The Van Gogh Deception

by Deron R. Hicks

  Camille pulled her seat belt across her body and locked it into place. This act struck Art as somewhat ridiculous under the circumstances.

  She glanced over at him but said nothing. He could see the anxiety in her eyes. He buckled his seat belt into place. He didn’t know what else to do, and it seemed like a small act of solidarity.

  The driver opened the door and dropped his huge frame into the front seat. He pulled his door shut with a thud, then glanced back at the kids in the rearview mirror, his eyes magnified by the thick glasses. Art wondered if he ever blinked.

  The front passenger-side door opened and the detective took his seat.

  “Let’s go,” he said as he pulled his door closed. The overhead light blinked off and the interior of the car went dark.

  The driver wasted no time. There was a slight click as he turned the key in the ignition and the engine hummed to life. Art was amazed at how quiet it was for such a big vehicle. The SUV pulled onto Seventh Street and headed north.

  Detective Wasberger—​Art didn’t know how else to think of him, although he was pretty sure now the man wasn’t a detective and wasn’t named Wasberger—​turned in his seat and faced the two kids. “Don’t even think about trying anything,” he said. “It’s useless. This vehicle was designed for diplomats. The windows are heavily tinted, so you can wave all you want—​no one will see you. Pound on the windows for all I care—​the glass is at least an inch thick—​bulletproof. You’ll break your hand before anyone outside the car hears you.”

  He paused. Then he looked directly at Art.

  “The best thing you can do is sit back and be quiet,” the man finally said. “It’s a short ride. Be good kids and everything will be fine.”

  Art knew he was lying. The men, posing as a police officer and a detective, had just kidnapped two kids from the National Gallery of Art. They had not worn masks or made any effort to conceal their identities in any way. The museum had all sorts of security video of Art and Camille talking with this guy, but Detective Wasberger didn’t seem the least bit concerned. There was no way the men were simply going to let the kids go. The boy glanced over at Camille. He could see in her face that she understood the dangers as well.

  6:06 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16

  Washington, DC

  Dorchek Palmer watched on his iPad as the black SUV carrying the boy and the girl turned onto Seventh Street and headed north. Kidnapping the girl had complicated things, but what choice did they have?

  The car moved swiftly from his view on the iPad. He checked the other museum video feeds to make sure there was no sign of the vehicle.

  Everything was clear.

  The National Gallery’s security feed ran on a twenty-four-hour loop. Once the alarm was raised about the disappearance of the boy and the girl—​and that would happen any moment—​the video would be the first place security and the police would go. Palmer did not intend to allow the feed to reveal anything. He reset the date in the security system for forty-eight hours into the future. Every bit of video taken at the National Gallery over the past twenty-four hours vanished in an instant. He then reset the video feed for the current time and date. Palmer knew that whoever was manning the video panel in the security room would immediately notice that something had happened—​a slight blip on the screen. But that didn’t matter. There was no way to trace it back to him, and besides, the National Gallery’s tech team would probably blame it on some sort of system glitch. The only thing that mattered now was that there was no longer any video evidence that the boy, Palmer, or his team had been at the museum that day.

  Palmer smiled. Everything was finally falling into place.

  Camille Sullivan had no intention of remaining quiet.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked. Art could hear the anxiety in her voice. She was clearly scared—​as was he, but she was still willing to confront the men who had just kidnapped them. Art was impressed.

  Neither of the men responded to her question.

  The car continued north on Seventh Street.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked again, but with significantly more volume.

  Again, she was ignored. The SUV came to a stop at an intersection.

  “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” she screamed.

  The reaction was immediate. Detective Wasberger snapped around in his seat and faced Camille and Art. He held the stun gun in his right hand, the trigger depressed and blue sparks jumping from the sharp metal points. Art glanced over at Camille. The light from the sparks flickered across her face. The back seat was bathed in a strange blue glow.

  “Scream again,” he said menacingly to Camille, “and you won’t remember the rest of the ride.”

  Art put his hand on Camille’s knee. “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  “Listen to the boy,” the detective said. He took his finger off the trigger, and the sparks instantly disappeared. The rear seat of the car went dark once more, and Camille’s face retreated into the deep shadows. A faint electrical odor hung in the air—​metallic and slightly pungent.

  Chapter 20

  6:12 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16

  West Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

  “What do you mean, there’s no video?” asked Detective Evans. The frustration was evident in her voice.

  Detective Evans had arrived at the National Gallery of Art within minutes of the call from Mary Sullivan. The boy had disappeared, and so had Mary’s daughter. The detective’s initial reaction had been the same as everyone else’s—​the kids were probably roaming around the museum somewhere. It was, after all, a massive building. Perhaps they had inadvertently made their way into an administrative area, or maybe they had wandered over to the East Building. But when Detective Evans learned that the entire video feed for the entire museum for the past twenty-four hours had simply disappeared in a blink, she suspected something more was happening.

  A security guard sitting before a panel of video monitors shrugged. “I was just sitting here,” he said, “watching this kid in a green coat who was getting a little too close to one of the sculptures near the exit. I was about to give a heads-up to the guard when BAM, the kid teleports across the room.”

