Avenue of Thieves

by Sean Black

  McLennan picked up the duty rota. “I’m going to update my guys. I have Hoyle, who should be able to cover with us tonight, and I can filter in the other two tomorrow.”

  They watched him walk out of the room.

  “Maybe we’re finally steadying the ship here, Ryan,” said Ty.

  “I wouldn’t go counting any chickens just yet. We’re still light. We’re going to have to pick up our share of the grunt work for the foreseeable.”

  “It’ll be like old times,” smiled Ty. “Only the coffee’s way better here. So the PI firm cleared everyone, huh?”

  “As far as they could. There may be stuff going on that we don’t know about but, yeah, everyone seems to be above board.”

  “And no one’s been thrown out of a window, or shot themselves in the face in the last twenty-four hours, so that has to be reason for celebration, right? Maybe they’ve decided to back off.”

  Lock sighed. “I doubt it. I just wish we had some idea who they are. ‘The Russians’ covers a lot of people.”

  “Well, Grigor Novak was with the embassy.”

  “Not according to what the embassy told the FBI. They’ve denied all knowledge of him. Said they never had someone with that name, or anyone matching his description, working for them.”

  “You believe them?” Ty asked.

  “Hell, no,” said Lock. “But you try disproving it.”

  “Okay,” said Ty, yawning loudly. “I’m going to check in on the little Russian princess, then hit the hay for a few hours.”

  “The princess?”

  “Anastasia, not Elizabeth,” said Ty.

  “Good. You had me worried there for a second. Goodnight.”

  “Night.”

  Ty’s turn on residential security detail started at two in the morning and would run until mid-afternoon. He would be joined by one of McLennan’s team. Until then, Lock was on duty with McLennan.

  When drawing up the rota, he and Ty had decided it was better not to work the same shifts. It would help establish their relationship with McLennan’s team, and it also served as insurance that everything was being done properly. One man would monitor the camera feeds and alarms in the control room, while the other would patrol. Then they would switch.

  Lock had insisted that they use a patrol pattern that shifted over the course of the night rather than taking place at set times. Predictability was the enemy of good residential patrol work. The pattern would vary randomly from night to night. That way, anyone looking to enter the building would have no way of knowing exactly where one of them would be at any given time.

  As an additional measure, all four men would be staying in the townhouse, utilizing some of the many spare bedrooms. That way, if there was an issue, four of them would be available immediately to deal with it.

  Lock’s hope was that once they had everything stabilized, and some fresh personnel added to the team, he and Ty could step down their day-to-day involvement.

  But until then, it was a matter of sucking up the twelve-hour shifts.

  Ty knocked quietly on Anastasia’s bedroom door. She was lying in bed, watching TV.

  “Shouldn’t you be asleep, young lady?” he said, peering around the door.

  “You’re not going to be a tattle-tale, are you?”

  “Me? No, I ain’t no snitch. But, seriously, you should get some rest.”

  “I haven’t had my story.”

  “You want me to get your mom?” asked Ty.

  “Could you read it to me?”

  “Sure thing.”

  He walked across to a small bookcase by the window.

  “Any requests?” he asked her, scanning the spines. “Let me see, what do we have that’s good? The Gruffalo? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? The Princess Diaries?”

  “The Princess Diaries,” said Anastasia, propping herself up on one arm.

  “You want me to read you The Princess Diaries?”

  “Yes.” She giggled.

  “You got it.”

  “Just at the end there,” she said, pointing it out.

  He plucked the book off the shelf, went over to the chair by the window that the nurse had been using, and opened to the first chapter.

  By the middle of the second, Anastasia was asleep. Ty put the book back on the shelf, switched off the light, and crept to the door.

  39

  Ty woke by himself at five minutes to two. He got up, dressed quickly in the dark, grabbed his radio, gun and holster, and headed out into the corridor. The house was quiet, everyone else asleep. Everyone apart from him and Lock. Just like old times.

  Before he headed downstairs, he checked on the kid. She was fast asleep, limbs stretched out, like a starfish’s, not a care in the world. He smiled to himself as he pulled her door closed, vowing he’d do everything he could to make sure she stayed like this, safe, cocooned with her family, and free from the strain of what was happening.

  At the bottom of the stairs he made a left, headed for the makeshift control-security room they had set up. Lock was standing, his eyes on the camera monitors as Ty walked in. McLennan was with a member of his team, an Englishman called Hoyle.

  “Anything?” asked Ty.

  “No. Quiet as the grave,” said Lock.

  “You know Hoyle, right?” McLennan said to Ty.

  “Seen you guys around,” said Hoyle.

  “Likewise,” said Ty, shaking his hand, then turned to Lock and McLennan. “Go get some sleep. We got this.”

  Lock and Ty bumped fists. Lock grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair picked up his holstered SIG and headed out with McLennan as Ty settled in.

  “I’m going to do a quick recon, shouldn’t be more than a half-hour,” said Hoyle. “Buzz me if you see anything on the cameras.”

  “Roger that,” said Ty.

  Hoyle headed out, leaving Ty in the empty control room, which was not much more than a glorified store cupboard.

