He put the bust back on her desk, and they walked out to her car.
Once she had turned onto the T20 going up the mountain, she said, “Something strange happened today.”
“Oh,” said Darwin, looking at his mobile while swiping through photos of Roman busts.
“I had lunch on Hypatia.” She paused while negotiating a busy traffic circle and then continued. “There was a megayacht in the harbor. Probably sixty meters, three decks above water. I saw Jasmin go out to it.”
Darwin’s hand with the mobile fell on his lap. “What?”
“My thought exactly. Look at the photo on my mobile.”
He grabbed it from the cup holder, tapped to the photos, and manipulated one before saying, “It’s pixelated. Hard to tell it's Jasmin.”
“It’s her. I confronted her in the lab later.”
“Did she deny it?”
“No. Said it's her ex-husband’s yacht and he had arrived to force her to sign the divorce papers in person.”
“Sounds like a piece of work.”
“Yeah. She got emotional and said that him showing up here was another of his manipulations. She seemed genuinely shaken up, so I don’t think she was lying.”
The road’s curves hugged tightly to the lower slope of Mt. D’Oro, and Darwin swayed in the wraparound racing seat as Eyrún downshifted into a bend and powered out of it.
“Why would you think she would lie?”
“I don’t know, but it’s been bothering me.” She described her view of Jasmin greeting the man on the megayacht. Darwin agreed with the incongruity, and Eyrún added, “I mean, what do we know about her? She’s helping us and is great for Zac, but I can’t help but wonder about the timing.”
Darwin contemplated the events of the last three months. Jasmin had shown up in Zac’s life shortly before the ACA raid, but Darwin could not link her appearance and their misfortunes to anything other than coincidence. She certainly can’t be connected to what’s going on in the Vatican. But Eyrún’s better at reading people.
As they neared Bocagnano, Eyrún said, “I don’t feel like cooking. Let’s have dinner at I Mazzeri."
“Sure. I was thinking the same,” he said.
“Maybe Zac knows more about her.” She steered the Macan off the road and parked. “Think you could ask?”
“Yeah, I’ll figure out a way to bring it up,” he said, reading the evening’s special written on a chalkboard in front of the restaurant. “That looks promising.”
The next afternoon, as Darwin prepared for a workout at the gym, his phone beeped with a message from Eyrún that Marc had called to let her know the megayacht had departed shortly after four. The message ended with a line that stopped Darwin in his tracks:
He said a dark-haired woman disembarked just before it left
Why would she go out there again? He tapped to call Marc, but, at that moment, Zac walked into the gym to begin their workout.
“Hey, bro,” Zac said as they bumped fists. After a series of warm-up exercises, they racked the chest press bar. Darwin went first, and he increased his weight by two kilos for a new personal best, but he was still forty kilos behind his larger friend. He wavered during his first set, struggling to get six reps.
“C’mon. You got this. Focus, man,” Zac said from his spotter’s position behind the bar.
When it was Zac’s turn, he blew through his reps without help.
“Someone’s got energy. Thought all that wild sex might take it out of you,” said Darwin.
“If you only knew bro.” Zac’s grin spread ear to ear.
Darwin got through his second without help. “Better. I know all this legal shit’s got you twisted up, but you gotta get Zen like while lifting. Focus.”
Zac’s second set went like his first, and, when he finished, Darwin slipped in a question. “Has Jasmin told you any more about herself?” Zac had previously mentioned Jasmin’s current troubles, but he had remained guarded about her past.
“No. I’m giving her space. She’s got a lot going on. I can’t believe her asshole ex shows up here and forces her to meet.”
