Robert Browne - The Paradise Prophecy

Batty had known that Rebecca was about to crack and had been desperate to stop it. What she was experiencing wasn’t the same as a dream, but he tried to share it with her, to get inside her head, and when he finally did, he’d heard his own voice shouting at her, telling her how much he despised her-that he wanted her to die.

The room around him began to shake then, the windows rattling, the bed rolling, and before Batty could duck, a drawer shot out from the dresser, slamming into his head, knocking him cold.

“When I came to,” he told Callahan, “the room was back to normal. Looked as if it had never been touched, except for her body on the bed, and that symbol burned into the mattress beneath her.”

He closed his eyes, trying now to push the image from his mind, tortured by the knowledge that Rebecca’s last moments had been filled with words of hatred, spoken in his voice. Had she known it was only a trick? He could only hope so.

He grabbed the glass in front of him and drained it. “I don’t know why I was spared, but I was.” He laughed softly. Mirthlessly. “If you can call this being spared.”

“I assume there was an investigation?”

“Not much of one. I knew my story sounded crazy, so I called the police and told them I had just come home and found her like that, knowing full well that they’d consider me a murder suspect. But without a motive or even a workable theory about how she got that way, they never bothered charging me. They got a look at the books she was reading, then chalked it up to a freak accident and called it a day.”

“Section had to know about this,” Callahan murmured. “So why didn’t they tell me?”

“Section?”

“Never mind,” she said. “But you’ve gotta know I’m clinging to the lifeboat right now-one with the letters WTF stamped on the side.”

“Like I said, I don’t blame you. And you may think I’m certifiable, but I know what I saw. Put a goddamn straitjacket on me, lock me up in Chabert Memorial, and my story won’t change.”

He considered ordering another drink, but decided against it. For the first time in recent memory, he didn’t want one. As if finally telling his story had somehow purged him of the need.

He watched Callahan drain her own glass and could see that she was struggling with all of this. Should she take that leap and believe him? Or simply fall back on what she knew, like the cops in Ithaca had?

But Batty wasn’t done yet. “With Gabriela, we’ve got a whole new wrinkle in the fabric. She was Custodes Sacri , and if this angel came after her, he’s bound to go after the other guardians, too, hoping to get whatever secret they hold. So they’re all in danger.”

“How many are there?”

“I’m not sure. I only know of one.”

“Who?”

“An antiquities dealer named Koray Ozan. But until today, I thought his involvement was just a rumor.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I get his quarterly catalogues and I recognized some of the pieces from his collection in Gabriela’s apartment. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. As far as I’m concerned, it pretty much confirms he’s Custodes Sacri . Which means he’s a marked man.”

“So where do we find this guy?”

“Istanbul.”

Her eyes widened slightly and she nodded. “There was a box from the Garanti Auction House in Istanbul in Gabriela’s bedroom yesterday. The figurine I asked you about was inside-Michael fighting the dragon.”

“That figurine might have been a warning to her. That trouble was coming.”

“These people don’t have e-mail?”

Batty shrugged. “I’m not sure how they communicate. Or even if they do. The important thing is, we need to get a message to him before it’s too-”

Callahan’s cell phone cut him off. She reached for her backpack and fished it out, putting it to her ear. “Callahan.”

She turned away from Batty and listened a moment, then murmured something into the mouthpiece before clicking off. When she turned to face him again, the color had drained from her cheeks.

“That was Section. I’ve been ordered to cut my losses here and pull up stakes immediately.”

“Why?”

“They’re sending me to Istanbul.” She looked at him now as if she was finally starting to think that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to everything Batty had told her. “Koray Ozan is dead.”

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

Dimitri Kovalenko did not like Amsterdam.

The city was always crowded, people pushing their way from here to there, always in a hurry, but never in enough of a hurry to suit Dimitri.

The worst of it was the Rosse Buurt. The red light district. By day, the area was quite beautiful, with its cobbled streets and its centuries-old architecture. By night, however, those streets were so packed with human debris, looking for a private strip show or a cheap fuck, that Dimitri was quick to lose all patience with the place.

But Dimitri worked in the service industry. And sometimes that service required him to travel to cities he detested-which, when he thought about it, was probably any city but his own. He had been born and raised and still lived in Balta, a twenty-thousand strong, Russian Orthodox paradise in the Odessa province of southwestern Ukraine.

He had a wife and two children who missed him terribly when he went away on these business trips, which was far more often than he liked.

As he had packed for this latest excursion, Yalena had asked him, with some irritation in her voice, how much longer he would be doing this. Their son, Olek, was beginning to act up both in school and at home, and Yalena didn’t feel she could handle him on her own anymore.

“He needs his father,” she’d said. “He needs to know you still love him.”

The words had surprised Dimitri. How could Olek not know that his father loved him? Was he not out here, working hard to provide for him? Did the boy think he enjoyed all of this travel?

“This is the last time,” he’d told Yalena. “I will make enough money on this trip to keep us fat and happy for the rest of our lives.”

“You’ve said that before, Dimitri. And every time you do, it scares me, because I know what kind of people you associate with.”

Kovalenko had said nothing then. He did not speak about business with her, but Yalena was not a stupid woman. And she had seen enough of those associates to justify her fear.

But he hadn’t been lying to her. If things went well tonight, they would have more money than he’d ever thought possible. And all of it would be theirs. Because the people he worked for did not know about this particular transaction. They did not even know that he had left the country.

Before coming to the Rosse Buurt, Dimitri had rented a hotel room nearby and left the suitcase under the bed. He was not foolish enough to bring it with him. He had no idea if the German could be trusted, and until he saw the money, until he was holding it in his hands, he would not turn over the merchandise.

And should things go wrong and he wound up dead, they would never know where to find that suitcase. An outcome the German would, undoubtedly, consider unacceptable.

Dimitri made his way down Damstraat, weaving through the crowd of degenerates, keeping his gaze ahead, not wanting to look into the red-trimmed windows that lined the street. The half-naked women on display would be a temptation for him, and he had only succumbed to that temptation twice before. Although Yalena was a pedestrian lover, whose skills were limited, she was a good mother and a fine wife, and he had no desire to betray her again.