  When Ty had begun working private security this had been his least favorite part of the job. You couldn’t watch TV or read a book. You had to stay present, watching the same unchanging view for hours on end. Staying alert wasn’t so much an exercise in patience as Zen. You had to be present but detached.

  Lock had told him the only way to get through it was to accept it. If you fought against it you were likely to get lax. And if you got lax you screwed up.

  A monitor picked up Hoyle, walking along the hallway, headed into the kitchen. Keeping an eye on all eight monitors, Ty watched him move into the kitchen, through a door, and to the rear entrance.

  Hoyle opened the back door and stepped outside. The outside camera picked him up as he patrolled the small rear yard, shining his Maglite into the darkest recesses. A rat scurried near some garbage cans, momentarily caught in the beam of light. Hoyle continued to scope out the area, flashlight in hand, his other hand resting on his weapon. Satisfied that all was well, he moved back to the door.

  Ty tapped the keyboard that controlled the monitors, switching up a couple of angles. His attention shifted to the front outside camera as a couple walked past, arm in arm, a little drunk. They stopped a few feet from the bottom of the townhouse steps, the man pulling in his female companion for a kiss. His hand moved down to her thigh. She backed off, playfully swatting him away. He took her hand and they moved on, disappearing from Ty’s view a few seconds later.

  Inside, Hoyle skirted through the dining room, checking windows that had been checked less than an hour before. He kept going silently through the house.

  Minutes ticked by. Outside the city quietened as the small hours ticked by. The odd cab flitted down the street. People hurried past. Ty kept watch, missing nothing.

  40

  Halfway across the ladder, Viktor froze. Directly beneath him was a sixty-foot sheer drop onto metal railings that separated the rear of the two townhouses.

  The gap was nothing, really. Less than fourteen feet. Too far to jump with any certainty.

  On the other sid
e, Artur held the ladder in place against the lip of the tar beach roof. He had been first across, his journey more perilous because there had been no one else where he was now to hold it in place.

  “Look at me,” hissed Artur.

  Viktor raised his head. The sudden rush of vertigo passed.

  “Come on,” said Artur. “You’re almost there.”

  What the hell did he think he was doing? he asked himself. He was too old for this kind of caper. The painting, that was why. Ninel had known exactly what she was doing when she’d shown it to him. It wasn’t only the money he could sell it for. It was the prestige of being the man who’d stolen it. The painting was famous and, in Viktor’s world of thieves, the glory would reflect directly onto him.

  You went out and robbed a bank, or knocked off an armored truck? Big deal. Money was money. All banknotes looked the same. This was different. Unique. Special.

  He moved his hands along the ladder and shimmied forward a few more inches. He kept his eyes on Artur.

  “Almost there,” said Artur.

  “Shut up,” hissed Viktor.

  Someone would hear them if they weren’t careful.

  His hands were so cold he could barely feel them. He had gloves, but he didn’t want to wear them while crossing. They were slippery and he was worried about losing his grip.

  He was almost there. He grabbed the side of the ladder and pulled himself forward one more time. As his hands found the lip of the roof, Artur grabbed him and dragged him towards the roof. Collapsing, he lay there for a moment, sucking air into his lungs. This would have to be his last burglary. It was a young man’s game. From now on he would stick to what he was good at: running the club and threatening to break people’s legs if they didn’t pay what they owed.

  Artur grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Now it was Lev’s turn. He was already on the ladder, scampering across like a squirrel.

  Finally the three of them stood safely on the roof. The hardest part was over.

  They dug out their ski masks and put them on. There were cameras inside, and they couldn’t count on them being non-operational, even if the alarms had been disabled.

  Lev pulled his lock-pick set from inside his jacket, and together they walked to the access door. Once that was open they would be inside.

  Ninel had promised that the alarm would be disabled but Viktor wasn’t overly concerned. If it tripped his plan was simple. Get downstairs, grab the painting, and whatever else they could carry, and go out through the back door.

  By the time the cops got there, they would be long gone.

  Hoyle got up and stretched. He really needed to take a leak, but Ty was out on patrol. Worse, he’d only just left the control room so it would be a good twenty minutes before he’d be back.

  Hoyle peered at the screens. They looked exactly as they had all night. Nothing was moving, out there or inside, apart from him and Ty. He looked at the door. There was a bathroom just down the hall. It would take maybe ten seconds to get there, a minute to do what he had to do, another twenty seconds to clean his hands, and ten seconds back.

  The protocol was strict. No one stepped away from monitoring at night unless there was someone to cover. But this would take less than two minutes.

  No one would even know he was gone.

  Putting away his pick set, Lev pushed down on the handle and opened the door. Viktor thumped him heartily on the back. He had been the right choice for this task. No one could pick a lock faster than Lev. He was a craftsman among thieves, a true vory, like the old-school men who had come from Russia originally.

  Together they walked through the door, down the short set of steps and into the hallway of the top floor of the house. Even a cursory glance told Viktor there was money here.

  The carpets were deep and lush, the wall coverings of the finest quality. Everything was clean and polished to a bright luster. The terror of the ladder behind him, Viktor was beginning to feel much more warmly to Ninel.

