“Yes, sir. Please let me know if there is anything else I may do for you.”
Nicholas ended the call, reloaded his email over and over until the new mail registered. It was a .wmv video file. He hit play, and Elaine’s face appeared on the screen. He stared at a woman he’d respected, admired, and trusted for three years—and more, he thought, so much more.
“It’s Elaine York,” Mike said from behind him, and couldn’t help but compare the woman on the screen to the body she’d stood over three days before. The gray bloated face—no, she wouldn’t remember her like that. She’d remember her like this—studious face, beautiful dark hair, serious eyes.
“Yes, let’s see what this is about,” Nicholas said, and hit play.
Nicholas, let me answer your first question. Why am I sending you this video instead of an email or calling? The answer is, I can’t take the chance of your email or mine being seen, or hacked, or your call overheard. The truth is, I need your advice. I’m afraid I’ve gotten in over my head.
Let me start at the beginning. There’s a woman who works here at the Met, Victoria Browning, and we’ve become really good friends. One night, two weeks ago, we were at a club, drinking entirely too many Manhattans, and she told me about the legacy surrounding the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Not the curse everyone’s heard of, no, the explanation for the curse. Get this—she told me there are three diamonds that are supposed to be married together, and when this happens, if the person holding the united stone is sick—not just of a cancer or a bad heart—he’ll be healed forever. Yes, forever.
At first I thought Victoria had downed too many drinks, but then I thought of my mother, her brain destroyed by Alzheimer’s, and I’ll admit it, I started to pay attention. A huge diamond that could make you immortal? I thought of the romance of it, the mystery, and, well, the possibility there really could be magic at work here, a sort of magic I’ve dreamed of all my life. Just imagine—three pieces of one huge stone, Nicholas, put together, and they’d heal.
Victoria then told me the Koh-i-Noor is one of the three pieces, someone in Europe has the second, and she believed a man here in New York has the third. She didn’t tell me his name.
The next day, I realized I was still hooked. I had no real hope of getting the stones together, but verifying that a man right here in New York City had one of the three—I realized I had to know. And I said why don’t we go see this man and verify if he does indeed have the second stone. Hey, maybe we could work a deal. Then maybe we get our hands on the stone in Europe, and maybe we could borrow the Koh-i-Noor.
Victoria said we might be able to get two of the stones, but the Koh-i-Noor, no way the Royal Family would ever loan it out for a mad experiment like this. But I was enthralled; I wanted to try, to be the one to bring the magic to my mother. You doubtless think I’ve lost my mind. You’re probably right. Still, Victoria stared at me like she was looking deep into my soul. She was clearly intrigued by the idea, and I knew I had to convince her to go see this man. She finally agreed. And I laughed and said it’s our own quest, Victoria, ours alone.
She didn’t tell me the man’s name until we reached the thirty-fourth floor of a huge Midtown building—Andrei Anatoly. I had no idea then that he was a Russian mobster, probably evil to the core. He let us in, and Victoria came right out with it and asked him if he had a special diamond in his possession.