Just Watch Me

by Jeff Lindsay

  No doubt about it. This was it.

  The other two SUVs pulled onto the sidewalk and spat out their passengers, carbon copies of the bunch from the first SUV. All eighteen of them spread out, scanning the street, the alley, the nearby buildings.

  And the rooftops, of course. I crouched down behind a chimney. I didn’t want to show a profile. The guys in the street with the weapons were Revolutionary Guards. They would be well trained, and they’d be looking for any kind of silhouette that didn’t belong on top of a building. I could still see around the chimney, and I watched for a little longer. Just curiosity. I’d seen all I needed to see. The jewels had arrived.

  No more waiting. It was all going to happen now. Everything I had sweated my ass off to knock into place was about to click into action, like one of those Rube Goldberg machines. All the little pieces were about to move, nudge the others, and finally push the payoff out the last little door and into my hands.

  I shivered. I don’t think it was the cold. I think it was because this was really fucking it. I felt something that was in between excitement and raw terror. I knew it was going to work—and at the same time I knew just as surely that there were a million things that could go wrong, and almost all of them were bad news for me. And I couldn’t tell which was more exciting: thinking of the payoff or knowing I was stepping into deep and dangerous shit. I just know I had this feeling, like a kind of rising tide of adrenaline and anticipation. I got it every time I made my play, and I loved it.

  There was some shouting in the street—I couldn’t make it out; it was in Farsi. I looked around the chimney. One of the suits was waving an arm, and the others were moving on him, double time, back down the alley with their weapons at the ready. In less than a minute they’d all disappeared. A minute after that, the SUVs and the armored truck pulled out in a column and headed downtown.

  I waited another minute, just to be safe. Then I crab-walked back away from the edge of the roof and to the far side of the building. Then I put my earbuds in and cranked up my music: “Celebration,” Kool and the Gang. I let the beat take over and drive me across the rooftops of the city.

  * * *

  —

  Katrina took a last look around the exhibition hall. She had to admit, even if she had done some of the work herself, it looked absolutely spectacular. The glass cases, each with its own jeweled wonder, stood around the room, widely separated to allow for a crowd at each station. Dominating the area closest to the entrance, among a series of smaller cases containing bracelets and necklaces, was Empress Farah’s crown, with its spectacular 150-carat emerald. Another case featured a bejeweled sword of a type known as a yataghan, then a pair of epaulets encrusted with hundreds of diamonds and emeralds and a case filled with lesser pins and brooches.

  And at the dead center of the room, the greatest marvel of all. It stood alone, literally and figuratively. Nothing else in the collection—nothing else in the world—could compare. There it sat, isolated in its perfectly lit case.

  The Daryayeh-E-Noor. The Ocean of Light.

  Velvet ropes were up all around it to keep the crowds at a safe distance, and a pair of guards—one American, one Iranian—stood beside the case. More guards were stationed around the room, and another dozen patrolled on a random schedule, which might have been a little off-putting except that they were all dressed in full military splendor and ordered to smile and be polite.

  Katrina frowned as she surveyed the room, looking for some flaw. She found none. Somehow they’d done it. The information placards were finally in place on their easels, the lights focused, the floor polished to a supernatural gleam—they were ready. She sighed, part contentment and part fatigue. It was done. And she even had time to get ready for the gala. She glanced at her watch. “Shit!” she said. She actually had only ten minutes to get across town to her cosmetologist. And then all the way home to get dressed, all the way back into town—it was going to be a horse race.

  She hurried out of the room, looking for Randall. He had to get ready, too. He couldn’t very well show up looking like the plumber’s helper. Luckily, she found him in the lobby, in an intense conference with Angela, which Katrina had no qualms about interrupting. “Randall!” she called. He looked up. “I have to go get ready—and so do you!”

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t leave,” he said. “They’re doing a final test of the security system, the caterer is coming in an hour—and I just found out they don’t handle the drinks—”

  “Well, but you still have to get presentable, that’s going to take some time,” Katrina said. “You, too, Angela.” Angela just bobbed her head and smiled.

  “It takes time for you,” Randall said with a small smile. “Men are different. Hell, I don’t even have to shave.” He ran a hand over his beard. “I’m a manly man,” he said solemnly, and she smiled. “Just bring my tuxedo with you when you come back. I’ll dress in the office.”

  Katrina shook her head. “Be clean when I get here,” she said, leaning in to kiss him. “You smell like the Jets locker room at halftime.”

  He kissed her right back. “In that case,” Randall said, “bring some of my cologne. The Agua Brava? That’ll cover it up.”

  “Sometimes, my dear,” Katrina said, “you get a little too manly.”

  * * *

  —

  That should do it, Chief,” Mallory said. As the lead tech on this operation, he’d been working as hard as anybody, but he showed no signs of being tired. He tapped the control panel gently with the tip of his screwdriver. “We just need to tap in the pass code, and we’re good to go.”

  “Let’s get everybody together,” Bledsoe said. “You can show the staff how all the pretty buttons and levers work.”

  “Ragheads, too, Chief?”

  Bledsoe blew out a breath. “Fuck, I guess so. The lieutenant said we gotta liaise with ’em.”

