Encrypted: An Action-Packed Techno-Thriller

by Carolyn McCray

  “Har, har,” Quirk laughed sarcastically, not needing her to start in on his lack of an exercise regime. Was it so wrong that he liked his arms lanky and not muscle-bound?

  “No, seriously,” she said, blotting her own forehead. “They’ve got humidity sensors, and while not linked to an alarm, if a guard notices the temp spike and humidity…”

  It might have them looking in the wrong direction. Their direction.

  “Fine, but—”

  His palmtop rattled along the wooden floor.

  “Quirk!”

  “On it!” He dove for the device, snapping it up. That had to be some mondo alert to have kicked off the vibration setting.

  Quirk flipped through the screens. Everything seemed fine. They hadn’t trigged anything here or in the Pacific Islands exhibit where Zach and Francois were collecting the last of their set.

  Wait. What was that? A silent alarm had been tripped. But none of the museum exhibits were armed with silent alarms. Those alarms were about as loud as they could get.

  “Quirk?”

  “Tasking.” He followed the thread of the alarm back to its source. “It looks like it is coming from the core computer.”

  Ronnie was on it. “Zach, are you anywhere near the security office?”

  The FBI agent’s voice came over Quirk’s earpiece. “No. Is there a problem?”

  “Maybe.”

  Well, not maybe, there was definitely a problem, just whether it was catastrophic or not was the question. Quirk studied all the feeds coming in from the security room. Had two of the guards gone out on patrol? That was off schedule. Had they changed their routine because of the temperature change? But then, where was the third guard? They always left a guard to attend the monitors.

  But what was on the security screen? Quirk zoomed in. They had to be kidding! Someone spilled ketchup on the keyboard.

  Wait. Ketchup didn’t glisten. He risked tilting the camera to the floor.

  “Oh, my God,” he breathed out.

  * * *

  “Come again? I didn’t get that,” Zach stated, finishing burning through the Asian masterpiece, The Wave, cabling. The damn thing had to weigh a hundred pounds. How could a canvas and wooden frame weigh a hundred pounds?

  “Zach,” Ronnie said, then gulped. His ears perked up. It was never good news when Ronnie gulped before speaking. “Someone has killed the guards and set off a silent alarm.”

  He didn’t bother to ask who it was. The Hidden Hand had obviously followed them. He didn’t even bother to ask how. They were ninja priests.

  “I am on my way back to you,” Zach said, but then pulled to a halt as a shadow passed by the hallway. He grabbed Francois and shoved the Frenchman against the wall. Zach watched the bronze mirror as the reflection of four men cloaked in black passed by, then paused.

  Ronnie was speaking in his ear, but he turned the earpiece off. The last thing he needed was for his position to be given away by a malfunctioning audio piece. He stood there waiting, hoping the men would move off, but they clearly were having a confab. Trying to decide in which direction to head.

  “Lino,” Francois hissed, trying to take a step forward. Zach held him in place, but studied the golden-haired man. Actually, this Lino looked like a teenage boy. Yet the others clearly deferred to him.

  Luckily, the boy leader was as decisive as he was tall. With a snap of his head, he got the others moving down the hallway. But not all of them. Two were left behind. At exactly the junction Zach needed to pass to get back to Ronnie.

  Zach didn’t want to admit it, but given the automatic weapons of those two, he and Francois were trapped.

  * * *

  Ronnie tried not to freak out, she really did, but how could she not? In crisp HD video, she watched Zach retreat into the exhibit.

  “Honey, we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Quirk stated.

  She tried to ignore her assistant, but he shoved his palmtop over hers. “Zach is at least safe. Those other two are making a beeline for this exhibit.” He indicated around them. “And if you hadn’t noticed, we are a little shy on defenses.”

  Quirk was right. That didn’t make her heart hurt any less to watch Zach have to slink into the shadows.

  “Girlfriend. Now!”

