The Man of Bronze by James Alan Gardner Page B

these investigations usually hit dead ends: anonymous calls from pay phones, or e-mail addresses registered to the tooth fairy. At best, the authorities will trace everything to some expendable go-between whose corpse is now feeding the fishes.” I looked at Father Emil. “Unless the police have extraordinary good luck, they’ll come up empty. We, on the other hand, can approach this business from a more promising angle . . . because now you’re going to tell me what’s in the attaché case and who would kill to get it.”
    Father Emil didn’t answer right away. He stared across the room at Reuben, watching Kaisho and Myoko fix new dressings over the bullet wounds. “How is he?” Father Emil asked the doctors.
    “Stable,” the women answered together.
    “I’m fine,” Reuben said in a wheezing voice. He tried to sit up, but the doctors immediately pushed him back down.
    “Lie still,” the women snapped. I wondered if their unison was a twin thing, a nun thing, or a doctor thing.
    “Take it easy, Reuben,” Father Emil said. “There’s no reason to exert yourself.” He looked at me as if weighing a decision. “Ms. Croft,” he said, “the Order of Bronze does not share confidences lightly. However, I believe you are an honorable woman. I also believe you will not be put off. If I send you away without answers, you will cause us a great deal of fuss. That would be . . . most regrettable.”
    I nodded, trying to keep a straight face. It was hard to tell if Father Emil was just stating a fact or making a veiled threat; but with his German-tinged accent, he sounded like a Nazi mad scientist from some dreadful B movie.
Ahh, mein Liebchen, it vould be most regrettable if I vere forced to use vhips und chains!
    “Quite,” I said. “Do let’s keep this civilized.”
    Father Emil gave me another hard stare. Then he reached into his robe and pulled out two metal keys. One key appeared to be normal steel, but the other was brightly polished bronze.
    The steel key unlocked the handcuff on Reuben’s wrist. Father Emil took the attaché case back to the table where we’d been sitting and slid the bronze key into the case’s lock.
    Click . . . and the case opened.
    Inside the case lay a jumble of papers—maps, computer printouts, scribbled notes in Reuben’s handwriting—but what caught my eye was a sealed plastic box the size of an encyclopedia volume.
    I’d seen such boxes before. They were tough, padded containers for transporting antiques. This one was labeled OM ´ ONIA: a name unknown to the masses but as familiar as Sotheby’s to someone in my profession. Omónia Auctions in Athens hosted exclusive sales of antiquities from around the world. Most customers were billionaires; most items sold went unpublicized except among the favored few. I myself had attended the sale of King Tutankhamen’s funerary mask—the real one, not the fake displayed for tourists in the Egyptian Museum—and I’d peddled a few of my own finds there too. (Usually, I keep the treasures I fetch from tombs, but some aren’t worth the trouble . . . especially the ones that are cursed. I don’t mind dealing with mummies coming to reclaim their favorite scarabs, but the farmers around Croft Manor complain if I bring home some ancient amulet that makes their milk cows run dry.)
    It took all my self-control not to grab the Omónia box and rip it open. Instead, I let Father Emil take it . . . whereupon he spent a maddeningly long time trying to peel off the tape that sealed the box shut. In the end, he carried it to Kaisho, who spent another maddeningly long time slicing through the tape with a scalpel as slowly as if she were performing brain surgery.
    To keep from bursting with impatience, I turned back to the open attaché case. I’d intended to flip through the documents inside . . . but my eye was caught by something else: faint scratches around the lock. I looked more closely. The marks had the telltale appearance of furtive