by Ally Cater
“But—” Kat started.
“But nothing. You wanna confess your sins to Uncle Eddie, fine. But you don’t get to confess ours. And believe me, he won’t just be angry, Kat.” Gabrielle drew a breath. Her voice cracked. “He’ll be heartbroken.”
Hale leaned forward, pressing Kat against the wall, his arm reaching over her to slowly place the receiver back into its cradle.
“Romani is running this one, Kat,” Hale said, his voice low and soft. “He wasn’t at first, but he put that card in your pocket, so he’s running things now. And now…” Kat actually felt the rise and fall of his chest when he took a deep breath. “And now we get the Cleopatra back.”
“That is a great plan, guys. Really, it is,” Kat said. “Except we can’t steal what we can’t find, and Uncle Eddie is the only person on earth who might know who these people are.”
“The only person?” Gabrielle crossed her long legs and examined her nails. It sounded like the most innocent suggestion in the world when she said, “You’re the genius, Kat. Surely you can think of someone.”
CHAPTER 15
It took approximately eighteen hours for Kat to form a plan and Hale to summon the jet, and for the four teens to find themselves standing on the streets of Lyon, France.
When the sun began to set in the distance, Kat stifled a yawn, but she knew she wasn’t really sleepy. Tired people manage to sleep on private jets with very little difficulty or discomfort. Had it been mere exhaustion, Kat was certain she could have dozed in the chauffeured car that met them at the private airstrip just outside of town.
But as she walked among the vendors at the booming street markets, the colors seemed a little too bright, the noises a bit too loud. And when Hale held a warm croissant in her direction and said, “I’m buying,” her reflexes were entirely too slow.
“Thanks,” Gabrielle said, snatching the pastry from his hand and peeling away one long buttery strip.
So no, Kat realized, it wasn’t just fatigue that plagued her reflexes and intuition. She had to entertain the notion that she was simply losing her touch.
Or maybe, Kat had to admit, she was just cursed.
Walking down the street that day, Lyon didn’t seem like the second largest city in France. Farmers lined produce into stalls in the market. Shopkeepers swept their stoops, and two policemen walked quietly past four of the top thieves in the world, not even a little bit the wiser.
Gabrielle must not have shared Kat’s newfound insomnia, because she yawned and stretched in the manner of someone who could get used to traveling in the style of W. W. Hale the Fifth.
Simon, on the other hand, didn’t look like he would ever be comfortable again. “What time is your contact meeting us?”
“Oh, well, it’s not really a meeting, strictly speaking,” Kat told him.
Hale crossed his arms and leaned against the low stone wall that ran along the Rhône. “Strictly speaking, what is it?”
“It’s more of a drop-by,” Kat said.
“This contact doesn’t know we’re coming, does he?” Hale asked, but Kat turned away from his stare.
She was trying to decide how to answer when Gabrielle threw her hands into the air. “Great,” she said. “He knows Uncle Eddie, doesn’t he? He’s going to talk to Uncle Eddie. You know, my mom expects me in Paraguay any day. And when I don’t show—”
“No one’s talking to Uncle Eddie, Gabs. Trust me.”
“Just tell me this, Kat,” Hale said, inching closer. “Is this mystery guy gonna know who our fake Constance was, or did we fly all the way to France for nothing?”
Kat could feel his impatience and his worry. The bored billionaire was gone, she knew. So was the hurt and worried boy who’d warned her about going too far. Constance—whoever she was—had taken more than just the Cleopatra when she’d told her lies and gone away.
“Look, guys,” Kat said, taking the three of them in. “As far as I know, the world’s best criminal database is inside of Uncle Eddie’s head. Barring that, the second-best thing is here.”
“Is this thing close?” Hale asked.
“Oh”—Kat took a deep breath—“you could say that.”
There was a building on the other side of the river. Kat felt herself point, watched her friends turn and stare into the distance at the sun that reflected off the steel and the glass and the large sign that read Interpol.
“That’s funny, Kat,” Simon said, then realized that no one else was laughing. “No,” he gasped, and Hale reached for Kat’s arm.
“Let’s chat.”
Hale was taller, broader, stronger, but Kat could have stopped him if she’d wanted. Or at least that’s what she told herself as he pulled her ten feet away from Simon and Gabrielle and spoke beneath his breath. “When you said you knew a source, I was thinking maybe…your dad,” Hale confided.
“Constance, or whoever she is, is old school, Hale. If Dad knew someone like that, trust me, I would have heard about her.”
“Or if not your dad…then Charlie.”
“I thought you didn’t like Charlie.”
“Charlie was weird. But weird is okay.”
“I thought you were never driving up that mountain again if your life depended on it.”
“There are helicopters. I’m good with helicopters.”
“I thought you liked France.”
Hale pointed across the river to the home of the world’s police. “Some parts I like better than others!”
He pulled Kat gently toward him. “Someone else has got the information we need.…There’s got to be some other way.”
“The other way is Uncle Eddie,” Kat countered. “So, you tell me: which one is scarier?”
And with that, the four of them turned in perfect unison and stared at the gleaming building on the other side of the riverbank.
