by Cherry Adair
“During the party. And before you ask,” José said flatly, “it was not one of our guests. It was a small, intimate affair, and we had only our closest friends and family in attendance. People I have done extensive background checks on.”
“The same friends and family who attended your wife’s birthday event on the yacht two years ago?” Sark asked in a calm, flat tone.
He’d had a similar robbery on board his yacht then. “A member of the catering staff was caught red-handed. A simple theft.” He’d claimed. To save face. But it had been no member of the wait staff who had robbed him. Someone had broken into the safe. But it had been a relatively simple safe. One any common thief could crack. The thief had gotten away with the czar’s Imperial Fabergé egg José had given his wife for her birthday. The same egg had mysteriously reappeared a month later, back on its stand in a private collection in England. The original theft had not been reported, and its return had gone unremarked upon.
Nobody but himself and Maria knew it was on board and how it had come to be there.
“Yet immediately thereafter,” Jacques Montrose said quietly, tenacious as a dog with a bone, “you ordered the elimination of the entire staff of two security firms, fifty-four members of various catering companies, and replaced your ship’s captain. Twice, I believe.”
“One can never be too cautious.” José had lost track of the number of household staff eliminated, in all of their homes around the world, over the years. Perhaps Maria might know, but he doubted she cared either.
“Open channels and find this thief,” he told them flatly. “Do deeper background checks on every single member of my family, every staff member, every friend and associate, everyone who has attended any event I might have been present at over the past year. I want every available resource utilized until we find this man.”
“Do you think that it was directed at you specifically, or was this a regular run-of-the-mill thief who could just as easily have robbed any one of us in this room?” Sark asked after a moment.
“There was nothing simple about it.” Again he looked at each man in turn. “The San Cristóbal safe was invincible. And the only people who knew the portions of the combination are sitting here with me in this room,” Morales told him coldly. “The thieves, or thief, were clever and resourceful. Or . . .” His pause was enough to make the men shift uncomfortably in the seats. “. . . or the thief sits here among us.”
The men glanced at one another, then back to Morales. If in fact it was true, he didn’t know which of them it was, and he couldn’t afford to kill them all. Not now.
“Do you think this is personal, José?” Andreas Constantine, his oldest and most trusted lieutenant, asked.
José raised a brow. Of course it was personal. Wasn’t everything?
“I mean,” the Greek said quickly, “do you believe the thief was specifically targeting the codes? It is possible that the theft was random. Wealthy families suffer such things frequently.”
It felt personal. But then, everything did. Personal or random act. The codes were gone. That was all that mattered. “Find out,” he instructed.
“I will,” Constantine assured him. “It’s possible that he was not aware of exactly what it was he stole. It’s likely that he was after Maria’s well-publicized jewelry collection, nothing more.”
José steepled his fingers. “It is possible.” The thought had occurred to him. Afterward. He’d forgotten that Maria’s diamonds had already been in the upstairs library safe, instead of in the bedroom, as they normally were. It was possible the thief had come for her jewelry.
It was, of course, impossible to memorize all the information contained on the disks. That was the point. Making access to the mine complex, and perhaps impossible, without them.
If the thief had specifically stolen the disks, knowing what was on them, it would be that much harder to find them. Either the man was affiliated with another terrorist organization that would utilize the information for their own purposes, or the thief would sell the information to the highest bidder.
But if the thief had accidentally taken them when he’d stolen Maria’s jewelry, then José knew he was still screwed. Because not knowing their value might cause him to discard the disks as worthless.
The hot hand of God fisted in his stomach.
The contents of the disks held the key to his legacy—the tool necessary for leaving his mark on the world—something for his children and their children and their children after them. Future generations would speak the name José Morales with reverence.
He let his eyes speak for him about retribution if the job was not done. The men surrounding him knew the expression. At one time or another all of them had witnessed firsthand what happened to anyone who crossed purposes with him. He depended on that. Traded on it. And he intended to make an example of this thief.
It would be graphic.
No. Epic.
“Find him. Find him now.”
Nine
OCTOBER 8
HOUSTON
She moved with stealth and surety. Clearly, she’d recovered her sight. Good, Hunt thought savagely. He wanted her to see his face when he caught her. Looked forward to those unforgettable blue eyes widening as she realized that this time, God help her, she wasn’t going to get away from him.
He watched her on his small wrist monitor as she drifted like black smoke through the midnight-dark halls of the Houston museum. “Damn, she’s good.” If he hadn’t been here specifically to find her, if he wasn’t scanning every inch of the wide hallways, he wouldn’t have even known she was there.
Liquid motion, footsteps silent, she moved swiftly toward the gem exhibit at the end of the south corridor.
Where he patiently waited.
It had taken him—and the extensive resources of T-FLAC—almost a month to find her. Again. Once more they’d had to pull people off other assignments to locate this woman.
One bloody woman had eluded the best trackers in the world.
He’d thought he’d had her in Chicago three weeks ago. Knew, damn it, that he had her. But when he’d stormed into her hotel room, she was gone. And for the next fortnight her tracks had gone cold. Ice cold. It was as though she’d vanished into thin air.
