The Final Cut

by Catherine Coulter

  She’d sashayed by in a black dress cut to her navel and nearly to her waist in the back, and since he wasn’t dead, he’d noticed.

  They drank together all night. And the next they’d talked. And the next. After three months of dating, he asked her to move in.

  She rarely enjoyed playing the role of honeypot, but this was different. Grant was an intelligent man, a handsome man, a generous lover. He treated her as an equal, not as a plaything. She liked him.

  Not loved. That would be too dangerous. But it wasn’t the worst assignment she’d ever had.

  Beefeaters lived on-site in the Tower of London, in apartments that dated back to the 1300s. Their families lived with them, wives and children. There was a pub on-site, a doctor, a chaplain, everything the men and their families could possibly need. The women often worked outside the walls, but the men, they had no need to leave.

  When Grant proposed, Kitsune accepted both the stunning cushion-cut diamond and the offer to move inside the Tower walls.

  Working from the inside out was her favorite way to do business.

  She knew there were background checks being done. She had a healthy respect for the British; they took nothing at face value, especially a stranger in their midst. She’d heard only the American FBI was more stringent.

  She used an identity as close to her real world as she dared. Julia Hornsby was the expatriated daughter of a Scottish father and a Japanese mother. She’d studied art history at the University of Leeds, hadn’t, however, done anything of note with her degree, and was currently underemployed in a truly disturbing modern art gallery in Notting Hill.

  Grant, for all his military expertise, was a trusting soul, but the members of Her Majesty’s government were not. To enhance her cover, Julia quit the Notting Hill dead-end job, rented gallery space near Peckham, filled it with some cheap art she bought at Tesco, and went to work there dutifully each weekday. Her flat nearby was barely furnished but stacked full of large, sweeping Jackson Pollockesque canvasses in various stages of finality. To anyone checking, she was an unsuccessful, undiscovered, not terribly motivated artist, which explained her woeful lack of income, or tax files.

  It was thin, but enough. Mulvaney knew his stuff. The background checked out, and she was approved to move into the Tower with Thornton.

  Once she was in, her plan was straightforward. The crown jewels were protected by some of the finest security in the world. It ran by computer, with redundancies to make sure if one system failed, another would replace it seamlessly. All she needed to do was hack into the computers, cause a systemic failure, wait for the secondary security to pop online, disable it as well, then use Grant’s physical keys to access the exhibit, and wrench the diamond free of the crown.

  Stealing the diamond wasn’t her primary issue—it was difficult but not impossible. Getting out of the Tower with the diamond, now that would take some finesse. They would know something was happening when their security systems went down. She needed a distraction.

  The grounds were patrolled constantly. After dark, the stoic beefeaters traded their blue-and-red uniforms and bearskin caps for dark fatigues and automatic weapons. They might as well have been on patrol in Afghanistan.

  Being a part of the fabric of life within the Tower was the only chance she had to escape. If she was recognized, knew the daily password to leave the gated walls, she had a chance. She would need to sicken herself, something dreadful that would be beyond the abilities of the Tower’s doctor, something that necessitated a trip to the hospital. Perhaps even make them think she’d been hurt by the thieves in order to make their escape.

  Out from behind the walls, she would give herself the antidote and escape, Lanighan’s diamond in her pocket.

  It was a dangerous plan, and Mulvaney thought her daft for even trying. He knew about the man she’d made fall in love with her, Grant Thornton, and he’d questioned her closely about him. She hadn’t fallen for him, had she? One never fell in love with a pawn or a mark. It could easily lead to failure. No, she’d assured him, she hadn’t fallen in love with Grant Thornton. She wasn’t that big a fool.

  She was three weeks from executing her plan when the queen struck a deal with the Americans to bring the queen mother’s crown, along with a few other pieces of the crown jewels, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, to celebrate the queen’s diamond jubilee.

