by Gene Riehl
He heard nothing as he mounted the remaining stairs, his eyes scanning the brilliant white crown molding. He didn’t see any cameras, but that didn’t mean much. These days the cameras weren’t much bigger than the head of a match. There could be dozens of them built into the woodwork. Whatever the case, there was no point worrying about it. He’d know soon enough if he were being watched.
On the landing he turned right again, but this time he hurried straight toward the tall double doors at the end of the corridor. The doors to the master bedroom, he was willing to bet. When he got there he reached for the gold-plated knob on the right-hand door, twisted the knob and pushed, but it was locked. A run-of-the-mill Schlage keyed-tumbler, Monk saw, not even a deadbolt, and not meant to do much more than keep the doors closed. He reached into the pocket of his dinner jacket for his picks, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly before dropping to one knee.
Long and skinny, the two black-steel extrusions looked like dental instruments. Monk inserted the first one—the torsion bar—into the keyway of the lock, followed it with the second pick. He used the second one to move the tumblers out of the way and the torsion bar to hold them there, exerting gentle pressure until twenty seconds later the lock turned. Monk straightened up, then stepped to his left, to an immense ceramic pot containing a leafy green tree he couldn’t identify. He bent to the pot, picked up a handful of sphagnum moss, laid the picks under it and replaced the moss. Now no matter what happened, the burglar tools wouldn’t be found in his pocket.
Back at the doors, he pushed them open and stepped through before stopping to stare. Franklin’s master bedroom gave new meaning to the word “master.” You could play a pretty good game of tennis in here. The ceiling wasn’t quite high enough for a desperation lob, but there’d be plenty of room behind the baselines. Through an enormous skylight came more than enough moonlight to see everything. A platform dominated the room, on which stood a bed big enough for half a dozen Samoans. Oil paintings littered the walls. Narrow alcoves featured life-size statues and other sculpture. Antique French nightstands flanked the bed, each of them bearing a museum-quality bronze lamp.
Monk was on his way toward the far end of the room when he saw it.
On the far side of the bedroom, past the bed and in the corner, was the doorway into a second room. One of those “panic rooms,” Monk realized, although he’d never actually been inside one. The newest fad of the superrich, it was a last-resort hiding place in case of criminal invasion. Monk started toward it. The door was open, of course, it was the way these rooms were designed. When the bad guys were chasing you, the last thing you needed was to stop and open the door.
Moments later he was standing in front of the opening.
From up close the enclosure looked like a bank vault. The door jamb was solid steel, at least four inches thick, and contained the recessed door that was ready to slide out and slam shut to seal off the entrance. Monk didn’t need to go into the room to see the layout, to realize he couldn’t see all of it from where he was standing. Shaped like an L, the rear section was hidden from view around a corner. The wall to his right was filled with TV screens, computer equipment, and a telephone console with dozens of buttons. A suite of comfortable furniture—leather couch and matching chairs—sat across from the electronic gear. The wall behind the couch bore a number of paintings, oils and watercolors, but no Madonna, not in the front part of the L at any rate. He stood there for a moment, thinking.
He had to see the rest of the panic room, had to go inside to do that, but what was the mechanism that would close the door behind him? Was there a switch inside—just on the other side of the door—or was it automatic, a sensor beam that slammed it shut whenever the beam was broken? Probably a switch, Monk decided. Sensor beams were notoriously unreliable. A number of things could trigger them. Worse, a beam might close the door too quickly, injure somebody before they could get all the way into the room. Then Monk realized he was wasting time. No matter what the setup was, he couldn’t leave here without seeing every inch of the place.
He stepped over the threshold and into the room. From his left he heard a loud click, followed by a swoosh as the door shot out of its enclosure, then a solid chunk as it slammed tight against the other side. He turned to his right, looking for the switch, but saw nothing. Damn it … nothing was ever easy. He hustled to the corner of the L. The other section of the room was smaller than the first, and the Madonna wasn’t there, either. The walls were completely bare.
