Countdown Read Online Free PDF Page B

haven’t met, but I believe you’ve probably heard of me. We have a common interest. We almost ran into each other several times in Herculaneum over the years when we were pursuing that common interest.”
    “What do you want, Reilly?”
    “What we both want. But I’ll be the one to get it, because I want it more than you or anyone else. I’ve been studying your background and you appear to have a streak of softness, a certain idealism I wouldn’t have attributed to you. You may even be willing to hand the gold over to me.”
    “Dream on.”
    “Of course, I’d be willing to let you have a percentage.”
    “How kind. And what about Grozak?”
    “Unfortunately, my friend Grozak is fumbling, and I feel the need for a backup.”
    “So you’re double-crossing him.”
    “That’s up to you. I’ll deal with whoever can supply what I want. I’ll probably even tell Grozak I’ve contacted you to stir up a little competition.”
    “You want the gold.”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t have it yet. I wouldn’t give it to you if I did.”
    “I’d judge you have an excellent chance of finding it. But the gold isn’t everything I want.”
    “The Cira statue. You can’t have it.”
    “Oh, I’ll have it. It belongs to me. You stole it away from me when I was trying to buy it from that dealer. I’ll have it all.”
    “All?”
    “I want something else. I’ll make you a proposition. . . .”
             
    T hat was Joe Quinn calling from the airport,” Manning said as he hung up the phone. “He wants protection for Jane MacGuire when she comes back to school after the funeral.”
    “Are you going to request it?” Fox asked as he leaned back in his office chair.
    “Of course I’m going to request it.” Manning shook his head. “But after that budget cut, the captain is going to go ballistic unless I can show definite cause. Can we tie anything into that case you said you read about on the Internet?”
    “Maybe. Let’s see. . . .” Fox leaned forward and typed an access code into his computer. “I pulled up this old newspaper article when we came back to the precinct from the hospital. It’s interesting, but I don’t believe we’re going to see a connection to anyone with homicidal tendencies. Unless we’re talking about ghosts.” He pressed a button to bring up the article and then swung the laptop around on his desk so that Manning could read it. “Evidently this serial killer, Aldo Manza, had a father who had an obsession with an actress who lived two thousand years ago, at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. The father was an archaeologist who wasn’t above peddling illegal artifacts, and he’d found a statue of the actress, Cira, in the ruins of Herculaneum.”
    “So?”
    “Aldo developed an obsession too. He couldn’t stand to let any woman live who bore a resemblance to the statue of Cira his father possessed. He’d go after them and slice off their face before he killed them.”
    “Gory bastard. And you said Jane MacGuire looks like this Cira?”
    Fox nodded. “The spitting image. That’s why she became a target.”
    “Stalked?”
    “Yes. But Eve Duncan and Quinn managed to turn the tables on him. They set a trap in the tunnels below Herculaneum. Duncan reconstructed the face of one of the skulls the scientists found in the marina at Herculaneum, and they publicized it as being the skull of Cira. It wasn’t, of course. It was a deliberate phony done by Duncan. The real skull looked nothing like Cira. But the combination of the skull and the presence of Jane MacGuire drew Aldo close enough so that they could take him out.”
    “He’s dead?”
    “As a doornail. Like his father.”
    “Any relatives who might want revenge?”
    “Wouldn’t they have tried before this? It’s been four years.”
    Manning frowned. “Maybe.” He was reading the article. Everything checked out as Fox had described, but there was one line that puzzled him.