“I realize that. I also realize that worry is reciprocated. Since the break-in, you’ve hired round-the-clock security on both your parents.”
Grim lines tightened around Sloane’s mouth. “So you know about the bodyguards. Did you share that information with Tony?”
Derek had no intention of lying. “Yes.”
“And, from that, you both deduced there’s a big conspiracy going on. How about deducing that the security stems from precaution, not from my father’s potential guilt?”
“Doesn’t fly. Uncharacteristically overreactive on your part. That is, if the burglary at your parents’ apartment was really just a simple burglary. Which we both know it wasn’t.”
Sloane didn’t avert her gaze. “Don’t put me in this position.”
“I don’t want to. But when it comes down to a question of your safety or your father’s freedom, there’s no choice to make.”
Xiao Long received the telephone call that night. It came in on his throwaway cell phone.
He was being summoned. All the necessary arrangements had been made.
He had only to pack a bag. A car would be waiting to take him to the airport.
The morning after next, he’d be in Hong Kong to see the sunrise.
CHAPTER NINE
Something was bugging Rich Williams.
The past two days, from dusk till dawn, he’d been buried in meetings and exchanging phone calls with Interpol, with the Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA—the German federal police—and with the regional headquarters of the Bundespolizei in Munich. There was no doubt that the heist at the Kunsthalle München fit the same pattern as the others. It was a trademark performance of the Black Eagles, a brutal gang from Lezhë, Albania. Interpol had been hunting them down since their early days as gunrunners to Kosovo. By now they’d grown in size and strength, evolving into a major art-theft ring. Violent and ruthless, they operated without a shred of remorse or emotion.
They’d do anything, kill anyone, for money.
A plan was being formulated to break them up. At the drop of a hat, Rich might be required to go undercover and fly to Europe.
Coordinating strategies posed by various international government agencies had dominated his life these past few days. But those discussions weren’t what was bugging him now.
After a hectic forty-eight hours of work, he’d been too wound up to sleep. And since his mind was now free to focus on other things, it kept flitting back to Derek’s certainty that Matthew Burbank’s involvement in the Rothberg sale went deeper than just an innocent transaction.
Rich had known Derek since he was a NAT—a new agent in training. He’d spotted Derek’s sharp instincts from their first conversation. And, given he was like a dog with a bone on this one, maybe it did warrant a closer look. Not to mention, Rich had given him his word.
The Field Office was quiet as the first rays of sunlight rose over Manhattan. Rich went out, bought himself an extra-large cup of coffee and a bacon-and-egg sandwich. He munched on breakfast and drank his coffee at his desk. At the same time, he carefully reread each of the interviews he’d conducted with the five members of Burbank’s art group.
Phil Leary’s accounting records were in perfect order. The purchase of Dead or Alive for $125,000 at a reputed Manhattan art gallery in 1990 had been confirmed by the gallery owner, and Leary’s bookkeeping entries coincided with the date and amount on the original receipt. Matthew Burbank had produced that original receipt, along with catalog photos of the painting and written correspondence between Wallace Johnson and the gallery owner arranging for the transaction. Johnson had been shrewd enough to recognize Rothberg’s genius when he was still a relative unknown. Three years later, that same painting would have sold for twice the price.
It had sold five years later for even more.
Leary’s records on the sale of Dead or Alive were as meticulous as those on the buy. Cai Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong art dealer, had snatched up the painting, willingly paying $375,000 for what he recognized as a prime investment.
The financial records were precise, right down to the last date and dollar.
So what was bugging Rich?
He turned his attention back to the interview with Leary, rereading it sentence by sentence. The arrangements. The transactions. The records. The files.
That was it. The files were the inconsistency.
In his nervous recounting, Leary had explained the way their group worked. Leary was the numbers guy. Johnson was the art connoisseur, with the knowledge and the means to spot the high-value paintings, and to bid on them. Fox and Martino were the local guys. Fox was an interior designer, making him an artist in his own right. He had an eye for budding talent. Martino had a clothing manufacturing business, with dozens of contacts who knew, or were related to, struggling artists just looking for a break.
And Burbank was the art dealer, the one who negotiated deals full-time, and the glue that held them all together.
As precise as Leary’s financial records were, that’s how thorough Burbank’s files were. He kept every item of provenance available on the paintings—from photos to newspaper clippings to certificates of authenticity. He also kept duplicate receipts—not just on the buys but also on the sales.