by Kim Foster
And me? I walked in wearing mom jeans. You know—the high-waisted, pleated kind that make your butt look enormous and your legs like stumps? My white aerobics shoes squeaked on the marble floor of the lobby. My hair was buried beneath a mousy brown wig and my face was concealed behind oversize glasses circa 1983.
My first choice of disguise for tonight had been a hot, sequined minidress and glossy black china-doll wig: high-roller style. Or—better still—the arm candy of a high roller. On further reflection I had decided that such an appearance would be too conspicuous. Extra attention was not what I wanted tonight.
Which is why I was walking into the casino wearing a shapeless, silk-screened sweatshirt that read Life is a beach in St. Petersburg, Florida! Tonight I was the housewife escapee. A night out playing the slots. I must say, my strategy appeared to be working perfectly. Nobody spared me a second glance.
My heart pumped with excitement. This was the moment I’d been waiting for—the culmination of all my preparation and planning. Of course I’d have felt a little better if I had that damn gas mask, but I did not want to get into that again. For that, and many reasons, failure was not an option tonight. I would leave the casino tonight with the Fabergé or die trying.
I wound my way through the bonging, blinking slot machines, heading to the far end of the casino.
Then, turning a corner, I spotted someone who did not belong. Seated at a twenty-five-cent slot machine—Action Stacked Diamonds, to be exact—was Brooke.
I slipped back behind the row of machines. My mind raced: had she seen me just then? Then my shoulders dropped. Did it matter? Clearly, she was here because she knew I was here. Whether she’d seen me just now, or five minutes ago, made no difference.
My only hope—that she didn’t know exactly what job I was doing here. If she knew I was headed to the basement vault, wouldn’t she already be there, to catch me in the act?
If I was still going to do this job, I had to ditch her somehow. I immediately thought of the woman in the Vivienne Westwood and the men in Armani—who were, let’s face it, examples of much more logical targets for me.
A plan formulated in my brain.
I circuited back and strolled near where Brooke had been. I stayed visible, allowing her to see me, but not being too obvious about it.
Then I made my way to the high-stakes poker room, knowing that Brooke would follow and watch my every move.
I just needed one chance. I observed the sparkly people strolling in and out of the room, gauging who was likely to be a guest of the hotel, who’d had a few too many martinis....
And then I found a perfect mark. A woman, blowsy and rich, lots of hairspray, fumbling with her purse as she teetered toward the restroom. I made my move and bumped into her on a cross-path.
“Oh, pardon me!” I said, bending to help her pick up the sprawled contents of her purse.
She took in my outfit and glared at me with a pickled glower of contempt. I smiled into her heavily mascara-smudged eyes and pocketed the key card for her hotel suite.
I melted away into the depths of the slot machines and headed in the general direction of the elevators that went up to the hotel.
That should do it. Brooke would think I was going to hit the woman’s suite. It would be a tidy little job, actually, the sort of thing I’d done a hundred times. I snaked my way through the casino, losing myself—and Brooke—through the labyrinth of slot machines. I doubled back, again, and returned just outside the elevator lobby. I peered around a slot machine. Yes, there was Brooke, waiting for an elevator going up. She’d taken the bait.
Smiling, I slipped away to the far end of the casino, to the infrequently used elevators. Including the one that went to the basement. By the time Brooke figured out I wasn’t breaking into any of the suites upstairs, I’d be gone without a trace.
I pressed the call button. The elevator arrived. The instant before walking inside, I flicked a switch in my pocket, which activated my anti-CCTV sensor. A variant on my usual gadget, this one blocked the feed of cameras within range. Too many cameras in the casino—I couldn’t possibly deactivate them all manually. Would be too obvious, anyway.
I knew there was a camera inside the elevator car. It would now show a picture of an empty elevator. I casually strolled inside. These elevators weren’t used often, so I was alone.
