by Jeff Lindsay
Angela took another flute of champagne from a passing waiter, sipped, and looked at her watch, feeling a flutter of excitement in her midsection. She’d agreed to meet him again, tonight, in five minutes—here at the gala, in the middle of an overflow crowd at a black-tie event. It was insane, stupid, absurd, and wildly exciting.
Sipping slowly, Angela worked her way toward the far side of the lobby. When she got to the large arched doorway, she finished the champagne, set down the glass, and slipped out of the lobby.
* * *
—
Katrina had finally managed to pry herself away from the Dowager Empress and was looking desperately for either Randall or a glass of champagne to help her recover. There was still no sign of her husband, but she had just snagged a new flute of champagne when all hell broke loose.
There was a sudden loud BLAM! down the hall, accompanied by a flash of hot blue light, and an earsplitting siren began to shriek, accompanied by a painfully bright flashing red light. For a moment, no one in the lobby moved. Then the murmur of conversation started up, pitched much higher, as the confused people in the lobby tried to guess what had happened and what to do about it.
But then there was a second explosion, and all the lights went out. Somebody screamed, and the stunned guests lurched into action and began a crushing stampede for the exit.
Someone shoved Katrina against a marble pillar, smacking her elbow hard and causing her to pour her entire glass of champagne down the front of her dress. She wanted badly to rush down the hall to see what had happened. It was a combination of her sense of duty and a biting worry that Randall might somehow have been there, been injured by whatever it was. But she was pinned to the marble pillar by the crowd. She struggled to break free but could not. And for a long moment the crowd kept her there, pressed against the pillar. Then a small break came in the mad rush, just enough to allow Katrina to slip through the horde and hurry for the hallway where the explosion had come from.
The hall was dark, but the emergency lights cast just enough dim light to allow Katrina to see at least a dozen guards, both American and Iranian, running toward the far end of the hall. She hesitated, wondering if she was charging headlong into danger. But she told herself that she was an Eberhardt, and this was her museum, and she hurried after the guards as fast as her spike heels would let her.
She arrived at the end of the hall to find all the guards standing in a half circle around the utility closet. The door was half open. Katrina could not see around the guards, but she could hear a muffled sound coming from the closet—a kind of hysterical mewling that was half sob and half wail. “Let me through, please,” she said, pushing her way through the guards until she was in front of them with a clear view of the closet. And then she stopped dead, stunned.
Angela knelt in the closet with her fist shoved into her mouth, the keening Katrina had heard coming out around her hand. And slumped on the floor of the closet beside her was a large body.
“. . . Angela?” Katrina said.
Angela dropped the fist from her mouth and let out a louder moan. “He’s dead,” she said. “Walter is dead . . . !” And then she resumed her wailing.
* * *
—
While the echoes of the first explosion were still ringing in the hallway, the guards in the exhibition hall reacted immediately. Moving their automatic weapons to the ready and switching off the safeties, they slid into combat postures all around the room. From his post opposite the doorway, Lieutenant Szabo called, “Reed! Snyder! Tremaine! Check it out!” waving three of his men toward the explosion. The three pounded off immediately, trailed by a handful of Revolutionary Guards.
The rest of the men stood ready—there were four, including Szabo, plus six men of the Revolutionary Guard—and it was a tribute to the high quality of their training that a moment later, when a man ran into the room, not a single shot was fired.
Szabo recognized him at once. It was Mr. Miller, the curator. “Hold your fire!” he yelled. “He’s with the museum!”
The guards, both Iranian and American, returned to combat-ready positions, facing outward. Szabo waved Miller over. “What’s up?” he asked. “What the hell happened?”
“The alarm system is all off!” Randall said excitedly.
“The backup is on,” Szabo said. “What was the explosion?”
“I think it’s a diversion,” Randall said. “Somebody’s trying for the jewels!”
“How many somebodies?” Szabo said.
“It would have to be a lot of them,” Randall said.
Szabo nodded; he agreed. All the papers had run stories detailing the number of armed guards and the elaborate electronics. Anybody making a serious attempt at the jewels would have to bring a large, well-armed force. Szabo knew damn well there were plenty of people who would figure it was worth it. He looked quickly around the room. There were only two ways in—the main entrance and a fire door. “All right,” Szabo said. “Let’s—”
The second explosion cut him off. It was much closer than the first, and when the lights went out in the hall, Szabo went into action. “Cover the doors!” he yelled, waving an arm at his team. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the museum guy, Miller, look around and then move over beside the case in the middle—the one with the huge fucking diamond in it. Szabo frowned. Miller was only a civilian, but he’d seen something Szabo had missed. With all the guards facing outward, that middle case was vulnerable. He pointed to one of his men and yelled, “Braun! Center!”
Instantly, Braun ran to the middle of the room and took position by the case holding the Ocean of Light. The Iranian commander yelled something, and two of the Iranians pounded over and joined him. The others had already split into two teams and were facing the two doors, fanning out in front of them, Black Hat and Iranians together.
The emergency lights flickered, then came on, and the guards held their positions, frozen in place as the tension grew.