  Ronnie tore her eyes from the Asian exhibit feed and refocused on the approaching blips on the grid. Quirk brought up another screen showing the actual men. “It looks like that one thinks he’s grade ‘A’ hacker.”

  That the man did. From the keystrokes, the hacker was trying to find their heat signature. Which could work to their advantage. Ronnie had to be subtle. She couldn’t just give away their position. She had to make the guy believe that he really had broken into one of the world’s most sophisticated security systems.

  Thank goodness these guys were just that arrogant.

  Carefully, Ronnie brought up just the wisp of a reading, and then brought it back down. That got the guy to stop. From his excited hand gestures, he thought he was on to something. Another deft flash of a signal caught his attention. He pointed to a room.

  The Medieval Gallery. The gallery where she had planted their false heat signature.

  The younger man clearly seemed more skeptical of this “find.” But in the end, he trusted the technology rather than his gut. Thank God.

  The two turned to the right and headed down a hallway, angling away, a full city block away from them.

  “Phew,” Quirk exhaled. “Next time, we bring more deodorant.”

  He was kidding. Ronnie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

  Now to get Zach the hell out of there.

  * * *

  Zach wished he could create a weapon out of thin air. A Glock in his hand would sure feel nice.

  He made sure Francois followed close behind as they made his way through the Asian Art Wing. Lots of pottery, but no weapons. Why the hell couldn’t they have gotten trapped in the armament gallery? He’d take a broadsword right about now. And a suit of armor? Priceless.

  “Here,” Francois whispered, leading them into the Australian Aboriginal Art exhibit.

  Zach tried to resist; however, the old man could be strong when he wanted to be. In the wan light, Zach could make out dozens of the prerequisite pots and clay shards. Nothing that could help their cause, though.

  Until Francois pointed out a case. A case filled with aboriginal weapons. Many knives and even a few spears, but those required them to get far too close to the enemy. They needed long-range weapons. A boomerang caught Zach’s eye. Not exactly what he would have put on his wish list, but if they were deadly enough to bring down large game, they could work here.

  Zach switched on his earpiece. “Ronnie. I need the—”

  Before he even asked, the case’s latch sprung open. She must have been watching.

  “Service with a smile,” she replied, only her tone seemed about half as lighthearted as her words.

  “Give me five, and we will be on our way.”

  Turning off the communications device, he turned to find Francois picking up a didgeridoo. The long, hollow stick was decorated with elaborate dots and aboriginal artwork.

  “You do realize that is a musical instrument,” Zach explained as he picked up a few stone knives just in case.

  Francois swung the wooden staff up and over his head, then around his side finally coming to rest in an attack angle. Okay. Good to remember. Francois did descend from a line of ninja priests.

  Cautiously, they made their way back to the fork in the hallways. The paintings they needed were stacked to the side.

  Zach indicated to the framed canvases. “If this goes sideways…”

  Francois nodded toward the acetylene torches. If they couldn’t get the pictures to Ronnie, they could at least burn them, and she could record the symbols. But Zach didn’t want to walk too far down that path. If Ronnie wanted to burn them in a specific order, that was what he was going to made sure happened.

  He felt the heft of the we
ight of the boomerang in his hand. The carved wood shaped in a lazy “V” didn’t seem nearly heavy enough to do the job. It was either the boomerang or start chucking statues at the armed men. How many years had it been since he’d thrown a boomerang, though? College? Childhood? Would he have the speed or even accuracy to take down one, let alone two, men?

  Francois crouched next to him ready to unfurl his attack.

  Thankfully, like all sentries, the two men had let down their guard just a hair. One faced toward them, but the other had his back to them. All the better. It would give Zach time to get off at least one good shot if not two before they started firing. When it came down to it, they were bringing a boomerang and a didgeridoo to a gunfight.

  Zach gripped the smooth end of the boomerang in his right hand and kept the other ready in this left. Turning sideways, he cocked his arm back. It was a lot like shooting a baseball from first base to catch a guy stealing second base. Using every ounce of strength he could muster from his sore muscles, Zach flung the boomerang at the man facing in their direction.