  She rethought her approach. It would take more time, but she figured Lanighan wanted the diamond so much, he’d force himself to be patient, to wait. He was already in for twenty-five million dollars, he really had no choice, not that she’d tell him she’d changed her plans.

  46

  Every job had its own stroke of luck. Be it small or large, it was an undeniable truth. The trick was to recognize how to use the smallest bit of luck to your advantage.

  The day Kitsune heard about the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit, she began combing New York museum job listings. And her bit of luck presented itself—the Met was hiring, and she was well qualified for the position. All she needed was to get through the doors; she could finagle the rest once she was in.

  Mulvaney pulled together the Victoria Browning identity in record time, which told her it was already in existence. A good thing—she wanted to be as clean as she could be.

  When he couriered over the paperwork, she memorized all the details, burned the file, created her online persona, and applied for the docent/security guard position. She felt confident her skills and qualifications would land her the position, and she was right. The Met responded with an interview offer within twenty-four hours.

  Grant was the next to go. She broke it off and moved out, leaving him reeling. She reeled as well when she’d had to pull off the gorgeous antique cushion-cut diamond, passed down from his grandmother. It hurt more than she’d expected, hurt to see the shock in his eyes, the knowledge dawning on him that she was serious, she was leaving, and never coming back.

  But she closed her heart, surprised by how much it hurt. She assured Mulvaney she didn’t care about this man, and he applauded her actions.

  The flat was shut down, the lease let go on the gallery, her email closed. Once London was buttoned up tight, she made an appointment to deal with a more immediate problem: Victoria Browning had chocolate-brown eyes.

  The exhibit was many months away, far too long to wear colored contacts without attracting notice. They were fine for temporary jobs, but not for anything long-term; an observant person would notice them slip here or there, and they were never perfect. She’d done this particular surgery before; it was a hassle, nothing more, and reversible.

  Through Mulvaney, she knew an excellent, discreet doctor in Bern, a leading laser ophthalmologist by day, and by night, he attended to people with special needs, like her. The process was identical to cataract surgery, with a clean lens to replace the cloudy one. But the clean lens in her case was tinted brown and laid on top of her own iris. After two days of tears and a feeling of grit in her eyes, they healed up nicely.

  Her hair was next. She preferred it short—again, wigs were easier to manage without excess hair to cover—but for this, she wanted excellent extensions. With the help of a talented stylist near Hyde Park, she ended up with Princess Catherine–styled dark hair that tumbled past her shoulders and was a few shades lighter than her own hair.

  A wardrobe was purchased, muted grays and browns with some elegant dresses, lots of leather and suede and trendy heels, some old, battered sleep things from a secondhand shop, creased jeans, University of Edinburgh sweatshirts from ten years ago, and the like.

  Then she flew to New York, to start a new life.

  The Met hired her on—she knew they would. Her qualifications screamed at them. They considered themselves lucky she was even interested. An apartment was next, something she could stage, something not too ostentatious. She searched for a week before she settled on the Archstone, then found the garret hidey-hole in Hell’s Kitchen for actual day-to-day living. />
  And then it was simply a matter of making herself indispensable to the Met staff.

  Within a few months, her excellent mind realized and valued, she moved up to the position of assistant curator. But time was running out. The exhibit was due in New York in only a matter of months, and she was not in the proper position to execute her plan.

  The curator had to go.

  An illness, then, one that incapacitated but wouldn’t kill. Something a man of his age would be forced to deal with and, with a sorry shrug, retire.

  And then she was in the clear. She applied for the curator’s spot, was given the position, and all was right in the world.

  47

  New York, New York

  26 Federal Plaza, FBI Headquarters, twentieth floor

  Friday, 8:00 a.m.

  The conference room was full of people, drinking coffee, talking, eating the Danish stacked on several plates.

  Then Paulie came in looking rather worse for wear, a stunning black eye peeking out from his forehead bandage.

  Mike gave him a hug. “Paulie, it’s good to see you back among the living. How are you feeling?”

