A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (best time to read books .txt) 📗

her hand a small squeeze, he returned to the platform and opened the auction. From time to time, he looked down at Lelia and smiled, as if they still shared a deep secret apart from the rest of the world.

The auction continued for nearly five hours. As the evening drew on, the crowd thinned somewhat. Lelia sat, as straight and motionless as an icon. Pearl was surprised that a woman of her age had so much stamina. Pearl herself was drowsy from the heat of the room and the drone of the auctioneer’s voice. But suddenly she, too, was at attention—she sensed that something in the room had changed. When Pearl turned to Lelia, something in her appearance had altered—or did it only seem that way? Lelia’s eyes’ were riveted on the auctioneer.

Lionel Bream’s eyes drifted back and forth across the room, noting when someone raised a finger or scratched an ear, and mentioning the higher price. But after each bid, his eyes came at once back to Lelia. Each time, the twinkle in her eyes seemed to grow brighter. Pearl understood that Lelia was bidding on this property, though she couldn’t decipher the code that was being used. Pearl paid attention to the property being bid upon.

In her program, it was property number seventeen, one of twenty tiny islands off the coast of Turkey. It was thirty square kilometers, and composed nearly all of stone: a cone-shaped mountain flattened at the top, with a deep circular bowl at center.

The auctioneer assured them the volcano had been extinct for thousands of years. Pearl didn’t care whether it was extinct or not. From the program photo of this sparsely vegetated rock, she began to question Lelia’s judgment.

It was called by the name Omphalos Apollonius—Apollo’s navel. As Bream explained to the tittering audience, this was also the name of the hollow stone bowl at Delphi—or any such natural depression from which the oracle prophesied. It had to have been named for the hollow center of the volcanic cone, the most prominent feature of the island.

Pearl thought Lelia must have been possessed by oracular vision to bid on this horrid chunk of stone. Even as she sat there Lelia seemed to be in a mystical trance—and the bidding had already reached $5 million!

Pearl touched Lelia’s arm and looked at her questioningly. Lelia smiled her assurance and looked again to the front. So Pearl returned to her program to hunt for further clues to this odd selection.

The island, it seemed, had a resident population of one hundred seventy people, engaged primarily in the fishing and sail-making industries. The only town—also called Omphalos—was on the western side of the island facing toward the Greek coastline; the deserted eastern coast had nothing but a few Venetian ruins.

She read further that the whole block of islands was being sold by an expatriate Yugoslav shipping magnate who’d acquired them shortly after World War II. It seemed that during the confusion of the partition of Europe, the Greek and Albanian governments had both claimed the islands; and since they lay between Greek and Turkish coastal waters, Turkey might have claimed them as well. But from a strategic, or even touristic standpoint, they were worthless. Their volcanic, irregular terrain made a landing strip impossible; the rugged coastlines offered harbors for only the smallest of vessels. Even now they all had few or no services—phone lines, plumbing, lights, or heat—not even coal or wood to burn, or grazing land for animals. Most foods, including essential dairy products, had to be brought in from the mainland.

The dispute over nationality quickly cooled when the limited value of the islands was recognized. And all interest completely dissipated when the shipping magnate lavishly bribed the right officials in all three countries with some claim to those islands to look the other way.

He’d been one smart Slav, thought Pearl. He’d built a vacation residence on one of the more charming islands, and would pay the cost by auctioning off the others to a market of rich New Yorkers, who’d pay for any worthless piece of rock that had a wraparound view of the Aegean.

The bidding on this particular rock had fallen off faster than on the others, for it seemed the least attractive of the lot. Only two competitors stayed in the bidding with Lelia. Pearl was becoming a bit alarmed whenever she glanced at Lelia’s flushed and feverish face. It seemed she’d been transported—illuminated by some inner light Pearl couldn’t fathom.

To make matters worse, the bidding was now above $10 million. Though this was less than the earlier-offered islands had gone for, it was still a hefty chunk—and Pearl hadn’t a clue where the money was coming from. She noticed that the auctioneer, Lionel Bream, never took his eyes from Lelia’s face. He, too, seemed concerned.

In fact, Lionel was more than concerned—and had been, from the moment he’d seen Lelia sitting there in the room. No security or financial statement had been required in advance of the auction, for the guest list had been chosen and prepared by the owners themselves. Lelia’s name had not been on the invitation list, but she’d managed to get in nonetheless. He hoped she would be able to pay for this property she was bidding on. No one here knew the former state of Lelia’s fortunes but Lionel except Claude Westerby.

It was young Westerby who’d taken the risk to handle those jewels she’d brought to Lionel Bream so many years before. Though Lionel had agreed never to reveal their source, he had to show such a collection to one of the owners before accepting it for auction. He’d hit upon young Claude as being the most (Lionel smiled to himself) sympathique. And Claude knew a thing or two about jewels.

Not only were the stones magnificent, he assured Lionel, but the pieces themselves were often the rarer, more obscure examples of once-famous collections. Though the matter was never openly discussed, Lionel felt certain that Claude Westerby, through his research, had