A King's Ransom

“Absolutely not! This is absurd!” the woman protested.

The security man held his hand out. “Madam.” It wasn’t a question.

“What’s going on?” a silver-haired man asked in English. Someone else asked something in French. Amy didn’t need a translator to realize that rich people don’t like to be prevented from doing what they wanted to do.

Frau Gertler checked the security screen. “It’s the Rembrandt,” she said in a low tone to the guard. “We have to search the bag.”

“Somebody stole a REMBRANDT?” Dan yelled. “What kind of security do you have here, anyway?”

“My Leonardo!” someone cried.

“Go ahead and search her, but I have an appointment!” Amy shrilled above the crowd’s murmur.

“I have a plane to catch!” someone shouted.

“My driver is waiting!” a stout man insisted.

“Let them all go and detain this woman,” Frau Gertler muttered.

Amy and Dan joined the crowd thronging toward the doors. As they passed through, they saw the security man hold up a sandwich.

“What is it?” Frau Gertler demanded.

“Ham and cheese, Frau Gertler,” the man said.

“Aha!” the woman trilled triumphantly. “You see? I’m innocent! I’m a vegetarian!”

When they hit the cool air, Amy tossed the purse into the bushes and jumped in the car after Dan.

“Just drive,” she told the chauffeur, and crashed back against the seat.

FROM: V-1

TO: V-6

Remind me of your mission again? Oh, yes. Surveillance of targets Amy and Dan Cahill. That was it. Now enlighten me as to the reason for your utter failure to complete mission. Care to check in? Or would you like to check out permanentemente, cara?

Vesper One slammed the phone down. Took a breath, then another. It was a shame he couldn’t do everything himself. He had to rely on the Wyomings for muscle and surveillance. They were a ruthless pair. But they needed … prodding.

Fear was such a great motivator. Look at Amy and Dan, scampering around like hamsters, just for him!

The de Virga map was the piece needed for the next step. The thought of it made his palms itch. He could feel it dropping into his hands. Amy and Dan could do it. Given the right incentive, they could do just about anything.

In an odd way, he believed in them. Certainly, he was rooting for them. They would collect the pieces and he would assemble them, and then …

Eyes closed, he envisioned it all. What he would gain. Nothing less than everything.

Cheyenne Wyoming shoved her phone back in her purse as she swung down the Trullhofstrasse in Lucerne. Vesper One was making threats. In his usual style, of course, calling her cara, an endearment in Italian, even while he was threatening to kill her.

It had taken her years to work herself up to Vesper Six. After Casper had totally botched the job in Zermatt, when he’d almost died trying to get the ring … well, she’d vaulted right ahead of him. Casper had been furious.

And even she didn’t like to get on the bad side of her twin. The bad side was … extremely unpleasant. She rubbed her wrist absentmindedly. The fracture had required a small metal plate to repair the bone. Casper hadn’t liked discovering he was out and she was in.

Just then a yellow BMW pulled over to the curb. “Hey, want a ride, fraulein?”

She stopped and shook her head. “Are you crazy, Casper? What are you doing in that car? Surveillance is supposed to be covert. That means nobody is supposed to notice you.”

Her brother smirked. “Spoken by the tuba player of the Wilmington Wowzabelles?”

“Wasn’t I right? Didn’t the tuba totally draw them in?” She slid inside the car and had barely closed the door before Casper gunned the motor and took off. “Your timing couldn’t be worse. I lost the Cahills. The GPS is all wonky. Satellite problems – it keeps going in and out.”

Savagely, Cheyenne ripped off her dark wig and took the pins out of her long blond hair. She shook it and it cascaded down past her shoulders. Then she tossed her glasses out the window and popped out the dark lenses. She tilted the mirror and drank in the sight of her own baby blue eyes. She was herself again. Immediately, she felt calmer.

“I’m getting kind of sick of dancing to V-One’s tune,” she brooded. “And having V-Two breathing down our necks all the time, waiting for us to make a mistake.”

“Word. And now you’ve played right into it. We might get dropped from the Council of Six.”

Who’s we, bro? Cheyenne wanted to say. I’m the one in the Council. You don’t even have a number anymore.

But she couldn’t say it. She still needed her brother.

“Now it’s going to take us even more time to climb up the ladder,” Casper continued.

She looked out the window as the picturesque streets of Lucerne slipped by. Streets with fancy stores with things in them that cost a lot. Things she wanted and deserved.

A plan was forming in her mind. “It doesn’t have to take more time,” she said. “Not if we’re proactive.”

A small smile began on Casper’s lips. “Oh, sister-friend. I know that tone. What are you thinking?”

“If you want something, you take it,” Cheyenne said, repeating what the two siblings had told each other from the beginning of their lives in crime. Back when their parents robbed banks, pulled scams, dragged them all over the country. Cheyenne and Casper had added Internet scams to the family’s crimes, and they’d pulled in more than they’d ever dreamed. Soon they were known in the criminal underworld. And to the FBI and the police departments of various states. So when the Vespers came calling, Casper and Cheyenne were only too glad to ditch their parents (now serving twenty-five years to life) and join up with V-1. Now they weren’t just criminals – they were master criminals, linked into a global network.

And she wasn’t going to give that up for anybody.

“He thinks the Cahills can find what he’s looking for,” she said, tilting the mirror again to check out her image. “But what if we find it first?”

The driver checked out Dan and Amy in the rearview mirror. It was the second time he’d done it in less than a minute.

Dan’s fingers drummed nervously on the leather upholstery. He took out his cell phone and wrote a text to Amy.

DRIVER CHECKING US OUT. WHY?

Amy responded in seconds.

NOTICED IT TOO. WE SHOULD BAIL.

Casually, Dan pretended to adjust his backpack. Meanwhile, he looked over his shoulder. A sedan slipped in and out of traffic behind them. It speeded up to avoid a tram.

A tail? Or just an aggressive driver?

They were driving along the Reuss River now. Lucerne looked like a mashup of Zurich and Geneva and Zermatt to Dan – picturesque and impossibly clean, the streets full of law-abiding citizens. Wide, curving streets, buildings painted in pale colors. Everything looked fresh and pretty. It made him nervous. What he needed was a narrow, dirty alley to hide in.

Amy began to cough. She bent over.

“Amy? Are you okay?”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

“Driver!” Dan called. “Pull over!”

The driver pulled over. Amy tumbled out, followed by Dan. She bent over, but her eyes swept the