A Beautiful Heist (27 page)

Within short order dinner was served: steaming hot beef bourguignon, crusty rolls, salad, chocolate cake, wine . . . but my food sat uneaten. I picked at the roll, drank most of the wine. After the trays were cleared and coffee was served, the lights dimmed. I looked around to see that, besides the three of us, everyone was plugged into headphones, gaze glued to miniscreens watching movies. Which left us free to talk business again.

Brooke reached forward and pulled out a quilted Chanel makeup bag. “Okay,” she said, touching up her lip gloss in a tiny mirror. “So, Ethan, what do we know about security at Westminster?”

Ethan grinned. “I was hoping you’d ask.” He withdrew a sheaf of documents. I smiled to myself. Ethan was thoroughly enjoying this.

Brooke paused in her grooming. “What’s all that?”

“Intel. Recon. Blueprints and building schematics.”

“Really?” She looked at me. “Impressive.”

We discreetly sifted through floor maps and blueprints and satellite images and lists of CCTV locations and security systems, intruder alarms. One thing was obvious: this was not going to be easy. After looking everything over and making notes, I reclined in my seat. A yawn escaped my lips.

“We should probably get some sleep,” Ethan said. “Big job ahead of us.”

Brooke nodded, but continued frowning at the documents. She pulled out a pencil.

“Oh, hang on,” Ethan said, flipping through his folder. “One more thing. Here’s the file on the intended sacrifice victim.”

Brooke snapped her head up and looked over her reading glasses—the reading glasses I was confident she didn’t actually need but I had to admit looked very stylish, with their square plastic frames and
Donna Karan
engraved on the arm. “Sacrifice?”

I nodded grimly. “The Caliga believe they need a human sacrifice in order to unlock the power of the Gifts,” I explained.

“Oh. Well, naturally,” Brooke said.

“She’ll be a prisoner, when we get in there,” Ethan said. “We’ll have to find a way of getting her out, too.”

“How, um, mythical. Is she a virgin?” asked Brooke.

“That I don’t know,” said Ethan. “But here’s the file.”

He handed it to me and I flipped it open. I looked at the picture stapled to the inside cover. And found myself staring at Nicole Johnson’s face.

Ethan related the details on where they were holding Nicole, but all I heard was the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher.

“Oh. My. God,” I said quietly, staring at the photograph.

Ethan glanced at me sharply. “Do you
know
her?”

I nodded. Brooke snatched the file from my hand. “That’s Nicole Johnson,” she said, looking at the photograph.

Ethan studied it again. “Oh, you’re right. I remember her from the golf tournament. I hadn’t really looked closely at the face.”

I scraped my teeth together and closed my eyes.
Really?
Did it really have to be her that I needed to save? How did this happen?

I puzzled things back into place. Sandor must have grabbed her because he knew she was following him. She was the enemy, working for the FBI, and she was getting close to finding out the truth. It had been a smart move on Sandor’s part, I had to admit, in the tradition of killing two birds and all that. Getting rid of the FBI on your back and landing yourself a sacrifice candidate, all in one go.

And then I remembered it had been me who had drawn Sandor’s attention to Nicole’s presence at the convenience store, when she was staking him out. I closed my eyes. This was my fault, too.

Ethan studied me with concern. “No worries, Montgomery. We’ll get her out. She’ll be fine.”

I liked Nicole. I did. I told myself firmly this didn’t change a thing. But just to recap: I was about to put myself in extreme peril and make a potentially career-ending move that involved teaming up with my sworn enemy and saving the woman who stole the love of my life.

Perfect.

 

It was a bright, frosty day and Jack was ready for a fresh start. In the kitchen he snapped a crisp newspaper, scanning the headlines and drinking coffee.

Life would go back to normal, Jack told himself. He would go back to his regular job as an FBI agent. And this time, with no conflict. He would go back to a life free from criminal entanglement. No Wesley. No Cole. No Cat. He felt a twinge there, but firmly chalked it up to heartburn from the coffee he’d just gulped.

Standing before the hallway mirror, he straightened his tie and plucked off the piece of tissue from his freshly shaved neck. Ready to go.

And then, the phone rang. Jack picked up the receiver resting on the front hall table. “Hello?”

