“Of course. There are all kinds of stories about the looting that went on. Most of the things that were taken were never recovered.” He looked at her with a skeptical eye then picked up the picture and peered at it intently. She could see his eyes grow slightly wider as he analyzed the image.
“There are lots of rumors about mountain caves in Deutschland where Hitler had many of the stolen treasures hidden for safe keeping. But they are just rumors, bedtime stories. No one ever finds anything.”
“But you know the painting,” she insisted.
Martin was silent for a moment as his mind raced.
“Ja. I have heard of this one. Until now, I thought it was just another fairy tale like all the others.” He paused and held up the picture. “Where did you get this?”
She reached out and retrieved it from his hand. “A reliable source gave it to me,” she said and placed the picture back in her jacket pocket.
He smiled and hoisted his glass. “I am your reliable source, my friend. Have you been seeing other people behind my back?” He let out a large laugh and tipped back the glass. The front door opened again. This time, a younger man entered the building and went to the concierge. Adriana recognized the face and moved carefully out of her seat.
The old lady at the desk pointed a finger towards the tavern. He made his way into the pub and headed straight towards the corner where Martin was sitting. He swallowed the last of his beer only to find that Adriana had vanished. Confused for a moment, he looked around but saw no sign of her.
“Excuse me,” he said in a brutish German accent. “May I sit down?” The man was blonde with blue eyes. His physique was slender but athletic, something Martin determined from the tight gray sweater and jeans the man wore.
“Certainly,” he extended a hand. “Do I know you?”
The man sat down across from him, never changing his cold expression. “Where is the girl?” Martin figured his accent to be from the Bavarian region.
“What girl?” Martin asked.
“The one you were here with a few moments ago. The woman at the front desk said you came in here with a girl. Where is she?” The stranger’s eyes pierced Martin’s.
“Oh. She’s just a friend of mine,” Martin answered. “She already left.”
“Where did she go?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
A roar of laughter erupted on the other side of the tavern. A large group of revelers were apparently having a great time. “We should step outside, Herr Edert,” the man said, purposefully. Under the table, he pulled back the hammer of a gun. “I’m afraid I must insist.”
Martin’s eyes narrowed. He said nothing as he stood simultaneously with the stranger. The man had draped a black jacket over the hand holding the weapon and motioned with his head to leave out the back door.
Martin obeyed and pushed opened the creaky exit. Once outside, the noise from the tavern became muted and was replaced by the sound of the small river that flowed nearby.
“Now what?” Martin asked, indignant.
“To the river.”
Again, Edert did as he was told and walked steadily over to the edge of the water.
“Tell me what you know about the lost canvas of Van Gogh,” the stranger demanded.
Martin turned around and faced him. “What are you talking about?”
The stranger lowered the sound suppressed weapon and aimed it at Martin’s knee. “I can torture you before I kill you or I can kill you quickly. Tell me what you know about the Van Gogh. Where is it? What did you tell the girl?”
Suddenly, a vinyl boot smashed into the stranger’s hand. The unexpected impact sent the weapon flying through the air into the dirt by the water. Adriana didn’t hesitate to attack again. She launched another flying kick at the blonde menace. The man turned just in time to see the bottom of her foot before it crashed into his nose.
He reeled backwards as blood flowed freely from the injury. He grabbed the nose with one hand and tried to recover. The shock passed after a few seconds and he lashed out with a flurry of punches. Adriana’s hands were just as fast as his, blocking and parrying all of his assaults.
He over extended on one punch and she grabbed the man’s wrist, pulling it over her shoulder, then jerked down hard. The arm broke easily at the elbow, extending the forearm backwards at a ninety-degree angle. The stranger screamed and dropped to one knee.
Villa whipped out a long knife from her jacket and kicked the man over onto his back. She jumped on top of him, straddling his chest, the blade pressed firmly to his neck.
“Who do you work for? Why are you following me?”
He said nothing, clenching his teeth in pain. She pressed the edge of the knife deeper causing a thin trickle of blood to start oozing from a fresh wound wound.
“I will kill you,” she said, coldly.
“I am after the same thing as you,” he spat. “They will never let you have it. You will die before that happens.” His eyes were filled with a crazed conviction.
“Who wants it?” she demanded again.
He laughed slightly through the pain, grinning sickly. Suddenly, the side of the man’s head exploded, splashing blood all over the ground. Some of it had splattered on Adriana’s face and hands. She looked down at the man’s face in shock. Lifeless eyes stared off into the night.
She turned quickly to see where the bullet had come from but in the dark. It was difficult to see but other than Martin, there was no one else around. Her friend simply looked on in complete surprise at what had just happened.
“We have to go,” she said plainly.
He nodded and the two of them sprinted back over to the parking lot and got in the car. She looked around again, seeing nothing but the darkness of the forest. Edert wheeled the car out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel as he fishtailed it onto the road.
“Who was that?” Adriana asked, out of breath. She turned her head around to see if anyone was following them.
“I have never seen that man before. But he was very interested in what you are looking for,” Martin stated as he caught his breath
“Where are we going?” she asked. Her breathing had slowed. She kept an eye on the rear view mirror, just in case.
“I have a friend in a town about fifteen minutes from here. We will see if she will let us hide there for a little while.” He stepped on the gas and guided the car down the road, heading up small mountain.
“Can you trust her?” Adriana wondered.
He shrugged. “As much as I can trust anyone, I suppose.” Even though they’d almost been killed, Martin was handling the situation extremely well. As if reading her thoughts, he said, “You take things too seriously, my dear.”
Her eyes wandered out into the darkness of the passing woods. “Sorry, I just don’t see a lot of heads blown off in my line of work. Especially right in front of me.”
He understood. “That man was trying to kill you. And he would have killed both of us if he could have. If necessary, you would have killed him yourself. You have killed before.”
She shook her head and looked down at her bloody hands. The crimson liquid had already gotten sticky on her skin. “You never get used to it, Martin.”
The car crested the mountain, bringing into view a crescent moon high in the distance. It beamed down on a rolling meadow on both sides of the road.
“That is because you are human,” he stated sympathetically.
A few minutes passed silently before they were beyond the fields and into another forest. “I know someone I think you should talk to,” he said after a few minutes of quiet thought.
“About what?” she asked.
“The lost canvas, my dear.” He glanced over at her with a smile. “His name is Friedrich Mueller. He deals with many types of antiquities. In the morning, I can take you to his shop. It isn’t far from here. I’ll call him and let him know you are coming.”