  “Teleports?” asked the detective.

  “Yep, teleports. One second he’s next to the sculpture, the next second he’s gone. I looked around the room to see if I could find him—​and there he was, heading out the exit. He just teleported across the room—​like that Nightcrawler character from the comic books. Do you read comic books?”

  The detective shook her head. “No.”

  “Too bad,” said the guard. “There’s some awesome stuff out there—​you should check it out. Anyway, I figured it was some sort of system glitch—​maybe a power surge or something. Didn’t think anything of it until I got the call that we were looking for a couple of kids. I tried to go back and find them in the café—​you know, when they were still with the lady. But there was nothing. Everything was gone. The past twenty-four hours had just disappeared. POOF.”

  “Has this ever happened before?” asked Detective Evans.

  “Not on my watch,” replied the guard. “I don’t even know how it could happen.”

  Detective Evans thanked the guard and made her way out of the security room and back down the long hallway that led into the public area of the museum. The entire security staff and all the docents had been alerted—​everyone was looking for the boy and Camille, which shouldn’t have been hard, since the museum was officially closed and all visitors were leaving or already gone. Mary was holding it together—​but barely. She was a tough lady.

  Within minutes Detective Evans was standing in the middle of the café—​the last place the kids had been seen. She remembered her thought from the previous day—​how it seemed as if the boy had simply appeared out of thin air in the museum, as if by magic. Now, it seemed, he had disappeared just as mysteriously—​and
had taken Camille Sullivan with him.

  6:19 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16

  Downtown streets, Washington, DC

  Art knew they had to get out of the SUV. He had no idea why they were being kidnapped or by whom, but he suspected it had something to do with whatever memories were swirling behind that dam in his head. One thing was certain—​Art did not intend to wait around and find out how these men were going to get to those memories.

  The boy had a plan, but he admitted it wasn’t a particularly good one, and even worse, it was risky. Still, it was all he had. He reached down to the floor and slowly unzipped his backpack. He pulled out the Coke, placed the can in his lap, and carefully rezipped the backpack.

  He glanced over at Camille. He could barely make out her face in the darkness, but he could see that she was watching him. He put his index finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet. She nodded ever so slightly.

  Art took the can in his right hand. He was seated on the passenger side, directly behind the detective. The boy slowly shook the can in his hand. There was a slight splashing noise. Art paused. Neither the driver nor the detective appeared to notice. The boy shook the can a little harder and then paused once more. Again, no one seemed to notice.

  Art kept his eyes on the driver and started shaking the can even more vigorously. Suddenly a loud ringing filled the car. Art jumped in his seat. The driver jerked his head to the right and looked over at the detective. It took a moment for Art to realize that the sound was a cell phone. The ringing stopped suddenly. Art could see the detective place the phone to his ear.

  “Ten minutes,” the man said into the phone. “Maybe fifteen, depending on traffic.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “Got it,” he said, and pressed a button to end the call.

  The car went silent once more.

  Ten or fifteen minutes.

  Time was running out.

  Art glanced at the road ahead. They were almost halfway down the block and approaching the next intersection.

  It was now or never.

  Camille had watched as Art retrieved the can of Coke from his backpack and started shaking it. He obviously had something in mind, but what? Art was now looking over the detective’s right shoulder at the road ahead.

  What is he looking for? she wondered.

  Suddenly Art sat back and took the Coke can in both hands.

  “Scream,” he whispered to her across the back seat.

  Scream?

  “Scream now!” he yelled.

  So she screamed.

  Chapter 21

  6:21 p.m.

  Saturday, December 16

  Downtown streets, Washington, DC

  Art knew Camille could be loud. But he did not appreciate exactly how loud. The sound of Camille’s voice exploded in the interior of the SUV like a high-pitched clap of rolling thunder.

  The reaction from the front seat was immediate.

  The driver’s head lurched to the right and his hands followed, sending the vehicle bumping up against the curb. As the driver struggled to regain control of the SUV, the detective snapped around in his seat.

  “I warned you!” he yelled.

  He swung the stun gun toward Camille, the blue sparks jumping off the sharp metal electrodes.

  And that’s when Art opened the can of Coke.

  Coke, like most other soft drinks, is carbonated. Little bubbles are formed when carbon gas is forced into the liquid. When a can is opened, the little bubbles escape, resulting in a hiss of carbon gas and nothing more. However, if a can is shaken before it is opened, everything changes. The little bubbles form big bubbles, and the result is more than just a slight hiss of carbon gas.

  The detective never saw it coming.

  The brown liquid exploded from the can. In an instant it covered the detective’s stun gun, his arm, and his hand, and drenched the right side of the driver’s face. The detective could not react fast enough to pull his finger from the trigger of the stun gun. One hundred thousand volts of electricity followed the conductive path laid down by the stream of soda. The detective’s hand twitched as the current ran through it, and rather than releasing the trigger, the man gripped the stun gun even tighter. The blue electrical charge followed the spray of soda across the front seat and to the side of the driver’s face. The driver screamed and released the steering wheel. The large SUV careened to the right.

