Blitzed

by Lauren Landish

  Taking public transport back to the barge, I was surprised at how nervous I felt. I hadn't felt this way about a heist in a long time, and I knew it wasn't the theft itself that was troubling my nerves. Despite the numerous issues with security, none of them were individually a challenge to my skills. I probably could have even pulled the job off without Felix. The biggest challenge inside the museum was the actual case the Quran was being stored in. It was made of bulletproof Lexan glass, which meant we couldn't shatter it, nor could we cut it with normal tools. Also, the case itself was actually built into its stand, meaning I couldn't lift off the case. However, the same way the Quran was put in was the same way we'd take it out, through a seam in the display case that had been chemically sealed in order to prevent heat damage to the book.

  I was more worried about what would happen afterward. Handing off the book to our client would be the point in which the betrayal would take place, and to be honest, I didn't trust our client to do it right. After all, I was doing the job in order to sell out Felix, how could I not be worried that I too wouldn’t be double crossed? There truly is no honor among thieves, and the only reason you could trust someone outside of your eyesight was because it was in your mutual interest to not screw each other over too much. However, as soon as it became more advantageous to do so, you could expect to be screwed very hard, very quickly.

  By the time I got back to the barge I was sweating, despite the chill in the early spring air. Felix noticed. "Are you okay? You look flushed."

  "Yes," I reassured him. "The bus was just crowded. There was some tour group or something. Too many people in too small a space, and the driver had the heater on full."

  "Okay," Felix replied, dismissing it. I sat down in my favorite chair, a leather armchair that reclined a fair amount and had an ottoman in front of it, relaxing. I needed to let my nerves settle, I'd need all of them later that night. I even pondered taking a nap to make sure I wasn't sleep deprived at the time of the actual action. Jordan, who was trying her best to be supportive, was staying in the bedroom.

  "Is she going to come out?" I asked. "We still have a full day to wait before we even begin."

  "I think she is more worried about it than we are," Felix replied. He looked down at the counter space between his hands and took a deep breath. He wanted to tell me something important, I could tell. “This is a first for her. Francois, I wanted to talk with you about that."

  "What about?" I asked. I laid my head back and closed my eyes, crossing my fingers over my stomach. Regardless of if Felix had something on his mind or not, I wanted to just relax.

  "This is my last job too," Felix said after a moment. "I can't do this any longer. Not with Jordan at home waiting for us."

  "Really?" I asked. I lifted my head up and opened my eyes, bringing my hands behind my head.

  Felix thought about his answer for a second then shook his head. "I don't have it in me anymore. I don't want this. I guess you could say I'm losing my edge. I can get through tonight, but after that . . . I'm done."

  I chuckled. This was better than I'd have ever hoped. "What will the world be like without the Hardy brothers working together to steal what cannot be stolen?"

  Felix laughed. "Probably a lot less stressful for insurance companies, that’s for sure. Francois, I know that you want to continue, to stand out on your own. I'm willing to support that, you know."

  "I know," I replied, touched while at the same time knowing what was going to happen to him, and I had to make it a point to keep my nerve. There was no turning back now. "Felix, regardless of what happens, I know you will be the man who helps me find success."

  Felix came over and knelt down next to me, clapping me on the shoulder. "Thank you, Francois. Now, let's go reassure Jordan that she doesn't have to hide from us in order for us to be ready."

  That night, long after the sun went down and the bells in the local churches struck eleven, Felix and I changed for the job. We were to approach the building from the river side, taking advantage of the typical Paris evening mist to mask our approach on the building. Still, it was beneficial for us to wear dark colors, so we put on midnight blue pants and tops, with light masks that could be rolled up to look like caps if we needed them to.

  We'd considered many options for entry, from using the sewers to literally parachuting onto the roof. We discarded them one by one for various reasons, with most of them being gotten rid of because they were just impractical considering the time constraints we had to deal with. In the end, we decided to go by a more traditional route, going through a hole we cut in the glass side of the building.

