by W. J. May
“I like the rain.”
“Watch your mouth,” Julian said as he elbowed her. “It’s not raining yet.” He pointed. “Let’s cut through Piccadilly toward the museum. He checked his watch. “The museum opens in half an hour.”
“Cool. So we can do a bit of sightseeing? I don’t remember the last time I was in downtown London. I don’t even know if I came here as a kid or if I just think I did because I’ve seen the pictures so many times.”
“Sorry, Kerrigan. No tourist stuff here. We need to scout the outside of the museum building and set up.”
Rae pulled on the strap on her shoulder to tighten it. “I know.” She glanced around the monument of Piccadilly as they cut across the concrete, and sighed with regret. She really wanted the freedom to explore, but she understood that the job came first. She focused on picking her pace up and showing Julian she meant business. “Are you staking out in a van or something?”
Julian smiled. “You are such a rookie.”
“I can still kick your butt.” She elbowed him, sending a gust of wind with her light touch.
He sidestepped to regain his balance. “I bet you could give me a good fight. However, no hideaway van. I’ll be hanging out at the pub or café across the street. Something with Wi-Fi.”
She paused mid-step. “Really? What happens if someone sees you?”
“Then they’ll see a guy sitting having a coffee, and hanging out on his computer. Maybe talking on his phone. No one’s going to pay any attention to me.”
His plan sounded too simple. “What happens if I need help?”
“You’ll be fine.” He pointed to a large light grey stone building with a slate roof. The steps led up to large pillars that seemed out of place among the English vintage buildings. Like an ancient Roman had come and decided to set up camp. “Let’s walk around to the other side of the building. You memorize all the exits?” He rolled his eyes and muttered to himself, “Stupid question. The girl’s got a photographic memory.”
“I don’t have a photographic memory. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“You knew the subway map with just one look.”
She had no idea why she knew that. “I don’t have a photographic memory,” she repeated.
As they moved along the side of the building, Rae pointed to a café across the street. “Let’s grab a coffee. You can see if the location is good there.” The place had large front windows with counters for customers to sit, and have full view of the museum.
“Let’s go.”
Two hot chocolates to go later, Julian agreed the place would be good for him. They played the tourist, continuing to move around the old museum building. They found a pub on the side of the building with a decent view. That gave Julian two options if he needed to move.
The museum doors were open when they finally came back around to the front of the building. “What is on the page the Privy Council wants so dearly?”
“I don’t have a clue.” Julian purchased tickets for the two of them while Rae waited back near the entrance.
She scanned the cameras in the front room, and checked the guards, and protective measures around the inside of the building. There were a lot of warning signs but not near as many cameras as she thought there would be.
Julian linked his arm through hers. “Shall we look around, love?” He winked at her and pointed to a tall statue situated near the wall of the main hall. “The artifacts in here are beyond impressive.” He pulled off the boy-trying-impress-a-girl act to a tee.
Rae pretended to giggle and moved closer to him as they passed a set of serious looking guards. She could play the part just as well as Julian. Her face turned serious when they passed the guards, and were out of hearing range. The hall was nothing like she had expected.
The black and white marble floor that seemed to adorn every building in Guilder covered the ground here as well. The hall was massive. A long corridor of carved white pillars, probably slate, sheltered display cases with fascinating objects behind glass and who knew what else. Rae only glimpsed into the first set of doors, but couldn’t fathom where all the pieces had come from.
Tall windows, running from the ground up to the incredibly high ceiling, filled in the spaces between the doors and pillars. The hall had no displays, no tables, chairs or even art on the walls. However, just the hall itself proved museum worthy. As they walked along, Rae noticed the rooms were darker, but the hall, even on a cloudy day, was bright and cheery. It was simply breathtaking. The Oratory at Guilder impressed her every time she stepped inside of it, but this… she didn’t even have words to describe the beauty.
Julian grabbed her hand and pulled her toward one of the open doors on their right. The room had quite a few people viewing the items on display. A school class followed behind a museum patron, leading them on a guided tour. Julian grabbed a pamphlet near the door and slowly walked down the left side of the room.
Rae could hear him counting as he moved. He stopped at fifty-three, and turned to face the case stacked against the wall with velvet red looping rails to warn visitors not to cross too close. “It’s not in there, is it?” Rae stood on tiptoe to see over his shoulder. She knew the blueprints and was pretty sure this wasn’t the right room.
“No. But if you could walk through the wall, you’d be directly behind it.” He turned his head slightly. “Can you walk through walls?”
“No.” She laughed at him. Does he think I’m Wonder Woman or something? “If you find me someone who can, I promise I’ll be able to do it next time.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
A guard stepped in and stood by the door, so they continued moving about the room. Rae figured his presence was meant to keep the noise and crazy level of the young students down. He barely spared Rae and Julian a glance.
Julian eventually led her out of the room and into the one right beside. Rae held her breath as butterflies rioted around in her stomach, and she stepped through the door. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the exact place where she knew the book would be, a stunning podium made of a wood light in color with large streaks of grain. Oak.