  He touched the bandage. “I’ve got a headache the size of Manhattan, but the vampires were good to me. I’ll live. Louisa is in the lab running the evidence from the Met. We didn’t get any prints; the whole room had been wiped clean. It wasn’t a total waste, though. Louisa had a brainstorm, went back early this morning and took samples from Victoria Browning’s office. No prints, but she might have left some DNA.”

  Better than nothing.

  Paulie continued. “Everyone came out unscathed, and it could have been so much worse. She could have blown that bomb, but she didn’t. So it seems Browning is only a thief, not a murderer.”

  Nicholas said, “Or she didn’t see the point in destroying countless treasures from all over the world.”

  Agent Gray Wharton patted Paulie’s shoulder, and the two of them argued a moment about a Danish versus a bear claw. Gray did indeed look like a computer geek, Nicholas thought, thin, bespectacled, in his early forties, and clearly not at all concerned that he was rumpled and creased, beard stubble on his chin. He nodded at Nicholas. “Gotta love a meeting this early in the morning.”

  Nicholas smiled. “You Yanks clearly feel sleep is overrated.”

  Mike saw Savich and Sherlock huddled with Bo. What was that all about?

  Zachery tapped a pen against the rim of his coffee cup. “All right, everyone take your seats, let’s get started.”

  She sat beside Nicholas, feeling like something the cat dragged in, whereas he looked sharp this morning, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked straight from a presser, a blue tie, and a fine blue shirt. Something he’d pulled out of a magic compartment in his little leather bag, she supposed.

  What she needed was a gallon of coffee and a big fat dose of adrenaline. She saw him slowly rotate his shoulder. Well, he hadn’t gotten off scot-free from their short war. When she’d lain in her bed last night, thinking about the battle before she went to sleep, it hit her that the whole attack had lasted less than five minutes. It had seemed much, much longer.

  Zachery got things started, meeting each person’s eyes as he told them about the attack in Mike’s garage six hours before, ending with, “So that’s why Nicholas has some bruising on his face and Mike has a lump on her head the size of our missing diamond. One bad guy is dead and as yet no legitimate ID on him. He’s not in AFIS. We’re spreading out the net to Interpol.”

  Mike knew to her boot heels there wouldn’t be any ID coming from anywhere. She said, “Nicholas, tell them about the Kicker.”

  “Where’d that moniker come from?” Ben asked.

  Nicholas said, “He’s the one who kicked Mike in the head. I was chasing him down an alley. I saw some white hair had slipped down out of his black ski mask. The thing is, though, he didn’t move like he was old. He was fast and smooth, and when he kicked Mike in the head, his leg swept up and his follow-through was perfect. He was in charge, no question in my mind. I’m thinking he has to be working for Victoria Browning, aka the Fox.”

  Zachery said, “We’ll find out. Now, because Mike and Nicholas are both skilled and fast—”

  “And lucky,” Mike said.

  “And lucky,” Zachery repeated, “both of them are fine. People, we had a hard night. But everyone’s alive, and we know who the thief is. We’ve started bigger cases with a lot less.

  “Everyone’s been hammered with the media reports on every TV station, and all over the Internet. Not a surprise this theft is the biggest, splashiest news all over the world.

  “But we’re being crucified, along with anyone even remotely connected to the Met and Dr. Victoria Browning. Needless to say, Director Mueller isn’t happy, nor is the president of the United States. Not to mention the insurance people, who are trying to shift blame to get out from under some of the upcoming crushing payout if we don’t get the diamond back.

  “Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do to stem the tide, no excuses to make. We’re in the spotlight until there’s a worse catastrophe somewhere in the world. There’s only one thing we can do: we have to find the Koh-i-Noor, and fast. Now, Gray, where are we with finding Browning?”

  Gray Wharton stood up. “Here’s what we know.” He dimmed the lights with a remote. A slide came up on the screen, and Dr. Victoria Browning stared out at them, studious, elegant, understated, and wearing a complacent Mona Lisa smile Mike wanted to slap right off her pretty face.

