The Gryphon Heist

by James R. Hannibal

  Chapter

  forty-

  seven

  SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE CONVENT

  MILAN, ITALY

  DARCY PICKED THE SPOT for the meet, insisting on the refectory of a five-hundred-year-old convent. Talia didn’t argue. Geographically the convent was well suited to the mission, far enough from the Excelsior to give Val time to search Ivanov’s room. But the art-obsessed chemist had picked the spot for an entirely different reason.

  Talia gazed up at the mural filling the interior north wall, stunned by the weight of its significance. The Christ figure sat at the center of his disciples, arms spread wide. “Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. I didn’t realize it was here. Are you religious, Darcy?”

  “Not particularly, though my grandfather was.” The inflections of her French accent came through crisp and clear on the comm link. “But this is Milan, yes? Why pass up such an opportunity? Consider what lies before your eyes, the master stroke of an incredible creator—the mark he left for all humanity.”

  “Or she could get on with the job.” Val broke into the conversation. Her voice was muted, subdued. “The target left fifteen minutes ago. I’m entering his room now.”

  “Copy,” Talia said, also eager to get the morning’s operation over with. “I’m ready.”

  Darcy seemed to take offense at their tones. “And what does that mean? I am not ready? Are you saying I cannot be ready and discuss a master work of art at the same time?”

  “Yes.” Val sounded as if she were only half paying attention. Talia heard a drawer open and close. “Now be quiet. I’m working.”

  “You be quiet. I am already quiet, no?”

  Thieves. Talia would have dropped her head into her palm, but Ivanov chose that moment to walk through the refectory door. “Both of you shut up. He’s here.” She walked out into the light.

  “Talia.” Ivanov took her hand and gave it a kiss.

  The gesture didn’t give her heart the same flutter it had in Tiraspol. Val’s assessment of the man had dulled the chemistry between them, at least on Talia’s part. She tried not to let it show. “Pavel. Thank you for coming.”

  “How could I resist.” He turned to look at the painting and bumped her shoulder with his, tilting his lips close to her ear. “You know how I appreciate beauty.”

  Flirting. A week before, Talia would have taken it as a compliment. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Ivanov nodded toward the mural. “This whole piece is a grand mistake. Did you know? Da Vinci’s experimental paints could not withstand the test of time. Yet his artistry is so valued that five hundred years later, the world still fights daily to preserve it.” Ivanov glanced her way. “One could only dream of leaving such an indelible impression on history.”

  “You’re doing well.” Val was still shifting things around. “Keep him talking. I haven’t found the key yet.”

  Talia didn’t need Val’s coaching. She knew how to work a target. She had lured Ivanov away from the Excelsior with the promise of a security update, but the plan was thin at best. She steered him toward an easier topic. “So. How is the expo so far?”

  “Excellent. In only a day and a half, we have garnered great interest in the Gryphon project. And I expect much more interest after our demonstration of the Mark Seven tomorrow.” His smile went flat. “But there is this . . . woman.”

  “Oh?” A little of the lost flutter returned. “What woman?”

  “An aide, assigned to me by the conference. She is so needy. She always wants my attention.”

  “Really.” Talia risked a walk behind Ivanov, tracing a hand along his back as she maneuvered to his other shoulder. Her earpiece had been on the wrong side. She wanted Val to hear this. “This aide is needy, you say?”

  The sound of shifting and shuffling items stopped. Val’s voice grew a little louder. “What’s this?”

  “You have no idea.” Ivanov’s expression soured. “Her mode of dress is evocative, and she pouts if I do not compliment her at least twice an hour. It’s exhausting.”

  “What are you doing?” Val asked. “Never discuss a crew member with the mark.”

  Darcy chimed in, amusement in her tone. “I do not think that is a rule. You told her to keep him talking, no?”

  Talia gave Ivanov a verbal nudge. “I imagine she’s a little older too.”

  “Oh yes. Fifteen years my senior.”

  “Ten!” The grifter shouted it so loud that Talia was afraid Ivanov would hear. Val coughed, switching to an earnest whisper. “Ten. Not a day more. And most men say I look ten years younger than that.”

  Talia snickered. “They’re lying.”