Her gaze travelled up the ornate stand to the item lying inside the glass case on top. Rae felt Julian reach for her, trying to pull her in the other direction – probably to appear less obvious if the cameras caught them later – but Rae ignored him. She wanted to know why some five hundred year old book had the Privy Council so enthralled.
She slowed her gait as she approached. The room looked exactly as the blueprints and photos she had studied the night before had shown, but only now so real and beautiful. Who would have thought? The glass protected the book from elements and human touch. She spread her fingers over the wood and stood on the tips of her toes to get a better look.
The pages had browned with age but the dark ink on the pages seemed a work of art on its own. There was a drawing of some kind of past scientific thing. She had no idea what it could be. It fascinated her nonetheless. Ultimately however, it was not the page she needed. Two pages behind it lay the details of something very important.
Julian leaned over beside her. “Anything interesting?”
“Old book. The flower on the one side looks Tudor. Like some you see on the walls of the Oratory at Guilder.”
He pointed to the brass plaque in front of the book. “Check the date, it’s definitely Tudor. Ol’ King Henry is probably furious he never found the guy who wrote this book.”
“Who did write it?”
“No idea. Or so that’s what the story says on the wall behind the book.”
She side-eyed him to see if his face revealed whether or not he knew more. It showed nothing. The school kids from the room next door began filing into the room. Julian and Rae stepped back from the book and moved absentmindedly to the next display. They pretended to study the other artifacts, but Rae’s mind continually studied the room, the cameras, the sensors and the book.
The book’s binding was frail. It didn’t take a
forensic scientist to figure that one out. The needed page would be easy to pull from the book; it was getting into the museum and removing the glass case that seemed the impossible part.
“Let’s go grab some lunch.” Julian’s voice brought Rae back to the here and now.
Silent they left the museum and headed to the café. They settled in a booth off to the side and ordered lunch.
“So what do you think?” Julian asked her.
“Let’s say I get into the room, how in the world do I get the glass case off?”
“There are sensors along the podium that line up along the base edge of the glass.”
Sure, Julian. Throw in another web to complicate the whole thing. “Seriously?”
He nodded and reached into his backpack. He slipped his hand under the table when the waitress came by with their fresh made pasties. When she left, he slid a rectangular box along the table toward her. “This’ll help.”
“What is it?” Rae opened the box and stared at some weird red stickers and a little pen-like object. “Did Nic make this?”
Julian smiled and shook his head as he bit into a French fry. “Nope. But I’m sure he will be doing stuff like this next year. He’s already signed on to work with the PC’s once he graduates.”
Happy for Nic, Rae pushed her excitement aside to focus on the box. “What does it do?”
“You will place the stickers in front of the places where the sensors are for the weight. They will balance the scale under the book while you use the stick to lift the glass. It works like a miniature version of a car jack. Press the button on the end and it’ll pump the glass case up on one side. Don’t forget to do the stickers first. I’ll have the main alarms and sensors for the hallways and into the room disabled, but I don’t have access to the security of each individual piece. You have a onetime shot with this thing and then poof, it’s done.”
“How am I going to get in?”
“Service entrance. I’ll show you it after we eat. You’ll go in through there at twenty-hundred hours.” He grinned at the confusion on her face. “That’s eight pm. Get used to the twenty-four hour clock, everyone thinks by it in the field. There’s a guard who goes for his smoke break. He’s the only guard on at that time of night. Everything else is done via video and security monitoring.”
I should just wear a red bull’s eye on my back and run through a paintball area.
“Don’t look so skeptical, Rae. I’ll have the alarms and everything turned off for three minutes. You’ve got more than enough time to get in and back out again.”
Rae blinked and straightened. More than enough time?
Julian nodded, as if he had heard her inner thought. “Use a speed tatù to get in and out. Just switch to whatever tatù you need. You’ll have an earpiece to hear me or talk to me while you’re inside. You just have to be extremely quiet. There are sound sensors and motion sensors around some of the artifacts.”
“Does the book have these sensors?”
Julian shook his head. “No, it’s not something that has a lot of monetary value. It’s more a collector’s item from the past. Other countries aren’t really interested in it.”
“How do you know that?” She couldn’t help but be skeptical. Her gut was telling her there had to be something important inside and if one page interested the Privy Council, there would be more… like her father’s journal. Shoot, she had to get around to reading that when she got back also.
“Okay, I don’t know for sure.”
She leaned toward him, knowing nobody could hear them, but wanting to be on the safe side nonetheless. “If the PC’s are interested in this book, you can be damn sure there are tatùs from other countries that are as well. If King Henry knew about tatùs and Guilder exists because of King Henry, it’s not hard to put two and two together. Do the math, Julian. It’s more obvious than you think.”
Julian looked at her strangely. It made Rae uncomfortable, but if she couldn’t be blunt with him, who could she share her concerns with?
“Rae,” he said slowly, “the PC’s are not the only tatù black ops division in the UK. And you are probably right, if they want the same information we do, so will foreign countries. It’s not our concern, though. It’s not our job to take on the worries of the entire country. We do what we can.”