  Ty froze as he walked out of the kitchen. He’d heard something. A footfall, or footfalls. They sounded like they had come from up above.

  He stayed where he was and listened. Maybe it was someone going to the bathroom. Or perhaps Elizabeth or Dimitri couldn’t sleep and had gone to check on Anastasia.

  He listened more keenly. Nothing. If it had been something, Hoyle would have seen it and given him a heads up.

  A toilet flushed somewhere in the house. Yeah, he told himself, the noise had to have been someone getting up to take a leak. Maybe McLennan or Lock.

  They stopped at the bedroom door. Viktor signaled for Lev to open it. Even though the house was empty, old habits died hard. There was no point making unnecessary noise.

  Lev pushed the door open. He half turned. Viktor saw the expression on his face and knew without even looking into the room what it was.

  He motioned for Lev to pull the door closed again.

  “They’re still here,” Lev whispered, moving away from the door.

  Viktor’s jaw tightened. He silently cursed Ninel. But he had come for the painting and he wasn’t going to leave without it.

  Opening his jacket, he reached down into his waistband and pulled out his pistol. Artur and Lev followed his lead.

  They followed him down the hallway, measuring every footstep with care as they made their way to the top of the staircase.

  Hoyle walked back into the control room to see two motion sensors blinking. Probably one of the Semenovs going out into the corridor to check on their daughter. There were sensors at either end of the top-floor hallway, and those were the ones that were blinking.

  Comfortable now that his bladder was empty, he sank down into his chair and scanned the monitors. Nothing. That particular hallway area was empty. He rolled through all the camera feeds. The only person he picked up was Ty who was making his way to the top of the staircase.

  Anastasia Semenov tossed and turned in her bed. It was the same nightmare she’d been having for weeks. She was in a forest. Something was chasing her. She couldn’t see what it was. But she could hear it, bearing down on her.

  She hurdled a fallen branch, tripped and fell. The thing kept coming. Just as it was almost on top of her, she woke with a start.

  She was in her bedroom. At home.

  A man was standing over her. She couldn’t see his face but knew instantly that it wasn’t Ty. Or her father. Or anyone who worked for him.

  This was a stranger, and he was wearing a mask.

  As she opened her mouth to scream his hand clamped over her mouth, pushing her back down into the pillows.

  He wasn’t alone.

  There were two other masked men with him. Only their eyes were visible.

  One held his finger to his lips, ordering her to be quiet.

  Ty stopped at the door that led to the steps up to the rooftop. Something was off, but he couldn’t decide what it was. When you’d been in the job as long as he had you developed a sense about things.

  He had heard the footsteps. He had heard the toilet flush. Then nothing.

  He thought about walking along to where Lock was sleeping and asking if he’d used the can, but he was probably fast asleep again.

  He dug out his radio and keyed the mic.

  “Hoyle? You there? Over.”

  As he waited he cranked down the volume on the radio. There was no point waking anyone else over what was likely no more than a rush of late-night paranoia.

  It was his first evening patrolling the house. Every place had its own sounds; creaking pipes, wind-rattled windows. He was still adjusting, getting a feel for the place. Maybe that was all this uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach was.

  “I’m here. What’s up, Ty? Over.”

  “I thought I heard someone using the can. You see anyone on camera? Over.”

  There was a slightly longer silence than he had expected. “Sorry, that was me.”

  Ty lowered the radio and looked at. He cursed softly under his breath. He’d
speak to Hoyle when he got back down to the control room. “Okay, maybe give me a heads up next time. Over.”

  “Will do. Over.”

  Goddamn amateurs. Not leaving a control room was basic stuff. He shoved the radio back in his pocket and headed up the steps to the roof.

  The access door was unlocked. He looked to see if it had been forced, but the wood and the lock didn’t appear to show any damage. Hoyle must have forgotten to lock it when he came back in.

  They’d have to speak to McLennan in the morning and tell him Hoyle had to shape up fast or go. The guy was sloppy. In this game, sloppiness got people killed.

  Ty wedged the door open and walked the perimeter of the roof, peering over at the front to get a look at the street. A lone cab rolled along slowly, but other than that it was deserted.

  He skirted round the rest of the rooftop. As he reached the far side, he saw a long metal ladder stretched between this rooftop and the neighbors.

  He ran back for the access door, pulling his radio out as he went. Taking the steps two at a time, he burst through the door into the hallway.

  “Hoyle! Check the cameras. Now. Over!”

  “What’s up?”

  “We have a breach is what’s up. Over.”

  “What are you talking about? The cameras are all clear. Over.”

  “Well, someone put a ladder down connecting our roof to the neighboring property and the rooftop door was unlocked. I’m going to start checking rooms. Over.”

  “I’ll call the cops. Over.”

  “Yeah, you do that. Over.”

  Ty’s first instinct was to check Anastasia’s room, but he kept walking down the hallway to where Lock was sleeping. He rapped on the door, and pushed his way in.

  Lock was already out of bed, pulling on his clothes, and slinging on his holster. A notoriously light sleeper he had obviously heard Ty’s frantic radio call down to the control room.

  “Roof?” said Lock, getting confirmation.