He dashed back to the electronic gear on the right-hand wall near the door, searching for the door-release switch, but he didn’t see anything obvious. He felt his heartbeat quicken. He could have explained his presence upstairs, in the bedroom even, but in here? He looked above the door for a camera, didn’t see one, and realized there wouldn’t be one in here. The reason was obvious. There’d be a security room downstairs, more monitors just like the ones in here. In a home-invasion situation you wouldn’t want the bad guys to be watching what you were doing in this room. He turned back to the electronic array. There were too many switches, none of them marked, no way to tell what they controlled. So he tried them all. Pushed, pulled, toggled, pounded, and swore at every last one of them.
Nothing.
Then Monk saw the computer keyboard on the shelf beneath the video monitors. Grabbing at it, he began to punch the keys. Enter and Shift and Delete and Backspace, then the F keys, one after another, until he got to F8, when he heard a sound from around the corner of the L. He hurried back to the corner. The sound he’d heard was a door opening at the rear of the back section. The panic room had two exits, he realized. He was halfway to the opening when he saw that he was wrong … that this was no exit. He continued into what was yet another room. Lights had come on when the door opened, and Monk felt his eyes widen.
The room was huge, and stuffed with works of art. Like a museum, the space was crammed with paintings and sculpture. Directly in front of him stood a life-size female nude, beyond her at least a dozen Greek and Roman statues. Oil paintings covered the walls and stood on easels throughout the space.
Monk’s eyes swept the room for the Madonna, for the muted colors of the picture of Mary with the Christ Child. He didn’t see it, but the da Vinci had to be in here. He started toward the rear of the room, but hadn’t gone three steps before he heard a shout behind him.
FIFTEEN
“Stop!” the deep voice yelled. “Stop right there and raise your arms. Put your hands on your head and turn around … slowly.”
Monk did as he was told, until he was facing two large men in the doorway of the second room. Shorter than he was, both of them, but with much thicker necks and closer haircuts. The chrome-plated automatic pistols in their hands made them look even bigger. Not Secret Service, Monk decided. Too ape-like for the presidential detail.
“There’s an explanation,” he said, before either of the men could speak again. “I know this looks awful, but it was an accident. I came up from downstairs. From the party downstairs.”
The taller of the two shook his head. “Then you should have realized the rest of the house is private. You must have seen the sign on the staircase.” He paused. “How the hell did you get into this room?”
Monk stared at the floor for a moment, careful to keep his hands on his head, just as careful to keep his tone as meek as possible. As far removed from his official bureau voice as possible.
“I came with my girlfriend,” he told them. “I couldn’t find a bathroom downstairs, so I came up to the second floor to use one. Then I … I just got carried away looking at the house. I don’t know what to say. I … I can’t …” He looked at the floor again. “This is so humiliating, I can’t begin to tell you.”
“Maybe so,” the second man said. “But the door was locked. The door into the master bedroom was locked up tight.”
“Locked? No … no, it wasn’t locked. It was wide open … that’s the only reason I would ever have come in.” He sho
ok his head. “Mr. Franklin told me himself. Feel free to look around, he said.”
The taller man scowled. “That door was supposed to be locked, but that still doesn’t explain the rest of it. How you got all the way into this room.”
“An accident, I told you. The door to this vault was open. I poked my head in and the darned thing closed. I hit all the buttons, and the other door opened.” Monk took a short step toward the two men and allowed his voice to rise. “I was just trying to get out. All I wanted to do was go back down—”
“ID,” the shorter man said. “Let’s see some identification.” He slid back his jacket and replaced his pistol in the holster on his belt. The taller man kept his weapon trained on Monk.
“Can I lower my arms?” Monk asked. “And reach into my pocket?”
