Deeper Than Red (Red Returning Trilogy) (18 page)

Vandoren was a perpetual presence at the university, except on Sundays. After teaching classes, conducting workshops, holding séances, and giving private audience to patrons—most of them wealthy—who flew in from all over the country, Vandoren adhered to strict seclusion on Sundays. He lived in a small but lavish bayfront home just outside the walls of the campus. A housekeeper and cook staffed the home six days a week. But Vandoren admitted no one to his isolated residence nights or Sundays when he rarely left his home.

That’s why the sound of his voice gave Spencer a start when he swung open the warehouse door. But it was too late to retreat. He’d been seen, and not only by Vandoren. It seems the armed guards he’d watched Friday night had never left the premises. Now, three of them turned aggressively toward him.

“Stop!” Vandoren shouted at the men, then turned with obvious displeasure at Spencer’s unexpected intrusion. “Spencer, why are you here?” he barked.

Spencer had never heard the man speak so gruffly to anyone. And now, it seemed Vandoren instantly regretted his tone. His scowl slid away and the practiced smile Spencer was used to seeing quickly surfaced, an amazing transformation. “I’m sorry, but you startled us.” Suspicion clung to Vandoren’s eyes. “But why are you here?”

Spencer’s heartbeat pumped hard toward an answer, and it had better be good, he feared. Even as he willed himself to stop shaking, he risked a glance behind Vandoren at the object of such security. The crate. About the size and shape of a refrigerator on its side. Then he deliberately shifted his focus toward a plastic-wrapped stack of books, as if he’d been merely trying to locate it. His eyes flitting back to Vandoren, Spencer replied, “I’m sorry, sir. I just wanted to gather more healing workbooks for Classroom B.” He nodded toward the stack of books. “They’re running low in there.” It was the truth, though he hadn’t planned to restock that room until tomorrow.

Vandoren’s smile grew generous as he stepped toward Spencer, one fleshy arm outstretched. “Perhaps you can collect what you need another time.” He offered no explanation for the unusual presence of the guards or his own attendance on a Sunday, and certainly not for the most recent addition to the warehouse inventory. He seemed to silently forbid any such inquiries from his subordinate, even one for whom he’d openly admitted his fondness.

“I’ll do that, sir. Excuse me.” Spencer closed the door behind him and returned to the library, but there would be no more work for him that day. He soon heard the rumble of a truck behind the building. Searching out the tractor-trailer he and Tally had seen had been next on his agenda that day. But now, it called to him. He dared to slip into the darkened office of a coworker with a window facing that direction. Without turning on the light, he eased toward the window and peered through the blinds. The rig was backing into the warehouse. Spencer was certain of its payload. Though he wondered why the crate he’d watched transferred from the plane to the truck Friday night had been moved to the warehouse and now, it appeared, back to the truck. If it were just books, why the guards? Why Vandoren’s appearance here on a Sunday? And who, besides the camouflage-wearing guards, were the two men who’d arrived on the plane? One in a wheelchair. Spencer had never gotten close enough to recognize either one. He assumed they were back on the plane when he watched it depart yesterday afternoon. But who had arrived by helicopter just before daybreak this morning? Spencer had heard its incoming rotors as he dressed.

A sudden footfall down the hall sent Spencer scrambling to the door to listen. Someone passed close by and stopped. Spencer heard the rattle of keys and the door to the supply room open, the footsteps retreating inside. He slipped from the room and back inside his own office seconds before he heard the storeroom door close firmly and the footsteps approach his office door, the keys still rattling.

“You’re here early for a Sunday, Spencer,” said Danny Otis, one of two custodians who tended the facility. Setting a plastic bucket on the floor, the young man slouched against the doorframe and leaned the handle of a mop against his chest. “I’m used to having this place all to myself on Sunday mornings, but, hey, glad you’re here.” He glanced toward the door to the warehouse and his expression grew conspiratorial. “It’s been a little dicey here the last couple of days, know what I mean?” He inclined his head toward the warehouse and cut his eyes to that side.

Spencer didn’t respond. He often didn’t whenever Danny’s habitually seamless chatter began. The man liked to talk more than work, an ethic which didn’t sit well with Spencer, except now. He willed the man to share as much as he knew about the crate in the warehouse.