  “Who is lying?” Ivanov suddenly looked at her, eyes narrowing.

  “Women,” she said, covering. “Like your aide. They’re lying to themselves. You know, clinging to youth.”

  Ivanov watched her for a moment, then nodded, looking at the painting again. “Yes. Just so.”

  “He’s projecting.” Val was still in denial. “He wants to impress you and look like a saint, so he’s projecting his own sliminess on me. It’s a classic move.”

  Talia leaned away long enough to tap her earpiece, making a loud thock to shut Val up. Ivanov shot her a glance, and she dropped her hand. She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I recently met a woman like that. Sad. It’s like I can hear the desperation in her voice even as we speak.”

  Val growled at her through the comms. “Wait until I get my hands around your scrawny little neck. We’ll see who’s desperate then.” Talia heard the thump of a pillow hitting a mattress. “The key isn’t here. This whole exercise is a bust.”

  Chapter

  forty-

  eight

  A QUARTER MILE EAST OF LINATE AIRFIELD

  MILAN, ITALY

  SIBBY’S GREEN LED BLINKED TO LIFE and Eddie’s face appeared on the tablet screen, captured by her wide-angle camera. “Hey there, girl. Time to go to work.”

  Tyler and his two thieves waited outside, waist-deep in wheat stalks, discussing the airfield’s security arrangements. They had identified a roving patrol and clocked a shift change at the guard shack. “I expect the next change in four to six hours,” Finn was saying as Eddie walked up. “We may be here awhile.”

  Mac snapped off a wheat stalk, placing it between his teeth. “Then our Wee Man’ll have to go find us some food, won’t he?”

  Eddie hated bullies, so he did what he had done with all the many bullies in his life. He steered clear. He walked around the group to Finn, who stood farthest from Mac, and offered him Sibby. “Ever throw a baseball?”

  “Yeah. ’Course, mate. We’ve had baseball in Australia since the eighteen hundreds.” He accepted the drone, tossing it up and catching it overhand. “We had a little setback when the first league manager scarpered with the cashbox, but the game survived.”

  “Typical Australian,” Mac muttered. “Bunch o’ thieves.”

  They all looked his way.

  Finn sighed and returned his gaze to Eddie. “You want me to chuck her toward the airfield.”

  “As hard as you can. I’ll do the rest. But”—Eddie reached out a hand as Finn prepared for the throw—“treat her nice. She’s kind of my baby.”

  “Right. Chuck her nicely. Got it.” Despite all the talk of baseball, Finn made a running start like a cricket bowler and flung Sibby out over the wheat field.

  Working the tablet, Eddie used Sibby’s internal gyros to stabilize her flight path, extending the range of Finn’s throw.

  “Look at that.” The Aussie nudged Tyler as he watched it fly, oblivious to Eddie’s technological helping hand. “A real ripper.”

  Eddie waited for Sibby to reach the apex of her flight and then kicked in the rotors, leveling her out and maintaining her vector toward the airfield. The others gathered around to watch over his shoulder. Using simple arrow controls, Eddie brought her down far enough to see into Avantec’s tent. He enhanced the image with infrared. “There’s the Mark Seven.”

&nb
sp; “Keep your distance,” Tyler said. “Hang back and look closer with zoom only. Defense expos are notorious hotbeds of corporate spying. If Sibby gets spotted, some bored private security consultant is likely to follow her back to the source.”

  “The boss makes a good point,” Mac said. “Maybe I should fly. I am the pilot.”

  That didn’t sound good. Eddie wanted to move out of Mac’s reach, but Finn and Tyler had boxed him in, still watching the video. “That’s . . . not necessary. Really. Sibby’s on a modified autopilot profile.”

  Mac wasn’t having it. “Ya might know yer ones and zeros, Wee Man. But ya don’ know flyin’.” He grabbed the tablet. “Give it here.”

  Bullies had taken things from Eddie before—lunch money, hats, calculators, laptops. He had survived the prison-yard atmosphere of grade school and high school by maintaining a strict policy of let go and live. This time, however, he couldn’t let go. He looked to Tyler. “A little help, please?”

  “Mac,” Tyler said, not offering much help at all.