The shorter man nodded. Monk’s hand moved to the inside breast pocket of his dinner jacket. He pulled out the wallet he’d chosen for this evening, opened it, and extracted a Maryland driver’s license, which he handed over. The shorter man examined the picture on the license, stared at Monk’s face, then back down at the license.
“Okay, Mr. Towne,” he said, “but I have to keep this until we can run a check to verify it.”
“Of course,” Monk said. “But why don’t we just go back down and talk to Mr. Franklin. He’ll tell you who I am. He’ll vouch for me.”
The taller man glanced at his partner, who gave a quick shake of his head. “The president’s downstairs, pal,” the shorter man said. “The last thing Mr. Franklin wants to hear about is you.”
Monk nodded, unsurprised that his bluff had worked. The locked door he’d picked to get in here was their responsibility. As long as they thought they were the ones who’d left it open, these guys weren’t about to tell their boss about him. As long as they knew they should have spotted him before he’d gotten halfway to the third floor, Thomas Franklin wouldn’t hear a word about this. The only problem now was the lock picks themselves, and in a place this size it might take forever for anyone to find them.
Now the taller man put his gun away as well. “Let’s go, Mr. Towne. Let’s get you back downstairs where you belong.”
Hearing their sudden return to politeness, Monk realized the dynamic had changed. Maybe he could push them a little harder now. Maybe he could still pull this mission off.
“What is this place, anyway?” he asked. He took a couple of steps toward the interior of the secret museum, his eyes searching in every direction, but it didn’t work.
“Hey!” the shorter man snapped. “That’s far enough! We may not be going to see Mr. Franklin, but you’re definitely leaving this room.”
Monk turned around. “This is unbelievable!” he said, as his eyes continued to scan as much as he could in the next few seconds. “Just look at all this stuff!”
“Now!” the man barked.
“Okay, okay.”
Monk followed them toward the door, then through it into the panic room, around the corner of the L, until they stood next to the security monitor screens. His mind raced in search of a solution. Once he was out of here there was no way he’d ever get back in.
“Wait here,” the taller man said before turning to his partner. “Go back in there and reset the alarm.”
The shorter man walked back into the secret room and Monk turned toward the bank of TV monitors to his left, the dozen or so displays connected to cameras throughout the mansion. One image showed the front lawn. Monk recognized the helicopter sitting there as Marine One, the forest green chopper used by the president. He scanned the other screens and saw that the party downstairs was in full swing. His eyes skimmed over the crowd, looking for Lisa’s distinctive red gown, but he didn’t see her. The screen farthest to his right showed no people at all. Monk’s eyes focused hard as he realized what he was looking at.
The camera was inside the secret museum, he saw, mounted on a swivel as it panned slowly from left to right across the paintings and sculpture. He took a half step toward the monitor to get a better look. The clarity of the images was far from perfect—the surveillance camera was designed to scan for intruders, not showcase the art—but at least it gave him another chance to look. He watched the camera reach the end of its travel and start back the other way.
Marble statuary dominated the foreground, but in the background—at the far edge of the camera’s depth of focus—Monk could make out a couple of paintings standing on easels. The first was an abstract jumble of colors, a Jackson Pollock, maybe, although it passed out of view too quickly for Monk to be sure. The second painting brought his eyes to within inches of the screen. Christ, there it was … or was it? The damned camera had gone by too fast. But it was Renaissance … he was sure of that … pretty sure anyway. And that had been Mary, the Madonna … hadn’t it?
Damn it, this wasn’t good enough. He had to get another look.
He started for the other room, but the second guard came around the corner and blocked the way.
“Alarm’s set,” he told his partner. “Let’s get this guy back downstairs where he belongs.”
“Just a second,” Monk said. “Let me tie my shoelace.”
He knelt on one knee, his eyes on the monitor screen. The camera was continuing across the secret room, not yet back to the painting Monk needed to see. He fiddled with his shoelace while he waited, fumbling with the …
“Hey!” the taller guard barked. “Do that on your own time. You can take all night with it downstairs.”
