PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
East Hampton, Long Island
2:15 a.m.
What a victory.
The painting was everything he had hoped for and more.
It was all so clear, all so obvious to anyone who knew what to look for.
Of course, only the select few knew how to look.
Billionaire Montgomery Dyson stood alone in the East Gallery of one of his mansions, staring at his latest acquisition. A warm summer breeze wafted through the screen window, bringing with it the sharp smell of salt water and the shush of Atlantic surf. On the walls hung paintings from the greatest eras of Western Civilization—a delicate little portrait of the Virgin and Child from 14th century Florence, its tempera paint still retaining its brilliant colors through the centuries, a 15th century engraving by Albrecht Dürer, and later works by Rembrandt and Matisse and Van Gogh. On a gilded table that once graced the interior of Versailles stood a bronze statue by Rodin.
Dyson noticed none of these things. He had eyes only for his latest acquisition. An art collector for most of his sixty-eight years, he would have given up all of his vast collection to own the painting he gazed at now.
It showed the figure of Death riding a red horse through a starry sky. The figure seemed huge, taking up most of the painting and dominating the little village below. A few lights shone in the cottages. A farmer, late returning from his fields, drove his ox cart along a dirt lane, unaware of the terror that rode above. At the lower right corner of the frame stood a country manor with stone turrets and a spacious garden. Bright lights shone from a series of picture windows in one wing, hinting that a party was in progress.
Death appeared to be heading for the manor. He had one arm raised high, the cruel curve of his scythe framing a constellation in the night sky.
“Fascinating,” Dyson murmured, studying the stars in the painting.
He went over to a mahogany bookshelf and retrieved a leather-bound volume. Flipping through the pages, he glanced at the painting and then back at the book.
“No, no,” he muttered to himself, flipping further on in the book.
His eyes lit up.
“Ah! Could it be?” he looked at the illustration on the page, then at the painting, and back at the page. “Yes! I do believe it is.”
The sound of the door opening behind him, but nothing more, as if someone was hesitating before coming further.
“I don’t need anything, Winston, thank you,” Dyson said without turning around.
The door closed. He heard a soft tread across the 18th century Persian rug.
Irritated, Dyson turned.
“I said, I—”
The words froze in his throat.
A stranger stood in the middle of the room. He wore a monk’s robe with the cowl obscuring his face.
Dyson did not notice much more, for his gaze was drawn to the scythe the man carried, an antique that looked like it had once reaped wheat at some nineteenth-century farmstead.
“What do you want?” Dyson croaked. He felt the urge to scream for help, but the sight of that rust-dappled blade, its edge newly sharpened, made him keep his voice down.
The cowled man pointed to the painting, then the book that had dropped at Dyson’s feet. The hand looked powerful, with thick fingers, yet well-manicured.
When Dyson didn’t move, the intruder took another step forward, his monk’s robe making a soft rustle. The hand that had pointed now grasped the scythe.
Dyson raised his hands, both as a sign of surrender and to ward off any blow and took a step to the left.
The man gestured with the scythe, as if to indicate that Dyson should move more.
“Wait!” Dyson said, temporarily overcoming his fear. “Don’t take the painting. Anything but that. Take the book if you want. Take anything else.”
The intruder gestured again.
“You want money? I can give you millions. Just don’t—”
The man in the monk’s robes raised his scythe.
Dyson trembled, then firmed up his resolve. A lifetime of study and searching. He wasn’t going to give that up. No. Never.
He moved to get between the stranger and his treasured painting.
“I’ll give you anything,” Dyson said. “But you can’t—”
The stranger turned the scythe and hit Dyson on the shoulder with the back end. The billionaire staggered to the side.
The sudden pain killed his resolve. He was a man of great resources, and he could hire private detectives to hunt down this madman and get back what was his.
The intruder must have realized the same thing because he took two long strides forward and brought the scythe down on him.
Dyson raised his arms to shield his head from the blow.
The first cut nearly severed his right forearm. Dyson gasped and fell to his knees, clutching his arm.
He didn’t even see the stroke that cut deep into his neck, severing his carotid artery and spraying blood all over a sketch by Caillebotte.
Dyson sank to the floor. The intruder raised his scythe a third time, then stopped.
There was no need. Montgomery Dyson was dead.
