The Devil's Triangle (A Brit in the FBI 4)

Nicholas said. “I want to meet Grant and shake his hand. He taught you well. Sit down, Kitsune, and tell us what’s going on here.”

She sat forward. “Listen, time is of the essence. They have Grant, they kidnapped my husband.” Her voice cracked, just a bit, then she shook her head at herself, got it together. “I was told to set up a contact email account. My only message from his kidnappers was to be in the Piazza San Marco on the time and date—today. Nothing else.”

Nicholas looked at her closely, saw the fear in her eyes, not for herself, no, for her husband. And he knew without question that she would trade herself for him.

“Somehow they found out I’d called you, how, I don’t know, but they knew. They knew everything. And that’s why they were there in the piazza, waiting and watching for us to hook up and take care of all of us. I don’t think they have Grant here, I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” Kitsune hated saying those words aloud, hated how they sounded so stark, so final. She wanted to fold in on herself, but knew she had to keep it together, she had to move forward. It’s what Grant would expect of her. It’s what she expected of herself.

Mike said, “You realize, of course, that your clients have buddies in the Carabinieri, probably on their payroll?”

“I didn’t, not until the shooting started and they were nowhere to be seen.”

Another knock on the door, and Nicholas covered Mike as she went to open it. This time, it was their dinner. Mike gave the server a big tip and wheeled the cart inside, wincing only slightly at the pulling pain in her arm. She’d been lucky—this was nothing.

She set the tray on the table. “Everyone, dig in.”

Nicholas took a bite of carbonara, then another. It tasted nearly as good as Pietro’s on East 43rd in Midtown.

“Kitsune, let’s start at the Topkapi. I want to hear how you managed to steal the staff of Moses, a priceless artifact. Just like you stole another priceless artifact, I might add, from another well-guarded museum.”

Kitsune chewed on a bite of gnocchi. “Suffice it to say the orders to give me a slot with the palace guards came from the very top. I look good in green and carrying an M5.”

Mike said, “So you were a guard. You watched and you waited, learned everyone’s routines, the timetables. When you were ready, you put the security feed on a loop, turned off the infrared and bypassed the alarms, and did a weighted replacement for the staff.”

Kitsune smiled. “You should get into the business, Mike. You think like a thief.”

“Why, thank you,” Mike said.

“Wait a minute,” Nicholas said. “The Topkapi is guarded by the Turkish military. How in the world did you get around them?”

“I will say only that General Akar’s signature is remarkably easy to duplicate. How I stole the staff is irrelevant. The Topkapi’s security has many holes, as any museum does. We need to talk about Grant and how we’re going to find him. And save him.”

“First, Kitsune,” Nicholas said, “we want you to tell us about how the sandstorm in Beijing wasn’t a natural disaster.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kitsune nodded. “Very well. I’ve been doing some research on recent storms in the Gobi. I discovered a pattern. There have been a spate of sandstorms, always starting from the same quadrant, every few months for the past three years. If you check your email, Nicholas, I sent you a report before I came here.”

Nicholas pulled his mobile from his pocket, opened it to his private, secure FBI mail app. “I won’t even ask how you got my secure email address.”

“Truly, Nicholas, if the Americans have any hope of remaining at the top of the world food chain, they need to realize that giving every agent the same-patterned email address isn’t a safe road to security, no matter the level of encryption.”

He tossed the phone to Adam. “Adam, please offload it.”

Louisa asked, “But why would someone want to be causing sandstorms in the Gobi? Why would someone want to control the weather at all? And how is that even possible? You think someone’s figured out how to damage their competition one storm at a time? It’s all about money?”

Kitsune said, “It usually is. But now I believe the systematic sandstorms are about something bigger than money. I believe whoever hired me to steal the staff of Moses in the Topkapi has something to do with these sandstorms.”

“The Gobi is a big place,” Mike said. “I assume there are many lost treasures.”

Kitsune nodded. “The Mongolian Empire was quite large. Whole cities were lost along with their treasures, their gold. As I told you on the phone, Nicholas, I think they’re looking for the Ark of the Covenant in the Gobi Desert.”

“The Gobi Desert?” Adam looked confused. “How can that be possible? I mean, Indiana Jones was nowhere near the Gobi.”

Mike said, “Adam’s right, tell us more, so we’ll understand. Why is your client looking for the Ark of the Covenant? And why in the Gobi Desert?”

Kitsune said simply, “I believe they want the power the Ark holds. God’s power. You see, the staff of Moses belongs inside the Ark. I’ve read the Ark’s power is inconceivable. With it, they’d be unstoppable. If I’m right about this, they’ve already found a way to control the weather.”

Adam looked up from his laptop. “Kitsune’s right. There is a pattern to the sandstorms. It’s hard to see if you didn’t go in already expecting to find it. Their inceptions concentrate in a single area.”