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She took a deep breath to calm her rage, looked at the file, saw the address—it was a warehouse in Gagny Neuf-trois. Forty minutes away.
She hadn’t wanted to believe Lanighan, but now she had no choice—she’d seen Mulvaney with her own eyes. She felt tears burn her eyes, shook it off. She’d save him, she had to.
She sca
She wasn’t surprised the outside cameras showed armed guards patrolling the perimeter. She counted fourteen men in fatigues, cradling AR-15s to their chests, all in a state of readiness she’d seen from professional soldiers. They fairly screamed mercenary.
It made sense to have security, of course, with the treasures he had inside the warehouse. But this—fourteen heavily armed men sweeping around the building in a clearly coordinated pattern, this was overkill, and done for a reason: Lanighan knew she was coming.
If it was a war he wanted, she was happy to bring it to his door. One against fourteen wasn’t the best odds, but she’d dealt with worse.
She spent the next fifteen minutes drawing up plans, making lists. She had a storage unit near Paris that held everything she’d need, units similar to ones she had all over the world. Tools were needed for her work, and it paid to be prepared.
She looked at her watch; she was supposed to meet Lanighan at 9:00 p.m. back at his apartment on Avenue Foch, but she had no intention of doing that. She put away her computer and called him.
86
Paris
Avenue Foch
Saturday evening
Lanighan answered on the first ring.
Kitsune said, “Change of plans. I want to meet at the warehouse in Gagny where you’re holding Mulvaney. Meet me there at midnight. I will bring you the stone, and I will take him out with me.”
He showed no surprise, not that she’d expected him to, because he knew by now she’d been the one to break into his office and found where he’d hidden Mulvaney. A showdown, then, not an exchange. She knew he would try to kill both her and Mulvaney and take the diamond. No doubt in her mind.
He said, “Aren’t you the clever one? No more tricks, Kitsune, or he dies slowly, one piece of him at a time.”
“I want Mulvaney released first, then I will give you the diamond. You must show me proof, Lanighan, that he is alive. Then I want the remainder of my money.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I want to be there when you unite the three stones. I want to see the legend come alive before my eyes.”
She heard his breath catch, but when he spoke, his tone was cool. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Saleem Singh Lanighan, son of Robert Lanighan, grandson of Alastair Lanighan. Four generations back, your great-great-grandmother lay with the son of the last Lion of Punjab and got pregnant. She passed the child off as the son of her husband, but her maid knew the truth, and she talked.”
“You simply recount the scandal the British rags have sensationalized.”
She continued, her voice calm and slow. “Blood runs true, Saleem. Unless I am totally mistaken, you already have one-third of the great stone, the largest piece, kept hidden by the males in your family for hundreds of years. I have another third, the Koh-i-Noor. May I assume you hired another thief to steal the last third of the diamond from that piece of rotted horsemeat known as Andrei Anatoly?”
He didn’t answer.
“I thought so. You should have hired me to steal both parts of the diamond, but you didn’t. You hired Mulvaney. And then what did you do? You repaid him with treachery. Of course you always pla
“You are beneath contempt, Saleem. Your father would be disgusted at what he spawned.”
He held silent.
“As I said, I want to see you unite the three stones.”
Saleem said, “I do not know what you’re talking about.”
She said,
“He who owns this diamond will own the world,
but will also know all its misfortunes.
Only God, or a woman, can wear it with impunity.
“That is the curse passed down, the curse all know, but it isn’t the end to it, is it, Saleem?” And she softly spoke the two sentences he thought he was the only living person to know.
“When Krishna’s stone is unbroken again,
the hand which holds it becomes whole.
Wash the Mountain of Light in blood,
so we will know rebirth and rejoice.”
“How do you know my family’s legend, Kitsune?”
She laughed softly. “I told you when we first met I knew everything about you, Saleem. I meant it. You are not the first Lanighan I’ve done business with who sought the diamonds. You know I worked for your father. I know he must have told you of me—the Fox. He needed the stones as well, and like you, he was ru
She heard his breathing become hard and fast as he realized the truth.
“He hired me to find the third stone, but he died before I could locate it. He also told me why having the three stones was so important to him.”
Saleem couldn’t take it in. Why hadn’t his father told him what he’d done? He’d told Saleem about the Fox, but not that she was a woman, that she was Kitsune. He tasted his father’s deceit, his betrayal, and it was hot and rancid. His own father, sharing their precious family secret with a common thief. He could do nothing to his father, but he would kill her with his bare hands.
Kitsune said, “You should know by now I am a woman of my word. It is a simple bargain. You will share the moment with me, and I will walk away, with my money, and my friend, and I will be satisfied.”
He realized then that his father had not told her about needing a woman’s blood. Why hadn’t he? He smiled into the phone. Her request was too good to be true. He no longer had need of Colette.
He said, “Meet me at Gagny at midnight, and we will both gain what we want.”
87
Ritz Paris
15 Place Vendôme
Saturday evening
Mike was typing one-handed on her computer, the light from the screen making her skin glow. She was tough, and he admired that. He knew how much a bullet hurt, but she had barely missed a step.
Nicholas said, “Any luck?”
Mike nodded. “Lanighan has offices in La Defense, and he lives on Avenue Foch.”
“Not a surprise,” Nicholas said, “Avenue Foch is one of the posher areas of Paris. Residential neighborhood, very expensive, perfect for our Mr. Lanighan.”
Mike said, “He has several warehouses where he stores all his art. The biggest is in Gagny, east of downtown Paris. He has over twenty-five hundred paintings and sculptures, both religious and secular, in his possession at any given time.”
She turned the laptop around so he could see the warehouse at Gagny. “For a crook, he’s incredibly legitimate. He’s on the cultural advisory board at CERN, bankrolled an exhibit at the Louvre, is a majority shareholder in a startup fashion business which has gotten serious legs, even made a failed bid to buy Christie’s auction house. He owns several smaller entities, including—drumroll, please—Sages Fidelité. They have over one hundred branches across Europe and Asia. Lanighan has serious money. He could afford to buy pretty much anything; last year he beat out Qatar’s ruling family on a lost Pissarro painting. Forty-eight million dollars.”
Mike sat back and shifted her arm to a more comfortable position. “There’s one other thing I came across you might find interesting. Lanighan’s been married three times, had a slew of affairs. He’s been co