Of course if anyone had really been paying attention in the control room and bothered to match up the two feeds of the elevator lobby and the interior of this elevator, they would have seen a housewife disappear into an elevator. But I was counting on my utterly dishwater appearance to cause the security staff to ignore me on the video feeds.
I attached my earpiece and clicked it on.
“Okay, ready to go, Gladys?” I said in a low voice.
“Ready, dear.” At that point, Gladys took over control of the elevator. She’d hacked in from her bungalow. I knew she’d disabled the car when it stopped, hovering in midair.
Which was my cue to move. I only had a few minutes before somebody made the call to the elevator company to fix the broken lift and I had things to do before then. I unpacked the climbing gear that had been concealed beneath my shapeless sweatshirt, wrapped around my body.
I used the railing of the elevator to hoist myself up toward the ceiling of the car; I stretched upward and clung on to the tiles, pushed the escape hatch up and away, then pulled myself up with all my strength, triceps and shoulders burning. I levered out and twisted, to sit on the roof of the elevator car.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I sat, surrounded by cables and the smell of pulley grease and brake smoke. I paused a moment, slowing my breath.
Jack folded his arms and squinted at the camera feed in the control room, but the screens were too far away—the staff in there wouldn’t let him anywhere near them. He probably could have pushed it, made a big issue out of it, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
After a few minutes in this room Jack felt hollow with discouragement. There was nothing that was going to be easy about this job. How the hell were they going to get into the vault? This casino had rock-solid, tight security. And nasty aspects, too. Not that he’d gleaned much detail so far, just a hint of biometrics and booby traps.
Wesley had remained well away from the control room, continuing to scout the situation on the floor. Jack wondered about Wesley’s skill as a thief. Was he up to the job? His mind flashed to Cat. This would be the sort of challenge she would love. But there was no way he would ever call on her; no way he would want to get her wrapped up in this.
Jack strained again to see the CCTV screen. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t getting anywhere this way. He was going to have to probe deeper, which meant he was going to have to carry his bluff a little further.
A bulky supervisor with doughnut powder on his upper lip strode past Jack to stand beside a young man in shirtsleeves at a small workstation. “Elevator nine is out,” said the supervisor, snapping his fingers to get the man’s attention. “Call the repair company.”
I intercepted the call intended for the elevator company with my iPhone. This was a little coup that came courtesy of Gladys and her fabulous ability to tap into the telephone network and redirect certain calls.
I answered the call. “HR Elevators. Twenty-four-hour service. How can I help you?” I used the automaton tone that answering services typically employ. I listened as the security guy at Starlight Casino reported the problem. I told him we’d have someone out there right away. I figured this bought me at least thirty minutes.
I crouched on top of the elevator and connected my rappelling harness, moving quickly but carefully. I silently descended the elevator shaft after squeezing past the car. It didn’t take me long, largely because I knew there were no security cameras in the elevator shaft—one reason I’d selected this particular route. I was in full flow of the job. My breathing was fast and regular and my focus was supercharged.
When I reached the bottom of the s
haft, I pulled out my perfect little folding titanium crowbar that would take care of my next task—levering open the doors. I checked to make sure my anti-CCTV sweeper was still functioning.
I slipped it into the joint and inched the doors open, bit by bit, feeling the strain in my shoulders and forearms. I licked my lip and tasted the sweat that was there, partly from labor, partly from nerves.
When I made a small crack, I pulled out my fiber-optic bendy wire to check the corridor outside. I flicked it on and ...
Nothing. It wasn’t working. What the hell? I’d just used it a couple of days ago and it had been fine then. Maybe the battery needed jiggling. I twisted open the compartment. Inside was a small, rolled-up piece of paper. No battery. I stared in bewilderment. Then, I pulled out the tiny paper roll, unfurled it, and read: Needed a battery for my heated eyelash curler, so sorry! Love, Brooke.
No. This was not happening.
I flashed back to Brooke, sitting on my bed, holding the fiber-optic wire. She must have done this then. How could I have been so stupid?
