All Gone

by Joel Goldman

  “All at the same time?”

  “No. Over the course of a couple of months. We have a lot of turnover given how poorly the job pays.”

  “Men with their skills should have been able to get better jobs, don’t you think?”

  Thorpe bristled. “You would think, especially after what they sacrificed for their country. Companies should have been begging them to come to work but they didn’t attend the right universities with the right people and get the right bloody degrees. Best they could do was work for me for shit pay on the graveyard shift. It’d be a shame if anyone cared enough to notice. ”

  “If it was me, I’d be pretty upset about that.’”

  “Lucky it’s not you, then, isn’t it? I know these men. I’d trust any one of them with my life.”

  Cassie nodded. “When did they clock in last night?”

  Thorpe pulled up their time records on his computer. “Around midnight. Right on time.”

  “And when did they clock out?”

  Thorpe studied the screen, running the cursor up and down the page. “What the hell?”

  “What is it?”

  Thorpe looked up at her, his bravado gone. “They didn’t. Must have forgot.”

  “All three?”

  Thorpe cast his eyes at his desk. “It happens.”

  “Must have.”

  She opened his office door.

  “You’ll keep me informed,” Thorpe said.

  “Of course,” she said and left without looking back.

  NINE

  SARAH ST. JAMES STUDIED her computer screen and the library floor plans spread across her desk. She held a red marker in her right hand and a blue one in her left. Her green dress hung from her frame, slack, as if she’d somehow lost ten pounds in a single day. Her hair was askew and her face was drawn. Two empty cans of Red Bull lay at her feet.

  Cassie rapped lightly on the door. “Anybody home?”

  Sarah half-jumped and dropped both markers. “Oh, my gosh! I didn’t see you there. I’m so caught up in all this, I completely lost track of time.” She ran a hand through her hair. “What time is it anyway?”

  Cassie set her bag from Malpin’s Electronics on the floor and took the chair opposite Sarah’s desk. “A bit past midnight. It’s you, me and the mice. And, hopefully, the guards.”

  “Same crew as last night?”

  “Not entirely,” Cassie said. “The guards that were working inside have gone missing.”

  “Missing as in disappeared, vanished – that sort of missing?”

  “Yes. Lloyd Pugh, Jeremy Bristol-Clarke and Tom Galloway didn’t time out last night. I got their cellphone numbers from their personnel files and called them but they didn’t answer. Looks like their phones have been turned off or trashed.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “I had a colleague of mine try to trace their phones.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “More or less. He’s also looking for Malcolm Bridges and doing a rundown on your and Thorpe’s finances to see if either of you had a motive.”

  Sarah blushed. “My finances?”

  “Sorry. It can’t be helped. I asked him to do it before we met. I know you had nothing to do with the theft. I hope you’re not too angry.”

  “More embarrassed. Michael teaches. We barely get by. I’m glad you told me though. I don’t want any special treatment.”

  Cassie was relieved at her reaction. She needed Sarah to trust her. “Don’t be embarrassed. That just means you and Michael are part of the 99% that work hard while running in place.”

  “It’s a struggle but we both love what we do. What about the guards? What did you find out about them?”

  “Nothing yet. But there are some things I know from their files. Thorpe is married, Galloway lives with his mother and Bristol-Clarke lives alone. I talked with the wife and mother. Thorpe and Galloway didn’t come home after their shift. I’ll have to check with Bristol-Clarke’s neighbors but I’m betting he didn’t either.”

  “How did the wife and mum sound?”

  “About what you’d expect. Somewhere between annoyed and hysterical. I didn’t get a sense that they knew what had happened.”

  “What about the other guards that were on duty?”

  “I’ve spent the last six hours interviewing them. I told them we were conducting a routine security audit and randomly chose last night’s shift for a closer look. They weren’t happy about having to come into work early but they felt better after I told them they were getting overtime. Colin Saunders and Paulie Reed were no help. Joseph Okafor said he thought he heard something odd coming from the PACCAR gallery not long after midnight but Galloway sent him back outside to check for a leak coming into the building before he could do anything about it. Stuart Davies ran into Pugh, Bristol-Clarke and Galloway at the elevator. He said that Pugh was acting strange, like he didn’t know a thing about football when they’d talked about it the week before. And, he said that one of them had a big duffle bag on his shoulder which could have been for their equipment if they stole the Magna Cartas.”

  “Do you think they did it?”

  “Too soon to know for certain but from what I’ve learned, I wouldn’t bet against it.”

  Sarah fell back in her chair. “Well, that ties it all in a neat bow, doesn’t it? The three of them must have been in it with Malcolm Bridges. Any word about him?”

  “No. What’s with the floor plans?”