  "You in?" Felix asked as I shimmied through the hole on the second floor, hoping that our computer worm was working. It was supposed to loop the security feed so that the guards inside the building wouldn't know what we were up to. It was also supposed to have corrupted the alarm systems as well, telling the system that everything was fine regardless of what the individual sensors reported. If Alex's worm had worked according to his promises, the guards at the front desk would think everything was just fine and dandy.

  "Yeah," I whispered back. "Come in."

  Felix followed me, barely squeezing his wider shoulders through the hole in the glass. Sliding through, he rolled his right arm before getting to his knees. "Time check?"

  "Eight minutes to the next patrol," I said, referencing the timer on my arm. I’d strapped a custom programmed smartphone to my forearm, which not only held a timer but also maps and other information we might need. Felix used to have one, but in tackling Jordan in Los Angeles, he cracked the screen and destroyed it. We hadn't had time to get a new one yet. "Let's go."

  We made our way through the museum, heading for the display room. We moved quickly, turning a disadvantage into an advantage. Felix was worried about the interior structure of the museum, as it didn't allow for a lot of walls and separate rooms. The half walls and beams made the hiding places for cameras and sensors more numerous than ever, and the guards could see us easily if they came near. At the same time, though, we could see them, and we could move fast, not having to worry about a guard coming around a blind corner that we couldn't see.

  We made our way to the display area, where the Quran was sealed within its case. Reaching into the small toolkit at my waist, I withdrew the small aerosol canister inside. The seams of the display side melted under the catalyst, Felix quickly catching the pane of Lexan before it could fall to the floor and make a noise.

  "There it is," Felix whispered, taking the Quran into his hands and closing it carefully. He slipped the book into the carrying case on my back, a hard style slim case that was just big enough for the book and no more. Made of aircraft aluminum, it would protect the book from all sorts of rough handling, short of actually getting shot. That would have been a bit much, honestly. Latching it closed, he looked at me. "Ready. Time?"

  "Two minutes," I said, turning and hurrying away without another word. We hit the hole in the side of the building with thirty seconds to spare. We descended quickly, hanging from the cut hole before dropping, letting the grass absorb the shock of landing and took off running into the mist, heading for the Seine.

  Next to the river, moored on the muddy bank was our getaway, a black rubber boat that we climbed into quickly. Stroking with the current, we disappeared into the darkness. "Five kilometers," I said to Felix. "You okay?"

  "It went smooth, I don't think we've had a heist go that smooth since our training days," Felix replied. We pulled out large bladed oars and pulled, adding to our speed. "That catalyst worked perfectly."

  "I told you it would," I replied with a touch of pride. It was my strength in our partnership. Yes, Felix was overall more studious, and certainly knew more about computers and general tactics than I did, but I knew chemistry. Even though I'd never gone to university level classes, I'd pushed myself to learn a lot about the subject, especially where it applied to that night's heist. Acids, bases, catalysts . . . that was my specialty. "Once I was
able to find out what they chemically welded the seams with, the proper reactant was a matter of child's play."

  "Then let's get this over with," Felix said as he lowered his oar and pulled hard, the wide blade cutting through the water. "Get to the meet-up, come back, get Jordan, and get the hell out of Paris for a very long time."

  "I'm going to miss the lights," I said as we rowed, looking around as Paris passed us. The city never really goes to sleep, but we were traveling through it at its nadir, and it was deceptively peaceful, especially with the late night fog obscuring some of the harsher corners. "At least for the next year or so."

  "We'll be back," Felix reassured me. "That was a flawless operation."

  We got to our getaway vehicle, an old Peugeot that we’d put false license plates on, and drove north towards Calais. It was late at night and the roads were mostly deserted, especially the highway. We got to Calais a few hours before dawn and headed for the ocean. I had to chuckle to myself as we followed the directions from our contact. The Rue du Moscou was within spitting distance of the water, and the name had a certain ironic ring to it. While the last e-mail from my contact hadn't given me exact details as to who would be taking possession of Felix, I had my guesses, and most of them pointed toward the east.

