Midnight in Ruby Bayou (8 page)

The client's smile was more predatory than warm. “As I said, I can pay you very, very well. Now get the stone from the safe for me, Miss Donovan, and we can discuss price. There is no more need to be cautious. We understand each other, yes?”

“Not quite,” she said dryly. “I don't carry multimillion-dollar stones in my inventory, Mr. Ivanovitch. I would be delighted to look for such a stone for you, but frankly, if you're in a hurry, you'd do better to go to Manhattan or London or Tokyo or Thailand. I could give you some contacts that—”

“I was assured that you have such a stone,” he cut in. His hazel eyes were narrowed and his mouth looked ready to snarl.

Ray's hand slipped beneath his jacket. There was more than insistence in Ivanovitch's tone. There was real anger, the kind that led to violence.

“Whoever assured you was mistaken,” Faith said evenly. “I'd love to have such a magnificent ruby. I don't.” She waved a hand. “As you can see, this isn't Tiffany or Cartier.”

For a blazing instant Ivanovitch imagined what Faith would look like beneath his knife, bleeding and pleading and so terribly eager to hand over the Heart of Midnight.

But such a pleasure must be delayed. Her guard was far too alert.

Faith watched what could have been temper or embarrassment flare on Ivanovitch's cheekbones. He bowed briefly, turned quickly, and strode out the door.

“Guess he doesn't want me to look around for his, uh, mother's gift,” she said dryly to Ray.

“Guess not.” He watched until Ivanovitch disappeared around the corner. Only then did his hand move away from his jacket. “Wherever he came from, he's used to getting what he wants.”

“And fast,” she agreed. “Well, searching for a stone like that will teach him patience.” She looked around the shop. “You've got five minutes to finish your coffee. That's how long it will take me to lock up. Then you can follow me to Donovan headquarters and keep me from killing someone.”

The man held the phone the way a strangler holds his chosen victim. Plastic is harder than flesh, which was all that saved the black receiver from being crushed like the cigar butts in the ashtray on the bedside table.

“What do you mean she doesn't have it?” Tarasov snarled into the phone. “Offer her more.”

The woman next to him—Tarasov's most recent girlfriend—grumbled and snuggled deeper into the satin sheets that felt so soft against her bruised breasts. She had labored hard tonight, keeping him up and pumping like a teenager. It was sweaty, difficult, distasteful, and often painful work, but paid better than hustling drinks and foreign nationals in hope of snagging a husband who could get her out of St. Petersburg's frozen hell to some warm, foreign heaven.

She was careful not to show any interest in the conversation that had interrupted her sleep. She didn't want to know how her lover made the money that kept her in Russian sable, Italian leather, Chinese silk, African diamonds, and French champagne. She was just bright enough to figure out that the less she knew, the longer she lived in luxury. Or lived at all.

As Tarasov listened to his employee's excuses, his normally ruddy cheeks went even darker with anger. With eyes as cold and empty as the frozen river that coiled through the city, he thought of the many pleasurable ways there were to kill a human being. What he tried not to think about was how very unpleasant it would be to find himself on the receiving end of such knowledge.

If that ruby wasn't back in the Hermitage in two weeks, he would find out more than he wanted to know about pain and dying.

“Bring me that ruby in thirteen days or you will wish you had been born dead.” He hit the cutoff button and smacked the cellular phone on the bedside table so hard that it nearly cracked the marble.

Half a world away, Ivanovitch stared at the public phone. Seattle's afternoon traffic swirled past him. The wind tugged at his sleek leather coat. Slowly he hung up, hit the button that invited him to make another call, and started punching in numbers with a blunt, nicely manicured fingertip. As soon as the slow, husky voice answered, Ivanovitch started talking.

“She denies that she has the ruby.”

Silence, the sound of someone swallowing hard. “She's lying. I sent it to her on consignment.”

“Get it back.”

“She must have sold it. That's why she's lying. She's trying to cut me out of my share.”