  “I pulled up the keycard access logs that show each time a door was opened after midnight and by whom and I’ve been tracking that information on the floor plans. Red is Tom Galloway, green is Pugh and blue is Bristol-Clarke. Davies is purple and Okafor is orange. Malcolm Bridges is yellow, which feels right. Do you think Malcolm was there?”

  “Either that or they had his ID card or they could have cloned it.”

  “Cloned it? What do you mean?”

  “Your ID card has an RFID chip.”

  “RFID?”

  “Radio frequency identification chip. When you swipe the card, the chip unlocks the door. If they got their hands on Bridge’s card, they could have scanned it and downloaded the data to another keycard.”

  Sarah’s ID card hung from a lanyard around her neck. She held the card up, studying it like she’d never seen it before. “I thought these things were supposed to be safe.”

  “Nothing is safe anymore. Everything can be hacked.” Cassie pointed to the floor plans. “Why did you do all this?”

  “I told you this morning. This is my exhibit. The Magna Cartas are my responsibility. I had to do something.”

  Cassie leafed through the plans, stopping with the drawings for the PACCAR gallery. “This is great work. They opened the gallery at 12:47 a.m. Was that the only time they used Bridges’ keycard?”

  “Right. Didn’t have to use it again. They could open everything else with their own badges.” Sarah used a marker to trace the trails of the three missing guards on the map. “From the start of their shift at midnight, they followed their usual routes. Until 12:31.” She pointed to the numbers in red. “When Galloway opened the door to room 106.”

  “Just down the hall from the security control room.” Cassie nodded. “That’s probably where they hacked into the video system.”

  “But look at this,” said Sarah. “At the same time Galloway was going into 106, Bristol-Clarke used his ID to access the elevator, took it down to Basement Level Five, and opened the door to Manuscript Storage.”

  “Why? What’s in there? Other than manuscripts, of course.”

  “Nothing, as far as I know. But I couldn’t even guess at the last time someone took a complete inventory.”

  Cassie saw another time written in blue by the door to the storage room. “Wait a minute. Davies said he ran into these guys at the elevator around 2:20 a.m. According to this, Bristol-Clarke went back to Manuscript Storage at 2:27 a.m., after Davies saw them.” She took a closer look at the plans for Basement Level Five.
“There’s no way to get out of the library on that level. It’s too far below ground. What was he doing there?”

  “All I can tell you is that was the last place any of their keycards were used. None of them show up in the access logs again.”

  “Which means that they didn’t unlock any doors, or use the elevator, after 2:27 a.m.,” Cassie paced, thinking out loud. “But they could have taken the stairs to the first floor and opened an exterior door from the inside without leaving a record in the log.” She looked to the Sarah for confirmation.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “So why go down there at all after they had the Magna Cartas?”

  Sarah considered this. “To steal something else?”

  “Maybe. I’d like to see that storage room for myself.”

  “Easily done. Come with me. Hang on.” Sarah took an ID card from a desk drawer and handed it to Cassie. “I keep a few spares. You may need one of these. It will get you in anywhere in the library.”

  Cassie grabbed her bag from Malpin’s and they took the elevator down to Basement Level Five. As they walked along a narrow hallway, the floor began to vibrate and the walls echoed a low, deep rumble.

  “Is that the Tube?”

  Sarah nodded. “The Victoria Line runs about fifty meters behind the north wall. I spend so much time down here that I hardly notice it anymore. Michael says I should just set up a cot.”

  Sarah opened the door and Cassie stared at the rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves. “How big is this room?”

  “Two-thousand square feet. What are we looking for?”

  “A reason for them to be here after they stole the Magna Cartas. Is there anything in here about them?”

  Sarah led the way through the maze of shelves as easily as if she was in her own living room, then stopped and indicated several rows.

  “The Magna Cartas were signed in 1215. Everything we have concerning 13th century England is all through here.”

  “Can you tell if anything is missing, or has been disturbed?”

  The curator peered at each of the shelves, crammed full of parchment documents and leather-bound books. Finally, she straightened and shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t see anything obvious. Perhaps in another section…”

  “Forget it. If they stole something else, we’ll deal with that after we get the Magna Cartas back. I’m going to take a walk around the room.”

  The exterior walls were smooth concrete without any hint of a hidden exit. She stopped when she came to the door for a utility room. It was unlocked. Cassie looked inside. Tools and supplies filled shelves on two walls. The rest of the room was jammed with equipment, barely leaving space to turn around. She closed the door.

  “I’ve seen enough.” She shook her bag of electronics. “Time to get to work.”

  They began in room 106.

  “Just as I thought,” Cassie said, pointing to the hole in the wall and the exposed cables.

  Sarah watched as Cassie attached a circuit board to the cables, grinning when the PACCAR Gallery appeared on the screen of Cassie’s brand new laptop. Then they went to the gallery where Cassie repaired the motion detectors and the sensors in the display cases and Sarah replaced the acrylic covers over the fake Magna Cartas. Two hours later, they returned to room 106 so that Cassie could take down the circuit board.

