The auctioneer, as Mason had expected, was good at his job. Both clear of speech and sharp of eye, he would be trained in a discreet form of crowd control and would also be a bid watcher. He would have to know the local laws inside out and, for this place, have a reputation second to none and perhaps even be an expert in jewels and jewellery. Mason saw the art of the auctioneer at its finest.
Everyone took their seats. A hush fell over the room. Mason sat with his eyes forward, but flitting from side to side. He saw nothing suspicious and was still certain Marduk would have agents here. If they couldn’t identify them in the next hour or so … then Marduk would probably walk away from all this a rich man.
But there was always the money trail to follow.
Mason turned to his programme, saw the first lot, a small collection of ancient gems presented in an archaic chest.
Sally spoke up immediately. ‘I know this one from my research. Known as the Pharaoh’s Ransom, it’s a trove that belonged to a famous Akkadian king and queen. Very old, for as we know, the Akkadian empire was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia.’
It was the first of ten such lots. The auctioneer started his spiel, and the audience sat silently, taking notice. Mason was at the stage where he didn’t know quite what to do. Was this as close to Marduk as they were going to get?
Had Marduk somehow seen him in the crowd?
Anything was possible. Mason tried not to listen to the numbers being shouted out by the auctioneer, hear Sally’s explanations of the various treasures she knew, tried not to see the hands being raised up and down the room, for everything he saw and heard was another cornucopia to line Marduk’s war chest.
Ten minutes passed. The auction continued.
Marduk watched the auction through a large screen mounted on a smoked-glass coffee table in the middle of his hotel room. The video feed was mounted at the back of the auction room. The audio was clear, the images sharp. He sat on a plush leather chair, the footrest up, laid back, with Cassadaga and Ivana standing behind him.
‘Listen to that,’ he crowed. ‘All our prayers are answered.’
‘One million two hundred thousand,’ the auctioneer said, pointing at a woman in the audience who was holding up a paddle.
It was still the first lot.
‘My own prayers don’t generally include the acquisition of wealth,’ Daga said. ‘They are more … visceral.’
Marduk cringed a little at that, getting the meaning and not liking Ivana’s brief chuckle. He knew money didn’t move Daga; it was the main reason he felt reasonably comfortable having the cut-throat standing beside him. ‘It’s quite the full room,’ he said.
Daga and Ivana said nothing, but they continued to watch the feed. The auctioneer finished lot one at around one-million-five, and then started immediately on lot two, a cluster of emeralds that dated from the Akkadian empire, purportedly to have belonged to a famous king. Marduk had been loose with his descriptions after having the chests all dated to the correct timeline.
And he had foregone speculations offered by the auctioneers of the grander wealth he might accumulate if he waited a while and got everything properly catalogued and dated. He wasn’t bothered about vast wealth – he just wanted enough money to carry out his plan.
‘Look at them.’ Marduk waved at the screen. ‘Preening. Flaunting their assets. Products of a world where the Church holds sway.’ Marduk seemed to have forgotten the lavish hotel and sumptuous room that surrounded him. ‘With nothing better to do than spend their millions.’
‘Is this not what you wanted?’ Daga sounded confused.
Marduk fought to speak through an additional pressure in his brain. Sometimes he found it hard to concentrate. His hatred and his anger thickened like fog, taking over and making it impossible for him to think clearly. All he saw was the old animosities laid bare, the torment the Church had been laying on the Amori for countless years.
‘Of course,’ he said after a while, staring at the crowd.
Something had caught his eye.
Suddenly, he saw clearly.
‘No way,’ he whispered. ‘I do not believe what I am seeing.’
His tone of voice must have sounded sufficiently shocked or dumbfounded for Daga to take note. The thief said, ‘What is it?’ immediately.
Marduk stared hard, his eyes fixed on the head of a man seated in the fifth row from the front. The picture quality was good. When the man had turned around just now, searching the room, Marduk had got a clean look at his face.
‘Joe Mason,’ he whispered. ‘That is Joe fucking Mason.’ His right index finger jabbed at the screen.
Both Daga and Ivana leaned forward.
‘It certainly looks like him,’ Ivana said.
‘It is him. The man who gave me this limp. The man who thwarted our plans in Africa and started the downfall of the Amori. Why is he here?’
Marduk went abruptly quiet, biting his lip until the blood flowed. Inside, he seethed. Thanks to this man, the Amori’s global efforts were ravaged. In truth, he couldn’t fault the man’s efforts. His attack on the HQ and his previous quest to find the Creed had been valiant and ruthless. But Marduk admired nobody. Someone like Mason ought to be crushed, like the cockroach he was. After Africa, the Amori had folded quickly, some fleeing into hiding, others bending and breaking under police interrogation, many betraying their fellows with little persuasion. The ensuing investigations had taken down most of the Amori.
