Shatterproof

by Roland Smith

  “I am not Agent Vanek,” the man said. “I am Gale Monist.” He flashed an Interpol badge. “Vanek and I are working together. I’m looking for him.”

  Amy and Atticus tried to hide their surprise. They knew that voice. The flashlight showed a man wearing a trench coat and hat, who looked like he had a mustache, although it was hard to tell in the dark.

  “Agent Vanek was in the museum just before we lost power,” Rommel said. “I couldn’t tell you if he is still in the building or not. Have you tried his mobile?”

  “Of course,” Agent Monist said impatiently. “He’s not answering, which is why I knocked on your door. And you are . . . ?”

  “Alberich Rommel, Director of Security.”

  Agent Monist turned toward them. “And these are . . . ? My God! Amy Cahill! She’s the reason Vanek and I are here. Who’s the boy?”

  “Her accomplice, I believe, but both of them refuse to answer my questions.”

  “We’ll see if a trip to Interpol loosens their tongues,” Agent Monist said.

  “Not before they answer my questions,” Rommel said. “Until they do, they will remain in my custody.”

  “Your custody?” Agent Monist’s voice rose. “I wasn’t aware that the Pergamon had a sanctioned police organization.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Rommel said. “But I apprehended them here and before they leave I must determine what damage they have caused to our collection.”

  “I see,” Agent Monist said. “How did you lose your power?”

  “The boy.”

  Agent Monist stared at Atticus. Atticus looked away, trying not to smile.

  “I assume your power grid is controlled in this room.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did the boy get inside?”

  Rommel hesitated. “I was giving him a tour.”

  “So, you let him in?”

  Before Rommel could answer, Agent Monist got a call. He took his cell phone out of his trench coat.

  “Yes . . . Where are you? . . . I’m inside the museum. . . . They have Amy Cahill and a boy. . . . No. A Herr Rommel wants to talk to them first. . . . I see. . . . Just stay where you are and I’ll be out in a minute.” He put the phone back in his pocket and looked at Rommel. “That was Milos Vanek. He’s waiting out front for me in the car. He said that the news organizations have shown up. I suspect they will be wanting to talk to you about how this all happened. How you let the boy in the security room, how your security was breached by children, et cetera, or I can . . . Oh, never mind.” He turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Rommel said. “Or you can what?”

  Agent Monist turned back. “Or, I can take them out of here very, very quietly and when you speak to the media you can say that you don’t know how the power went off, but Interpol is investigating. If they call us, which they will, we will back you up without giving them any details about your . . .” He paused. “Your unfortunate tour.” He looked at his watch. “I have to leave. Agent Vanek and I are due back at headquarters for an important meeting.”

  “Take them,” Rommel said with disgust. “And if you can get the boy to tell you the passcode he used to lock our system, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  “We’ll get the passcode out of him,” Agent Monist said. “And everything else he knows. You two come with me.”

  Amy and Atticus jumped to their feet.

  Rommel escorted them to the entrance of the museum, but quickly faded back as soon as he saw the news vans outside.

  Agent Monist, aka Jake Rosenbloom, draped his trench coat over the handcuffs so the news people wouldn’t notice them as they hurried across the square.

  “Where’s Dan?” Amy asked.

  “Agent Vanek is in the car, waiting for us at the curb.”

  Amy and Atticus climbed into the back of the SUV. Jake went around to the driver’s side and opened the door.

  “Scoot over.”

  “I got it,” Dan said, his hands on the steering wheel.

  “Forget it, Dan,” Amy said.

  “I drove it here.”

  “One block,” Amy said. “Move over. There are police everywhere. We have to get out of here.”

  “Without the diamond,” Dan said. His face was ashen.

  “We’ll talk about it as we drive.”

  Dan scooted over. Jake pulled away from the curb and left the Pergamon disaster behind.

  Jake drove the Benz several blocks north, then pulled into a parking lot.

  “What are you doing?” Amy asked.