“I mean, without much warning, all classes were canceled yesterday. Imagine that.” Danny looked at Spencer like he might shed some light on the situation, which Spencer wouldn’t do even if he could. So Danny kept going. “There was nobody here but those soldier types who proceeded to wander all over this place like they were looking for someone to attack at any moment, and those two foreign guys who stayed holed up in Vandoren’s house ’til they all flew out of here yesterday. And today? Well, we don’t ever see the boss here on Sunday. But here he comes flying back in that whirligig before the sun’s even up and heads straight here.” Danny shook his head. “And man, he’s on edge about something. I don’t know.” His gaze wandered back down the hall.

“Have you seen the crate in the warehouse, Danny?” Spencer asked, cutting to the one thing he wanted most to know.

“Oh, so you’ve seen it too, huh. And you lived to tell about it?” He chuckled. “Boss nearly took my head off when he caught me peeking under the tarp they were keeping over it.” But there was no covering on it just now, Spencer noted, its bare-wood case unmarked. “You and me’s probably the only ones around here who’s seen it.” He stared at the floor, a curious expression on his face.

“Do you know what’s in it?” Spencer asked.

Danny looked up at him. “Naw.” He thought a minute. “But probably some big deal statue or something that costs a million dollars, for all those guards he’s got on it. Maybe it’s one of them fertility gods or some kind of are-tih-fact.” He pronounced the word as one who’s just learned to say it. “Boss is always flying off to some jungle or island tribe and bringing back weird stuff. Just something else for me to keep clean down there.”

That surprised Spencer. “You mean at his house? Do you work there too?”

“You bet I do. He pays me good, too. But he tells me to keep my mouth shut about what I see in that place.” Danny snorted. “Like I can do that. Right?” He laughed too loudly, and Spencer cringed, hoping it wouldn’t bring attention from the warehouse. Still, he kept prodding.

“So what do you see?”

Danny looked toward the ceiling. “Well, let me see. There’s the jade Buddha and the big blue evil eye from someplace like Turkey, I think. There’s a big crystal pyramid he keeps touching and getting fingerprints all over that I have to wipe off.” He looked around the room at Spencer’s bookshelves. “Boss has lots of old books. I mean really old with yellow pages and gold lettering. Real gold, too. They’re in his library, off course. Along with the egg.”

Spencer cocked his head. “Egg?”

“You know, one of those fancy ones with all the jewels and stuff on it?”

Spencer thought a moment. “A Fabergé?”

Danny squinted at him. “Hey, I know that word. Isn’t it some kind of perfume? I think that’s what my ex-wife used to squirt on herself sometimes.”

Not wishing to detail the evolution of Fabergé-the-royal-jeweler’s name into a line of cosmetics, Spencer said, “It’s also a collection of enameled and jeweled eggs created for Russian czars. And Vandoren has such a thing?” Though Spencer knew there were many reproductions.

“Guess so. It’s got some kind of alarm system on the case it’s in. That’s one thing he won’t let me touch with my Windex.” He paused. “Did you say Russian?”

“Yes, why?”

More to himself than Spencer, Danny said, “I’ll bet that’s what those guys were.”

“What guys?” But Spencer knew.

“Came in on the plane a couple nights ago. Stayed with the boss. There were two of them, but I never saw them up close, especially the one in the wheelchair. They stayed in their rooms while I was there, and wouldn’t let me clean inside. But I heard them talking like those guys in … what’s it called? Oh yeah,
The Hunt for Red October.
Oh man, I loved that movie.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, Russian. That’s what they were.”

Thoughts scrambled for traction in Spencer’s mind. An alarm system? Does Vandoren own an original Fabergé egg? What if he does? What does that have to do with the crate? Unless there’s another treasure inside it. Something much bigger than a Fabergé egg. Or a whole crate of them. That would account for the security. And maybe the visitors. Russian art dealers personally guaranteeing the delivery. Yeah, that’s it. But how could Vandoren afford such things?

Too many questions made his head spin, his body suddenly fatigued. He watched Danny pick up his bucket and grab the mop handle. “Thanks for talking to me, Danny.” He really meant it. The hapless custodian had provided a reasonable and far more palatable explanation for the matter. Spencer would share it with Tally and hopefully halt her perilous midnight surveillances.