  Fifteen minutes later everyone had gathered in the exhibition hall—museum staff, Iranian diplomats, American and Iranian guards, the Tiburon technicians, and even a representative from the State Department. The Iranians clustered together on one side, and the men from Black Hat opposite. The museum folks—Erik, Randall, and Angela—stood in the center between the two groups.

  Bledsoe stepped up in front of the central case, the one that held the Ocean of Light. “Ladies and gentlemen . . . and others,” he began in his you-are-a-useless-dim-pogue voice. “Welcome to a new day in security systems, brought to you by the most advanced team in the world today—Tiburon Security.” He looked around at the crowd with what could only be called a self-satisfied glare. “You are in the presence of a genuine miracle of security systems innovation.” He paused while one of the Iranians from the advance team translated into Farsi. “The major elements of this system have never been deployed before, anywhere in the world.” Pause. “For starters, every possible entry point in the building has been fitted with motion detectors, infrared sensors, video cameras, and some slightly more standard alarm components.” Pause. “Every single one of them is totally new technology that can. Not. Be. Hacked.” Pause. “And every single display case in this room is equipped with similar safeguards—plus pressure sensors that detect the slightest change in weight.” Pause.

  “If any single alarm point is triggered, an alarm will sound. And the location of the intrusion is indicated on the main panel, which is always manned and always in communication with all active guards.” He pointed to the far side of the room, where Lieutenant Szabo stood beside the panel. Szabo waved.

  “Also at every alarm point, you will find a multitasked camera,” Bledsoe continued. “Additional cameras have been placed at strategic locations all around and through the museum, providing complete surveillance of every possible angle of attack, from cellar to rooftop. They send the image to the monitor on the control panel, as well as to a storage drive that keeps these images for up to two weeks.r />
  “And, ladies and gentlemen—these cameras are not mere cameras. These devices capture and record every movement within their field of focus. Movement by anything within the programmed guidelines will cause an alarm to sound on the control panel, and the image will show on the monitor screen. And that’s just the start.

  “These cameras also scan in infrared, and when needed they can penetrate any solid object up to eight inches thick and capture an image of whatever may be inside. They contain sensors that record, analyze, and differentiate seismic shocks from a bunker-buster bomb right down to a sparrow’s fart.

  “The system as a whole is not even close to state of the art,” Bledsoe continued. And he watched the crowd frown and mutter with a slight smirk growing on his face. “Because state of the art is not good enough for Tiburon. This system is twenty years ahead of state of the art.” Pause. “It represents the most advanced, complete, futuristic technology ever deployed, and it is all brand-spanking-new.”

  Bledsoe looked around, nodded. “You are about to ask, ‘If it’s all new, how do we know it works?’” Bledsoe allowed himself a smile. It was not a pleasant sight. “Who wants to try me?”

  His audience shuffled their feet, but no one stepped forward. Bledsoe waited, then nodded. “All right. We’ll get a volunteer. Snyder!”

  One of the Black Hat guards stepped forward. “Chief!” he said.

  “Steal something,” Bledsoe said.

  Snyder handed Bledsoe his weapon, looked around at the display cases, and settled on the one holding Empress Farah’s crown. He stepped to the case, hesitated, then reached a hand out to touch the glass—

  The silence was shattered by the shriek of a loud siren, and bright red lights flared in a strobe-like rhythm. The stunned onlookers blinked and covered their ears from the painfully loud siren.

  Bledsoe did not. He just smiled and waved to Szabo, who hit a button on the panel. Instantly, the siren and lights turned off and the room went back to normal. “That’s just the beginning,” he said. “Let’s pretend that somehow, you bypass the exterior case.” He raised a hand to Szabo. “Snyder, bypass the exterior case.”

  Snyder nodded. He carefully lifted the glass case off the crown and set it on the ground. He reached for the crown—and again, the earsplitting siren and red flashing lights.

  Szabo mercifully clicked the alarm off quickly. “But wait, there’s more. If you get around those sensors—” Bledsoe said. He nodded to Szabo. “Snyder?”

  Snyder reached forward again. This time he actually touched the crown. And once again, the siren and lights went off.

  Szabo turned them off. “Redundancy,” Bledsoe said, nodding to Snyder, who put the glass back on the exhibit and reclaimed his weapon. “Every single piece of the system is backed up at least three times. And if you are the greatest thing since Houdini and you somehow manage to bypass one or even two—three or four will get you.” Pause. “And that doesn’t even consider my colleagues from Black Hat, led by a decorated combat-wounded veteran, Lieutenant Szabo.”

  Szabo lifted his middle finger to Bledsoe—quickly changing it to a wave as the crowd turned to look at him.

  “Oh,” Bledsoe added with a shrug. “And of course, the Arabs,” he said offhandedly, knowing very well that calling Iranians “Arabs” would be taken as an insult.

  “Questions?” he said. He let his eyes rove across the faces of the onlookers. He paused when he came to Randall and frowned. But before he could say anything, a gray-suited man in the front row raised his hand—Mr. Wilkins, the representative from the State Department. Bledsoe pointed to him. “Sir?”

