It made her wonder how Hawker was faring. If she felt out of place, she wondered how he could possibly hope to pull off an upscale event like the one in Dubai.
She hadn’t been told what his cover was. Perhaps he’d sneak in as part of the waitstaff, with caterers or the cleaning crew.
Listen to me, she thought. In truth, she guessed he’d clean up pretty good and felt a slight pang of jealousy at not being there to see it, especially while an old flame of his would apparently get the full treatment.
She put the thought aside and focused on the moment.
“You’re rebuilding quite well,” she said.
“We’re always rebuilding,” Najir said. “We must find a way to stop tearing down.”
She smiled and noticed the Phoenician Builder logo in half a dozen places where the reconstruction was ongoing. “It’s a good business to be in around here.”
“We make no money off this one,” Najir insisted. “We are rebuilding the hospital and the wealthy families here are paying thousands to have their names attached to it. This party is a celebration. While it goes on above, we will be met and taken to a separate area, where some of the patrons will be given a chance to bid on the artwork.”
“And that part’s not for charity,” she guessed.
“Not unless you consider Swiss bank accounts charity.”
“Do you know what we’re bidding on?”
“I have talked to some people,” he said. “Bashir has several items here for sale, early Mesopotamian art.”
“I’m not interested in what he was selling,” she said.
Najir nodded. “Except it’s believed he is selling them to raise funds for the one he wants to buy.”
“Which is?”
“The main item in the second lot. It’s labeled ‘Copper Scroll — Proto Elamite.’ Originally it was offered with a carving of Gilgamesh, the famous king of that period. But now they are separate.”
The names meant nothing to Danielle, and by the look on Najir’s face, they meant nothing to him. She suddenly wished she had an expert with her. Still, she was glad the one person who came to mind was somewhere else, safe and sound.
“And if I need to buy?”
He glanced over at her. “Ranga Milan is dead, you say?”
She nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything. “You said you didn’t know him.”
“An oversight,” Najir said.
Danielle couldn’t tell if he was lying or speaking the truth.
“I did not remember him,” her host insisted. “I met him twice. Bashir introduced him to me a year ago and I introduced him to these people. As I told you, they know me. You cannot just arrive at an auction like this and bid. You have to be vetted first and prove your ability to pay. Mr. Milan needed an account they could access. I set one up for him.”
Something told her Najir had his hands in all kinds of business dealings.
“You’re some kind of middleman in this?”
“I am trusted,” he said, “by all sides. It has its rewards.”
“You take a cut,” she guessed.
“If you bring in a bidder, you take a percentage of what that person pays.”
“Incentive to find others and bring them to the table,” she said.
“Exactly,” he said. “For tonight, I have set up an account and indicated that you are here to bid on Ranga’s behalf.”
Anger flashed through her. It made sense, but she resented such a move being made on her behalf.
“That makes me a target,” she said.
“Aren’t you already?”
“Of course I am.” That’s why she carried a Kahr P380 pistol in her purse and a small carbon-fiber knife in the heel of her shoe.
“And you are also dangerous,” Najir added, smiling and playing to her ego.
“More than you know,” she promised.
“Then you will be fine.”
She nodded. She intended to be. “Ask next time,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, nodding in a slight bow. “You have my word.”
She and Najir spent a little over an hour at the reception before a tall, thin man tapped him on the shoulder. He whispered something and moved off. Najir offered his arm to Danielle.
“We are to follow,” he said.
They crossed the room, avoiding any obvious places to hold an auction and taking a rear stairwell that led to an old gated freight elevator.
Danielle eyed the mechanical cage suspiciously.
“In there?”
“The auction is down below,” Najir assured her.
Moore had said she’d be going underground, and Najir had indicated they would be bidding on items from somewhere beneath the ballroom, but considering the way they were dressed, Danielle had assumed it would be a lower level of the museum or library.
Half her instincts nagged at her to turn away, to beg off and ask if there was another way down, or decline completely. But the rest of her thoughts focused on what was still at stake, the fact that she had her own weapon, and the fact that she was very dangerous if she needed to be.
She pulled free from Najir’s arm and waved a hand toward the cage.
“After you.”
He stepped onto the elevator, Danielle followed, and the thin man climbed in last and pulled the gate shut. He pressed the button and the bulky mechanics of the elevator clanked to life.
The car released with a jolt and began dropping into the darkness.
CHAPTER 25
With shouts and commotion and the wailing of the fire alarm echoing around him, Hawker stared into the recesses of the janitorial closet. He could not believe his eyes. As each flash of the fire alarm lit up the tiny space, he expected to see Sonia there. But she was gone.
He turned. “Sonia!” he shouted, adding his voice to the madness.
The whoop, whoop of the alarm drowned out any reply.
Either she’d found a better place to hide or …
He began to move, slowly at first, because he didn’t want to believe what he was thinking. And then he ran.
He sprinted down the hall with the rifle in his hand, well aware that any security team that reached the floor would shoot him on sight.
He made it to the stairwell, where crowds were trying to force their way down.
A burly man got in his way. “Move!” Hawker shouted, shoving the man to the side.
Hawker needed to get to the stairs, but to go up, not down. He pushed through the crowd. Climbed over the railing and dashed upward.
When he broke out into the open night air he could see across a catwalk to the helipad. A French-made Dauphin helicopter was winding up. Two armed men were dragging Sonia toward it.
Resisting the urge to shout to her, Hawker dropped to one knee, steadied himself, and fired. His first shot took out the man on her right, hitting him in the upper center of his back.
Sonia and the man on her left fell forward, sprawling on the catwalk. The thug reacted quickly. Turning and aiming, he fired back down the catwalk blindly, but there were only so many places an attacker could be.
As Hawker crouched, the thug moved backward, instinctively using Sonia as a partial shield.
It didn’t matter. Hawker needed only one second of separation.
The thug shoved her in the helicopter and Hawker pulled the trigger, killing him with a head shot and sending him tumbling off the catwalk.
Before he could do more, shots fired from within the helicopter forced him to take cover. He tried to pop up, but at each hint of a move more shells pinged off the catwalk around him.
“Sonia!” he shouted.
There was no way she could hear him now. The roar of the helicopter had become deafening. As he felt the rush of the downwash, he knew the pilot had added pitch. The copter was taking off.