  Art could hear the wheels scrape along the curb and see the shocked faces of the pedestrians along the sidewalk. The driver recovered quickly and took control of the steering wheel. However, the detective—​who was still clutching the stun gun—​pitched to the side and the sharp electrodes planted squarely in the driver’s right arm. The driver’s whole body suddenly went rigid, and his right foot slammed down on the accelerator. The SUV’s wheels screeched as the vehicle lurched forward. The front wheels struck the curb and pushed the SUV sharply to the left. The smell of burned rubber filled the interior of the vehicle.

  “Hold on!” Art yelled at Camille.

  The SUV shot directly across the street, narrowly missing a small red car traveling in the opposite lane of traffic. The massive vehicle bounced up and over the curb and passed between a light post and trash can. The SUV shredded a short iron fence and crashed headlong into the side of a large stone building. The air bags in the front seat deployed upon impact, and Camille and Art jerked forward violently against their seat belts. A sharp pain shot through Art’s right shoulder as his seat belt tightened. Smoke and a burning chemical smell instantly engulfed the interior of the SUV. The rear of the car lifted from the impact and dropped with a thud and a shudder.

  Art looked over at Camille. She seemed shaken up but otherwise fine. The same could not be said for the driver and the detective. The detective had somehow ended up across the driver’s lap with his left calf wrapped behind the driver’s neck. Both men were groaning and appeared barely conscious.

  Art and Camille quickly unbuckled their seat belts. Art tried to open his door, but it remained locked. Camille tried her door. Same result. Art knew he would have to open the doors from the front seat. He stretched around the headrest and tried to reach the front door on the passenger side. His right shoulder felt as if it had been hit with a hammer, and he grimaced in pain. Smoke still swirled around in the front seat from the deflated air bags. Art could see that the passenger-side door was bent from the impact.

  What if it’s broken? he thought.

  Art pushed the passenger-side air bag out of the way and pressed down on the door-unlock button. There was a slight buzzing sound.

  “Not opening,” Camille said from the back seat. “Try again.”

  The boy pushed the button. Same buzzing sound. Same result. The doors remained locked.

  “You’re gonna have to try the driver’s door!” he said to Camille. The smoke was burning his nose, and he was finding it hard to breathe. They were running out of time.

  Camille could see the driver’s massive body leaning against the car door. She would have to reach under him to get to the locking mechanism. She hesitated. This would not be easy.

  “Do it!” yelled Art. “There’s no more time.”

  Camille reached around the driver’s seat and under the driver’s thick torso. She had to wedge almost her entire upper body between the driver’s door and the seat to get close enough to the lock. The man’s armpit was within an inch of her nose. He smelled like cheap lime after-shave and sweat. Camille stretched her hand toward the locking button but was still a couple of inches away. Taking a deep breath, she pushed into the driver’s body, burying her nose deep in his armpit. She could no longer see the lock, but she felt around and pushed down. There was a clicking sound from the back seat.

  “You did it!” she heard Art exclaim. “Now let’s get out of here!”

  She heard the door of the SUV open and felt the rush of cold, fresh air into the car.

  She was starting to pull her arm back whe
n, suddenly, the driver’s massive hand closed around her wrist. The pain was tremendous. Camille wanted to scream, but her face was still buried in the man’s armpit.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” the man growled.

  She was trapped.

  Eric McClain, who had been following the SUV, watched the accident unfold from a half block away. McClain’s job was to be available if something went wrong—​and something had just gone really wrong.

  McClain pulled his car over to the curb and considered what he should do. A small crowd was already starting to gather near the crash site, and smoke was pouring from the front of the SUV. He knew that it would be only a matter of minutes before the police arrived. His sole concern right now was the boy, not the girl or his fellow team members. The mission was the only thing that mattered—​and the mission was to secure the boy.

  There was no time to check in with Palmer—​events were moving too fast. McClain started to put his car into gear when he saw the boy step out of the back seat.

  At least the boy’s not hurt, McClain thought.

  But the boy was no longer under their control—​and that would need to change fast.

  It was risky, but McClain would have to grab the boy off the street before the police arrived. Accident scenes were always a state of confusion—​smoke, noise, the smell of gasoline in the air, and a gathering crowd—​and that commotion would provide McClain with a small window of opportunity. The boy, however, was too big to simply wrestle into the trunk. A stun gun or other obvious weapon was out of the question—​it would draw too much attention in the middle of a crowd. But McClain was prepared for this sort of contingency. He opened his glove compartment and pulled out a small blue box. Inside was what appeared to be three cheap retractable ballpoint pens. They were, in fact, devices that fired small tranquilizer darts. Once the trigger—​disguised as a pocket clip on each pen—​was depressed, the device would fire a tiny dart with a small, almost invisible needle—​no more than a quarter inch in length. The devices were virtually silent—​compressed air was used to fire the darts. And although the gadgets had an effective range of less than five feet, the substance inside the pens could render a grown man unconscious within seconds. McClain slid all three pens into his coat pocket, put his car into gear, and headed toward the accident scene.