All thanks to Joe Mason and his damned crew.
All right, he thought. So maybe it’s not as black and white as that. But Mason was a major reason Marduk had lost everything, including his well-planned vengeance on the Church. What the hell was he doing here now? At Marduk’s resurrection. At the most important point of his life so far.
‘I don’t know how,’ he said. ‘But he’s found us. Look there, the rest of his team.’ Marduk jabbed at the screen. ‘I recognise them all now. Roxy Banks. Sally Rusk. Paul Quaid. Luke Hassell.’ All names engraved on his psyche as if they’d been pressed there in molten fire and left to harden. ‘I don’t see how they could have tracked us down.’
‘Someone blabbed about the auction,’ Daga said. ‘That’s what happens when you use mercenaries.’
‘No sign of the cops, though,’ Ivana pointed out. ‘If Mason was sure about this, about you, he’d have the authorities all over that place. You remember Africa.’
Marduk couldn’t get Africa out of his mind. Mason had brought dozens of crack Vatican troops to storm his hideout. He’d also used the local cops. Ivana was right. Mason was here without backup.
‘Interesting,’ he said.
The auctioneer called out the start of lot five. They were halfway through. Marduk had lost track of the total. His entire being focused wholly on one man.
‘He may think he’s tracking us,’ Daga said. ‘But he’s right where we want him.’
‘He’s very close,’ Marduk said.
‘Exactly,’ Ivana said.
‘He may know where we are, who we’re using inside the auction. I don’t like the fact that he’s just sitting there …’ Marduk started jabbing furiously at the screen. ‘Inside my fucking auction …’ jab, jab, jab at the plastic. ‘Thinking he’s still alive.’
‘Calm down,’ Daga said. ‘If he knew where you were, the cops would be here already. If he knew anything except the location of the auction, he wouldn’t be just sitting there with his team. This is good for us. We can use this.’
Marduk fought to relax the tide of hatred that was flooding his brain. He resorted to concentrating on the money, on the plan, on the actions of the Faithful that were to come. He focused on the downfall of the Church.
‘How can we use it?’ he finally managed to say.
‘We do what we do,’ Ivana said in a silky-smooth voice.
Marduk turned to look at her. ‘You can’t kill them at the auction.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just look at it. Half of Monaco’s elite are sitting right there. You can’t just waltz in and start … slashing.’
‘Do you want Mason dead?’
‘I want them all dead.’
‘He won’t live past midnight.’
Marduk checked his watch. It was a little after eight. ‘You have a plan?’
‘Usually, it’s killing everyone we can get away with,’ Daga said. ‘And then disappearing. But we can’t do that and look after you. I guess we’ll just have to focus on Mason.’
‘The world’s greatest killer focusing on Joe Mason.’ The pressure in Marduk’s brain eased. ‘I like the sound of that.’
Ivana pressed her body against Daga’s and smiled. ‘As do I.’
Marduk thought about everything he was trying to accomplish. It was a tall order, and maybe a man newly broken out of prison should look at a set of different priorities right now, but the downfall of the Church was his reason for living. This was everything he needed to accomplish, and he’d happily die succeeding.
‘Will you kill him at the auction?’ Marduk noted the screens were full of people.
‘And disrupt your plans?’ Daga said. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
Can they help themselves? Marduk wondered but didn’t say it out loud.
‘We’ve never properly hunted Mason before,’ Ivana said, still smiling. ‘This should be quite satisfying.’
Marduk was still staring at the screens, at the back of Joe Mason’s head. To think this man had tracked him all this way, had somehow got his hooks into him again. Maybe killing Cardinal Vallini so early in the project had been a mistake. The act had probably raised more attention than Marduk needed at this point.
‘But the plan is still intact,’ he said aloud.
Daga looked at him. Marduk had seen that look before on others. The man thought he was crazy but … more importantly, was still happy to work for him. ‘Hey,’ he said, aloud. ‘It’s a well-known fact – people who talk to themselves are geniuses.’
Daga nodded, but didn’t look bothered. Ivana was still holding Daga, but now staring at the screen. By now, they were up to lot six. Marduk was already a very rich man, thanks to the Monte Carlo elite. He wondered how they’d take it if they actually knew what they were financing. Would they care?
Marduk would have liked to have kept all their details, the buyers, but unfortunately the auction house kept all that stuff secret. And, with the Amori disbanded, he didn’t have the wherewithal to unravel their security.
Terrorism on a shoestring, he thought. A project that would develop from a minuscule thread and become the thick rope that would finally hang their false God from the neck.
It was coming.