For a full three minutes, nothing happened. Szabo glanced around, making sure he’d overlooked nothing. His men looked ready, as did the Iranians. Szabo noted that Miller was still standing in the center of the room, slightly behind the guards, right beside the case for that giant jewel, the Daria something. Miller looked just as alert as Szabo’s team, like he would jump on anybody who tried to get past him, and Szabo almost smiled.
There was a clatter of footsteps, and one of the Black Hat men, Snyder, pounded into the room. “You better come see this,” he said.
* * *
—
When Angela resumed her hysterical crying, Katrina had followed her instinctive impulse and stepped forward to hug the crying woman. They were not friends, barely acquaintances, but it seemed like the right thing to do. “All right,” she said as she put her arms around Angela. “It’s all right,” she repeated, wondering why people always seemed to say that to someone who was hysterical. Especially since it really wasn’t all right whenever the words were said. “Come on, now,” Katrina said, pulling Angela out of the closet, away from the body. As they stepped clear, Katrina glanced back.
The utility closet was just big enough for two people to stand in, but only if they were on very good terms. On the back wall, the small metal door that covered the circuit breakers hung open. One of the breakers had been pulled out of the panel and hung by a wire. The wire was bare, a small sleeve of melted insulation around the end still connected to the breaker. The other end hung down, pointing like a slim blackened arrow to the body below.
The big man was stretched out with his back against the closet wall. In his right hand was a screwdriver. The tip was blackened like the hanging wire, smudged black as if it had been stuck into a fire—or a blast of electric current.
The man’s face was contorted by death and what had to have been a tremendous electric shock. But Katrina recognized him. It was the man from the security team who had confro
nted Randall so strangely, with his weird threat to “remember.” The one they called Chief. And he was most definitely dead.
A man pushed through the ring of onlookers. He was distinguished-looking, with perfectly coifed white hair and a tuxedo Katrina saw was a very nice Italian make, probably a Zegna. He frowned at the body, then looked up at Katrina, and she recognized him as the police commissioner. “I’ve called this in,” he said. “I’ll have officers here in five minutes.”
“Thank you, Commissioner,” Katrina said.
* * *
—
The police came in five minutes, as advertised. It seemed pretty clear that the chief had died by means of an unfortunate accident. Initially, the detectives were inclined to agree. But when they saw Katrina and realized who she was, they changed their opinion. “Coincidence” is a dirty word in police work, and all of a sudden the chief’s death didn’t seem so accidental. The cops didn’t want to leave. At least not without taking Katrina along with them. The fact that she didn’t know the dead man, had no reason at all to kill him, and had been in sight of a roomful of witnesses when the death occurred was not nearly as important to the detectives as the fact that someone they considered a known killer was in the building when a mysterious death occurred.
Luckily for her, her brother Erik arrived a moment later. He used his political and financial influence, which was considerable, and spoke a few words to the commissioner, who nodded, turned, and spoke to the detectives. They were reluctant to leave without Katrina, but in the face of the commissioner’s raised eyebrow they had no choice. And then they were joined by the under secretary of state for Iranian affairs, who had naturally been in attendance. Katrina heard him use a few ponderous phrases like “unfortunate diplomatic implications” and “international incident,” and finally, reluctantly, the detectives declared the chief’s death an accident, and they were gone ten minutes later, leaving behind no more than a forensics team, with orders to be “inconspicuous.”
* * *
—
It hadn’t been easy. But it had to be done.
So I did it. I did it the only way I could.
No choice in the matter. None at all. The guy was a major problem. He was big, fast, mean, suspicious, well trained, experienced, strong—and he would be on his guard. He would expect me to try something.
So I wouldn’t. But I would still get the bastard. Or, more accurately, I would let him get himself.
I found the right way to do it and the right place. In fact, I found four places that would work. Not hard in a big building where a lot of work was going on. Then I found out when he’d be near one of them. Easy—and it isn’t snooping or eavesdropping if there’s a really good reason for it.
And then I got there first.
It was a small closet, just big enough for two people to stand without touching. Its only purpose in life was to hold the master circuit breaker panel. That’s what I wanted—with a couple of minor modifications. It only took about five minutes of very careful work. I was done when he opened the door.
He stood there for a good two seconds staring at me. “What the fuck are you doing, fucknuts?” he demanded, looking at the electric component in my left hand. It had a thick blue wire on one end that led back to an empty slot in the circuit breaker panel.
I didn’t have to act real hard to look scared. “Oh!” I stammered. “I, I, uh—this was just—it goes right back in there,” I said, waving the screwdriver in my right hand at the hole in the panel. “I just, uh—I’ll put it back—”
“The fuck you will,” he said. “Who the fuck knows what you’ll try? Give it.” He stepped in and grabbed it from me, just like he was following my script. And then—
The honest-to-God truth is, it isn’t hard to get people to do exactly what you want them to do. People in general are pretty predictable. And to get at any little differences, you just have to watch them, read them, figure their pattern.
