Chasing the White Lion James Hannibal (essential reading TXT) 📖

play this right and we can pull in more than a million per coin. Your commission is 20 percent, plus one coin for your very own.”

“Perhaps I misunderstood.” The Albanian gave her a flat and fleeting smile. “I believe you meant to say my commission is 50 percent . . . plus five coins.” He raised a finger. “And I will be present at the dig site when you unearth the duke’s treasure.”

“Whoa there, horsey.” Val waved her hands. “Nat and I weren’t born yesterday. We give you the dig site, what’s to stop you from sweeping in with a small army and cutting us out?”

“You have my word.”

“Your word ain’t enough. But money talks. Our other fences paid well for dig site privileges.”

“Other fences?” He glanced at Talia. “What other fences?”

Talia wanted to ask the same question. “Er . . . moving the coins is my sister’s department. She’ll tell you about our other arrangements.”

Val picked up the coin. “Mr. Atan, we’re moving these babies on a global scale. A guy named Tyler is covering the American end, and we’ve got a Brit covering the UK and Western Europe—last name Smythe.”

“Malcom Smythe?”

“Oh good. You know him.”

“I know of him. Mr. Smythe is a show-off, a press hound in a gaudy waistcoat.” Atan pressed his lips together in distaste. “You are bringing this Willy Wonka of coins to your dig site?”

“He and Tyler paid half a mil each for the privilege.”

“Done.”

Val placed the coin in Talia’s hand, signaling her to put it away, a method of pushing a mark to pursue his goal. “What’s done, Mr. Atan?”

“Five hundred thousand US. I will wire the money on the way to the site.” But when Val went to shake on the deal, he pulled his hand back. “You have presented one coin while claiming to know the location of thousands. You must have more. Show me.”

“No problem.” She slapped a fistful of matching coins on the display case.

The Albanian drew a breath. “Deal. I will prepare your money and make the transfer en route to the dig site.” He pulled out his phone. “All I require is the when and where.”

Val took the phone, Atan’s hand included, and typed an address into a time slot on his calendar. “Meet us here tomorrow at nine a.m. sharp. We’ll take you to the spot.”

“That’s it,” Tyler said into the comms. “Good work, team. All of you.”

All of you. Talia knew that last part was for Finn. She hoped it would help.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

RIVER VLTAVA

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

MACPILOTEDTHERUNABOUT for the return trip to the castle-slash-baronial-hunting-lodge. The moment he silenced the engines to drift through the stone arch beneath the lodge, Talia lit into Val. “You jeopardized the mission.”

“You got it all wrong, sweetums. I saved the mission after Finn blew it.”

“You threw me a curveball in front of the mark.”

“You’re overreacting.” The grifter let Mac lift her up to the dock like a stage trapeze, smirking as her leopard-skin pumps alighted on the stones. “I like to keep you on your toes.”

“The gold coin,” Talia said, climbing out on her own. “You gave it to me fully intending to use it to fool the XRF.”

“I gave it to you as a plan B, in case Finn dropped the ball.” She pronounced ball as boowall.

“Would you quit with the accent, Val?”

“She can’t.” Tyler, seated on a stool beside the van, folded a Czech newspaper. “Val’s maintaining her character for the con. To be honest, you should do the same.”

Val gave him a wink. “I think she is.”

“Whatever. She still could’ve told me about Plan B.” Talia walked to the dressing area and checked her hair in the mirror. She no longer liked the new look Val had given her. She preferred the Agency’s way of running games on a mark. Simple. Straightforward. CIA officers coerced, stole, lied, and paid. But they didn’t do drama.

Val appeared behind her in the reflection. “Fun’s over, sweetums. I’ll take the coin back.”

“Yeah, okay.” Talia dug the coin out of her pocket, went to place it in the grifter’s waiting palm, then stopped and drew it back. “On second thought, no.”

“Excuse me?”

“You called me Nat.”

“So.”

Talia rolled the coin between her thumb and forefinger, watching how the scalloped edges caught the glow of the mirror’s ring light. She had a new respect for the ugly image of Duchess Maria, knowing her face was real gold with a dash of silver. “You had this thing minted to mimic seventeenth-century Bohemian gold, right?”

Val canted a hip, maintaining the affectations of a Jersey Shore darling. “Maybe. Why?” Her eyes darted to the thaler. Her shoulder twitched.

She obviously wanted the coin back for reasons more than she was saying, and Talia wanted to make a point. The whole Nat argument gave her an excuse. Talia dropped the thaler into her purse. “I said you’d pay. Now you have.”

Val’s hard expression cracked. Her lips parted, speechless. She spun around and stormed off to the clothing racks.

On the sidelines, Tyler raised his newspaper. Talia felt sure he was using it to hide a grin. “And you,” she said, pointing. “How much of this did you know before I walked unprepared into an Albanian mobster’s office?”

“Do you really have to ask?”

She took a breath to fire off a rebuke. “Wait. Where’s Finn?”

“Off comms.” Eddie glanced back from his bank of computers. “He went dark after he botched the switch.”

The look Talia gave Tyler was a question and an accusation rolled into one.

He raised his hands. “I’m giving him space. Finn is a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

“Send Mac out to look for him.”

“To what end?”

He had a point. If Finn didn’t want to be found, Mac stood no chance. Talia returned to the problem of being left in the dark. “You could have told me you and Val had a plan B. Since when did keeping crew members in the dark become a good idea?”

“Depends on the job.”

He was up to something, teaching her some unwelcome lesson. “I don’t follow.”

“You keep