But Spencer had one more question. “Danny, while you were at Mr. Vandoren’s house on Saturday, what did he talk to these Russians about?”

Danny shrugged. “I was just there about an hour. The boss made me leave right after I cleaned up a bit, so I didn’t hear much. Mostly about the boat the wheelchair guy owns. Big yacht he keeps somewhere close by. That’s where he and the other guy were headed Saturday afternoon. The boss, too. They all met a chopper somewhere down the coast. Same one that brought the boss back here, I guess. I don’t live in that kind of world, so I don’t know about those things.”

“That’s all you overheard them talk about?”

“Yep. Well, better get these bathrooms spit shined.” He took a step and stopped. “By the way, you be on the lookout when you go back to the camp.”

“Why is that?”

“I hear from some of the camp guards that they got ’em a night prowler out there. The boss is real upset about whoever’s been snooping around in the woods near us.”

Spencer’s mouth went dry. “Any idea who it is?”

“They think it’s a girl.”

A
fter spending Sunday morning with Ben and Anna’s children, Liesl and Max left for rehearsals at the Mann Center in downtown Tel Aviv, home of the Israel Philharmonic. The two were giving a sold-out benefit performance at the indoor-outdoor facility Monday night. On Thursday, they—along with Cade, Erica, Ben, and Anna—were scheduled to leave with the entire orchestra for the Nuremberg Music Festival that weekend.

“I’ve got a wonderful idea, Liesl,” Max said as they climbed into his little car. As soon as they were buckled inside, they automatically looked to their right and nodded resignedly at the two men in the car beside them—their plainclothes police escort dispatched early that morning, compliments of the Israeli government at the request of the FBI and CIA. And the White House.

Ignoring the constant reminder of their vulnerability, as declared by those who watched over them, Liesl and Max refocused on each other with only subliminal acknowledgment of their questionable need for protection. Max was no more inclined to it than Liesl, who’d wholeheartedly rebuffed the notion of canceling their concerts and “cowering in some fetal mode of surrender,” she’d asserted.

He met her somber eyes. “Okay, those guys aren’t really there, and we’re just a couple of anonymous musicians off for a gig with the band. Got it? So, as I was saying, here’s an idea.” He backed slowly from his assigned parking space beneath his condo building. “Let’s all leave a couple of days early and fly to Berlin first, since Cade and Erica have never been there. It’s just a shuttle flight down to Nuremberg. Or we can drive from Berlin with plenty of time to spare. What do you say?”

As they pulled into the street, Liesl watched the Sunday drivers dart as erratically as they did at rush hour and thought of Berlin. “Cade should see the memorial. Everyone should.”

“The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. That’s exactly what I want Erica to experience. She has a strange kind of denial going on about what took place during the war. It’s unspoken, but there all the same. I sense it and don’t understand it from a fellow Jew.” Liesl watched him drop quickly into himself, as he often did. At those times, she’d always given him sanctuary inside his thoughts. And always, as now, he’d finally surface with a fresh impenetrable veneer … and a so-what smile, which he now turned on her.

“I’d like that,” she agreed. “What a preamble to a concert by the Israel Philharmonic … in the heart of Germany.”

Max turned to her and she caught a glimpse of something wary about him. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

He turned a corner not far from their destination and proceeded at his usual glacier speed until he stopped for a traffic light. “Just can’t get the post office flyer off my mind. I mean, why would someone about to commit murder announce it on the town square?”

But Liesl was no longer listening. It was the shape of the head, the angle of the parked car across the intersection, the abrupt surfacing of something—someone—that both repelled and attracted for reasons she couldn’t explain. Evgeny Kozlov.

“Are you hearing me?” Max asked.

“Look there,” she said, pointing to a small dark sedan hunched oddly against the far side of the street.

She watched him study the man inside the car. When the light changed, Max swerved to the curb and stopped. Without looking at her, his gaze unwavering on the little car, he said calmly, “I want you to stay here with the doors locked.” She watched him reach inside the light windbreaker he wore and feel for something at his waist. Finally, he turned to her. “Tell me that you will, Liesl. Tell me now.”

She nodded slightly but said nothing. There were too many conflicts raging inside her, inside the man watching her from across the street. The man who’d hunted her down to kill her, who’d later risked his life to save her. Which was he this day?