I knew this guy was ornery, hostile, nasty, and suspicious, even more than most people. On top of that, he was a gimme-that, screw-you alpha male. That meant that whatever he “caught” me doing, he wasn’t just going to stop me from doing whatever it was—he would take it from me and do it himself. He’d have to. It’s who he was.
So that’s exactly what he did. I just stood there and let him. “Don’t fucking move,” he said. “I got business with you.” He snarled and said, “I remembered where I saw you, motherfucker. You got some explaining to do.” And he pushed me flat against the wall.
I did my part. I acted flustered, scared, frantic. I had to do that for like four or five seconds while he figured where the component went. And then, following the script again, he jammed the piece into the slot on the circuit breaker, stabbed the screwdriver onto the retaining screw—
Flash.
Bang.
Thump.
Problem solved.
* * *
—
Lieutenant Szabo stood with the team from Tiburon Security, watching the cops pack up and leave. Szabo knew most of the Tiburons, of course. They’d served together in the SEAL Teams. Szabo had no reservations about speaking his mind in front of the others, even the ones he didn’t actually know. They were still veterans of the Teams. It’s a very small fraternity, and a very special bond.
“It’s bullshit,” he said as the last detective sauntered to the lobby and out of the museum. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Mallory, one of the Tiburons, nodded. “The chief didn’t know which end of a screwdriver to hold,” he said. “No fucking way he’d fuck with the fuse box. He would’ve called me to do it.”
Szabo nodded. Mallory waited. When Szabo said nothing more, he said, “The cops are just gonna let it go . . .”
Szabo looked at him. “We are not,” he said. “But before we do anything, we got to figure it out.” He looked around at his men. “Who killed him?”
CHAPTER
29
Shit.
Shit, shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
And so on, world of shit without end.
I had been so fucking close, and just like that, just because of a little extra diligence by the guards, the whole fucking thing was off the track. It had been purring along like a well-tuned engine. But the purring stopped when the alarm shut down. It just hadn’t rolled the way I’d thought it would. Taking care of the chief had gone like clockwork—and then, pffft. Like I said, when everything is going right, it just means you’re being set up for the Big Dump. And everything after I short-circuited the big guy had been pure shit salad.
But I wasn’t beat. Not even close. I’ve been doing this kind of thing long enough to know that nothing ever goes exactly the way it should. Riley’s Sixth Law: Shit happens, so be ready with a roll of paper. I was ready.
In a way, I was kind of glad I’d hit a glitch. Like I said, when it’s all going smooth and easy, I get nervous. So when everything was chugging along like a well-oiled bowling ball, I was already antsy. And then when it hit a snag—okay, two snags—when it went just slightly south, I actually relaxed a little bit. A fuckup! Great! Relax and enjoy!
And move on to plan B.
I always have a plan B waiting, sometimes more than one. Which one I choose depends on what shape the fuckup takes and when it comes. At this point, I was in the end game. If it hadn’t been for a couple of small bumps, I would’ve been home free.
I still would be, just a little bit later. There was never any doubt about that. The only question was how I would do it. Or—to be more accurate—who.
So when things got quiet, I slipped away into the night. I put on my music and headed across town via rooftop express. It was a good night for it, cool and clear. I played some Buddy Holly: “Think It Over,” followed by “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” and “What to Do.” Then I stopped on a roof, right before I went down t
o the street, and switched it to Mose Allison. No reason for either choice. It just felt right.
By the time I got to my storage locker I was on the Pretenders and feeling pretty good. Sing it, Chrissie. I went into the locker and closed the door, pulled out a folder that held a bunch of alternate identities. I sat on a steamer trunk and flipped through them.
Who would work best this time? I had more than a dozen choices, each one right for a different situation. Full set of IDs, credit cards, and so on. That stuff is simple to get. You just need the right connection and a little bit of cash—or bitcoin, which is usually better. The so-called dark web has made everything easier and cheaper, but cryptocurrency works better than cash there. It’s safer.
So a new identity is cheap and easy, and I always had a bunch of cool ones ready. The trunk I was sitting on had the rest of each identity—hair, clothes, etc. Like I said, Monique helps me design them, especially the details and accessories. She never knows which one I’m going to use when. That would be too much like telling her what I was doing, and that’s a stupid risk—even with Monique. But it is kind of fun to have somebody to try them out on, and she makes them all better.
I studied each identity and thought about how I might work it from here on. Who was I this time? Aging Art Critic? Maybe—it fit the scene, but there was no real usable scenario. I flipped through a couple more. Big Fat Gawker. He would come in, have a heart attack, wait for a moment when everybody was running around panicked—and I had the fat suit already. It was hanging up right behind me.
But it bumped into the same problem that had blown up plan A. These guards wouldn’t panic. They were too good. The second Big Fat hit the ground, they’d flip their safeties off and look for somebody to try something. And there were too many of them. I flipped past Gawker and looked at a few more. I needed to be somebody who gave me some way to create a distraction that could get the guards to react my way—and still leave me free to make the move when they did. Each one depended on the same kind of distraction, and each one ran smack into the same problem. Too many too-good guards.
