The Thieves of Legend

by Richard Doetsch

  KC pulled down the visor and looked at her face in the mirror. She was tired; she not only felt it but could see it in her eyes. She quickly ran a brush through her hair, dabbed on some lip gloss, and exited the car with a sigh.

  “I really should have waited for the next flight,” KC muttered to herself as she walked up the wide slate front steps. The front door stood wide open, but there was no sign of Annie.

  KC stepped into a large foyer, her eyes immediately drawn to an enormous crystal chandelier. There was no sign of Annie, no sign of anyone. The house was cold, devoid of anything that could have made it seem like a real home. No pictures or heirlooms were to be seen on the marble console tables along the back wall. It was too clean, too free of any sign of human habitation.

  “Detener. Quién es usted?”

  KC froze, fully understanding the order. “Stop. Who are you?” She spoke six languages, had a gift for them, acquiring them over the years. Raising her hands, she slowly turned to see a man standing there, a gun trained on her. His appearance stood in sharp contrast to the perfect, unaccented Spanish he’d just spoken to her. He was Chinese, appeared to be in his fifties, and had the slicked-back black hair of an earlier era.

  “I’m here with Annie,” KC replied in Spanish.

  The man waved the gun, directing KC to proceed down a dimly lit hallway.

  “This is just a misunderstanding,” KC said in Spanish, though she already knew it was no such thing. Annie had lured her to this place for a reason. As she walked down the hall, she nearly tripped over a body, a single bullet hole in the man’s temple, close range. The dead man was Chinese, too. It wasn’t the first murder victim she had seen in her life, though the reality of her situation came crashing down on her.

  Trying to keep her breathing calm and slow, she stepped over the body and walked into a sunny, open living room whose far wall was almost entirely made of glass and looked out over the city below. It unexpectedly reminded her of a house she had once visited in the hills above Los Angeles, but she quickly stopped herself from thinking about that and concentrated on looking for a way out.

  The man drew out his cell phone and dialed.

  “Hola…”

  KC listened as he called the police and told them of not just one murder but three, two men and a blond woman. It would be only minutes before the police arrived; she knew if she didn’t think fast she would be that dead blond woman the police were expecting to find.

  The man directed KC to the center of the living room, which was filled with heavy furniture. An antique brass telescope was the only thing that gave the space any character.

  “En sus rodillas.”

  KC was filled with panic as the man pointed the gun at her, his thumb drawing back the hammer. She reluctantly complied with his order and knelt in the middle of the room.

  The man stepped behind her. She was facing the panorama of the city, its white structures aglow in the morning sun, full of people so close and alive, yet unaware of what was about to happen to her. KC bowed her head and thought only of Michael. And she felt her heart die before the bullet had even struck her.

  KC winced at the explosive sound of the gun. But she felt nothing. Inexplicably, the man fell down beside her, blood pooling beneath his prone body.

  KC turned to see Annie standing in the doorway, knees bent, her gun held high in a two-handed grip. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  “What the hell is going on?” KC said as she leaped to her feet.

  “I’ll explain later—”

  “No, you’ll explain now. You killed these men in cold blood.”

  “You heard what he said, the cops are on their way.” KC continued to glare at her. “These men are members of the Snake Triad out of China. They are working with a terrorist group—”

  “Bullshit,” KC snapped.

  “No bullshit. I came here to buy information but they had a change of heart.”

  “So you invited me in?” KC snapped.

  “Not to have a gun held to your head. I need your help.”

  “How the hell can I possibly help you?”

  Annie didn’t respond. Instead, she led KC to the kitchen, into a small pantry where shelves full of canned goods and glass jars had been pulled away from the wall on a hidden hinge, revealing a metal door.

  KC knew exactly what was behind the door: a safe room, a secure bunker in the middle of the house in which the homeowner could hide in case of a home invasion. She thought of the dead men in the house and realized these men had never had a chance to get there.

  “The cops are coming,” KC said.

  “We’ve got maybe three minutes before they arrive. You can open this,” Annie said, pointing to the steel door. “I know you can.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because,” Annie said, “you have opened this type of door before.”

  KC’s heart began to race. Beyond her sister, Michael, Busch, and Simon, no living person knew her background.

  “You knew exactly who I was at the airport,” KC said.

  Annie nodded. “If I’d told you about this you never would have come. I’ve got three days to stop a madman; I didn’t have the luxury to put up a help-wanted sign or convince you to help me. So, yes, I duped you, and I’m sorry for that. But if you give a damn about saving hundreds, even thousands of lives, you’ll do what I ask.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “You have no reason whatsoever to believe me,” Annie said.

  “You didn’t bring me along ‘just in case.’” KC’s anger grew as she fully understood how she had been played. “You had every intention of killing these men when you walked through that door.”

  “Please help me,” Annie said, almost pleading.

  KC stared at her innocent-looking face, knowing full well this woman was lying to her. That this woman was more deadly than any woman she had ever known.

