All Gone

by Joel Goldman

  “Fold, gottverdammt!”

  Jake placed his cards face down on the table and mixed them with the rest of the deck, making certain no one would ever know if he had been bluffing. As he gathered his winnings, he flashed Cassie a grin that made his blue eyes dance and her heart skip a beat. She gestured to the door and left.

  “That’s it for me,” Jake said as he passed five hundred euros to the dealer.

  Outside, Cassie looped her arm around his.

  “Back there,” Cassie said, “were you bluffing?” He didn’t answer. “I know. You never bet and tell. But, if I can’t tell when you’re bluffing, how can I ever trust you?”

  “You’re asking me about trust? You’re a thief. A brilliant, beautiful, sexy thief, but still a thief.”

  “That’s not the way I see it. I’m more of a twenty-first century Robin Hood.”

  “Except you don’t rob the rich and give to the poor. You rob the rich and give the stuff back to some other rich guy.”

  “Who happens to be the rightful owner,” Cassie said.

  “According to Prometheus. Who has a name like that? I might like him if he had a last name, maybe Jones or Smith or Goldfarb, or if he didn’t sit on his ass all day on his secret island hideaway sipping drinks with floating umbrellas while you did all the dirty work.”

  “You wouldn’t like him no matter what his name was or where he lived or what he drank.”

  “Because I don’t like the hold he has on you. When I invited you to spend the weekend with me in Paris, I didn’t think you’d spend it working.”

  “I owe Prometheus everything I have. That doesn’t mean he has a hold on me. It means that I’m loyal. I told you I had a job to do here. And now that it’s finished, we have the rest of the weekend.”

  Jake laughed. “It’s Monday morning, or did you forget. We spent a weekend together in Paris with our clothes on. Tragic.”

  She punched him in the arm and then took him by the hand. “Come on. Let’s go to the Pont Neuf and watch the sun rise over the Seine.”

  They passed a bakery that was just stirring to life, the employees inside preparing to open for early morning customers. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten.

  They were almost there when Cassie’s cell phone rang. As soon as she saw the caller ID, her smile faded and her brow tensed. “Sorry,” she said. “Give me a minute.”

  She dropped Jake’s hand and moved a few steps away to take the call. She had her back to him and didn’t see him move close enough to overhear her side of the conversation.

  “When?” she asked. “All four of them? Yes. As quick as I can.”

  She ended the call and turned around, frowning when she saw how near he was. “Were you eavesdropping?”

  Jake shrugged. “Maybe. A little. Was that Prometheus?”

  She glared at him. “Yes. And, haven’t you ever heard of boundaries? Never mind. Of course, you haven’t. I have to go.”

  “Boundaries. Right. I’m all about that. So, where are you off to?”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “London.”

  “As in you’re really going to Bangkok but want me to think you’re going to London or are you really going to London?”

  He grinned and she bit her cheek until she couldn’t help herself and laughed.

  “You are the most impossible man I’ve ever met.”

  “You left out irresistible.”

  She sighed and the tension in her face evaporated. “We’ll see about that. And, yes, I’m really going to London.”

  “Need some help? I’m supposed to get a haircut this week but I can reschedule. You have to admit, we made a great team the last time.”

  “Great teams don’t get thrown overboard during a storm in the middle of the Mediterranean.”

  “Great teams don’t drown. Neither of us would have survived without the other.”

  “Jake…”

  “We go after the same kind of people. They’re rich and arrogant and think they’re invulnerable. We come at them in different ways but together we’d be unstoppable.”

  “And you’re ready to walk away from poker to be my sidekick? I don’t think so.”

  “I said partner, not sidekick. And, who said anything about walking away from poker. That’s my ticket to the circles you run in. And, it’s the perfect cover.” Jake hesitated, realizing he was re-opening a wound. “If it’s because of what happened to Gabriel Degrande…”

  Cassie crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t even…”

  “I’m sorry. I know he was your partner and you blame yourself for his death, but…”

  She raised her palm, stopping him. “It’s not going to happen. Deal with it.”

  ***

  JAKE WATCHED UNTIL Cassie turned a corner and was out of sight, then walked to the Pont Neuf. Standing on the bridge, watching the sun burn the rims off slate gray clouds and listening to the city come to life all around him, he thought about her. They’d had their meet-cute moment and they’d gone through their pretend-to-be-annoyed with each other phase. He’d invited her to join him in Paris to put an end to their will-they-or-won’t they phase. Then Prometheus called, leaving him in the what-the-fuck phase.

  She hadn’t lied to him about London. At least he didn’t think so. He liked that it was hard to tell. He spent the rest of the morning mulling her latest refusal to let them work together until he came up with a plan to change her mind. Deal with it, she’d told him. Fair enough. He would. An hour later, he was at the train station holding a ticket to London, not worried that Cassie had a six-hour head start.