  The weapon whistled through the air, spinning sideways. Not waiting for that one to connect, Zach tossed the second boomerang into his right hand, reeled back, and let it fly.

  The first hit the assailant in the left shoulder. Luckily, that was the guy’s gun arm that got knocked back. The other boomerang hit the gunman right at the base of the skull. He stumbled forward before catching himself on the wall.

  Francois got that dappled didgeridoo whipping as he charged, cracking one assailant in the back of the knee. The first boomerang whisked its way back. Zach caught it in mid-air, turned it over, and flung it again, hitting the man in the chest and knocking him back as Francois brought his staff squarely to his belly.

  As the second boomerang came back, Zach caught it. Instead of letting it fly, he raised it. The first gunman recovered, bringing his semiautomatic rifle up, but Zach was there first, using the crook of the boomerang to hook the gun, jerking it from the man’s hands. The metal clanged on the floor and skidded out of sight.

  Zach pulled the stone knife from his belt.

  This was more like it.

  * * *

  Francois shifted his weight to his back foot, bunching the muscle there, preparing for the explosive movement forward, cracking the staff across the gunman’s temple. The skin split, sending the man staggering back. Blood gushed down the assailant’s forehead. Still, his lips curled in a snarl dating back to a Neanderthal challenge.

  Despite his aching flesh and weary joints, Francois was more than happy to oblige. He arched the didgeridoo back around, slamming into the man’s shoulder. They had to keep the men from firing. The sound of a gun’s discharge would surely bring Lino back.

  For the briefest moment, Francois’ arms locked as he remembered the cruelty in the young man’s eyes. Lino fed on destruction and mayhem as others ate a meal. His assailant seized the distraction and lashed out with a kick, nearly dislocating Francois’ leg from his hip. He truly was getting too old for this. In his young days? Fresh from his years of training, this man would not have stood for three seconds.

  Now though, it took every bit of grace and training for Francois to prevent himself from falling to the floor. He tried to bring the staff up, but the gunman’s hand darted out, hitting Francois in the throat. Choking, dizzy, and disabled, Francois stumbled away— watching the gun rise, aiming straight for his heart.

  * * *

  Ronnie’s hands flew up to her mouth as the muscles in the gunman’s arm tensed, ready to fire. Then Zach was there. The flash of a stone blade as the assailant doubled over, clutching the bone hilt sticking out from his chest.

  “Dang,” Quirk said from beside her. “They are going primeval on their asses.”

  She couldn’t disagree. The FBI agent blocked a blow from the first man with his boomerang, and then followed up with a right hook. Francois seemed recovered as he brought the staff around and smacked the guy in the jaw.

  With that the two assailants were down.

  Ronnie watched Zach bring his hand up to his ear, opening their line. “On our way.”

  “Oh, crap,” Quirk said next to her.

  “What?”

  Her assistant pointed to the screen that had been following Lino and the other assailant. They had left a breadcrumb trail leading away from the European Masters toward the emergency exit. Quirk had even created the scenario that one of them was injured and the other was going back to help them make it out. Her assistant had woven a story of triumph and tragedy for this little mockingbird scenario.

  And it had worked perfectly… until now. Lino seemed to sniff a rat as he paused next to the door. He argued with his tech guy. Ronnie chewed her lip. They really, really, really needed him to buy it and leave.

  In the end, though, Lino backhanded his assistant, then turned directly to the camera. Ronnie cringed as the man walked up until his face filled the frame and then smiled.

  “Zach,” Ronnie said as Lino sprinted down the hall, coming right for them. “You’ve got to haul some ass.”

  “Working on it,” Zach replied. “We’re carrying about a billion dollars worth of art.”

  Ronnie glanced at the screen. They weren’t making good enough time. Lino would get there first. “Dump it.”

  “No way.”