Hunt enjoyed a challenge. But not this one. Time was running out. He not only despised wasting time, he didn’t have any more to spare. And he hated like hell acknowledging that this woman had managed to best him.
Even thinking about what she’d done to him in San Cristóbal irked him. As he’d suspected at the time, there’d been no time-locked safe at the Banco Central de San Cristóbal. And he had to live down being handcuffed to the bed. Jesus.
Now, he observed her as she moved about the exhibit hall in this small, obscure museum in Houston, Texas. Got you now. As she appeared, framed by the wide doors opposite his hiding place, Hunt pulled down his nvg’s. Her face was covered by a dark mask, but he didn’t need to see her face to ID her. He’d recognize that sinuous body anywhere.
He was surprised—and more than a little annoyed—to find his heart rate elevated with her this close. Anticipation. Annoyance. And, damn it, arousal. He hadn’t felt any of the three in months, and experiencing any of them now seriously pissed him off.
She’d had a busy, and highly profitable, month. Heists in Paris, Edinburgh, Madrid. She’d pocketed several mil in gems.
Hunt had followed her trail like a damn bloodhound, made a few guesses, followed his gut, and finally caught up with her here in Houston. Out of five possible jobs she could have pulled that week, Mick the Greek’s collection of jewelry, on loan to the Houston Museum, was one. Hell, it had been a long shot. But a long shot was better than no shot at all.
It had paid off.
He was going to keep his eyes fixed on her for the duration. She wasn’t going to be slipping by him. Not this time, sweetheart.
She played a dangerous game, targeting only those with questionable backgrounds. She didn’t rob the T
rumps or the glitterati of the entertainment industry, heads of state, or financial titans. She robbed people who had something to hide. People who didn’t want a bright light shone under their rocks.
In fact, some of the very individuals Homeland Security, and T-FLAC themselves, targeted. Coincidental? Not bloody likely.
Very clever.
The gems and jewelry in this exhibit were on loan from one Michael B. Corda. Corda, or Mick the Greek, a midlevel mob boss who’d done very well for himself in arms sales to the Middle East. Mick was smooth and sophisticated, and very, very wealthy. This display of his wife’s jewels was a taunt to the authorities who hadn’t managed to catch him. Yet.
Precisely the kind of setup his girl liked, Hunt thought, watching her uncanny stillness through narrowed eyes. No, damn it, not his girl. He frowned. But not precisely the overpriced, oversecured venues she usually robbed. The Houston museum’s security systems were basic, and no frills. Typical of most tightly budgeted small museums. Even with the few high-tech additions installed for this exhibit, hardly a challenge to someone with her skill and talent. And it was more than likely she didn’t know that anything had been added.
Hunt leaned a shoulder against the wall and settled in to be entertained. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s see you do your thing.” But he knew this time she’d bitten off more than she could chew. The traveling gem and jewelry exhibit was valued upward of $25 million. Most of the gems were big and flashy—like Mick. Obviously, the guy believed size mattered.
Infrared was passive, not the clearly visible red lines portrayed by the movie industry, and therefore invisible to even the most sensitive equipment. Hunt had an addition to his nvg’s to see the lines surrounding the display cases quite clearly.
The grid was basic. But basic or complex, since she couldn’t see it, she was about to set off the silent alarms. And he was quite content to hang back and wait. “Let her feel handcuffs for a change.” And a fat lot of good that would do, he thought wryly, since apparently she could quite easily slip out of them.
He had to think like her. So, to see just how hard it would be to stay in the museum after closing, he’d paid his six bucks and entered with the rest of the crowds. He could’ve, of course, gone the official route. But she wouldn’t have had that advantage.
Blending with the crowds, he kept an eye out for a slender woman with brilliant blue eyes. Yeah, right. As if she wouldn’t hide such a distinctive feature. Still, he’d looked at everyone. Twice. Hell, it was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Just before closing, he found an excellent hiding place in the exhibit hall and settled in to wait. It was now 8:00 P.M.
No alarms had gone off, which meant she hadn’t breached the perimeter security system to enter the building. He deduced she too had paid admission, then hidden until the guards had slipped out for dinner and the cleaning people were done and gone.
She’d go for the sapphires, he knew instinctively. There were seven cases containing the entire sapphire collection. They weren’t the biggest or flashiest gems in the exhibit, but they wouldn’t draw unwanted scrutiny once they were recut, and they’d turn her a very nice profit on the secondary market. Somewhere around the two-million mark if she got them all.
Her task was impossible. Hunt knew it. She had apparently failed to notice. First of all, because the cases were intentionally spread the full length of the exhibit hall. The logistics alone would prohibit her from successfully breaking into seven secured display cases set fifty feet apart.
Second, in addition to the extra security of alarms, sensors, and infrared, there were pressure-sensitive pads surrounding each polycarbon column containing the jewelry and loose stones. If the polycarbon was touched, an alarm went off. If the stones or jewelry were lifted from their own pressure-sensitive pads deep inside one of the clear poly tubes, the alarms would sound.
No, she wasn’t going to be able to pull this one off. But it would be interesting to watch her try.
And then he’d have her.
