The Pretender's Gambit

“You’re watching way too much television.” Bart swung his focus back to the prisoner. “And one of the things Calapez did before he’s been doing whatever he’s been doing for the past eight years is mercenary work. He signed on with the Portuguese Army when he was eighteen, served in special forces for a few years, then mustered out. So somewhere he would have gotten that kind of training.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Hang on to him as long as we can. Unless an attorney shows up here, I can lose Calapez in the system for seventy-two hours before I have to bring him before the judge. I will have to take him in for medical treatment, but I can finesse that, too. I don’t know if we’re going to be any closer to an answer by then, but we’ll keep working the case. That’s what we do.”

Someone knocked on the door. Bart told them to enter.

A young plainclothes cop stepped into the room. “Unis caught the Asian guy who was at the diner, Detective McGilley. The guy who approached you and her.” He nodded at Annja. “Sergeant Vogt wanted me to let you know.”

“How did the unis find him?”

The guy smiled mirthlessly. “They didn’t catch him. He walked up to them and turned himself in. There’s nothing to arrest him on, but we’re holding him as a material witness.”

“Do we have a name for him?”

The detective checked the folder he was holding. “Nguyen Rao. Says here he’s a professor in Cambodia.”

“That’s the same name he gave us at the diner,” Annja said.

Bart nodded. “Did Mr. Nguyen say what he’s doing in New York?”

“He’s not really talkative. He asked to speak to you both.”

“Where is he?”

“Got him in an interview room.”

Bart headed for the door and Annja followed at his heels. This was twice the man had reached out to them.

* * *

NGUYEN RAO SAT in the interview room and looked serene. His hands rested palms-down on the desk that looked like a twin to the one in Calapez’s room. His eyes were open and staring at the one-way glass, but he appeared to be asleep. Or really, really relaxed. Annja didn’t know how a man could do that after nearly getting shot down just a short time ago. Then again, she was pretty calm herself, but she’d had a lot of experience at that sort of thing.

Bart thumbed through the file that he’d gotten on the man. Annja read the folder’s contents over his shoulder.

There wasn’t much. Nguyen Rao—that did appear to be his real name—was a professor attached to the most prestigious university in Phnom Penh. He was thirty-two years old and also worked as a curator for the national museum.

Annja took out her tablet and tapped in Rao’s name, quickly locating several papers he’d written on Cambodian history ranging from the country’s pre-history through the Khmer Rouge. Many of those papers included a photograph of Nguyen that matched the man in the interview room.

“Is he legit?” Bart peered over Annja’s shoulder as she skimmed through the papers Rao had written.

“He is, if these papers are all truly his work and not part of a cover.”

“You have a suspicious mind.”

“Tonight has created a little paranoia, I suppose.” Annja smiled at him.

Bart smiled back. “Paranoia’s good for you. Sometimes they really are out to get you.” He cut his eyes back to the tablet PC. “So he’s like you? An archaeologist?”

“Not quite. He’s more of a historian.”

Bart returned his attention to the man on the other side of the one-way glass. “If he’s a historian, then what’s he doing here in New York looking for that elephant piece?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“I’m going to.” Bart left Annja standing there and walked to the door down the hall.

Chapter 8 (#ulink_54abbcc1-334d-5cac-a89a-827a2e69c056)

Rao sat quietly at the table. The handcuffs felt cold and tight around his wrists, but the weight and the idea that he was restrained didn’t bother him. He knew he could escape the handcuffs easily enough, but getting out of the building without being recaptured or shot was a different matter.

He hadn’t gotten caught earlier. Once he’d seen that Annja Creed had overcome her captors, he’d allowed the police pursuing him to overtake and arrest him. He wanted to talk to the policeman again, the one who had investigated the old man’s murder. Rao needed to know what had become of the elephant piece Benyovszky had listed on his site.

The door opened and Rao looked up at the arrival. The young detective, Bart McGilley, entered the room with a file in one hand and a cup of coffee in another. His expression was neutral, but Rao easily read the tension in the other man’s movements.

McGilley set his coffee and the file on the table, then sat, as well. As he moved, he carried himself gingerly.

“Are you in pain?” Rao remembered the man had been shot in the diner.

“I’m fine.” McGilley’s answer was flat and final. “You should be worried about you.”

“I have not done anything wrong, therefore I do not see anything I should be concerned about.” Rao was pretty certain that fighting to defend himself was allowed in the United States. The laws here could be exasperating, but he thought he was correct about that. He had not killed anyone, and he had been attacked first. “I only turned myself in because I knew there would be questions as to my involvement in the violence at the diner.”

“We’ll see about that.” McGilley stared him in the eye. “They said you wouldn’t talk to anyone but me.”

“You, or Professor Creed. Is she still here?” Actually, Rao wanted to talk to the woman more. He wanted to know how much she knew, if she could add anything to the amount of knowledge he had about the elephant.

“You’re talking to me.”

“Of course.” Rao made himself be patient. The wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly in any country.

“Tell me about the elephant you’re looking for.”

“It is an object that I would like to have.”

“Why?”

Rao considered that for a moment, thought that his business and that of the temple need not be discussed with the American police and decided to withhold a replay regarding those interests.

“Did you hear the question?” the detective asked.

“I did.”

“Then talk to me.”

“I choose not to. That has nothing to do with the events that occurred at the diner.”

A flicker of anger darted through the detective’s eyes. The corners of his mouth tightened in displeasure. “Things will go easier for you if you cooperate.”