  On-screen, they watched Zach grab one of the paintings from Francois, freeing up the older man. But now it was Zach lagging behind.

  “Get the gate ready,” Ronnie instructed Quirk.

  “Aren’t we leaving?”

  She shook her head. Zach was right. The whole point of this endeavor was to gather the paintings. And since they couldn’t get a single one off the walls of this gallery, they needed to come up with a plan…what were they up to? Plan G?

  “We’ve got to take our stand here.”

  Quirk glanced around. This gallery was clearly a dead end. “Then how are we getting out?”

  “I have no freaking idea.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Metropolitan Museum of Art

  10:55 a.m., EST

  “What the hell?” Zach asked, running as fast as he could while carrying what felt like a ton of bricks. “Are these paintings made of lead?”

  “Um,” Ronnie answered in his ear, “Yes. Some of the frames have lead weights to discourage snatch and grabs.”

  Okay. Good to know. At least he felt less the weakling. Francois rounded the corner ahead of him at just about the same time a bullet hit a statue and ricocheted right past Zach’s nose.

  Francois must have been hit as he careened to the right. An arm lashed out and grabbed the older man, dragging him into the European Masters room. Coming right for Zach were Lino and another man, firing away.

  Zach swung The Wave in front of him, praying that Ronnie was right about that lead thing. Sure enough, the bullets pinged off the lead backing and deflected harmlessly. But that wouldn’t last forever.

  As the metal gate rattled, closing off the room, Zach chucked the paintings, sliding them across the floor and into the gallery. With one last heave, he dove forward, hitting his shoulder hard, and then rolling into the room.

  The metal gate clanged shut.

  Alarms went off—ringing, blaring, flashing lights. So much for their stealth entry and exit. Of course, the blond guy shooting at them wasn’t helping much, either.

  He came up, pulling the gun he’d nabbed from the other gunmen.

  “No!” Ronnie yelled, but he’d already squeezed off half a dozen rounds. All of which bounced off the mesh, zipping around the room. “That’s titanium-hardened steel.”

  The good news, though, was that if Zach couldn’t shoot out, Lino couldn’t shoot in.

  Although the young, blond man didn’t seem at all discouraged by that fact. He walked up to the metal gate, surveyed its periphery, and then sneered.

  * * *

  Francois limped forward amongst the cacophony of alarms. “Leave, Lino!”

  The acolyte d
id not seem inclined to obey. His words were flavored by a thick Slavic influence. “Trapping yourself. How insightful of you.”

  Lino was like a cub prancing about as a full-maned lion. How sure of the world Francois had been at that age. Still righteous in his belief that the Hidden Hand fulfilled God’s work rather than made a blasphemy of it.

  “You must know, somewhere in your heart, Lino, that your path is corrupt. That God would not want such destruction brought in his name.”

  The young man’s cruel smile only spread. “We are here to finish the work He started. We are His Hand.”

  Perhaps Francois could reach Lino the way another brother so long ago had reached Francois. “Why not allow God to move in his own time? If he wished this destruction, could he not so easily do it himself?”

  “Ah,” Lino sighed. “Why then, did God give me the means to bring the world so low, Brother Loboum? Why indeed?”

  Sirens sounded in the distance, rising above even the clamor around them. Francois had to admit that Lino was not like him. Not in full. For even in his youthful arrogance, somewhere within Francois’ heart doubt brewed. The man who stood before him had no such reservations. He had been forged as steel to carry out the Hand’s macabre mission.

  There was no reasoning with the man. Francois slid the knife through the thin slit of the metal mesh into Lino’s side. Was it wrong to take pleasure in the look of surprise on the whelp’s face? It was not a fatal blow, but to Lino’s ego? Yes, a fine blow indeed.

  As the young man pulled his hand away from the bloody wound in his side, Francois found that glimmer of doubt he had been looking for.

  “You may be vaccinated, Lino, but you are not immortal.”

  Fury twisted Lino’s face. “Cut through it,” the young man barked at his assistant.