The Magician
Chapter One
The charity auction hadn’t started until well after midnight, when the gala dinner had ended. It was almost four in the morning and the auction was only now drawing to a close. A digital display behind the celebrity auctioneer—an actor who had played James Bond on-screen for many years—showed the running total at more than one million euro.
“Lot number two hundred and ten: a pair of early- nineteenth-century Japanese Kabuki masks.”
A ripple of excitement ran through the crowded room. Inlaid with chips of solid jade, the Kabuki masks were the highlight of the auction and were expected to fetch in excess of half a million euro.
At the back of the room the tall, thin man with the fuzz of close-cropped snow white hair was prepared to pay twice that.
Niccolò Machiavelli stood apart from the rest of the crowd, arms lightly ... read full excerpt from The Magician ebook