  Eddie was on his own.

  The Scotsman jerked and tugged at the tablet, giant thumbs whacking away at the screen. And through it all, Eddie held on. At one point, both feet left the ground.

  “Ah. Thar’s the button I’m lookin’ fer. Manual control.”

  “Don’t! You’ll crash her.”

  “Quit yer whingin’. I’ve got it.”

  He didn’t have it.

  Eddie watched in horror as Sibby dropped from the sky in front of the Avantec tent. She smashed into the platform. Ivanov’s men converged. Eddie couldn’t let them have a piece of CIA tech. With a heart-wrenching flick of his finger, he hit the self-destruct.

  Zzzzt crack! The sound came to them more than a second after the bright yellow flash of the explosion. By then, nothing remained of Sibby but a lingering puff of smoke.

  Mac let go of the tablet, jaw hanging. “Well, that was . . .”

  “Excessive,” Finn said.

  Eddie sat down in the wheat, tablet in his lap, chin resting on his chest. Bullies.

  “Get up.” Tyler yanked him to his feet. “Get on the SATCOM. Warn the girls.”

  “Of what? They’re on the other side of town.”

  Tyler shoved a monocular into his hand and pointed at the airfield. “Look.”

  Conference workers and uniformed guards converged on the site of the blast. One of the Avantec men crouched near the tent’s entrance, examining a piece of Sibby’s debris and talking into a handheld radio.

  Tyler jerked the monocular away and shoved Eddie toward the van. “Warn them! Val is searching Ivanov’s room. Talia is meeting with the man himself. And he’s about to get a phone call.”

  Chapter

  forty-

  nine

  SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE CONVENT

  MILAN, ITALY

  TALIA AND IVANOV STEPPED OUT of the dark convent onto a brick sidewalk bathed in the deep gold of the late afternoon sun. Val had come up empty-handed, and Talia was about to make excuses for a departure when Eddie broke onto the SATCOM link. “We’ve had an incident at the airfield. There may be fallout.”

  “What kind of incident?” Val asked, still bumping around in Ivanov’s room.

  “Sibby’s down.” Eddie sounded tearful. “And . . . I had to blow her up in front of the Avantec tent.”

  “Val, pack up and get out.” The voice from the van was now Tyler’s—calm and professional. “Darcy, be prepared to step in. Talia, expect an interruption. Deflect his questions and disengage.”

  Talia realized too late that Ivanov had been speaking at the same time. The two strolled together over weathered pavers, looking up at the columned portico surrounding the convent dome. She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “The security update. You asked me here to tell me something—about Lukon, I presume—but I am afraid I have monopolized the conversation.”

  “Yes. The update.” Keep it vague, but include specifics that hide the fact you’re keeping it vague. That was the only advice Tyler had given her. Talia had planned to tell Ivanov she had found a record of an online purchase of the sedative used to take out his guards during the botched heist. “We have a new lead. Lukon—”

  A black sedan screeched to a stop at the curb. Bazin was at the wheel, red-faced and breathing heavy. “Dr. Ivanov!”

  The rank smell of the Russian told Talia that Bazin had been enjoying a smoke break when the call came in, forcing him to run back to wherever he’d left the car. He spoke to Ivanov in rapid Romanian. The CEO absorbed it all with confusion, then understanding, and then turned to Talia.

  She couldn’t go with the original story. Not now. It was too conveniently oblique. What was Val’s third rule of the con? Never tell a lie when the truth will do.

  “Gryphon.” Talia fought to maintain a look of surprise at Bazin’s sudden appearance. “According to my intelligence, Lukon believes Gryphon is operational, and that it’s where you’re storing the plans for some super-weapon.” She redirected the inquest, questioning him instead. “Is it, Pavel? Is Gryphon more than just a concept you’re selling at the expo? If it is, Lukon is coming after it, and he’s coming hard.”

  Val shouted at her through the comms. “No, Talia. What are you do—” Her question was cut short by something between a squeal and a gasp, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

  Chapter

  fifty

  SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE CONVENT

  MILAN, ITALY

  A SPACE OF SILENCE followed the crash on the comms. Darcy spoke first. “This sound. It is bad, yes?”