  "Over there," I said, pointing out the address. We pulled into the industrial parking lot, shutting off the engine. It was still dark, and we could only see the bare outline of the building against the sky. "They're inside."

  Felix nodded. "Ready?"

  "Yeah. Sure you don't want to carry a gun?"

  “I’m sure. If they don't give us what we want, we don't give them the Quran," he said. "You have the case, right?"

  I nodded, holding the metal box. "Safe and sound. Let's go."

  Felix led the way, as usual in these sorts of situations. The building was an old, rusty top Quonset hut looking warehouse, probably a relic of the rebuilding of the area sixty years ago during the fifties. Felix walked in, and it was then that the trap sprung.

  Felix was barely inside the door when the baton hit him in the back of the head, sending him tumbling to the ground dazed. He was hard headed, and the blow didn't knock him out. Instead, he crawled forward, trying to regain his feet while my contact's man followed him. “Francois . . . help . . .”

  "Not this time, brother,” I said, as the baton wielder brought the club down again. Felix dropped like a sack of rocks with that blow, his forehead bonking off of the concrete. "Your time is up. My time begins.”

  "You have the rest of our bargain, I assume," a voice in the darkness said. "The book?"

  "Of course," I said, turning to see our Spanish agent emerge into the dim light. "Here you go. Where is my money?"

  "It’s a remarkable thing, brothers," the Spaniard said as he handed over a backpack. I looked inside and saw a bag full of cash, enough that I didn't want to waste time counting at the moment. "I too had a brother once. The price I sold him out for was remarkably less than you. Congratulations on a good bargain."

  "Congratulations at having agents from so many different backgrounds," I returned. "There's no way that anyone could have suspected that you were involved in all of this. Russians, Moroccans, you, Mexicans, you have quite the network. So is he going where I suspect he is going?" I asked. The Spaniard shrugged.

  "It’s an age-old tale. The sins of the father are often visited upon the son. You should be grateful that my clients think it is only one son that needs to pay the price.”

  I understood the implication. Holding my bag, I left the docks, ditching the Peugeot three blocks from the train station. Sticking to the shadows, I made my way around, hanging out until the sun rose. Going into the station, I bought a ticket for the first train to Paris, and mentally rehearsed how I was going to break the news to Jordan. Felix was dead and I would now be the new King.

  Chapter 25

  Felix

  The first thing I was aware of was a splitting headache. The second was cold. Bone-chilling cold, the type of which we never got in France except in the mountains.

  "What the hell . . .?” I asked, blinking my eyes. I could have been blind, but I doubted it. I waited a few minutes, and could see just a single pinprick of light in the upper left corner of my vision, so at least I wasn't blind. I blinked and made sure the light wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't. My sense of gravity came back, and I could tell I was lying on my back, although I couldn't hear anything.

  I tried moving my hand, and I found I could block the light in the corner of my vision. Turning my head was painful, so I kept my head where it was. "Francois?" I croaked into the still, chill air.

  Only silence greeted me, so I lay still, hoping the pain in my head would diminish enough that I could think clearly. I was obviously inside something, I could sense that. What, I didn't know, but I was lying on a hard, smooth surface. I was still wearing clothes, but they weren't enough for this kind of cold. It was chilly enough that I swore it felt like I was lying down in a meat locker.

  At least I was alive. Memories came back to me slowly, and I still felt like there were some holes. I remembered the warehouse in Calais, and walking up to the Quonset hut. I opened the door and went in, and after that, all was blank until just now.