“Jack, is that you?” said a woman’s voice. “Judy Montgomery here—Cat’s mother.”

There was silence for several seconds. Cat’s mom? What was she calling for? “Um, hi, Judy.” He rubbed his face and frowned. “How have you been?”

“Fine, fine. But listen, Jack. I need your help. Catherine is flying to London for a job. I spoke to her last night when she was on the plane. And the truth is, I’m worried. I’ve been stewing about it all night. It’s something Templeton doesn’t know about. I don’t understand it. She told her father she’s not getting paid for this job. And that she’s trying to make something right—correct a very old wrong. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”

Jack’s bright-morning feeling began curling up at the edges and shriveling away. “I—I’m not sure, Judy. Was she by herself?”

“I heard a man’s voice in the background. He said her name.”

Ethan,
Jack thought, with a kick to the stomach.

“Oh, and Brooke,” Cat’s mother added. “You know, Brooke Sinclair?”

Brooke?
Alarm bells sounded. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t know, Jack, I have a bad feeling. She made me promise not to tell Templeton. Which . . . is why I’m calling you. She didn’t say anything about not telling
you
.”

Damn.
Cat had gone to London to get the Fabergé back. That’s what she’d meant by correcting an old wrong. She must have found out the truth somehow. Jack wasn’t surprised, really; it made perfect sense that Cat would do this. The girl had grit, that was certain.

“Do you have any idea where they’re going? Could it be Greenwich, perhaps?” He cringed, waiting for the answer.

“No,” Judy said.

Jack exhaled with relief.

“Westminster Palace, actually,” she said. “You know, Big Ben and all that?”

Westminster,
Jack thought, frowning. Something about that made him think—

Wait. Jack dashed down the hall, cradling the phone. He scrabbled on his desk and found the piece of paper Wesley had given him, the transcribed old prophecy about the Gifts. As he reread the words, his skin prickled and crawled. Something was wrong.
The origin of time.
That could be—

Oh no.
He quickly pulled up a browser on his computer and Googled St. Stephen’s, punching the keys. He sat back hard in his desk chair as he stared at the first search result: St. Stephen’s chapel, on the site of Westminster....

The
time
reference could be the great clock. Big Ben.

Jack ground his teeth. Wesley and Cole were in the wrong place. He heard a woman’s voice, tinny in his ear, and realized that Cat’s mother had been speaking the whole time.

“I suppose if she’s with Brooke,” Judy was saying, “she’ll be fine. That girl is very capable....”

Brooke.
Jack’s blood ran cold. It was a trap; it had to be. Brooke could easily have fed false information to Nicole about the prophecy and Greenwich. And because of that, Cole and Wesley, and the FBI for that matter, had been sent off to the wrong location. The final part of the plan would be to accompany Cat to the correct location, Westminster, where Sandor was waiting.

Cat was in great danger.

Jack felt a hot flush of fear and anger. It was stupid of Cat to do this. It was reckless and risky.

Cat’s mother was still talking in Jack’s ear. “There’s something else I feel the need to say, Jack. And I know Cat is not going to be happy with me for this, and this may not be the best time to mention it, but the truth is: she has always loved you.”

“That’s, um, kind of you to say, Judy. But she seems quite happy in her new relationship now. I’m sure it was Ethan Jones’s voice you heard on the airplane.”

“Ethan?” Judy said. She laughed. “Oh goodness, she’s not in a
relationship
with that fellow. I believe she had a little fling, but it was nothing serious.”

Jack frowned, confused. “How do you know that?”

“I have ways,” she said lightly.

Jack’s stomach flip-flopped. Could this be true?

“You know,” Judy said, “I’m ever so glad I decided to phone you, Jack. I feel much better. You’ve been very reassuring.”

When Jack got off the phone with Cat’s mother, he pressed back into his office chair. He tugged his tie to loosen it, and rubbed his face. So much for a fresh start.

Jack picked up the phone to send an urgent message to Wesley. But when he tried, the call was blocked. He stared at the phone a moment, frowning. And then he remembered. Total severing of communication. He had no way of contacting Wesley.

Jack leaned forward, buried his head in his hands, and scrubbed his hair. He sat back and gazed out the window. So. What was he going to do now?