A terrifying thought then occurred to me. Panicking, I checked all my other pieces of equipment....
No, they were all fine. But still—my bendy wire. I didn’t have any spare batteries for it. How was I going to do the job now? I considered aborting. Instantly, all the reasons why I couldn’t abort crammed into my head. Okay, I could do this. The wire was good, but not a crucial part of my kit, right?
Think, Cat. I needed to know that this hallway was clear—that was the main reason for the scope. So, I could go old school. That meant first, listening. Guards weren’t usually as silent as thieves. They had no need to be. Even if a guard was standing still, he would eventually shift, or cough, or something. I stilled myself to utter silence and listened.
Nothing.
Next, I let my head peek through the very bottom of the gap, just enough for one eye to be exposed, doing a visual check of the corridor.
Clear.
Now I moved fast. I prized the doors open the rest of the way and crawled out of the shaft. A long, shiny hallway stretched in front of me, dimly lit. A series of plain steel doors punctuated the concrete walls. It didn’t matter that they were unlabeled because I knew the exact one I was looking for. I’d memorized the blueprint.
I crept cautiously and quickly down the hallway until I reached the vault room door. Access to this room was controlled by a magnetic key card lock. I made swift work of this using a magnetic dummy card and just the right touch. The door’s seal released with a hiss and slid open.
My heart did a triple beat of excitement: another step closer. Now that the door was open I saw a great web of laser beams. There are many ways of bypassing such a thing. Acrobatics come to mind. Target-shooting the emitting mechanism on the far wall is another option. Tonight, I was going to skip those theatrics in favor of simply punching in the disabling code, courtesy of the security file from York. Cheating? Maybe. But all’s fair in love and war. And burglary.
I punched in the series of six numbers. I held my breath; the sweat on the back of my neck was cold. And then, the lasers flickered and turned off. I exhaled.
I needed to be swift. This was a risky stage—if people in the security room felt so inclined, they could pull up the current status of the vault on their computers. But I knew, from the security file, that rarely happened. I knew they were highly reliant on their automated systems. And this area was checked as part of a scheduled sweep of the system every twenty-seven minutes. I checked my watch. Twenty-three minutes away.
The room was dark with only a scattering of recessed lights shining down from the ceiling. The marble floor tiles made a black-and-white checkerboard. In the silence, my breathing roared in my ears. The walls were lined with rows of steel compartments—security boxes. Each box contained its own lock and electronic security system. In the schematics there’d been mention made of many artifacts and Romanov treasures contained within the vault room. These guys had really gone to town when they looted the Winter Palace.
But I didn’t want any of that. I turned my attention to the huge round vault door on the far wall surrounded by a massive, riveted ring. It led into an inner chamber: the Bagreef Vault. The hairs on my arms rose up. I took a deep breath. Here we go.
I swapped my leather gloves for the pair from the lab. I put my hand on the biometric sensor pad that resided in the wall beside the vault door. Now, there are painless, noninvasive biometrics that measure things like fingerprints and iris scans. And then there’s the kind of biometrics these guys employ.
With a snap, a needle popped up to pierce my finger and take a fresh blood sample. Instead of my skin, of course, the needle punctured the small pocket that was built into the glove. In this pocket was a reservoir of artificial blood—blood whose DNA perfectly matched Gorlovich’s.
I held my breath as the computer analyzed the blood sample and my brain crowded with doubt about whether this would work. My heart was racing and my muscles were taut, ready to enact a very quick escape if this failed.
Jack watched the man stroll across the blue-carpeted control room directly toward him. He steeled himself for the torrent of lies that would soon be exiting his own mouth.
“You are Jack Barlow?” said the craggy-faced head of security. He wore a tie and shirtsleeves.
“Yes.” Jack pulled out his badge again, inwardly cringing. He hoped the man had a poor memory for names; he did not want to be memorable here.
“My staff tells me you have questions.”