  It was the first words any of them had spoken since leaving the museum. In a few minutes, the Vesper phone would ping with the news that one of their friends had died.

  “This mustache is driving me crazy,” Jake said. “I need to get it off me.”

  Dan got out of the front seat and opened the back door. He unlocked Amy’s and Atticus’s handcuffs with Agent Vanek’s key.

  “I’ll sit back here with Atticus,” he said.

  Amy got into the front seat with Jake.

  “How did Vanek figure out you were in the Pergamon?” Jake asked, pulling back into traffic.

  “I didn’t get a chance to discuss it with him,” Dan answered flatly.

  “Maybe he’s a Vesper,” Atticus suggested.

  “Not likely,” Dan said. “You should have heard him when I mentioned Luna Amato, who we know is a Vesper. If she had been there, he would have strangled her.”

  “It’s a good question,” Amy said. “How did he know? He was inside the museum before we got there.”

  “All I know is that it’ll be a while before he picks up our trail again,” Dan said. “I have his passport, cash, credit card, and keys, thanks to Lightfinger Larry.”

  “Who?” Atticus asked.

  “I’ll tell you about him later,” Dan said. “What I want to know is what set off the metal detector.”

  Amy shook her head. “I don’t know. All I had in my pocket was the diamond. I’d even taken off my belt and my —”

  She stopped in midsentence and started frantically going through her backpack.

  “What?” Jake said.

  “What are you looking for?” Dan asked.

  “My watch!”

  Dan’s stomach lurched. “Are you sure?”

  Amy threw the last of her gear out of the pack and held it upside down. “It’s not here. We need to go back to the Pergamon.”

  “Are you kidding?” Atticus said. “The place is crawling with police. They know who we are.”

  “We’ll get you another watch,” Jake said.

  “Not like the one she had,” Dan said. He and his sister exchanged a panicked look. “Are you sure you left it there?”

  “As soon as the lights went out, I grabbed my pack and the tray with my cell phone, but I completely for-got about the tray with the watch. How could I be so stupid?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Jake said. “Tomorrow, when things settle down at the museum, I’ll go to their lost and found and pick up your watch. I bet there were plenty of things left there when the lights went out.”

  “That won’t work!” Amy yelled. “I’m an idiot!” She pounded her fists on the dashboard as hard as she could. Tears streamed down her face.

  For a second, everyone froze. Dan glanced at Atticus and saw that his eyes were as wide as Dan’s were. Amy did not freak out like this. But she was slamming her fists down over and over again until Jake reached over and grabbed her, pinning her arms against her sides so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

  “Amy! They don’t know who I am!” he said. “It was too dark for Rommel to see what I really look like. I’ll say my sister left it there or something.”

  Dan wasn’t sure she had heard him, which was probably lucky for Jake. His plan would not have worked. The back of the watch was engraved with Amy’s name, cell phone number, and e-mail.

  Dan leaned forward and put his hand on Amy’s shoulder. “We stole a Caravaggio,” he said. “We shouldn’t have any pr
oblem stealing something that actually belongs to us.”

  Amy looked at him and blinked several times as if she didn’t know where she was.

  “The watch. The diamond,” she said hoarsely, and turned her head toward the dashboard clock.

  They all followed her gaze.

  “Maybe Vesper One will give us an extension,” Jake said.

  No one bothered to answer him.

  “I shouldn’t have turned the lights out,” Atticus said.

  “If you hadn’t they would have found the fake diamond,” Amy said dully.

  “Let me see it,” Dan said to distract himself. Something was nagging him and he wanted to think of anything except what was happening to the hostages.

  Who will die? Uncle Alistair? Nellie?

  Amy pulled the velvet bag out of her pocket and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “We’ll get your watch back,” Jake quietly reassured Amy again. “I know it was important to you.”

  “I know what set the metal detector off,” Dan said. “It wasn’t the diamond; it was the velvet bag. The inside is lined with some kind of metallic cloth.”

