The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(50)
“Because,” I said, holding up a finger, “they only want one egg. These aren’t our people, they aren’t a part of our community, and they don’t give a f*ck whose toes they step on. You’re a bump in the road to them.”
“I’ve only made one buy in the past couple of months, from my trip to the sandbox.”
“Saudi,” I said, “the big score you were talking about at the Tiger’s Garden?”
He nodded and gestured for me to follow him through the house. Mahogany bookshelves lined one wall of his study from floor to ceiling, looming over an overstuffed leather armchair and an antique standing globe. He gave the upper half of the globe a twist, pulling it back on concealed hinges. A snifter of cognac and a pair of glasses waited inside.
“We do not have time—” I started to say, but he cut me off with a wave of his hand.
“Under normal circumstances,” he said, lifting out the bottle, “I wouldn’t show this to anybody. I’m gonna have to ask you to keep quiet about it.”
He reached into the recess, hooking his fingers around a catch, and gave it a tug. A section of the bookshelves clicked and swung open.
“Welcome to my safe room,” Spengler said.
Twenty-Five
The room behind the bookshelf was about ten feet square and fortified like a bunker. Grainy footage from outside the house, front and back, flickered on a bank of monitors along with a bird’s-eye view of the street from what looked like a camera mounted on a tree branch. To the left of the security console, a pump-action shotgun and a pair of stubby handguns hung from a chrome wall rack.
I whistled low, tracing a finger along the shotgun’s barrel. “You planning for a siege?”
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” Spengler said, pulling the door shut behind us and twisting a lock that looked like it belonged on a bank vault. “I’ve got about two months of surplus military MREs and bottled water in those boxes behind you. The room’s fireproof, with a rooftop ventilation system that draws and purifies air from outside. I can shut off the ventilation in an emergency, but only for a couple of hours.”
“Better odds than the Alamo, but I still think we should hit the road. Show me what you found in Saudi Arabia.”
He pulled back a green tarp, unveiling a wooden crate against the back wall of the safe room. Its weathered slats bore customs stamps and faded brands from half a dozen nations.
“Getting it back here was almost as hard as finding it in the first place,” Spengler said, lifting the lid, “but totally worth it.”
Nestled in a bed of sawdust and paper clippings, the crate held an ebony casket just big enough for a toddler. My first instinct was to recoil, to yank the crate lid from Spengler’s hand and slam it shut, to seal the casket away in darkness.
“I know, right?” he said, reading the look on my face. “You get used to it, but the first reaction is pretty strong.”
I shook my head and took a step back. “There’s something in there.”
I didn’t know how I knew it. I just knew it. Something lived in that casket, something much older, much crueler, than any infant. Something with the patience of a trap-door spider and nothing but time. Swirling carvings adorned the casket’s face, hard to make out at first. I traced the lines with my eye and they resolved into the figure of a man, impossibly thin and long, clutching a pan flute.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to tear my gaze away.
“It’s the Etruscan Box.” His eyes blazed with a mixture of pride and raw greed. “The Etruscan Box. My holy grail. I’ve been chasing this thing for a decade, putting out feelers from here to Siberia, and finally I picked up its trail. Poor bastard I bought it from had no idea what he’d inherited from his old man.”
“But what is it?”
“Lotta stories about that,” Spengler said. “Legends passed down from explorer to explorer, all from people who spent their lives hunting the Box and never caught a glimpse. Remember, we don’t know a whole lot about the Etruscans before Rome finally rolled over them, but they were around for a long time, a really long time. They had some savage witchcraft up their sleeves.”
He reached into the crate. I held my breath as he grabbed hold of the casket’s lid, but it refused to budge.
“See? It doesn’t open. It doesn’t want to open. Doesn’t matter. I’m just selling the box as-is. I put it up on the Internet under a coded auction listing, and you wouldn’t believe the people I’ve got bidding on this baby. Some of the biggest players in the occult underground from coast to coast—throwing cash at me like it’s Judgment Day and they’re trying to get rid of all their money before Jesus comes back. The top bid is already over two million bucks and climbing.”
“So these stories,” I said, “what do they say is inside?”
“The stuff that dreams are made of. They say it’s your heart’s desire, whatever you want most in life, just waiting for the first person to open it up and reach on in. All you have to do is figure out how it unlocks and everything you ever wanted is yours for the taking. It’s like Excalibur in the stone.”
I reached up and closed the crate lid. I still felt the casket and its occupant, buried in darkness, listening to us.