  FIVE

  CASSIE TOOK THE EUROSTAR to London via the Channel tunnel. She made quick work of the bland breakfast that came with her first-class ticket, reminding herself that it was fuel, not food.

  She imagined Jake sitting next to her. She would explain all the ways the thieves could have stolen the Magna Cartas while he calculated the risk and reward of each scenario, narrowing it down to the most likely. Together, they would’ve shortened the odds and solved the case. It was the together part that frightened her enough to turn Jake down each time he brought it up. He was right that she had to move on from the past. She just wished she knew how.

  She shook her head and spent the rest of the two hour and fifteen-minute trip on her laptop learning all she could about the British Library and the Magna Carta exhibit. The Library’s design drawings were public records. She studied them closely.

  There was only one way in and out of the PACCAR Gallery where the exhibit was located. A retractable steel gate that descended from the ceiling at the entrance to the Gallery was the only security measure shown on the plans. From there, a broad corridor led to stairs that took visitors down to the display cases.

  She knew that security guards and an array of cameras and motion detectors would also protect the Gallery and that the display cases would be equipped with separate alarms. It would take a team of three or four to overcome those complex and sophisticated defenses and the thieves wouldn’t have taken on the job unless they knew what they were up against.

  They could have obtained that information by hacking into the Library’s network. But more and more institutions like the British Library were keeping such information on a secure standalone computer not connected to the network to make it more difficult to hack.

  Or, they could have stolen a hard copy of the plans if they knew where to find them. Most likely, they bribed or blackmailed someone on the inside with access to the information if that person wasn’t the mastermind behind the entire operation.

  Standard practice would limit the number of people that could open the retractable steel gate, giving her a starting point for a list of suspects. She guessed that at least two people had that authority. One was the Director of Security, whom the Library’s website identified as Ian Thorpe. Normally, Thorpe would have been her contact but Prometheus told her it was Sarah St. James, the exhibit curator and the second person on Cassie’s short list.r />
  Thorpe would be able to recite the security measures – and how to defeat them - in his sleep. St. James would trust him to keep her exhibit safe while she focused on other details. Prometheus’ choice of St. James as her contact combined with Thorpe’s superior knowledge was enough to move him to the top of her list until she knew more.

  She emailed Gunnar Agnarsson, Prometheus’ tech wizard, and asked him to run full background checks, including financials, on both Thorpe and St. James. Gunnar shot back a reply, promising to get the information to her by day’s end.

  Cassie stepped off the train at the St. Pancras station, glad that it was only half a block from the British Library. She stowed her suitcase at the Excess Baggage Company on the station’s main concourse.

  It was ten a.m. when she arrived at the Library. A twenty-foot banner hung on an exterior wall trumpeting the Magna Carta exhibit. The line of people waiting to get inside snaked from the entrance across a brick-lined plaza, down the sidewalk along Euston Road and around the corner.

  She stared at the crowd wondering what they would see when they reached the exhibit. If the hundreds of people waiting to get in was any indication, perhaps the story about the theft had been a false alarm or a hoax. If so, she’d be back in Paris – and with Jake – by dinner.

  Just then, she received a text from Prometheus attaching a VIP e-ticket to the exhibit that allowed her to skip the line. She wouldn’t need it if all were well. She showed her e-ticket to the security guard. He scanned it and waved her through.

  Cassie joined the throng that had made it through security. She wanted to see the exhibit, or what was left of it, before she sought out Sarah St. James.

  Half an hour later, she stopped in front of the display cases, shoulder to shoulder with a dozen others. Kept several feet away by a velvet rope, she could see the Magna Cartas, each elevated slightly to make them more visible. Except she knew they couldn’t be the originals. Otherwise, Prometheus would have sent her back to Paris.

  A plaque on the wall above the cases explained that the Magna Carta contained 3500 words and 62 clauses and that the four remaining originals ranged from 17 to 20 inches in length and 13 to 17 inches in width and that the text was written in Latin. The plaque failed to mention that when viewed from behind the rope, the writing was so small and so illegible that it could just have easily passed for Elven runes from The Lord of the Rings or tracks left by worms crawling across the parchment.

  Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble in a short period of time to make certain that news of the theft hadn’t been made public and that the exhibit opened as scheduled. Otherwise, the only people at the exhibit would be detectives from Scotland Yard.

  Cassie drifted away from the display cases and started up the stairs that would take her back to the gallery entrance. A young woman wearing a knee-length green dress with a torn hem was standing at the top of the stairs. Cassie recognized Sarah St. James from the videos on the Library’s website she had watched on the train. Though poised and animated on the videos, she had a wan complexion and her eyes flicked like jitterbugs from the Magna Cartas to the people behind the velvet rope. She tugged and toyed with the collar of her dress with one hand and clutched a tissue with the other.