Lisa wasn’t happy.
In the rear of the black Lincoln that was taking them back to the District—one of a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars Franklin had provided for those who had to leave early—she made little effort to hide it.
“Damn it, Puller,” she told him as they pulled away from the mansion. “I paid two hundred bucks for my hair … just for my hair!” She stared out the side window for a moment, than glared at Monk again. “You don’t even want to know how much this dress cost me … and these shoes.”
Monk tried to touch her hand, but she brushed his fingers away.
“First you go to the bathroom and I don’t see you again for damned near an hour. And when you do show up, we have to leave!” She paused. “What the hell’s going on here?”
Monk opened his mouth, but closed it again. He looked at Lisa’s dark eyes and wished he could tell her.
“So that’s it?” she said. “You’re not even going to try to explain?”
“Something came up. I’ve got to go to work.”
“You’re on standby? Tonight … when you knew we’d be at this party?” She scowled. “Why didn’t you switch with somebody?”
Monk stared at her. It would be easy to lie, but he wouldn’t do it. Not with Lisa. There was so much bullshit in his life already, he wasn’t about to turn their relationship into the same thing.
“I have to work,” he repeated, ignoring the part about being on standby, sticking hard to the truth. “You know the rules. You know I can’t say anything more than that. Not unless you have a need to know.” It was the first principle of information sharing in the FBI.
“Damn it, Puller …”
Lisa shook her head and gave up. She slid to her right, up against the door, her face turned to the window. Monk wanted to reach out and touch her, but he knew better. She was right, of course. He did owe her an explanation, but this time she’d just have to settle for his marker.
The next forty-five minutes passed in silence, until the limo pulled up in front of their building, a loft-conversion off P Street, near Logan Circle in the Northwest area of Washington. The driver came around and opened the door. Lisa got out first and headed for the front door of the building. Monk hurried to catch up.
“I’m exhausted,” she said, as he approached. “All I want to do is go to sleep and forget this ever happened.”
Monk stepped to the door and used his key, then moved aside to let her pass. Lisa went through, then realized he wasn’t following. She turned back to him
.
“You’re going to work like that? In those clothes?”
Still holding the glass door open, Monk looked down at his white dinner jacket, considered running upstairs and changing, but decided not to. It didn’t make any difference what he was wearing. William Smith sure as hell wouldn’t care.
“I should be home in a couple hours,” he said.
Lisa just stared at him and shook her head before turning to the elevator and punching the button. Monk let the door swing shut, then headed around the side of the building, to the ramp down to the basement garage.
In the foyer, Lisa told herself to relax, but her finger jabbed at the elevator button anyway, and her mind was just as surly.
She’d become used to Puller’s increasingly strange behavior, but this was really too much. He was right, she couldn’t come right out and ask him what he was up to tonight, but he sure as hell could have volunteered more than he did. It was just another example of what had been going on ever since his father died.
Lisa hated to admit it, but Puller was turning into a different man. He was no less loving—once she got his attention—but he’d become increasingly distant. Bit by bit he seemed to be moving away from her. “Preoccupied,” was the first word to come to mind, but “unavailable” was more apt. More and more he seemed to be unavailable to her, and the realization brought a painful twinge. Unavailable was often the final step before “completely gone.”
She reached out and rammed the elevator button again, over and over, then looked upward as though her impatience might bring it down faster. She shouldn’t be so surprised, Lisa admitted. Puller had showed definite signs of the same thing almost from the start. From the day she’d met him as a brand-new agent assigned to his SPIN squad—Special Inquiries for the White House—she’d sensed that Puller was wearing a disguise. That he was keeping something to himself, hidden away and unavailable. It was ironic, though it gave her no comfort to admit it. His determination to hide was what had seduced her in the first place, and she had to admit that he wasn’t the one who’d changed. He was still just as determined to hide, but now it was driving her nuts.