Gabrielle was the one who said what everyone else was thinking. “So when do we start?”
Even though Kat was sure the hotel suite was the biggest in Lyon (Marcus didn’t know how to book any other kind), it still felt impossibly small seventy-two hours later as Hale paced and Gabrielle lounged and Simon’s computers (if possible) multiplied.
“What time does it close?” Hale asked for what must have been the tenth time in the past two hours.
“It doesn’t,” Simon and Gabrielle said at the exact same time, then all three of them turned to glare at Kat.
“This”—Kat held out one hand—“or Uncle Eddie.” She held out the other, balancing an imaginary scale Simon shivered, then went on. “Well, like I was saying, since Interpol works—literally—all around the world, they are open twenty-four hours a day, always on in every time zone. So the place is never empty. And they’ve got cameras. Good ones.”
“I should hope so.” Gabrielle looked indignant. “I mean, they’re Interpol, for crying out loud.”
“They don’t work with the public, so entry and exit is strictly controlled through these doors.” Simon pointed to the main entrances on the screen.
“There is some good news, isn’t there, Simon?” Gabrielle asked.
“From a security standpoint, their biggest concerns are terrorist attacks. Bombs. Hostage situations. They’ve got more biohazard detectors per square foot than any other building in Europe. Oh, and last year they spent about three million dollars on this facial recognition software that—”
“Good news,” Hale reminded Simon with a pat on his back.
“They don’t have anything anyone wants,” Simon said, then he looked at Kat. “Well…normal people. No offense.”
She shook her head. “None taken.”
“It’s really just an office building—cubicles and files and conference rooms. No cash. No art. Nothing to steal, so if you can get in, you can pretty much have the run of the place. I mean, aside from the guards.”
“And the cameras,” Gabrielle reminded him.
“And those. And they’ve got this biometric retinal scanner that keeps people out of places where
they don’t have clearance. But the rest is…easy. Even their computer system is impossible to hack from the outside, but once you’re inside…”
“Then let’s get inside,” Kat said.
If there was one thing any member of Kat’s family learned at an early age it was that fear is a weakness. It makes a person lose her nerve and her cool. It makes people jumpy and organizations nervous, and when that happens, there is always a chance to take advantage. So when Simon and Gabrielle looked at each other, Kat could see a single thought settling onto both of their faces.
“Florence Nightingale,” they both said with a sigh.
“What?” Hale looked between them. Kat couldn’t decide if he was more frustrated with himself or with her. But in any case, he looked very much like someone who would never get used to being on the outside of the joke. “What? So you expect us to just stroll into the headquarters of the International Criminal Police Organization? For them to throw open the doors and let us in?”
Kat smiled as she turned to him. “That’s exactly what I expect to happen.”
“Um…” Simon started slowly, “at the risk of stating the obvious, I feel I have to point out that Interpol has the world’s best database of international criminals.”
“That’s the idea,” Gabrielle said with a nod.
“And I feel compelled to remind you that we’re international criminals?” he finished, but Kat was already smiling.
“Don’t worry, Simon. It’s not like anyone in there knows it was a bunch of teenagers who robbed the Henley.”
CHAPTER 16
Amelia Bennett had not become the highest-ranking woman in Interpol’s lowest-ranking department by not being able to read between lines or connect dots. Most people would see working at the world headquarters as a promotion—a step up. To the outside observer, Interpol’s main office was the epitome of crime-solving for the twenty-first century, and yet to Amelia Bennett it was a like a prison.
But with a far more interesting basement.
Strolling through headquarters that Friday morning, she had a stack of dusty files under her arm and a look of steely resolve on her face, and when she reached her boss’s door, she walked right in without knocking.
“Bennett!” Artie Dupree snapped. “What are you—” But the sound of fifteen pounds of dusty files and logbooks hitting the desk cut him off. “What is all this?’
“Evidence,” Amelia said.
The man fingered one of the files in front of him. “The Turkish Dagger job? That happened in 1916, didn’t it?”
Amelia crossed her arms and smiled. “Yes, it did.”
Then it was her boss’s turn to smirk. “Well, thank goodness you’ve solved it.”
As a trained investigator and highly intuitive woman, Amelia heard the dismissal in her superior’s voice, but she chose not to acknowledge it.
“He did it, Artie.”
“Who?”
Amelia placed her palms on the desk and leaned toward him. “Visily Romani.”
Artie huffed. “The Henley investigation is in the hands of the proper authorities, Amelia. Unless the basement archives have a secret passage to London that I know nothing of, I’d recommend—”
Amelia moved a hand to one trim hip and looked down at the man behind the desk. “I really have to thank you, Artie. I mean, do you know what you get when you spend eight weeks going through boxes of dead files?”
Artie craned his neck upward in order to look at her. “Paper cuts?”
“History.” Amelia smiled as if the joke, ultimately, were on him. She picked up the file closest and tossed it onto the end of the desk. “Vienna in 1962. Paris in 1926.” Another file landed on top of the stack, and the man looked physically pained—as if that much dust and disorder were too much for his delicate senses.
“What do they have in common?” she asked like a professor challenging a student.