He couldn’t fault her on her timing. He glanced off to the left. The security guards inside the vast room were as far from her now as they were going to get. She had a grand total of five minutes fourteen seconds to get in and get out.
Wasn’t going to happen.
He turned his gaze back to the doorway.
She was gone.
Taylor drew in a cleansing breath as she rapidly walked toward exhibit number seventeen, hugging the wall. It was always so much more interesting when the guards’ routine wasn’t carefully timed. The good thing about these two was that they were pals, and one had recently returned from his two-week vacation. They had a lot to talk about. And they walked slowly. The hum of their low voices was a nice counterpoint to the steady beat of her heart.
She’d given herself four minutes to get the necklace and earrings and be gone. The gems had been reset but, fortunately, not recut. And the collection she wanted was conveniently all in the same display case. Number seventeen.
Taylor had retrieved their original exquisite and very distinctive platinum setting from the fence in Holland a year ago, before it could be melted or sold.
By tomorrow the sapphires, in their original setting, would be reunited, and back where they belonged.
Her slippered feet moved soundlessly as she started running lightly across the marble floor. She’d counted the steps from the wall to the pedestal as she’d polished the floor earlier.
She’d also managed to stick a piece of chewing gum directly over the eye of the motion detector on the pedestal holding her target. She couldn’t see the invisible infrared grid, but she knew where it was supposed to be from the rough drawing she’d lifted from the guard’s station two days ago.
Warm air from the un-air-conditioned room fanned her face as she ran, picking up speed. The slick black bodysuit hugged her every curve, covering her from head to toe. Only her eyes were exposed.
The marble floor had an intricate geometric design of alternating squares of black and cream, with a wide black band bordering the room. Inside that black band, and bisecting the three-foot-tall, black marble bases of the eight-foot-high, clear polycarbon tubes, was the infrared grid. All she had to do was go up and over it. Up three feet, over twelve.
When Taylor’s toes touched the inner edge of that border she exhaled, then launched herself high in the air, like a trapeze artist, without the trapeze. A double tuck midair and she landed as light as thistledown on the outer edge of the square base supporting the number-seventeen polycarbon display tube. Three minutes eleven seconds to go, she counted off mentally. Plenty of time.
She did a deep knee bend, sliding her torso down the outside circumference of the tube. There was a button under the lip of the base . . . Ah. There. She turned off the microwave detector she hadn’t had time to deactivate earlier, then paused before standing upright. Alert to the smallest sound, she held her breath and listened.
Nothing but the indistinct voices at the other end of the hall. Still, an icy shiver raced up her back like a premonition.
A couple of weeks ago in Chicago she’d sensed someone following her. She hadn’t seen anyone, and it had been for only a few hours, but she’d crisscrossed the city. Backward and forward. Changing her appearance at every stop until she was positive she’d shaken the tail.
She’d trusted the feeling enough to go straight to the airport from the house party, instead of returning to her hotel.
Tonight that feeling of being watched was back in spades. She never ignored her instincts, and right now every nerve and muscle in her body warned of impending danger. If she was fanciful—which she frequently was—she imagined a jungle cat, sleek and black, watching her from the darkness. Waiting to pounce. Her heart hammered.
She forced herself to crouch there, absolutely still for a few more valuable seconds as she listened carefully for the slightest out-of-place sound, a movement, a change in the air around her.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Another precious few seconds passed as she waited. Still nothing. If danger lurked in the darkness, it wasn’t going to disappear while she hung around waiting for it. Time to get moving. Taylor suddenly had a quick, visual memory of the man in San Cristóbal—
No, damn it. Concentrate. No sudden jarring moves. Keep it smooth. Steady.
She couldn’t afford to use a light, but in her mind’s eye she visualized the necklace on its cream velvet bed shooting blue fire. Come to mama.
The clear poly tube was eighteen inches in diameter and eight feet tall. The exhibits had been carefully placed on motion-sensitive pads, then the open-ended tubes lowered over the top to fit snuggly into magnetic rims on each base.
Other than removing the tube—impossible without large equipment—the only way in to the gems was to lower herself down inside the tube.
Standing on her toes, Taylor jumped up, gripping the outer edge of the display tube between her tightly gloved hands, and without missing a beat, lifted herself up over the rim. She went down head-first into the cylinder, her feet hooked over the rim to hold her in place. It was a tight fit.
Two minutes forty seconds. Piece of cake.
Blood rushed to her head with the sound of the ocean roaring as she unhooked a weight from her belt while feeling carefully with her other hand for the cool silver links of the necklace at the bottom of the case.
Velvet . . . velvet . . .
Bingo.
She skillfully exchanged the weight for the necklace, another for the earrings, then stuffed both into her leg pack and inched herself backward out of the tube.
Barely out of breath, sitting balanced on the thick rim, legs dangling inside the display case, Taylor gave herself a few seconds to readjust her equilibrium.
She couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched. But she could see the guards wending their way back—still hundreds of yards away. And the red eyes of the cameras were dark. She’d clipped a few wires and looped the security feed earlier. No one was watching her, of course, but the hairs on the back of her neck said otherwise.