“I am not interested in your problems. I will see you in ten days. If I do not have the ruby at that time, I will cut off your cock and push it down your throat.”

“But I don't—”

Ivanovitch slammed the receiver down and vibrated with hunger to have his hands on Faith Donovan's pale skin.

T
he medium-size high-rise overlooking Elliot Bay's wind-harried water was a long way from the sultry green jungles of Myanmar. Or Burma, as the stubborn gem traders called it. No one would pay a premium for a Myanmar ruby, but a fine bloodred Burmese ruby . . . ah, that was something worth risking life and limb for.

At least, that was the theory. It was also the reason Owen Walker was presently leaning on a cane. At least the limb in question, his left leg, was nearly healed.

“You summoned, master?” he drawled to the man behind the desk, although it had been Walker who had asked to see Archer Donovan, not the other way around.

Archer slanted him a look, put up two fingers, and kept on talking into the phone. “You told me the same thing last week. Should I just make a tape and play it again next week?”

Hiding a smile, Walker set the carton down on the floor and looked around the office. Archer's desk was almost big enough to hold the papers piled on top of it. Newsletters and magazines that dealt with policy changes in global backwaters were scattered across the low sofa that ran along one wall and curled out in a cozy L. The sleek coffee table nestled along the sofa held art glass in controlled curves and vivid sunset colors. The painting on the wall had the same colors, but it was more elemental, more powerful, sunset like a tidal wave of color devouring the land.

Motionless, Walker forgot the ache in his leg and simply absorbed the painting. One of his goals in life was to have enough money to afford a Susa Donovan landscape. Until then, he didn't mind waiting in her oldest son's office.

“Cut the crap, Jersey,” Archer said. “That shipment is four weeks and four days late. Either you deliver in three days or the contract is void and you owe Donovan International six hundred big ones in penalties.”

The receiver met its cradle with a soft, final sound.

Walker wondered if the guy on the other end was still talking. Probably. Not that it would have done any good. One of the things people had a hard time understanding about Archer was that he meant what he said and said what he meant.

That was why Walker got along with him.

Archer's gray-green eyes took in the man standing quietly on the other side of the desk. Right now Walker looked like a backcountry gem expert and bush pilot, duties he often fulfilled for Donovan International. Jeans, blue work shirt, fleece-lined waterproof jacket, scarred hiking boots.

And a low-tech wooden cane. Archer had the feeling the cane was a precaution rather than a necessity. Even recuperating, Walker was catlike on his feet. Quick mind, too, though he did his best to hide it behind a good-ol'-boy drawl and dark, close-cut beard. Archer's own beard had a bit more length; his wife liked the way it felt on her skin.

“Faith was burning up the phone lines,” Archer said.

“Didn't like my replacement?” Walker asked innocently.

“She's coming here to yell at me in person. And to hear all about how I yelled at you. At least, that's what she hopes I'll do. So tell me, am I going to yell at you?”

Walker almost smiled. Archer wasn't the yelling kind. He got better results without opening his mouth. He had a way of staring at people that made them hunt for a hole to hide in. “Yell away, boss. It will make your little sister feel a whole lot better.”

Archer raked his fingers through his hair. “You're pretty cocky for someone who could barely stand less than a week ago.”

“I was lucky. Those bandits were too poor to buy bullets for their Kalashnikovs.”

Archer smiled thinly. “Kalashnikovs? Russian antiques.”

“You load 'em and they shoot real fine.”

“They make pretty good clubs, too.”

“No argument here,” Walker said dryly. “I've got the lumps to prove it.”

“You're lucky those clowns didn't have knives.”

“They did.”

Archer's eyes narrowed. He pulled a thin sheaf of papers out from under a stack of file folders. He flipped through the papers quickly. Three pages summarizing three months of work. Walker was famous for his terse reports. “I don't see anything here about knives.”

Walker shrugged. “They didn't cut me, so why waste words?”