“Now see here, Amelia, I am a very busy—”
“All high-profile targets. All impeccably planned—almost elegant—jobs.”
“Amelia, really…”
“And in every file you can find one name: Visily Romani.” She rummaged through the files, pulling out flagged pieces of paper and showing them to her boss. “Shipping manifest from Berlin in 1935”—she pointed to a signature—“Romani. Witness statement out of Turkey. The witness’s name—”
“Romani,” Artie Dupree finished for her, then gave an exasperated sigh. “What’s this got to do with the Henley?”
“A dozen high-profile heists in a dozen cities over the course of the past ninety years. And who knows how long before that?”
And then it was her boss’s turn to grin. “Ninety years?” he said, sounding as if he might be considering taking the bait. “Mr. Romani has been a very busy man.”
“But that’s the thing, Artie. What if Romani isn’t a man?” Amelia said, leaning forward.
“Great. We’ll alert Scotland Yard and tell them they’re looking for a vampire. Or a werewolf. I’m assuming you’ve cross-referenced this with the lunar cycles.”
“What if it’s a name?” Amelia said, undaunted. She spread the files across the desk. “A name that has been used by a lot of people for a very long time.”
“Excellent.” Her boss pushed the files aside and returned to his order and his lists and his life. “You cracked it. Great work. I’ll call the Henley right away and tell them Leonardo’s Angel Returning to Heaven was stolen by a name.”
“These are some of the most famous unsolved crimes in history. Don’t you see that?”
“I see that they’re decades old, and the key word is unsolved.”
“It’s a common link. A thread. These crimes are interconnected, and if we—”
“Do you know where the Angel is?” he snapped, and Amelia gave an involuntary backward step.
“No.”
“Do you have information that will lead to the arrest of this Romani…” He stumbled, flustered. “Or Romanis?”
“If we launch an investigation…”
“Bennett! The last time we let you lead an investigation, you swore you would catch one Robert Bishop.”
Amelia crossed her arms and stared down. “Yes, I can see how that investigation would be such a disappointment. It only resulted in the arrest of an international criminal and the recovery of a million-dollar statue and four priceless paintings that had been missing for sixty years.”
“If you really want to solve what happened at the Henley, I’d suggest you talk to your son.” Artie Dupree slipped on his glasses. “After all, he was there.…Wait, what was he doing there, again?” The man asked the question that he and a few dozen others had already asked before.
“He told me he was there out of a deep love of art.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
“He’s a teenage boy. I’m sure what he really meant to say was that he was there to impress some girl.”
The man studied her as if this were all new information (it wasn’t). He sighed as if he could completely understand her predicament (he couldn’t). And he looked at her as if his smile could take the sting out of her current situation (it didn’t even come close).
“Then I’m going to assume there’s nothing else I can do for you, Agent Bennett?”
“No,” Amelia said, gathering the dusty files and clutching them to her black suit. “I have quite everything I need.”
Despite being a highly trained and deftly skilled observer, there were many things Amelia Bennett did not see on her trip back to the basement archives. After all, it looked like a typical morning with the sleepy-eyed masses swiping cards and coming inside. Workers pushed carts and people scanned papers, and it was a day just like any other, there on the banks of the Rhône.
Well, at least that was the way it seemed right up until the point when the bouquet of fresh flowers that was meant for the deputy director was carried from the main reception desk to the upper-level offices, setting off a half dozen biohazard d
etectors along the way.
A few moments later, on the second floor, a bottle of carpet cleaner began to bubble with seemingly toxic fumes. The head of Interpol’s internal security division was halfway to the mailroom when he heard that a brand-new espresso machine had spontaneously caught on fire. A recently serviced oven in the cafeteria began spewing smoke so thick no one could even see.
“What’s going on?” one of the guards in the security room wanted to know.
“All of the toilets in the men’s room on the fourth floor just…blew!” someone else exclaimed.
All throughout the building, sirens were blaring and sensors were tripping. And when the electronic voice began echoing through the building, saying, “THERE HAS BEEN A BREACH IN SECURITY PROTOCOL. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST DOOR,” first in French, then again in Arabic, English, and Spanish, there was only one thing to be done.
To their credit, every single person at Interpol’s world headquarters reacted in the calm, orderly way that one would have expected. To anyone observing from across the river, it looked like nothing more than a minor inconvenience—a drill. Exploding toilets, after all, did not an international incident make. Many of the Interpol officials said later that if they hadn’t known better, they would have sworn they were witnessing the harmless pranks of kids.
Well, at least that was the way it seemed until the fire trucks appeared with their swirling lights and screaming sirens. The police, too, were quick to the scene—almost too quick, some might say—to throw up the barricades and block off the traffic.
But it wasn’t until they saw the big bus from the bomb squad that the people huddled on the sidewalks began to wonder if things might be more severe than some elaborate prank.
“Step aside!” the tallest of the masked figures in the heavy protective suits yelled. He barked orders at a man with a walkietalkie. “Your people are out of there?”
“Yes,” the man said. He looked vaguely confused and more than a little annoyed. “But it was just the toilets.…Can’t we go back inside and—”