  “This is not Victoria Browning. We don’t believe there ever was a Victoria Browning. We believe we have fact and fiction expertly mixed to create this identity. It’s very possible this woman is indeed a British citizen, thirty-eight years old, who grew up in Scotland and attended school there. According to her passport records, she entered the United States in April of last year on a work visa.

  “We believe she created this identity specifically for this job. In other words, she’s legit up to a point. The best lies are based in truth, and according to everyone who worked with her at the Met, she was an expert on the crown jewels, and had contacts in the archaeology world that couldn’t be faked, which means she might have indeed gained her doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. We will verify once we upload the university’s records.

  “However, to our everlasting despair, they’re having a snowstorm over in Scotland, and there’s no one at the school to transmit the records. It will be a day at a minimum before we can access that information.”

  Ben said, “Sometimes I hate that we have to play by the rules and can’t hack into the university records.”

  Nicholas smiled, threaded his pen through his fingers.

  Sherlock said, “When did Browning cross paths with Elaine York?”

  Ben said, “Last year. Elaine worked with Victoria long-distance on the exhibit until she moved to New York four months ago.”

  “Were they friendly?”

  Ben nodded. “They worked closely together and seemed to be friends. I know they occasionally went out after work for drinks and dinner.”

  Sherlock said, “Is there anything new on Inspector York’s murder?”

  Mike said, “A tenant thought he heard a struggle around lunchtime this past Monday. We have Vladimir Kochen entering the apartment building at eleven forty-five a.m. with Elaine. She comes stumbling out half an hour later, disoriented and bleeding.

  We have a security video from a bodega across the street. We’re comparing all the people entering and exiting her building, and running them against her facial-recognition profile. It’s entirely possible Browning was disguised and we missed her.”

  “Or it’s someone we haven’t considered yet,” Zachery said.

  Nicholas said, “What you told Mike and me last night at the hospital, Paulie, about one of the words you heard Victoria say—ark—it’s bothering me. What if it wasn’t ark she said, but something rhyming, like park, for instance. Meet me at noon at the park, whic
h makes more sense than Meet me at noon at the ark.”

  Paulie said, “Could be, Nicholas. I was pretty out of it.”

  Mike said, “Dillon, you don’t think it’s possible to reconstruct the audio during Browning’s attack on Paulie and Louisa?”

  “I just thought of something else to try. I’m going to see if I can work some magic,” and Savich rose and left the conference room.

  Zachery nodded to Gray, and he flipped to a new slide. “These are the canisters and explosive material retrieved from the Met and analyzed last night. The C-4 chemical signature matches a bombing in Tripoli last May. The canisters are standard-grade tear gas, and there was a smaller canister of a chemical we haven’t identified yet; it’s what made everyone feel sick. The attack was definitely meant to disable but not kill.”

  Zachery said, “Any trace on how the C-4 got into the country?”

  “No, sir. It’s possible it was made here and shipped over there, too.”

  Zachery rolled his eyes. “Like we need that hitting the news.” He asked Ben, “Do any of your Russian Mob friends use explosives?”

  Ben shook his head. “Not like this. I suggest we farm the test results out to counterterrorism, let them have a go.”

  “Done. I don’t want to be in wait-and-see mode, people. What can we do right now to move this case forward?”

  Mike said, “Andrei Anatoly, sir. Though he says Kochen wasn’t a part of his team anymore, it was one of his soldiers murdered in Elaine’s apartment. Maybe Anatoly planned to steal the Koh-i-Noor but simply wasn’t the first in line. We need to talk to him again.”

  “Ben, you’re on that. Mike, you’re to stay focused on Browning.”

  “But Browning and Anatoly could have ties we haven’t found yet,” Mike said. “Ties that could involve Inspector York.”

  “Sure they could,” Zachery said, “but let Ben keep on him. You and Drummond figure out what Browning’s real name is and where she was living. She’ll have a trail. Go find it.”