chance to honor that debt.”
“What are you proposing?” Milo eyed him carefully.
“I give you the
Mona Lisa
. You give me Eva and walk
away. This time, there doesn’t have to be a winner or a loser.
We can both get what we want.”
Milo paused, gazing intently at Tom as if trying to sniff
out the trap that might be lurking behind his offer.
“Fine.” He nodded at his men to lower their guns and then
pushed Eva toward Tom. She fell into his arms and nestled
her head in his collar, sobbing with relief. “I accept your of-
fer. Where is it?”
“Don’t Tom,” Jennifer grabbed Tom’s arm in alarm, cer-
tain that Milo would betray them as soon as he had what he
wanted.
“I know what I’m doing.” Tom shook her off, his eyes
locked with Milo’s. “Look behind you.”
Jennifer followed Milo’s gaze to where a small painting of
Napoleon was hanging on the wall over a display case.
Dressed in black, he was staring straight into the room, a cu-
rious smile on his face.
“Why so sure?” Milo approached it skeptically.
“Because there’s only one subject Napoleon would have
considered worthy of being painted over the
Mona Lisa
,”
Tom explained. “Himself.”
“The size matches,” Milo nodded. He unhooked it from
the wall and turned it over. “Oil on poplar. Louvre markings
on the back. Yes, this must be it. Captain?” He snapped his
fingers and a briefcase appeared into which he carefully
placed the painting. “Excellent.” He flashed them a trium-
phant smile. “I believe our business here is done and my debt
repaid. Enjoy Havana.”
Milo backed cautiously out of the room, and then with a
final bow, he turned and the door closed behind him. They
heard the sound of the key in the lock.
“Are you okay?” Tom pulled Eva away from him and
gazed into her eyes. “What did he do to you? What’s hap-
pened to your arm?”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
3 7 7
“You came back for me?” Her voice, although weary and
crushed, had a hint of hope in it now.
“I promised I would.” He smiled at her.
“I can’t believe you just handed them the painting,” Jenni-
fer blurted angrily, trying to ignore the sight of Tom gently
caressing Eva’s tear- stained cheek. “After everything we’ve
been through to get it back. We’re left with nothing.”
“This was never just about the painting,” Tom insisted.
“Besides,” he grinned, “give me some credit.”
“What have you . . . You gave him the wrong one, didn’t
you?” Jennifer fixed him with an incredulous look.
“There’s only one painting here that fits the clues we’ve
seen.” He pointed at a small painting over the bed. It showed
a group of Egyptian workmen erecting an obelisk in the des-
ert. “The Egyptian dinner service. The
Déscription de
L’Egypte
. The Altar of Obelisks. They’ve all been pointing
us to this—”
Eva broke away and gazed up at the painting before turn-
ing and considering them each in turn, a mocking smile
twisting the corners of her mouth, her posture somehow stiff-
ening and stretching before them as if up until then she had
been hunched inside a small shell.
“You can come back in now,” she called out confi dently.
“I’ve got it.”
C H A P T E R E I G H T Y- S I X
25th April— 10:26 a.m.
The color drained from Tom’s face, his eyes wide and
disbelieving.
“Eva?” He breathed. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you what it feels like to be betrayed.” She smiled
as the door was unlocked and Milo marched back in. “It’s the
one over the bed.”
“You’re together?”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” she shot back.
“The kidnapping in Seville? The telephone calls?” He
shook his head as if trying to unjumble the past few days in
his mind. “You set me up.”
“Did you really think that Rafael came out of retirement
for me?” Milo scoffed as he unhooked the painting and
swapped it with the one he had previously put inside the case.
“He did it for her.”
“He was always a poor father to me and he knew it.” Her
eyes flashed angrily, and Tom now appreciated the scale and
artistry of her deception by the speed with which any trace of
hurt or distress at Milo’s hands had vanished. “I gave him a
chance to make amends and he took it.”
“Ledoux hired me to steal the
Mona Lisa
. It was Eva’s
idea to create the copies and sell them on.” Milo smiled, kiss-
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
3 7 9
ing her on the forehead. “She’s more like her father than he
ever suspected.”
“And the
Madonna of the Yarnwinder
? What was that for?”
“I never counted on Takeshi killing Rafael.” Milo’s voice
hardened. “I knew that you’d come running as soon as you
found out. The idea was to keep you focused somewhere else
for a few days until I had the
Mona Lisa
. It didn’t quite work
out as I’d hoped.”
“Didn’t it?” Tom gave a resigned shrug. “You’ve got the
painting and, from the looks of it, the girl too. Looks to me
like you played your hand pretty well.” A pause. “What hap-
pens now?”
“Now?” Milo sighed. “Now, I’m going to do us both a
favor.”
With a sudden flash of steel he drew a knife across Eva’s
throat. She collapsed, her mouth making a gurgling noise
like an emptying bath, the blood streaming down her front as
she pressed her hands to her neck. Tom jumped forward but
was forced back by the point of Djoulou’s gun. Eva looked
up, first at Tom, then at Milo, her eyes wide, questioning and
scared as she reached helplessly toward them. Gradually they
fl uttered shut.
“One of us is not going to leave this room alive,” Tom
hissed through clenched teeth.
“She betrayed you, Felix. She betrayed me. She betrayed
her own father, for God’s sake!” Milo wiped the blade of his
knife across her jeans. “Did you know the FBI had her DNA
on file? Our entire operation jeopardized, all because of her
lies. Well, this is the price of betrayal. You of all people
should know that.”
“I know you hide behind your twisted code of honor, when
all you really are is a killer.”
“My twisted code of honor is the only reason you’re still
alive,” Milo said tersely. “My offer still stands, if you want it.