  Sarah shook her head. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

  She tried to sound alert, but Cassie could see that the she was practically asleep on her feet.

  “We’re done for tonight,” said Cassie. “Go home. Kiss your husband. Get some sleep.”

  “I’m all right…” she began to protest.

  “You’re wiped out, and I need you sharp. First thing tomorrow, I want to look at footage from the exterior security cameras. With a little luck, we’ll see our boys coming out of the building.”

  TEN

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Cassie left the Library through the main entrance. She stopped halfway across the plaza and took a moment to think about the thieves. If the three missing guards had stolen the Magna Cartas, they had gone about it like pros, minimizing the risk of getting caught wherever they could. Not what she would have expected if this was their first heist.

  Collecting the ransom could prove riskier than the theft. They’d only given the Library five days to come up with the money. Had they allowed less time, the Library probably wouldn’t have been able to assemble the cash by the deadline. Had they allowed more time, the odds increased that they would be caught. Five days was smart. High pressure but manageable.

  What would the thieves do while they waited? They’d want to see what the Library did about the exhibit. No doubt they expected the Library to cancel it. When the exhibit opened as scheduled, they’d have to find out why. That meant sending someone inside. Someone who’d blend in and not attract attention. Someone like the man she’d seen staring at her and Sarah from the bottom of the stairs. She closed her eyes, summoning his image. He was average height. Older. Probably mid-fifties. Pudgy. Thinning hair. Dressed in a jacket and tie. But it was his eyes that she remembered the most. Dark, intense, penetrating. Unforgettable.

  They’d consider the cover-up of the theft to be good news. Proof the library was keeping it quiet while they pulled the money together. And if the thieves believed that, they would have to keep the Magna Cartas close by, unless they had no intention of returning them.

  She also expected the thieves to continue watching the Library for any signs that the police or someone like her had been brought in despite the warning in the ransom note. And, she expected them to pay special attention to Sarah St. James and Ian Thorpe to see if they did anything out of the ordinary.

  If Thorpe was involved, he would be their eyes and ears. But if he were, why was the man at the bottom of the stairs so interested in Sarah and her?

  And, if the thieves were as professional and thorough as she gave them credit for, they’d watch the library at night as well. Her senses sharpened, Cassie walked the rest of the way to the curb at Euston.

  She caught the glow of a cellphone in a doorway across the street. It wasn’t enough light to make out whoever was holding a phone pressed against an ear except she could tell it was a man. And, the light was enough to cast a shadow as he lifted something, probably a camera to his eye. Nothing she could do about him taking her picture. At the worst, whomever he worked for would identify her as an employee of Global Security, leaving her cover intact.

  He was careless enough to let her to know he was there and what he was doing. Or he was too stupid to know that he’d been careless. That was a contrast to how skillful the robbery had been. A rookie mistake one of the missing guards might have made. Or maybe the man with the camera was as tired as she was.

  She hoped he’d follow her so she could get a good look at him. Maybe he’d even try something so she’d have an excuse for a conversation she’d enjoy more than he would. And, if he didn’t, she’d follow him.

  She’d gone two blocks before she was certain that he wasn’t tracking her but there was no trace of him after she circled back. He was sharper than she’d given him credit for. Good, she thought. More fun that way.

  ELEVEN

  JAKE’S PLAN WAS to figure out what Cassie was working on, then find her. That would, he hoped, prove to her that he had the skills to be a good partner. He had been to London often enough to know his way around but he’d never tried finding someone who didn’t want to be found in a city of eight and half million people. The odds of being dealt two aces for his hole cards in a game of Texas Hold ‘Em were one in two hundred twenty-one. Long odds, measurable odds but he liked them better.

  He’d overheard Cassie say all four of them in her phone call with Prometheus. Easy enough. She was going after four items, though the number could refer to people or locations. Cassie only went after high value assets worth at least a million dollars, ensuring her minimum two-hundred fifty-thousand-dollar fee. Her clients had to be
wealthy enough to both afford the assets and the fee. That didn’t help much since London was home to more billionaires than any city in the world.

  After checking into a suite at the Amba Charring Cross Hotel he surfed the net for news of any high-profile thefts or unexplained losses of valuable objects but found nothing that matched with the little he knew. He wasted the rest of the day and a good part of the evening wandering around London searching for clues as if one would suddenly appear out of nowhere. A good meal and a few drinks in the hotel bar didn’t soften the harsh realization that he had no idea what he was doing.

  Back in his suite, he took a shower, wrapped an oversized, soft white bath towel around his waist and flopped onto a plush easy chair, the cushions cocooning him. Everything about the suite, from the towels to the cushions was designed for comfort yet he was anything but comfortable. His day had been a total bust.