“I suppose if you didn't have any bruises, you wouldn't have reported the ambush?”

“You and Kyle are hell-bent on getting some high-quality rubies that haven't been cooked in the Thai cartel's furnaces. My job was to scout the possibilities, not bitch about the conditions.”

Archer pulled out the last page of the report and began reading aloud. “ ‘Chance of reaching ruby miners and/or smugglers before the Thais do: real slim.' ” He looked up, pinning Walker with the kind of look that made most people uncomfortable. Walker didn't react. That was one of the reasons Archer liked him. “Anything to add?”

“Fucking.”

“What?”

“As in real fucking slim. I didn't want to offend the data input pool.”

“Mitchell does all my private reports. He doesn't offend easily.”

“I'll keep that little thing in mind,” Walker said, his voice slow and amused.

“Anything else you left out of the report?”

“It's damn cold in Afghanistan at this time of year.”

Archer's eyes narrowed. “How far did you get?”

“Just to the mines at Jegdalek and Gandamak.”

“Travel conditions?”

“The southern route is still littered with land mines. The northern route is decent enough until you get to Sorobi. Then it unravels into a Jeep trail that swallows itself in dry washes and rockslides. A lot of the travel is done by the local equivalent of a mule because you can fuel a critter easier than a truck. The bandits are real active. The clans are slitting throats right and left, trying to catch up from all those years when the Soviets owned the real estate and the guns.”

Archer glanced at the report. Walker's arduous trip through the backwaters of Afghanistan rated one line:
Primitive transport and mining conditions.
“How primitive is the mining?”

“A handful of men with pickaxes, a white limestone ledge with occasional nodules of red crystal showing through in the weathered parts, and a portable, sixty-pound pneumatic jackhammer that shakes itself apart once an hour, if they're lucky enough to find fuel to run the compressor that long. Dynamite is easier to haul, so that's what they mostly use. After the explosion it's pick, hammer, and chisel work.”

“Any quality to the stones?”

“The ones that survive the blast?” Walker drawled.

Wincing, Archer thought of greedy, unskilled men mining priceless ruby crystals with explosives. The picture was unpleasant.

“Rumor has it that someone is digging on the sly in the Taghar mine,” Walker said. “That's the one that the mujahideen buried to hide it from the Soviets. I saw one or two rough stones that were nearly pigeon-blood quality. One was twenty carats. The other was sixteen. A good cutter would get ten and eight carats. Fine, really fine stones.” Walker shrugged. “By now, they're cooked in Bangkok and wearing a ‘Burmese ruby' tag. The other rough I saw varied from good to second rate.”

“What was it selling for?”

“The Thais have a lock on the legal output, and if you're pushy and buy under the table, somehow the bandits find out. Bad news, boss. Really bad. Those ol' boys are as hard as the mountain passes they control.”

“But you brought out some rough gems anyway.”

“That's what you pay me for.”

“I don't pay you to get killed,” Archer retorted.

“You want good rubies, you pay the going price. Burma's Mogok mines are either played out or locked up tighter than a sultan's virgin daughter. That leaves Cambodia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Kenya.”

“Justin and Lawe are working on Kenya. From what you've told me, the rest belongs to the Thais—lock, stock, and barrel.”

“For now, anyway. No cartel lasts forever.”

“Tell it to DeBeers.”

Walker laughed softly. “They've ridden their diamond tiger real far, haven't they? Been an inspiration to us all.”

Archer didn't look inspired. He looked irritated. He and his siblings—and now Jake, Honor's husband—owned Donovan Gems and Minerals, a very loose affiliate of Donovan International, the family corporation. DeBeers's control of the diamond market pretty well limited the rest of the world, including the Donovans, to smuggled or inferior diamonds. The ethnic Chinese Thais had become middlemen to the world for rubies. China and Japan had a stranglehold on pearls. The drug cartel or local warlords had a lock on Colombian emeralds.