  Cassie walked up the stairs and stopped next to Sarah who didn’t appear to notice her until Cassie spoke.

  “It’s a lovely exhibit.”

  Sarah gave her a quick glance and a tight smile. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Too bad they’re fakes.” Sarah’s eyes widened. Her face flushed and her shoulders slumped. Cassie cupped Sarah’s elbow to keep her steady. “It’s alright. I’m Cassie Ireland. I work for Global Security. Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

  “Oh, thank heavens. Of course.”

  Cassie glanced down the stairs and saw an older man staring at them. She wanted to dismiss his interest but couldn’t, not when he didn’t look away when their eyes met. Fair enough, she thought. More players on the board. She took Sarah by the arm.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  SIX

  SARAH LED CASSIE to her office on the second floor. It was a utilitarian space with a desk, two visitor chairs and walls lined with crammed bookshelves that blocked the only window. She closed the door behind them and leaned against it, her words coming out in a rush.

  “I don’t know how this sort of thing normally works, but let’s get something clear. No one else can know what happened. Not the staff or the public or, God forbid, the press. If the police get involved, the thieves will find out and the Magna Cartas will be destroyed. So, we must keep it quiet. All right?”

  “Understood.”

  “Good.” Sarah gave her a quick nod. “The most important thing… the only important thing is getting the documents back safely. Even if that means paying the ransom.”

  “The Magna Cartas are eight hundred years old. Are they likely to be damaged?”

  “Not if handled properly.”

  “How would you do it?”

  Sarah thought for a moment. “I’d keep them flat, in some kind of protective polyester sleeve so there won’t be any chemical reactions. Keep them in a cool place. Never above room temperature and no exposure to direct or intense light. Oh, and, nowhere near heat, like a radiator, or blowing air, like from a vent. They’re small enough to fit into an attaché case. I’d use a skinny one with a hard shell, the kind a barrister takes to court. And, I’d pad the interior with foam to cushion the documents.”

  “How likely is it that the thieves knew how to protect the Magna Cartas?”

  “Easy enough to Google the bit about the sleeves. The attaché case is typical for transporting fragile documents of this size, though the case would be packed inside a secure shipping crate.”

  Cassie nodded. “Did you steal the Magna Cartas?”

  “Did I steal the Magna Cartas? Are you daft?”

  Cassie was more interested in Sarah’s reaction to the question than her answer. Her surprise was instantaneous and her shocked facial reaction was involuntary. Both gave her reply the ring of truth.

  “How many people can open the steel gate at the entrance to the PACCAR Gallery?”

  “Three, including me. We have to swipe our ID badges through a card reader.”

  “Which means you could have opened the gate for the thieves. Did you?”

  Sarah’s voice raised an indignant octave. “No!”

  “Can you prove that?”

  Sarah ran her fingers through her hair, then folded her arms across her middle and paced across her office, head down.

  “Yes. Yes, of course I can.” She sat at her desk and opened the Library’s internal network on her desktop computer, clicking through a series of screens. “There. You can see for yourself. Every time one of us swipes our card, it’s recorded on this access log and…oh, my God. That’s impossible. I don’t believe it. It was Malcolm.”

  Cassie looked over her shoulder. “Malcolm who?”

  “Malcolm Bridges. He works for Titan Security Solutions. He designed the display cases and the whole security system.”

  Cassie pointed to the screen. “And it looks like he opened the gate at 12:47 this morning.”

  Sarah sagged into her chair. “I can’t believe it. It must be a mistake. Malcolm would never… I mean he couldn’t have done it. He just couldn’t.”

  “Is Ian Thorpe the third person that can open the gate?”

  “Yes. My, you’ve done your homework. Most impressive.”

  Cassie studied the screen. “His name doesn’t show up on the log. Just Bridges and you.”

  Sarah moved the cursor across the log to the entry next to her name. “But you can see for yourself that I didn’t get here until after four this morning. I couldn’t sleep so I came in early to make certain everything was ready to go. The gate was down when I got here. I opened it and when I came down the stairs, the Magna Cartas were gone and the gallery was a mess.”

  “Call Malcolm Bridges.”<
br />
  “Call him? What would I say? Morning, Malcolm. Would you mind bringing back the Magna Cartas you stole?”

  Cassie smiled and handed her the phone. “Invite him to dinner to celebrate the opening of the exhibit.”

  Sarah inhaled deeply, her eyebrows arching, put the phone on speaker and dialed Bridges’ direct line.

  A woman answered. “Margaret Jameson speaking. May I help you?”

  Sarah scratched a note for Cassie – M’s secretary . “Hello, Margaret. It’s Sarah St. James from the British Library. I’m calling for Malcolm. Is he available?”

  “No. I’m afraid Mr. Bridges resigned two days ago.”

  “Resigned? Why? Where did he go?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Mr. Bridges. It was very sudden. We’re all at loose ends here.”