The Pretender's Gambit. Alex Archer

Annja asked.

      Bart crossed the room over to the computer. “Here.”

      Walking around the dead man, Annja joined Bart at the computer. He moved the mouse and the monitor came out of hibernation, clearing to reveal a photograph of a white jade elephant. The image gave no indication of how large the piece was, but it was exquisitely rendered with a lot of careful detail.

      Taken from a side view, the elephant had its trunk curled in and sharp sheaths that covered its tusks. A thick rectangle lay across its back from its neck to its tail and hung down to almost the rounded stomach. Atop its back, a pair of warriors rode in a covered basket. One of the warriors held a spear. The other held a bow with an arrow nocked. A skullcap covered the elephant’s head. On the skullcap, a flowering plant stood out in worn relief.

      Annja’s interest flared up at once and she leaned closer to the screen. “The elephant looks Persian or Indian.”

      “How do you know that?” Broadhurst asked.

      Bart said nothing, just took out his field notebook and started taking down information.

      “The ears,” Annja replied. “Indian elephants have smaller ears than African elephants.”

      “Maybe the guy who made this just liked small-eared elephants.” Broadhurst shrugged. “Maybe large ears were harder to make.”

      Still amazed by the detail, certain that the piece she was looking at was really old and wishing she could examine it for real, Annja shook her head. “Whoever carved this went to a lot of trouble to get things right. Those ears are proportioned just right.”

      “Okay, I’ve heard of Indian elephants and the small-ears thing, but I haven’t heard of Persian elephants.”

      “That’s because the Persians used Indian elephants. Do you know much about war elephants?”

      “No. We don’t see much of them in New York.”

      “The Persians were the first to use elephants in wars. The first time historians know they were used was in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. King Darius II of Persia fielded fifteen elephants carrying mounted archers and spearmen at the center of his line. Seeing the elephants freaked Alexander the Great out, but it didn’t stop him from defeating the Persians and claiming Darius’s lands after he killed him. The Indians used war elephants a lot, too, but the possibility that this is a Persian elephant exists.”

      Broadhurst grimaced and looked a little frustrated. “The history lesson doesn’t help us with our murder. Don’t put us no closer to the creep that done this.”

      “Can I look through these files?” Annja asked.

      “Sure. Our techs have already been through it. We’ll be taking the computer back with us, but you can look through what’s up there.”

      Annja flicked through the photographs. There were nine more images of the elephant, all of them from different angles, none of them with any reference that would tell her how big the piece was.

      Before and after the images of the elephant were images of other objects—cups, pottery and toys. All of them looked old, but none of them looked as old as the elephant.

      “Can I have copies of these images?” Annja asked. “It’ll help me track down anything that might be out there in the archaeological communities concerning this piece.”

      Bart glanced at Broadhurst, who hesitated only a second before nodding.

      “Keep it on the down low,” Bart advised. “So far only we and the killers know about the elephant angle.” He let out a breath. “And the elephant’s only a clue if it wasn’t deliberately left on the computer as a red herring.”

      Annja looked back at the computer monitor. “If this isn’t a lead, I should be able to find it pretty quickly for you.”

      Bart’s cell phone rang and he answered it, spoke briefly, then looked over at Broadhurst. “That was Palfrey. They’ve got the nephews downstairs. Turns out they live on the second floor.”

      Broadhurst nodded. “I’ll stay here with the body. Why don’t you question the nephews. Take Professor Creed with you. According to the old man’s daughter, the nephews had something to do with our vic’s business. Maybe they know something about this missing elephant she can help with.”

      Bart glanced at Annja. “You up for this? You’re still the only antiques expert I have on hand.”

      “Sure.” Curious, Annja followed Bart out of the room, but her mind was locked on the image of the war elephant and the mystery it represented.

Chapter 2

      Calmly despite the tension that ratcheted through him and the knowledge that the NYPD was across the street, Francisco Calapez knocked on the door to apartment 5E and checked the hallway again. At this late hour, no one was there, but in this city it seemed no one slept. People were always moving, always doing things. He did not like being here, and he especially did not like knocking on a stranger’s door in the middle of the night.

      Unfortunately, since he did not find the thing he had looked for in the old man’s rooms and he did not know where it had gone, he was forced to risk this to get more information. Fernando Sequeira did not take failure well.

      “Open up, please.” He knocked again, dropping his knuckles heavier this time. His pulse beat at his temples as he stared at the window at the end of the hallway. The elevated heart rate wasn’t the result of fear. It came from readiness. Whirling red and blue lights from the police cars parked out in the street below alternately tinted the panes.

      A few feet back from him, up against the wall and out of sight of the door’s fish-eye peephole, Jose Pousao stood waiting with a silenced pistol hidden under his hoodie. He was more slightly built than Calapez, and young enough to be his son, but he listened well and had a taste for killing. That was something that was hard to train into a man. Calapez had always felt that killing was in the blood, a talent a man either had or did not have. Calapez knew he was lucky to be partnered with the younger man. When things got dangerous, Pousao wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone. In fact, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill everyone who wasn’t Calapez.

      Just as Calapez was about to knock again, a man’s voice answered from the other side. “Hello. Can I help you?”

      “Police.” Calapez spoke with an American accent, hiding his native Portuguese. Doing something like that was not hard to do after watching bootlegged American movies. He had been a good mimic since he’d been a child.

      “I didn’t call the police.”

      “We know that, sir.” Calapez curbed his anger. Tonight had already been frustrating because he had not found what he had been sent for, nor did he know where he might find it. The easy thing Fernando Sequeira had asked him to do had turned out not to be so easy, and there had been only one location given. Killing a man—or a woman—was simple enough, but finding things was more difficult. If the elephant had been there, if the old man had not already been dead, the night would have gone more easily. As it was, he was stuck looking for the cursed thing. “We need to look out your window.”

      A moment passed and Calapez knew the man inside the apartment was studying him. Calapez wore a nondescript coat over a shirt and tie and slacks. A suit in New York City was urban camouflage, like a Hawaiian shirt in Florida around the beaches. Calapez had learned how to blend in while in many places doing Sequeira’s business over the years.

      “My window?”

      “There was a murder next door, sir.”

      “No one here saw a murder. I was asleep until all the commotion started outside.”

      “Yes, sir. But there are security cameras on this building that might help us in the search for the killers.”

      “How does getting