  “Why would they —”

  The Vesper phone buzzed, silencing everyone. Amy had to dig through her strewn gear to find it. Her voice shook as she read the text aloud.

  Thank you for your help at the Pergamon. We could not have done it without you, but I must apologize pro meus valde delictum. And you must now find it. Your friends are all alive . . . for now. Off to Timbuktu you go. No margin for error. If you fail to recover the transgression within 48 hours, I will flip a coin. Heads for Phoenix. Tails for Oh.

  Vesper One

  Stunned disbelief filled the car. Another minute ticked by before anyone could speak.

  “The hostages are safe,” Amy finally said, a fresh flood of tears running down her face.

  Dan let out a deep breath. He couldn’t take it in. His stomach felt misplaced, as if he were suspended on top of a roller coaster. “What does he mean by our help at the Pergamon?”

  “Vesper sarcasm?” Atticus said.

  “Maybe,” Dan answered. “Why would Vesper One apologize for a valid delectable prom menu?”

  “‘Apologize pro meus valde delictum,’” Atticus said, pronouncing the words correctly. “It’s Latin. It means apologize ‘for my great transgression.’”

  “Apology not accepted,” Dan said.

  And for the first time in a while, everyone laughed.

  Jake called his father’s travel agent, who specialized in journeys to remote places. The good news was that the Berlin airport had reopened after the snowstorm and flights were landing and taking off. The bad news was that Timbuktu was one of most difficult places in the world to reach.

  “We can’t get there from here,” Jake said, after he got off the phone. “At least not very quickly. There’s a flight out of Berlin tomorrow morning, but it doesn’t get into Bamako in Mali until late tomorrow evening.”

  “Bamako?” Dan said. “Mali? I thought we were going to Timbuktu.”

  “Timbuktu and Bamako are in the country of Mali. To get to Timbuktu, you have to go to Bamako first. The problem is getting from Bamako to Timbuktu,” Jake continued. “There are only three flights a week, and the next flight isn’t for two days.”

  “We could rent a car,” Amy said. “Or hire a driver.”

  “Nine hours across the desert,” Jake said. “If you don’t have a breakdown, which happens about seventy percent of the time. The other way to Timbuktu is by ferry. But it’s a three-day trip if the ferries are in operation, which half the time they aren’t.”

  “Too bad we don’t have Jonah’s private jet,” Dan said.

  “That’s brilliant!” Amy said. “Why can’t we use his jet while they’re in Pompeii? The jet could be here in a few hours.”

  “And we wouldn’t have to worry about getting through security,” Atticus added.

  “I’ll text Erasmus,” Amy said, typing quickly into her phone.

  “What about your watch?” Dan asked.

  Amy took a deep breath. “We have to get it back. If we can’t do it before we leave, we’ll come back after we finish in Timbuktu. We don’t have a choice. In the mean-time, we’ll check into a hotel and get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “Room service!” Dan and Atticus shouted in unison.

  They checked into connecting suites at the Brandenburger Hof, not far from the Pergamon Museum. Each suite had two bedrooms with canopied king-sized beds. The bedrooms had attached master bathrooms equipped with steam and sauna rooms, and flat-screen televisions everywhere. There was even one you could see from the toilet.

  “It’s a perfect design,” Dan said as they toured the rooms.

  “A little over the top,” Amy said.

  Atticus opened the well-stocked minibar and started liberating chips, soda pop, mixed nuts, and candy. Jake picked up the television remote and began channel surfing for news about the Pergamon.

  “I’m going to call Evan and then take a shower,” Amy said, handing Dan the Vesper satellite phone and her own cell phone. “Erasmus should be calling back. Tell him what’s going on. And charge both phones. When we get to Timbuktu we’ll have to hit the ground running. We’ll need all of our batteries topped up.”

  “What about your laptop?”

  “I’ll charge it in the other room.”

  Dan grinned. “Give Evan a virtual kiss from me.”

