hook to his chin.
The big baby went right to sleep.
It was time to see what he was protecting.
5
She opened the door slowly.
In stark contrast to the dark freezer, the secret room was bathed in soft, warm light. It had the look and feel of a large, windowless office, complete with a desk, computer, and a landline phone. A Russian calendar — featuring naked women in fur hats — hung behind the door, but her attention was focused on the crates of antiquities that lined the other three walls.
Seemingly every culture was represented. There were tribal masks, Oriental vases, and Roman weaponry. Everything from intricate baubles to uncut jewels. She even spotted a Gutenberg Bible, one of the most valuable books in the world. It was sitting inside a glass display case, which sat on top of a carton of Faberge eggs.
Turning to her left, she spotted a crate of paintings in the far corner of the room. She hustled forward and pried open the crate.
Inside were several paintings.
All of which had been ‘lost’ years ago.
Masterpiece after masterpiece, just sitting on the floor.
All of them there for the taking.
And yet she was forced to ignore them.
Rummaging through the canvases, she quickly discovered the small, framed arrangement of stained glass she had been told to locate.
Arguably, Marc Chagall’s most notable works of stained glass are the windows at the synagogue of Hebrew University’s Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. But long before he set about that large-scale project, he created each window in miniature. These ‘rough drafts’ and their finalized counterparts represent the twelve tribes of the Israelites — one picture for each tribe. Pulling a photo from her pack, she matched the image in the picture to the seventh piece in the series.
‘Beautiful,’ she said aloud.
Then she smashed the art into pieces.
Hidden inside the frame, sandwiched between two opaque plates of glass, was a single sheet of paper. She carefully removed the dried, cracked parchment, taking every precaution to prevent further damage. Without taking the time to read it, she inserted the document into a flexible, tear-resistant membrane and secured the package in a hidden pouch inside the back of her suit.
Then she checked her watch.
A minute or two more was worth the risk.
She darted over to the small desk and studied the system. Tapping on the mouse, the monitor flickered to life. She plugged a portable drive into the port on the side and copied the entire hard drive. Kozlov had art around the world, and she wanted to know who supplied it. Maybe she would come back for these treasures another time.
Satisfied with her haul, she made her way back into the freezer. Her contented smile quickly vanished when she realized that the wounded guard was no longer on the floor. Scanning the room, she saw that the other door was open. Bracing herself, she stepped out of the freezer and into the basement.
The moment she cleared the steel walls of the walk-in, the connection to her earpiece was restored. The voice on the other end of the mic was freaking out.
‘Sarah, can you hear me!’ the voice shouted. ‘If you can hear this, you need to evac immediately. I repeat, get the hell out of there!’
‘Calm down, Hector. What’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure, but it’s major. Everyone mobilized about a minute ago. The guards are pouring out of the neighboring houses, and they’re coming your way!’
Hector Garcia studied the array of computer screens that he had assembled for this particular job. Although he was two thousand miles from the action, he had been feeding Sarah information from the moment she had landed in Brooklyn.
His guidance had been invaluable.
In addition to the data from the FBI surveillance van — which he had hacked with relative ease — Garcia had been monitoring the transmissions from the sticky blobs. His software processed the collective data stream in ways that would stagger the imagination. By differentiating and triangulating sounds, Garcia could not only determine how many people were inside the mansion, he could also tell which floors they were on and whether or not they were moving.
Sarah followed a trail of blood and boot prints to the stairs that led to the kitchen door. There was no mistaking the giant’s size-twenty shoes.
‘Shit,’ she mumbled under her breath. She sprinted up the steps and jammed the lock from the inside. It wouldn’t hold long, but it would buy her some time. ‘I think I know why the natives are restless. I should’ve killed Shrek when I had the chance.’
‘Shrek?’ Garcia said, confused. ‘Are you feeling alright?’
‘I’m feeling fine. I’ll feel a lot better if you can get me out of this basement.’
‘Do you have the package?’
‘Of course I have the package! I wouldn’t be looking for a ticket home without the goddamn package. What do I look like? An amateur?’
‘How should I know? We’ve never met!’
‘And we never will unless you find me a route out of here.’
‘I’m trying. Trust me, I’m trying!’
Sarah could hear shouting in the kitchen. She tried to decipher what they were saying, but the walls were too thick. ‘Can you make any of that out?’
‘I can make
‘Don’t you have software for that?’
‘I can only do so much at once!’
‘Fine,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Then I’ll find a way out myself.’
‘The kitchen is not an option,’ he assured her. ‘There’s so much activity up there, I can’t even get an accurate count. You’ll have to find another way.’
‘What about back through the vault? Maybe a ventilation shaft?’
‘You know the schematics as well as I do,’ Garcia said. ‘It’s an old house, but they refitted the basement with modern ventilation a few years back. There’s no way you’re fitting through a three-inch exhaust.’
‘Maybe I won’t have to,’ she said as her mind whirred through a list of possibilities. She had studied enough floor plans and security systems in her life to recognize the details that most people would miss. ‘I think I found another way.’
Sarah studied the column in the center of the room and slid open a wooden panel in the front. She had glanced at it earlier and had quickly dismissed it as part of the cooling system, but then she remembered that this