  “I’m quite sure you have not neglected something rather basic,” he said in a pure Hah-vahd drawl. “But what happens if the power is deliberately cut?”

  Bledsoe nodded. “Absolutely right, sir!” he said. “We have not neglected that important point—Con Ed being what it is.” He turned to Szabo and called, “Lieutenant! Cut the power!”

  Szabo reached behind him to the control panel and flipped a switch. The room was instantly pitch black. A moment later the emergency lights flicked on, providing a dim glow. Bledsoe let people blink and get used to the faint light, then turned to Snyder and said, “Steal it again, Snyder.”

  Snyder reached for the crown once more. And once more, he had no more than barely touched it when the siren and red lights flared.

  Szabo clicked it off, and Bledsoe called, “Lieutenant! Lights, please, sir!”

  When Szabo restored power, Bledsoe gave his evil grin to the crowd. “Battery-powered backup,” he said. “Will last up to twelve hours.” He looked around once and raised a scarred eyebrow. “Any other questions?” There were none. “In that case . . .” He came to attention and looked to Erik Eberhardt. “Sir! I give you the Tiburon Security Mark IV Security System!”

  * * *

  —

  Bledsoe watched the small crowd disperse, his eyes fixing on Randall. Sonofabitch, he thought. I know I’ve seen that face before. Where? When? His musings were interrupted when Szabo ambled over and shook his hand. “Nice pitch, Chief,” he said. “You got a real future—selling aluminum siding.”

  “Fuck you very much, sir,” Bledsoe said.

  “You staying for the party?”

  “I may have a date,” Bledsoe said. “She says I should stay for it.”

  “Jesus,” Szabo said, shaking his head. “She’s got you leash-trained already?”

  Bledsoe just smiled and shook his head. “How ’bout you, Lieutenant? You here for the big beer blast?”

  “No choice,” Szabo said. “I’m on duty.”

  “You better clean up, sir. That stubble on your face will bring discredit to the service.”

  Szabo rubbed his chin. “I was thinking I might grow the beard again,” he said.

  “You should, sir, absolutely,” Bledsoe said straight-faced. “Totally changes your appearance—nobody can tell what you really look like, and that’s a good thing. Sir.” And before Szabo could reply, Bledsoe said, “Son-of-a-goddamn-bitch, that’s it—the fucking beard . . .”

  “What’s wrong, Chief?”

  “Nothing, just something about a beard,” he said. “How it changes your face.”

  “Uh, yeah, it does. You just figure that out?”

  “What I just figured out,” the chief said, “is whose face it changed. And where I seen it before . . .”

  “Is there some kind of problem?”

  Bledsoe shook his head. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Katrina looked around the lobby with a satisfaction that almost overcame her weariness—almost. As she had known it would be, it was a true horse race to get ready and get back in time. But she’d made it, with twenty minutes to spare, and now she rewarded herself with a glass of champagne—a Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut, thank God. The cheap stuff gave her a headache. She sipped and waved at a prominent gallery owner as she passed by. The whole top echelon of New York society was here. They packed the lobby, and the marble walls echoed with their excited talk, the clink of glasses, laughter. A string quartet played in an alcove; Katrina was fairly sure it was Brahms, and that made her smile. The quartet had started with Bartók. Randall had flinched, looked up, and gone over to have a quiet talk with them, after which they’d switched to Mozart and other, mellower selections.

  Katrina covered a yawn, thinking with warm pride of the amazing job Randall had done, even to the details like the choice of the champagne and the quartet’s musical selections. He really and truly had pulled off a miracle. Even Erik couldn’t possibly find fault. She turned her head and saw Erik nodding gravely to a congressperson, who had no doubt shown up because it was an election year.

  But where was Randall? He had vanished a few minutes ago—Katrina didn’t know why or where he’d gone. There was no sign of him here in t
he lobby. She scanned the crowd for some sign of him, some gleam off his shaved head, but saw nothing. And then a scented hand flopped onto her shoulder. “Katrina, darling, what a marvelous thing you have done!” a voice cooed at her, and the search for Randall was forgotten as she turned to see a pompous aging woman who was a fixture of the art scene and a ubiquitous gossip. Her brother Tim called her the Dowager Empress.

  “Galatea, so happy you could come!” Katrina said, accepting the woman’s embrace and cheek-kiss. And then Katrina was ensnared by the Empress’s monologue and could only hope that Randall would come back and save her soon.

  * * *

  —

  Angela finished off a flute of champagne—her third. It was far too much if she wanted to keep a level head—she knew that—but in truth, she did not want a level head, which might make her think rationally about what she’d allowed herself to become enmeshed in. It couldn’t really even be called an affair. It was no more than a series of quick encounters in almost every closet or dark nook in the museum. She was allowing herself to be used—and even worse, she was positively loving it.

  Angela had never before experienced anything like this. It just wasn’t possible for a rather plain British Midlands woman of her temperament. Such things simply didn’t happen, either because someone like Angela would never consider it or, more likely, because no one would ever ask. And yet she’d gone along with Walter without even a cursory objection. If she was honest, she’d gone along with enthusiasm, even while she knew it was stupid, wrong, whorish—