My leg muscles tightened as I gained purchase on a foothold and hoisted myself several inches upward. I was a hundred and fifty feet off the ground, midway to the top of Victoria Tower, the tallest tower in Westminster Palace. The Thames glittered in the streetlights, far below. I could see the great clock, the one everyone calls Big Ben, lustrous atop the tower opposite me. Double-decker buses rumbled across Westminster Bridge; a big black cab honked faintly in the night.

The cold stone was carved with ornate Gothic features like leaves, birds, and gargoyles, which made for excellent climbing. An English drizzle hung in the air, soaking into my black Lycra.

Brooke and I were climbing together, tucked into the shadowy side of the tower, hidden from street view. My heart beat a steady clip and my limbs moved rhythmically. I felt like I was full of electricity.

Mostly, this felt like an insane idea. Like we didn’t stand a chance. But there was a faint, tiny hope—and that’s what I was clinging to.

After we’d arrived at Heathrow Airport that afternoon, a London cab had carried us away from the airport and into the city itself. The cab dropped us off at our home base, the Savoy Hotel. That was where we made our plans.

When we checked in, a package was waiting for me at the front desk. A plain brown-wrapped box from Lucas, containing a full complement of all my favorite tools: a climbing harness, grappling hook, Manolos with a tranquilizing dart in the stiletto ... everything. Just as I requested.

“Okay, here’s how we’re going to do it,” Brooke said, pulling out a blueprint from Ethan’s file and a notebook jammed with written notes. “So first of all—”

“When did you come up with this?” I asked her. I stared at the notes, frowning with confusion.

“On the plane.”

“What? In your sleep?”

“I stayed awake.”

Ethan and I exchanged a glance. A smile curled my lips. This was the old Brooke. The Brooke without agenda or artifice. This was the reason I asked her to help me.

She continued. “You know about misdirection?” she asked, spreading sheets out on an old metal table. “The way a magician uses one hand to distract the audience while the other hand does the trick?”

I frowned slightly, wondering where this was going. “Sure.”

“Well, that’s going to be us,” she said.

We listened and she described in detail how we were going to get in. She stood up and started pacing as she laid out the plan, and then she reached the point where we get to the safe.

“And, Cat,” she said, turning to me, “you’ll take it from there.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you’re the best at safecracking,” she said plainly, without looking up.

“I—am?” A thrill passed through my insides at the compliment.

“I mean, no
offense,
Ethan Jones,” Brooke said, not looking particularly concerned whether she was offending anyone or not. “But I don’t know enough about your skills. That’s why I’ve got you positioned here, to start, as a lookout.” She put a finger on the schematic.

Ethan smiled wryly. “No offense taken, Brooke. And you’re quite right. Montgomery
is
the best at safecracking.”

Brooke went on to outline the rest of the plan. My eyes widened as she laid out the details; I saw Ethan’s do the same.

Now, the wind whipped all around us as we climbed Victoria Tower for the first stage.

“So, Cat,” Brooke said, her voice coming in with a faint crackle through my earpiece. “We’re about to save the life of the woman who stole your man. Interesting, isn’t it?”

And there we had it. There was the other side of Brooke I knew and loved. I scraped my teeth together. “Brooke, shut up,” I spat.

“What?” she said with mock innocence.

Ethan’s voice came crackling through our earpieces. “Do you ladies think you could cut the chitchat and focus on the task at hand?” He was posted at the bottom of the tower, posing as a homeless guy on a nearby bench. We’d left him sipping cold coffee from a shelter-issue Styrofoam cup, buried under layers of grubby sweatshirts and a plaid blanket, clad in pink slippers and a deer hunter hat, face dirt smeared to the point of unrecognizability

Actually, he was more than merely a lookout tonight. He had also sabotaged the nearby CCTV cameras with a precisely, yet surreptitiously, fired paintball gun.

There was silence for a stretch as we climbed higher. I glanced over at Brooke. For at least the fourteenth time, I questioned my judgment in bringing her with me. But could I have done this without her? A small voice, deep inside, answered No.

Anyway, the plan was already in motion. I just hoped I wouldn’t live to regret the decision. I continued climbing; I reached my grip upward and found a handhold on a stone gargoyle.

Brooke cleared her throat. “So I can’t help wondering, Cat, why you’re taking this job so personally.”