  “If this matter was not of the utmost urgency, if this wasn’t about something that threatens national security, do you think I could have procured a military transport to get us here?”

  KC recognized the truth in what Annie said, and realized there was little chance of her surviving if she didn’t cooperate, at least in the short term.

  Her jumbled mind slowly cleared and she focused on the door, the hinges, the surrounding walls.

  This was more Michael’s forte; he was the one who could penetrate anything. She was the planner, and the jobs she had pulled in the past were generally in museums, private homes, and offices where the artwork was out in the open, not concealed behind walls of steel.

  She had opened a door like this in Florence, in the home of a ninety-two-year-old industrialist. Salvatore Giannini had a painting that had belonged to the Church, a Fracetti that had disappeared from a Venetian cathedral during World War II back when Giannini was Sergeant Carmine Mattolo in Mussolini’s army, collecting masterpieces for Il Duce’s personal enjoyment. KC had studied the schematics of that door for weeks and knew its weakness lay in its safety measures.

  That door, like the one before her, was six feet by three feet; its locking system consisted of six enormous rods, large deadbolts that, when activated, sank two feet into the steel door jamb, rendering the door impenetrable.

  But KC knew it was not always tremendous force that was needed to penetrate such a barrier.

  “I need an extension cord and a small knife,” she told Annie.

  KC turned her attention to the keypad, pried off the faceplate, and examined the circuitry behind it.

  Annie returned with a long orange cord and a paring knife. Without a word, KC stripped the female side of the cord away, exposing and separating the two wires and the ground.

  “Go plug this in.” KC handed Annie the other end.

  KC examined the circuitry wires and followed a blue and orange one that ran back into the wall separate from the main bundle.

  Climbing up the shelves, she pushed aside the false ceiling tiles. Po
king her head inside, she could see the thick metal walls of the safe room, walls she already knew couldn’t be breached. She examined a steel ventilation shaft that ran into the concrete slab above. Again, its construction prevented any chance of access. KC ignored all that in favor of a small orange box that protruded from the airshaft where it met the metal wall. Two inches square, it was the Achilles’ heel of the entire design.

  She pulled off the orange cover to reveal a copper box, no screws, no visible way of opening it—but she didn’t need to open it.

  She gently pried apart the two exposed wires of the orange cord, ensuring they didn’t touch, and immediately laid them upon either side of the small copper box.

  Sparks flew and thin wisps of smoke curled up into the confined space.

  The small copper box was the one fail-safe in the event the air in the small enclosed safe room became compromised. Fire, gas, lack of oxygen would spell certain death for its occupants. If it came down to either death or capture, the circuit within the small box would override the locks, sparing its occupants’ lives.

  With a deep metallic clang, the six bars in the recessed door below pulled back.

  The sound of distant sirens began to reach them. Annie ran to the living room and looked through the telescope at the road entrance below to see a stream of police cars heading up the road. “We’ve got maybe two minutes,” she yelled.

  As the door swung open, KC leaped down from atop the shelves and realized the space she’d opened wasn’t a safe room but an armory filled with guns and rifles of all makes and models, from pistols to sniper rifles, grenades, and Semtex. There was a metal shelf filled with stacks of money: U.S. dollars, euros, yen. Millions. And in the far corner sat a single safe, three feet square, the dial and handle in the center of the door.

  “That should be easy for you,” Annie said from the doorway.

  KC held her anger in check and leaned down. She knew the lock well, rotary, three-number combo; the fifty-year-old safe was more than familiar. She had learned how to open it from her mentor, Iblis, when she was all of fifteen, practicing for hours that became days and weeks until she felt she could practically see through the two-inch metal as the tumblers fell.

  “I need a crystal glass.”

  Annie returned in seconds and handed her a whiskey glass.

  Laying the mouth of the glass just above the dial, she rested her ear on the bottom, allowing the crystal chamber to amplify the inner mechanics. She spun the wheel three times to the left. With her ears attuned, her fingers feeling for the slightest vibration, she picked up the click of the first tumbler falling into place. She rotated the wheel gently to the right… until she heard the second tumbler fall into place with the first, grabbing hold of its neighbor. Again to the left… click.

  She turned the handle and pulled the door open. There were no jewels, no pots of gold, no priceless works of art, just two ordinary-looking items: a long tube and a single notebook.

  KC pulled them out, glancing at the handwritten notations on each. While KC spoke six languages, this wasn’t one of them; the Chinese characters were as unfamiliar as Braille.

  “What the hell are these?” KC asked.

  “That’s classified,” Annie replied tersely, as she snatched the items from KC’s hands. “And we’ve got to go. Now.”

  They ran to the living room, but as KC headed for the hallway leading to the front door, Annie grabbed her by the arm. “Single-access road, cops have already sealed it off at the bottom, we’ve got to leave the car.”

  “They’ll trace it back—”

  “—to a fictitious company.”

  As the sirens grew louder, Annie turned to KC. “You’re welcome to stay and try to explain all this…”

  KC glared at Annie as the raven-haired woman opened the rear glass door and ran outside. The approaching sirens, one of the most dreaded sounds in her life, drowned out all other thoughts but the need to escape.