“You mean; we do what we’re told to do? Don’t ask questions?”
“No! None of us are doing this blindly. We—”
“What do you know about the Xavier Knights?” She cut him off, but didn’t care. She was nervous about the upcoming op, and desperately wanted to trust the PC’s. It would make her life so much easier if she could trust them. She just didn’t know how.
Julian sighed. He sat quiet for a moment. Rae waited and ate a few bites of her hamburger. Maybe she had pushed him too far.
“The Xavier Knights are the other black ops working for British Intelligence. I’m telling you because you have every right to know. It’s not a secret. However, they work differently than we do… more like the way your father worked.”
That caught her attention. She had a pretty good idea what Julian meant by the last part of his sentence. She asked him anyways, “They don’t fight fair?”
“From my experience, no. They will do whatever it takes to get what they want, no matter the cost.”
Kraigan. Rae didn’t know why he popped into her head, but it made sense when she thought about it.
“Have they approached you?”
“What? No! No, not at all.” It was her turn to be surprised by Julian’s question. “I’ve heard about them but never asked anyone before you.”
“Be careful, Rae.” Julian didn’t say any more. The waitress came by to see if they needed anything else, and Julian turned the conversation to the weather. They finished their lunch in silence.
When they left, they walked around the museum again, and he showed her the service door that would be her entrance. “You’ll have to be quick. The guard is going to exit for his smoke break and you have to be fast enough to get by him and in through the door before it closes.”
“What?” There was a single cement path and then the five stairs that led down to the door. “How? Can we wedge the door so it’s unlocked or something?”
“The door is on a sensor. If it’s opened, the alarm goes off and all the doors to the rooms go into lockdown.”
Rae flashed on a mental image of the area, and followed behind Julian as he began walking. “I thought you were going to disarm the alarms.”
“Inside the building, but I can’t override the external doors without triggering the sensors. You’ll think of something. I’m not worried.” He checked his watch. We’ve got a few hours before it starts getting dark. Anything you want to do?”
“Find somewhere we can sit and go over everything where people can’t hear us.”
Julian pressed his lips together in a thin line. “There’s an apartment about twenty minutes from here that the Privy Council owns. We can go there.”
“Let’s go.”
Julian led the way and they spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening going over everything. Rae covered every detail again and again. She grew confident that once she was inside the building, it would be easy. She had three minutes once inside to grab the required page and then get back to the door where the guard would come back through when he finished his smoke. She would have to get through the door again before it closed. The entering and exiting the building were going to prove the hardest. Julian gave suggestions, but Rae had a feeling she would be winging it when the time came.
Chapter 14
Taking Candy From A Baby
Rae tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear; the soft black material of her long sleeve top brushed against her cheek. Silently, she moved along the grass, avoiding the sidewalks and street lights. She had changed at the apartment, and now wore a tight-fitting black outfit. Not the leather Jennifer would wear, but a soft stretchy material that would move quietl
y and not restrict her movements.
She walked at a brisk pace, but her heart raced like she was running a marathon. Her body had the urge to break into a run, but Julian had warned her to act natural on the city streets. His last words before she left him at the café had been, “No trace, no face”; which meant if she blended in and left no evidence behind, she would be home free. She had every intention of doing just that.
The museum facade loomed over her like a dreary castle against the starry night sky. The entrance had loads of pot lights to shine down on it, but on the side and around the back there were only a few sparse, dim lights. She climbed a fence and landed silently on the grass. Switching on Riley’s tatù, she sprinted across the lawn, dropping down into a roll when she heard a noise.
Crouching by a tree for cover, she carefully surveyed the area for the source, and nearly laughed out loud when she realized the sound had come from a pair of squirrels scurrying up an old tree nearby. She tried her watch, but needed her other hand to hold her wrist steady. Nerves!
It was nearly eight. She inhaled a deep breath, and let it out slowly, her body switching from Riley’s cheetah tatù to Devon’s fennec fox. The shaking and high strung feeling left, and she sighed in relief. No wonder Riley is always such a pain in the arse. His tatù mixed with adrenalin seemed impossible to manage. Devon’s tatù gave her better night-vision, and she was able to check her watch without having to turn on the backlight.
Nearly eight o’clock. She had about a minute to get to the stairs and have something planned. She could shift into a bird and wait on the stairway’s bar. Dumb idea. She threw caution to the wind, racing as fast as she could to the stairwell and diving down behind it as she heard the door open. She peered over the railing and held her breath.
The guard stood leaning against the door as he lit his cigarette. His heavy weight pushed the door back as far as it could go. The door hinges groaned in protest. He pushed himself off and started up the stairs.
Rae swung herself over the metal bar, landing soundlessly on the cement below. She slipped through the closing door and flattened herself against the wall. When the door clicked shut, she jerked, the noise jarring her strained senses. Biting her lip, she stood frozen expecting the guard to come tearing back inside. He never came.