“Have it your way. I don’t have time to argue. I have to find a way out.” He pushed him down to his knees again. “I’ll put the manacles back on you and you can wait for someone to come…or not.”
“No.” He struggled back to his feet. “I’ll show you. But then you’ll let me go?”
“We’ll talk about it. I’m still not sure you don’t know more. But we’re not going to let Dobran go, I need him. So he won’t be around to go looking for you. Move!” He was gazing around the gallery. “No doors. But there’s another way out, right? Show me. Hurry!”
“I will. I’m hurrying.” Sebak was running toward the back of the gallery. “The mummy…”
“Mummy?” Joe was helping Gideon move faster with Dobran. “What are you talking about?”
Sebak was standing before an upright ornate mummy sarcophagus whose top was a huge, carved hawk. “It’s a passageway that leads out of the back of the house and down a tunnel toward the road.” He was opening the lid, then swinging the five-foot shelf containing the wrapped mummy to one side. “Dobran liked the idea of using the mummy to hide the door.” He ducked inside. “Follow me.”
“Wait a minute.” Joe had a thought. “Gideon said that everything in the gallery was on a separate control. Does that include video cameras?”
“Of course,” Sebak said. “Everything.”
“Then where can I pull the tapes?”
“They have a special code to release each section of the display areas. There are six kiosks.”
“Six!”
“Sirens, Quinn,” Gideon said quietly.
Joe heard them, too.
“Shit.” No time to stay and grab the videos. Worry about it later. “Get going, Sebak.”
Sebak disappeared into the darkness.
“Macabre,” Gideon said dryly as he dragged Dobran farther into the sarcophagus. “This decision must have been made during one of his more bizarre narcotic episodes.”
“Whatever.” Joe was negotiating the entrance to the tunnel while still trying to help Gideon with Dobran. “Pull that lid shut behind you, then call Nassem and tell him to meet us at the road in back of the château.”
“I’m sure it’s bad luck to close the lid of a coffin on oneself.” Gideon slammed the lid behind him. “Oh, well, I look to you to protect me.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“But I most certainly do, Quinn. Otherwise, I’ll drop Dobran and let you lug him out yourself.” Gideon reached for his phone. “And I think those sirens are closer…”
* * *
Robaku
It was done.
Eve was breathing heavily, as if she’d been running.
She was shaking from exhaustion.
But you didn’t beat me, you son of a bitch.
No, he wasn’t quite done. But only the eyes were left to insert. The eyes were always the last step in completing a reconstruction.
Her hands were trembling as she reached for her eye case.
“Eve?” Jill was beside her. “Can I help you now? You don’t look so good.”
“Tired…” Eye case. “I have to get the eye case. We can’t look at him until I put in the eyes.”
“I won’t look at him. I know this choice is as important to you as the sculpting itself.” She gave Eve the eye case and opened the lid. “Which ones?”
“Brown. We’ll try brown first. Brown eyes always predominate.” She took out the right eye and carefully put it into the socket. She didn’t look at the face, her gaze fixed only on that dark, shiny eye. “I think it’s time you got that photo, Jill.”
“I do, too.” Jill squeezed Eve’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Put in the other eye.”
Eve was already doing it. She carefully inserted the left eye.
Anger.
Screw you. I’ve done it.
“Here it is.” Jill handed her the blown-up photo. “May I look now? I don’t need the photo. I know what the son of a bitch looks like.”
“Go ahead.” She forced herself to look down at the features of the man in the photo. She felt a ripple of shock as she gazed into those dark eyes so much like the ones she’d just inserted. The shape of the orbital cavities were identical to the ones she had just created. Varak? It must be Varak. What other features were the same? She identified the curve of the cheekbone immediately. She remembered those bold, Slavic cheekbones. She couldn’t take her eyes from the photo, caught by the sheer power of that face. Dominance. Power. Intensity. And darkness, so much darkness.
“Eve,” Jill said gently.
Eve glanced up from the photo. “You should be relieved. It has to be him. It was lucky that