  KC dashed out the back door without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER 10

  Colonel Lucas flipped open his notebook computer, and the image of a conference room with four officers sitting around a table came into focus.

  Lucas looked into the camera on his laptop.

  “How are you, Colonel?” a white-haired general asked.

  “Alive.” Lucas’s tone was filled with shame.

  “You should take some time off, Isaac.”

  Lucas sat forward, moving closer to the camera. “You know me better than that, General.”

  “I do. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though. When this is done, you need to take a break.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Are you ready to give us an update?”

  “The file was gone.”

  “And the puzzle box?”

  “It was a counterfeit, it was smashed to pieces on the floor. Old man Marconi was trying to sell Xiao a fake and it cost him and his family their lives. But we know where the original file is.”

  “Why didn’t you go for that first?”

  “It’s a bit more difficult,” Lucas said. “My team is in place and active on it.”

  “Your team?” a bald, square-jawed general said. “Captain Rogers and Captain Hendricks arrived back here from Japan without having received any explanation for their dismissal.”

  “With all due respect, four of my men were killed on that yacht, my best men.”

  “We know, Isaac,” the white-haired leader said.

  “Rogers and Hendricks are good men,” Lucas said, “but I’ve assembled a new team, one whose loyalty, talent, and diligence I’m assured of. Each member is dealing with a specific task and unaware of any other aspects of the mission. I need to compartmentalize information.”

  “Outside contractors pose their own set of problems, Isaac,” the white-haired general warned. “We can’t afford another Blackwater situation.”

  “I need very specific skill sets,” Lucas said. “And not to worry, I have these people’s full cooperation and focus.”

  “You’d better be sure of that,” the bald general said. “If Xiao has the Dragon’s Breath—”

  “Gentlemen, we all know we were compromised; someone on the inside assisted Xiao. I don’t have the time to conduct an investigation at this moment to figure out who that person is. I’ll leave that to you.”

  “Understood,” the general said. “But we’re walking a very fine line here, lives are stake. If the Dragon’s Breath gets out in the open, do you know how many lives—”

  “I’m well aware of the implications and consequences, trust me.”

  “After thirty years, you don’t need our confirmation on that,” the white-haired general said.

  “You think he survived the sinking of that boat?” the bald general asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How could you not know? A simple bullet would have given you the answer we all want to hear.”

  “I don’t see how he could have survived. He was bound, the yacht was detonated and sank. But until I see his body myself, until I have that file and the Dragon’s Breath in my possession, I’m acting as if he is still alive. I know what he has threatened to do. I’ve spent the better part of two years tracking him.”

  “And losing him…” the bald general said. “We are out of time.”

  “Not quite yet.”

  “In my book, five days is out of time.”

  The simple truth of the statement was followed by silence.

  “When I get this file and the information it contains, the situation will be neutralized.”

  “And if you fail?”

  “I do not have that option.”

  “Where is this file?” the bald general asked.

  “Asia.”

  “Where in Asia?”

  “Gentlemen, I shared my information about Marconi’s yacht in Italy with you, the only people outside of my team, and now my team is dead.”

  “Are you accusing us of something?” the bal
d general exploded.

  “Not at all, General. I’m just stating a fact. Xiao is manipulating us all. Somehow he knows what is going on. Somehow, I fear, he even knows about this conversation we are having right now.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Annie and KC cut through the back garden and leaped the stone wall as the scream of police sirens approached the house. Not a word was spoken as they raced down the hillside, through the cover of trees, scrub, and bramble.

  Annie had had her doubts about KC, but the intel couldn’t have been more accurate. Under pressure this woman thrived; she had gained access to not only the safe room but the safe itself in just under two minutes. Annie experienced a boost of confidence knowing that this woman possessed an arsenal of unique talents that would be extremely helpful where they were headed next, a place where the security and the obstacles would be ten times tougher than what they’d just encountered.

  They emerged on Avenida de la Montana, crossed the busy thoroughfare and headed into the Albayzin section of the city, the Moorish quarter that was coming to life in the morning hour, the sweet smell of sausage and spiced lamb wafting through its steep and narrow cobblestone streets.

  Annie patted the notebook and the tube tucked under her arm and scanned the cafés from behind her oversized sunglasses. No one suspected the two women to be anything more than friends heading out to breakfast, their beauty not only turning heads but painting illusions, as people don’t tend to think of pretty women as criminals.

  Annie spotted Rick Vajos in a small outdoor café, sipping coffee, and quickly cut across the street to meet him.

  “Would you ladies like some coffee?” Rick said as he offered them a seat next to him.

  KC remained silent, her head slowly turning, expecting the police to arrive.

  “You need to stay behind,” Annie said to Rick, “see what kind of a hornet’s nest we’ve stirred up in that house. Get some cameras on it, let Lucas know if anyone shows up.”

  “Where are you heading?”