pace would have made you more comfortable, I would have continued speaking through my secretary. But no matter. You are here on business, so now we can discuss it.” He nodded to Kojima, who bowed and retreated to the outskirts of the room. “I imagine you have many questions.”
“I do,” she replied. “First, you said that you own one of the statues. Where did it come from?”
“Kojima-kun can provide you with a full written account of its known history, but to summarize, it came from Tibet into China during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor, in the Ming dynasty.”
Tibet: where one of the farthest—and last—outposts of the Atlantean empire had been established. That tied in with her theory that the Atlanteans had, for whatever reason, dispersed the statues as widely as they could. “Fifteenth century, I believe?”
“Yes. It remained in the possession of successive emperors until the Japanese occupation of China before the Second World War. It was brought to Japan along with other treasures, where it passed through the hands of several private collectors before I obtained it in 2002.”
“What was your interest in it?” Nina decided to tread carefully and avoid mentioning anything about the statue’s special properties unless Takashi himself brought the subject up. The United Nations might have trusted him, but she was still going to reserve judgment for the moment.
“There is a legend about the statue, Dr. Wilde,” said Takashi. “It is supposed to contain great power, but a power that can only be used by a chosen few. The power of the earth itself.”
The intensity of his gaze suggested to Nina that he was expecting a response from her, confirmation that she knew exactly what he was talking about. She kept her expression and voice neutral. “What kind of power?”
“It has many names in different cultures. Inyodo, Feng Shui, dragon lines, ley lines, telluric currents, chi … all are the same thing. A network of lines of power generated by the earth itself, a natural source of energy. Just as blood flows through our veins, so this energy flows through the world around us. The life force of the planet, you might say. I have been fascinated by the concept ever since I was a child, and I first heard the legend of the statue over thirty years ago. When the statue came on the market, I had to have it. I had to find out if the legend was true.”
“And what did you find?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I had the stone analyzed. It was unusual, apparently a meteorite, but it did not possess any special properties. At least, not that I could find.”
Again, Nina refused to take the bait. “So you bought it and kept it … until it was stolen.”
A grunt of annoyance. “Yes. I had a second property at the time where I kept my collection of antiquities. It was robbed, very professionally—but the robbers took only the statue and left other items of far greater value. I believe you also encountered these thieves.”
“Yes, I did,” she said, recalling a mad chase through San Francisco to recover a stolen Atlantean artifact. “They were employed by Pramesh and Vanita Khoil.”
Takashi nodded. “I was told they used their Internet technology to intercept people’s private communications. I imagine that is how they learned about my statue. But that raises a question.”
“Why they wanted it in the first place?”
“Yes. For them to have gone to such lengths to steal it, the statue must be of greater importance than it appears to be.”
Nina had another question. “Why didn’t you report it stolen? When it was recovered from the Khoils, you could have gotten it back from Interpol. Rather than buying it on the black market.”
“You do not approve, Dr. Wilde?”
“No. It just encourages the illegal trading of antiquities—if thieves know they can get a high price for what they’ve stolen, they’ll keep on doing it.”
“On this occasion, I had no choice. There were other interested parties, and I could not let the statue—the statues, all three—fall into their possession.”
“Which other interested parties?”
“That is no longer important. What matters is that I now have them.” Takashi stood. “In answer to your question,” he told her as he slowly walked around the table, “I did not report the theft of my statue because even though I have rightful ownership, there are those who want it taken from me and returned to China. For the sake of diplomacy—and their own political ambitions. If the statue had been brought