  Both Tyler and Val answered at the same time. “Yes.”

  “I knocked a vase off the mantel,” Val said, then added, “a vase filled with flowers. And water.”

  Either due to her insanity, or simply to poke the bear, Darcy followed up with another question. “I see. And why would you do this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I was shocked to hear our precious point girl Talia betraying us to the mark.”

  Talia could not respond to the accusation. Ivanov seemed ready to answer her pointed question about Gryphon, then suddenly closed his mouth and quickstepped to the sedan, opening the rear door. “I am sorry. I must return to the expo to deal with an incident.” To Talia’s surprise, he stepped aside and motioned for her to get in. “If I could impose on you for a few minutes more, I would like to discuss this further. Please. Ride with me to the hotel.”

  “Disengage,” Tyler said. “Walk away.”

  Talia agreed. The whole op was going downhill fast. Her affection for Ivanov was beginning to fail. What if he was as dirty as Tyler claimed? She had just told him she knew too much. Getting into that sedan would be like jumping into the back of a windowless van with a man who offered her candy. She backed away. “Oh no. You seem very busy and I have a flight to catch.”

  A phone rang in the car. Bazin answered, covered the receiver, and spoke urgently to Ivanov. Ivanov barked back at him in Romanian, shutting him up. The CEO turned to Talia, jaw tense. “I see. Well, I am . . . disappointed.”

  He looked upset, but there was nothing sinister in the way he said disappointed. Talia held her distance and asked the question she could feel he wanted her to ask. “How so?”

  “I told myself you had concocted a reason to see me again.” Ivanov curled one side of his mouth into a sheepish smile. “I thought perhaps in truth you had tracked me down because of our connection.”

  “You mean our shared background—that we were both orphans.”

  “Yes, but also . . . our chemistry.”

  “Ooh,” Darcy said. “Chemistry. There are sparks here, no?”

  Great. There was nothing like holding an intimate relationship conversation with a potential arms dealer while a pack of thieves and Talia’s best friend were listening over a SATCOM link.

  Val was probably loving this.

  Talia waited for the inevitable sarcastic comment from the gr
ifter. Instead, Val muttered into the comms, “He’s an orphan. That’s it.” She raised her voice. “Talia, ride with him. Get in the car.”

  Tyler immediately countered the command. “Negative. I told you to disengage.”

  “Trust me,” Val said. “Ivanov is an orphan. I should have seen it before. The key we need is not in his room. He’s carrying it on his person.”

  Ivanov was waiting, holding open the door. “Please, Talia. Indulge me.”

  “Um. Let me check the boarding time on that flight, okay?” She opened a travel application on her phone, taking her time with the menus.

  Val pushed her assertion about the key. “Former orphans spend their lives recapturing the control they lost as a child. They focus their resentment of that loss into an object, like a talisman.”

  “Talia?” Ivanov asked.

  She held up a finger. “One sec.”

  “For men,” Val continued, taking her time, “the talisman shifts—pocketknives, power tools, the keys to a luxury condo or car. Women carry the same talisman their whole lives. Talia, you know what I’m talking about. You know I’m right.”

  No I don’t, Talia wanted to say, but her hand moved unconsciously from her phone to her father’s dog tag, hidden beneath her blouse.

  “I’m telling you, Talia. The Gryphon key is Ivanov’s latest talisman. He’ll keep it close, probably in his breast pocket. You have to steal it.”

  Tyler attempted to regain command. “Disengage. We’ll go after the key another day.”

  They wouldn’t get another day. She put the phone away and gave Ivanov a thin smile. “Plenty of time. Of course I’ll go with you.” She let him help her into the car.

  There was a bang on the link, the sound of Tyler pounding his fist against the side of the van. “I guess we’re doing things Valkyrie’s way now.”

  There were three more bangs, a sigh, and then Tyler’s professionalism returned. “Okay, team. Listen up. The mark is now en route to the hotel with Talia in tow. If he sees his room has been searched, Talia’s part in this will be obvious. Oh, and did I mention his bodyguard is an unforgiving former Spetsnaz operator that carries a hand-cannon under his jacket?”