We both walk away from this with the slate wiped clean, my
debt repaid.” He held out his hand, but Tom ignored him.
“Just remember, I owe Agent Browne no such debt,” Milo
continued slowly, his voice hardening.
Tom glanced at Jennifer, knowing that he had no choice.
3 8 0 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
She only seemed to be half listening to them, her gaze fi xed
instead on Eva’s staring eyes. His jaw clenched tight, heart
pounding, he reluctantly shook Milo’s hand. Milo gripped
him tightly, pulling him close and whispering in his ear.
“By the way, you were wrong about there not needing to
be a winner. Quite wrong. There’s always a winner.”
He released Tom with a wink, and then led his men out of
the room. He paused at the doorway and glanced down at
Eva, his tone surprisingly gentle.
“You know, I was actually getting quite attached to her.
You of all people know how dangerous that is, don’t you,
Tom? How it opens you up, makes you vulnerable?”
He paused, and just for a moment Tom thought he detected
a slight tremor play across his lips. But it vanished almost as
soon as it had appeared and when he next spoke, his voice
had recovered its characteristic authority.
“It’s not a mistake I’ll be making again,” he declared
firmly, before closing the door behind him.
There was a long silence. Jennifer stepped forward and
clutched Tom’s arm, searching out his eyes. He glanced at
her and then looked back to Eva’s body with a sad smile.
“I’m so sorry Tom.”
“Whatever she’d done, she didn’t deserve that.”
“No.”
Tom stepped over to the bed. Pulling the bedspread on to
the floor, he gently laid it across Eva’s body, pausing for a few
moments before covering her face. The silk material settled
over her like a black shroud, Napoleon’s embroidered mono-
gram forming a rich burst of golden flames at its center. The
room felt strangely quiet. He realized then that he’d allowed
the persistent echo of Eva’s voice to creep into his thoughts
with growing intensity over the past few days:
There’s some-
thing you should know. Something Rafael told me about your
father. About how he died.
He’d allowed himself to hope.
Now, however, she was gone, and with her passing another
window on to his father had been bolted shut, never to be
opened again.
“You need to call Green,” he said, turning suddenly. “Tell
him where we are and what’s happened. This town must be
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
3 8 1
crawling with Agency people. See if he can or ganize some
sort of extraction via Guantanamo Bay before the police get
here.”
“It’s okay, they’ve gone.” The girl who had been on recep-
tion downstairs appeared at the door, her triumphant smile
fading away when she saw Eva’s body. “He killed her?”
Jennifer frowned in confusion.
“Who are you?”
“You
haven’t met Dominique before, have you?” Tom
asked. “She works with Archie and me.”
“What’s going on?” Jennifer stepped back and eyed them
both suspiciously. “I thought we agreed: no secrets.”
“I didn’t know she’d be here myself until I turned up just
now,” Tom protested.
“Archie sent me,” Dominique explained. “Dumas found
out that Eva was working with Milo and that Takeshi was
one of their buyers.”
“So you knew they’d be here? You knew she’d betray you?”
she said to Tom.
“Once I read this, yes.” Tom held up the guide book Domi-
nique had handed him when they had first arrived. He opened
it to the third page. A small note had been taped inside. “But
I had to play along. I know Milo. I knew he’d never believe
that I had given him the real painting unless he thought he’d
somehow tricked me into it. Unless he thought he’d somehow
won.”
“He did win. He took the painting.”
“He took the painting I hung there this morning,” Domin-
ique corrected her. “But he left you one too.” She unhooked
the Napoleon portrait Milo had replaced on the wall and
turned it over. “Look at the stamp on the back. An N sur-
rounded by laurel leaves. Napoleon’s seal. This is the
Mona
Lisa
.”
Jennifer frowned.
“Then what has Milo got?”
Tom reached into his top pocket and handed her a crum-
pled business card with a grin.
“You want that journalist off your back once and for all?
Why don’t you ask him to fi nd out?”
C H A P T E R E I G H T Y- S E V E N
MOHAMED V AIRPORT, CASABLANCA, MOROCCO
28th April— 8:48 a.m.
It was a long narrow room with a single, windowless door
and a large rectangular mirror along the right-hand wall.
The light was operated from the outside, the table and chairs
screwed down to the uncarpeted floor. Milo sat in one of the
plastic seats, waiting, his nails tap-tapping impatiently on the
desk’s laminated surface.
His head snapped up at the sound of a key in the lock and
the sight of two men entering the room, one in dirty jeans
with a limp and two black eyes, the other a Customs offi cer
whose name badge identified him as Mohammed Kalou.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Mr. . . . Martell, is that right?” Kalou looked up question
-
ingly from his passport.
“You can read, can’t you?”
“Yes, it’s very clear. Very
fresh
.” He gave him a smile.
“What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you holding me here?”
Kalou turned over a few pages attached to a clipboard.
“I understand you’re importing a painting into Morocco. A
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
3 8 3
small piece showing a group of workmen erecting an obelisk
in the desert. Mid-nineteenth century.”
“That’s right.”
“Is it valuable?”
“I’ve provided the sales receipt and paid the relevant im-
port duty, as you would know if you had bothered reading
the paperwork.”
“Mmmm . . .” The officer looked up, his eyes narrowing.
“Have you met Mr. Lewis, by the way?”
Milo glanced across to the other man, who had so far said
nothing.
“Should I have done?”
“Mr. Lewis works for a U.S. newspaper—
American Lives
.”
“
Voice
,” Lewis corrected him with a frown.
“
Voice
. Yes. Mr. Lewis believes that there’s rather more to
your painting than meets the eye.”
“Mr. Lewis is wasting your time and mine,” Milo said
through clenched teeth. “I want to speak to someone in
charge.”
“Let’s begin.” Kalou snapped his fingers and the light