  After a while I thought I could at least sit up, but I started slowly, rolling to my side and then pulling my knees underneath me, letting blood pool in my head to keep my thought processes as strong as possible. The pain increased, but not by too much, so I sat up, leaning over in a cross-legged position with my elbows on my splayed knees in order to let some of the dizziness fade away.

  I was starting to think about trying to get to my feet when I heard footsteps outside whatever I was in. Instead of moving, I leaned back, trying to give myself the best ability to listen and think. It's an under-appreciated skill and one that was of vital importance for whatever I found myself in at the moment. A door rattled in front of me and opened, slate gray light filtering in. It was still blinding, and I shaded my eyes to try and diminish the dazzle.

  "Ah, you’re awake. That's good — that’s very good."

  I couldn't place the voice, but I could place the accent. Russian, perhaps Lithuanian. "Yeah. Do you have any aspirin?" I attempted, but I figured it was futile.

  The voice came back, and I thought it belonged to a man, but maybe a very deep-voiced woman too. A shape moved in the light as the dazzle faded from my eyes, and I saw that my first impression was correct. A dapper man, maybe about sixty years old or so, wearing a slim fitting suit that looked Italian in design, but the horrific smell of the tobacco wafting in told me he was certainly from the Russian sphere of the world. The Russians never have learned how to make tobacco that didn't smell like burning sweat-socks. "Aspirin? Very funny, Felix. You should have gone into comedy instead of following in your father's footsteps."

  The man stepped closer, letting in more light, and I could see some more of my surroundings. We were in a shipping container, but one that had been converted at least slightly. The floor had been covered in thick plywood, and there was minimal insulation on the walls. Considering the thick layer of snow on the hills in the narrow bit of vision I saw through the door, I was grateful. "Thanks, but it wasn’t really a joke. Who are you, and what's going on?"

  "Twenty-nine years ago, your father took from Russia something that was considered very valuable. A golden crown supposedly passed to the Romani by the Great Kahn himself. While the Gypsies were unable to hold onto it, no fault of theirs to be sure, but for nearly fifty years it rested within the secure possession of the Soviet Union, and later the Russian federation. You know of this crown, yes?"

  "Of course I do," I said. "It's my damn crown. Really, though, it's not as impressive as you make it out to be. It's not pure gold or anything. I don't even wear it or keep it with me, it stays at a family stronghold for safe keeping. And no, you can't have it."

  The man shrugged. "That is neither here nor there for me. I don’t so much care about the trinket
as I do the damage it caused me and my family."

  "How so? No offense, but you don't look like you're a suffering man." I shifted around on the pallet I was sitting on, measuring the distance from the man to me, and wondering if I could get past him. I doubted it, he looked like the sort of guy who'd have a lot of security waiting outside just in case I tried something. "Besides, that was my father's work, not mine."

  "Still. The man who was in charge of securing that facility, the one your father broke into and escaped, he had a family. Three children, two boys and a girl. After the humiliation of his failure, even though he was the only person to ever shoot the great Guillaume Hardy, he lost his job and his ability to put food on his family's table. Despondent, like too many Russian men, he turned to the cheap comfort of vodka. Within two years, he was a hopeless alcoholic, his children suffering while his wife tried her best to continue to keep them fed and clothed. If it wasn't for the fact that I loved my sister very, very much, her children would have starved in the winter of 1998."

  "I'm guessing you’re the rich uncle of the family," I said. "Since you know my name and my father's, I can also assume that you didn't get that money through legitimate ways."

  "What the rest of the world calls legitimate, men like us call boring," the man replied with a laugh. "In the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union, I was able to find myself in an opportune position within the Ukraine. While there were harsh feelings against those like me who are of Russian descent, the Ukrainians needed what I had access to, especially Soviet military hardware that could give them the ability to resist those who would try to take advantage of the new nation's position on the Black Sea. So yes, my business isn’t the type that receives Humanitarian Of The Year awards from the local Lion's Club. Ironically, if I did this with government connections within the United States, I could have been elected Vice President at some point."