Graham Brown - Ghost Ship

And while he liked the finer things in life, he wore no jewelry, save for a single gold ring given to him by his father.

The house around him was a minor palace, built in the baroque style of eighteenth-century France. The grounds, arranged in terraces on the slope of the great hill, contained stables, ornate gardens, fountains, even a hedge maze that took up several acres on the second terrace just below the main house.

The house itself was filled with splendor. As he walked the hall, he trod softly on polished Italian marble. Doric columns of granite rose on either side of the space, while extraordinary works of art lined the walls between statues and intricate tapestries.

Like his home, Sebastian was clad impeccably. He wore a three-button Savile Row suit that cost as much as a small Mercedes. His feet were covered in silk socks and two-thousand dollar crocodile-skin shoes. Completing the ensemble was a five-hundred-dollar Eton dress shirt with French cuffs, clasped together by diamond-studded cuff links.

It was true that he had an important meeting later that afternoon, but he considered it a privilege to dress like a king. It helped those who met him know their station in life; it reassured those who worked for him that his path was a path of success.

Near the end of the hall, two men who resembled him in their features waited. They were his brothers, Egan and Laurent. They knew of the importance of today’s meeting.

“Are you really going to entertain Acosta’s messenger?” Laurent asked. “We should have killed him for betraying us.”

Laurent, several years younger than Sebastian, was always ready for a fight, as if he knew no other way to deal with confrontation. Despite Sebastian’s efforts to teach him, Laurent had never grasped that manipulation was more profitable and usually more effective than confrontation.

“Let me worry about that,” Sebastian said. “You just make sure our defenses are prepared in case we have to fight.”

Laurent nodded and moved away. In days past, the two had clashed, but Laurent had given way to his older brother’s leadership completely now.

“What about all the explosives in the armory?” Egan asked. “Some of the munitions that Acosta left here are unstable.”

“I have uses for them,” Sebastian explained.

Of the three brothers, Egan was the youngest and most interested in pleasing others. Sebastian considered it a weakness, but, then, Egan had been only fourteen when their father passed. He’d not learned firsthand how to be hard.

“I’ll make sure to give you an inventory,” Egan said, and left by the main hall.

With the two of them gone, the sound of high-heeled boots clicking against the marble floor turned Sebastian around. Coming down the hall toward him was the lithe form of the youngest member of the family.

Calista was fifteen years his junior and as different from the brothers as night and day. Unlike them, she dressed as a commoner. Though with only half as much style, he thought. Today she wore black from head to toe, including a cowboy hat, which she took off and placed on the head of a priceless statue.

Her short hair was dyed the color of coal. Her nails were painted darkly, and she’d done her eyes with enough mascara that she resembled a raccoon.

“Hello, Calista,” he said. “Where have you been?” “Out riding,” she said.

“And dressed for a funeral, I see.”

She put an arm around him provocatively and reached up to set askew his perfectly centered tie. “Is that what’s on the agenda today?”

He glared at her until she stepped back.

Restraightening his tie, he spoke bluntly. “It will be if Acosta does not return what he’s taken from us.”

She perked up at that. “Is Rene coming here?”

“Your personal interest in him bothers me,” Sebastian scolded her. “He’s beneath you.”

“Sometimes a cat plays with a mouse,” she replied. “Sometimes she kills it. What concern is that of yours?”

Calista was a lost child. She didn’t bond well with people. Not that she avoided human relationships; on the contrary, she was always entering into or leaving one. But from their father on down, all her relationships were a mix of love and hate, anger constantly set off by a crushing devotion for all the things she could never have.

And once she possessed them, it changed. Sudden and cruel indifference was the usual response, or even a desire to cause pain and torment to that which she now controlled. How perfect, he mused, to have a beautiful little sociopath for a sister. It made her useful.

“Rene’s disobedience is my concern,” he told her. “He’s betrayed us.”

She seemed ready to defend her ex-lover. “He took the woman to Iran as you asked,” she said. “She’s done what we needed her to do. The Trojan horse is in place. The trapdoor link is active. I’ve checked it myself.”

Brèvard smiled. Calista had her charms, one of which was her ability with computers and systems. At least they had that in common, for Sebastian was an accomplished programmer in his own right. But she couldn’t see the big picture like he did.

“The Iranians are just one part of the plan,” he reminded her. “Giving them access does us no good unless she is back here and in our possession at the appropriate time. Unless the world fears what we can do, they will not react as we need them to.”

She stared at him and shrugged, hopping up on a five- hundred-year-old credenza and swinging her legs back and forth as if it were a sideboard from a secondhand store. “That piece once graced Napoleon’s summer retreat,” Sebastian chided her.

She glanced at the antique wood with its perfectly curved lines and ornate finish. “I’m sure he doesn’t need it anymore.”

Sebastian felt his anger building but held back.

“We shouldn’t have given her to Rene,” she added, suddenly becoming the cold, dark version of herself again. “We should have made a deal with the Iranians ourselves.”

Brèvard shook his head. “Rene is the front. His presence insulates and protects us. We set him up in business for that very reason. We need to keep that in place. But he needs to be reined in.”

“Then we have to find a way to motivate him,” she added. “I suggest violence. Plenty of it.”

“Really?” he said. “Why am I not surprised?”

“It’s all he understands.”

“We are not blunt instruments like Rene,” he insisted. “We must succeed with style and grace. More to the point, we are artists. When we take what we’re after—”

“I know,” she said, cutting him off, “no one must know it was us.”

“No,” he corrected. “No one must know it was taken .”

This was a point he thought he’d hammered home.

She sighed, tired of his lectures. “You will never get the woman back from Rene until he’s afraid. He may be a brute, but I tell you he lives in great fear and that’s why he lashes out. You want her back, you will have to tap into that fear.”

Sebastian was silent for a moment. “You might be right,” he said. “Come to my office. Rene’s messenger should be arriving any minute now.”

Twenty minutes later, a servant opened the door to Sebastian’s office. “A guest has arrived, Monsieur Brèvard. He claims to speak for Mr. Acosta.”

“Did he come alone?”

“He came with three men. They are undoubtedly armed.”

“Show the messenger in,” Sebastian said.

“And the others, sir?”

“Offer them a drink from our private stock.”

“Very good, sir.”

The servant bowed slightly and backtracked through the double doors.

Moments later, a stocky man in tan cargo pants and a loosefitting polo shirt came in. “My name is Kovack,” the man said. He spoke English with an Eastern European accent. He made uneasy eye contact with Sebastian and glanced nervously behind him at Calista, who stood with her back pressed flat against the wall. She didn’t acknowledge him or move or even blink.