  Amy glanced at Jake and felt her face redden. He was still flipping through the channels and didn’t appear to be paying attention. Why do I care? She closed the door to the second suite.

  After the door clicked shut, Jake turned to Dan. “How serious is it between Amy and Evan?”

  Dan started humming Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March,” then put his index finger into his mouth like he was gagging.

  Room service finally answered. “I need . . . uh . . . do you speak English? Hang on.” He waved Atticus over to the phone. “Can you order everything on the menu?”

  “Everything?”

  “You can skip any kind of vegetable matter.”

  Atticus took the phone and started going down the menu from the top.

  Amy broke into a broad grin when Evan appeared on the screen.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be there,” she said.

  “Kind of hard to head home when your girlfriend is robbing a museum. Are you okay?”

  Amy managed a wobbly smile. “I’m fine, but we didn’t get the Jubilee.” She went on to explain what had happened in the Pergamon, leaving out her SUV fit.

  As she spoke Evan typed notes into the comm center database. When she finished, he read over what he had written and asked her questions to make sure he had it right.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “But the only way to identify Vesper One and figure out where the hostages are is to sluice information until something pops to the surface. Erasmus is double-checking the data. Vesper One will make a mistake. Data mining always works.”

  “I hope so,” Amy said.

  “E-mail me a photo of that velvet bag,” Evan said. “Maybe we can find out who manufactured it. It shouldn’t be too hard to run it down with the metallic lining. Why would it even have metallic lining?”

  “I have no idea,” Amy said. “But I wish I’d taken the fake diamond out of it.”

  “By what you said about the security, and Vanek showing up, it sounds like the heist wouldn’t have worked anyway. You were lucky to get out of there.”

  Amy shuddered. “Without Jake they would have had us.”

  Evan frowned.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m just tired. I’ve been trying to figure out if someone’s feeding information to Vesper One.”

  Amy felt her stomach twist. “Do you still think it’s Ian?” she asked quietly, praying that Evan would tell her it’d all been a mistake. She couldn’t believe that Ian would betray them. That he’d betray her.

  Evan pressed his lips t
ogether, then spoke slowly. “Ian is still our number one suspect, but there’s no proof that he’s working for Vesper One other than his odd behavior. It would be unfair to openly accuse him at this point, and maybe even damaging. When he’s here he’s been a big help. We need him.”

  “Do you still think our data is compromised?”

  “It’s hard to say. I’m monitoring it twenty-four-seven and haven’t detected any intruders, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a mole.”

  “Call me if you have any updates. Day or night. It doesn’t matter.” Amy glanced away from the screen, then looked back shyly. “You can call me anytime . . . for any reason. I really miss you, Evan.”

  “I miss you, too, Ames.” Evan took a deep breath. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

  “I guess. I mean . . .”

  “You and Jake seem to be getting along pretty well.”

  Amy felt her face flush again, but this time with anger. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” Evan said. “I was just —”

  “It’s getting late,” Amy said, looking at her watch — which wasn’t there, adding to her frustration. “I better go.” She ended the call and closed her laptop. The last thing she needed right now was to worry about Evan’s ridiculous concerns. She sighed. Why did everything have to be so completely confusing?

  Evan stared at his reflection in the blank monitor and saw that his mouth was hanging open. Why would Amy react so strongly to a simple question? He’d only asked because the last time they’d talked, she said Jake was being a jerk. He was about to try to reconnect with her, but was interrupted by a scream.

  He jumped up and looked around for some kind of weapon, but all he could find was a Ping-Pong paddle. He grabbed it and rushed downstairs.

  Ian Kabra was standing in the living room with blood running down his face.

  “Sorry to disturb your game,” Ian said, looking at the paddle.

  Evan clenched his teeth. “I wasn’t playing Ping-Pong,” Evan said, hiding the paddle behind his back. “What happened?”

  “Saladin happened. Grace’s mangy cat. When I walked in he jumped on my head like a puma. He nearly took my ear off!”