Jack nodded. “I’m involved in the investigation about the recent attempted theft.”
There was a pause, during which Jack sweated it out. He was completely bullshitting on this. He had no definite knowledge about an attempted theft, had no idea if that’s what Nicole had actually been investigating, but he was banking on the fact that people were always trying to break into casinos.
“Recent?” the supervisor bristled. “That investigation was months ago, and your people were already through here poking about. Why are you here asking questions about that now?”
Damn, thought Jack. This guy was not going to make this easy. Which, Jack supposed, was probably what made him good at his job, and head of security. “Yes, well,” Jack said, “we’ve reopened that case in connection with some others.”
The man’s eyes tightened as he scrutinized Jack. After several seconds of this Jack was on the verge of pulling out.
“All right, fine,” the man said slowly. “The attempted theft was in our inner layer of vaults. Come with me, I’ll pull up the data. We can see what’s going on in there right now.”
Jack followed as the head of security strode through to another, smaller room, filled with computers and CCTV screens. Jack felt a lightening in the tension centered at the base of his skull. This was good. He could get the information, and then get out of there.
When they entered the room Jack knew that his relief had been premature. Sitting in front of one of the computer screens was Nicole.
“Jack? What are you doing here?”
“Nicole. I—” Shit. Now he was going to have to come up with an explanation, and one that wouldn’t contradict what he just told Mr. Friendly here. “—was just investigating a case.”
“Oh?” Her brows knitted together in confusion. “I didn’t know your department was involved.” She shrugged and turned back to the computer screen. “Fine. I was just about to take a look at the inner vault. We can do that together, and you can catch me up to speed on what you know.”
“Great,” he said faintly. This was flatly not going to work. She would be asking questions that required detailed knowledge of the case, so it wouldn’t take long before it was obvious that Jack was bluffing. It was time to abort this. But he couldn’t leave Nicole in there with the head of security. If they talked or compared notes in any way it could become just as obvious that Jack had been full of shit.
“Nicole, actually, since you’re here, there’s something I need t
o brief you on. An unrelated case that my department wants to consult yours on.”
“Oh? Okay, then.”
Jack glanced at the head of security apologetically. “Sorry, it needs to be confidential.” He looked at Nicole. “Would you come with me a moment?”
Her face clouded with puzzlement but she obliged and allowed Jack to lead her out. Just what, exactly, Jack was going to tell her once they were out of the control room he had no clue. But it would have to be something to get her right out of the casino with him. He’d have to bring her in on another case, tell her he needed her expertise, something like that.
“I hope this is important, Jack, I have a lot of work to do,” Nicole said, irritation in her voice.
“It is, Nicole. Very important.”
The biometric sensor, containing my sample of fake blood, suddenly flashed green. The vault door unlocked with a loud chunk and began to open. Ah, beloved tech lab, how could I have doubted you?
I shivered with delight as the heavy steel door swung smoothly open on an automatic hinge. Dead center of the vault, on display in a clear glass case, was the Fabergé Egg. The Aurora. The only lighting in there was from the pinprick halogen lights within the display case; they set the jeweled Egg sparkling.
“Okay, Gladys,” I said quietly, “I’m going in.” There would be no signal within the vault itself. I’d be on my own.
“Good luck, dear,” came the warm, crinkly voice.
I stepped through into the vault. The air in there was stale and silent, like a tomb.
The final obstacle was a touch pad for entering an intricate series of codes embedded in the base. Once again, I pulled up the codes from York Security on my iPhone and meticulously entered them. The case glided open like an unfolding piece of glass origami.
I reached out and picked up the heavy, bejeweled Egg. At last, I was holding the Fabergé in my hands. I was dazzled by its beauty. The metalwork was so intricate and the jewels and pearls were flawless. It was obviously the pinnacle of the jeweler’s art. It was as heavy as a melon, and the sharp scrolls of metalwork pressed through my gloves into my fingertips.