I rolled my eyes. “Brooke, do you mind? Maybe you could psychoanalyze me at another time?”

“Au contraire, I think this is the perfect time. Here we are, risking life and limb, to undo a job you already did. It just begs the question:
why?
”

“What do you mean, why? It just wasn’t right, that’s all. And you know that.”

Brooke was quiet a moment. The only sounds were the groan of our ropes, my breathing, loud and rhythmic in my ears, and the wind.

“You know,” Brooke said slowly, her tone pensive, “now that I think about it, you’ve always been a little obsessed with making things right, correcting the past, that sort of thing. What’s that about, anyway?”

“Brooke, cut the Oprah babble please.” A drop of sweat dripped into my eyes. It stung and blurred my vision. My leather gloves creaked as I gripped the rope.

“Wait a second,” Brooke said. She stopped climbing and studied me. “It’s Penny, isn’t it? Your sister. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. That’s what this is all about. That’s what it’s
always
been about.”

At the sound of Penny’s name, storm clouds gathered in my chest. Once upon a time when Brooke and I had been partners, and friends, I told her all about Penny. I regretted that now, naturally. “Brooke, stop. I do not want to discuss this. Especially not with you. And especially not right now.”

But Brooke was on a roll. “Yes, I think that’s it,” she continued, with great excitement. “You always thought it was your fault that your sister died, I remember that now. So you think that by correcting other people’s mistakes, you’ll somehow be correcting your own mistakes.” She continued scaling the wall and musing to herself. “What do you call that? It’s like . . . redemption. Or, no—it’s
atonement.
That’s the word.”

My left foot suddenly slipped off its hold. I let out a short grunt of surprise and gripped onto my handholds in panic, my heart in my throat.

“Montgomery? You okay?” Ethan said in the earpiece.

“I got it. No problem.” But my blood felt icy.

I resumed climbing and cast a surreptitious glance at Brooke. She was looking at me with concern.

Without further talk we reached our destination—the twelfth floor of Victoria Tower. And we did it—miraculously—without killing each other. The twelfth floor was our destination because this was where, according to Ethan’s intel, Nicole was being held. It was also the floor where the Fabergé was locked up.

I sliced into the window with a glass cutter, scraping a large circle. We climbed inside and found ourselves in a dark, dusty room. Moonlight filtered in through the windowpanes. This disused room didn’t have any security per se, but once we got out to the hallway, we’d have to deal with CCTV security. We hooked ourselves up with anti-CCTV gadgets—with a twelve-foot radius, we wouldn’t be seen as we moved. We reviewed the map one last time although, truth be told, it was already committed to both our memories.

First task: release Nicole.

We moved quickly and silently through the labyrinthine corridors, vigilant for patrolling guards. I flicked a glance at Brooke. Joke time was over now that we were inside. And Brooke was a professional, just as I remembered. Everything about her actions was slick and perfect and practiced. My tension reduced slightly. We were in complete sync.

At an access point we climbed up into the overhead vents. I gripped my fingers around the edge and pulled. My tendons tightened and shoulders burned as I pulled my weight up and into the ventilation shaft. I was in. Brooke followed. It was a dark, compact space and my knees pressed into the cold dusty metal of the shaft. We pulled down our night-vision goggles and begin clambering forward. I felt like a rat creeping through a science lab maze.

We slinked through the tunnel until we reached the room where Nicole should have been imprisoned. But the shaft stopped just outside the room.

We peered down through the grate. Two guards flanked the door. They wore flak jackets and carried submachine guns. One I was less worried about—the more muscular of the two. He wore a bored expression, his eyes moved little as he stared ahead. He wouldn’t be much of a problem. The other was more of a concern: his eyes were brighter, he looked around constantly, and there was tension in his body like a coiled spring. His weight was forward—the other rested slightly back on his heels.

The smaller, more lethal one would need to be taken out first—the other could wait a few seconds. Brooke looked through the grate. “Dangerous one first?” she said.

“The one on the left?”

“Of course.”

My heart omitted a beat as I levered the grate away. This was where a thief’s ability to be truly silent was tested. We looked at each other, give a brisk nod, and dropped down together from above. We dropped first onto the dangerous one, executing a partner
shinobi
ambush maneuver to take him down and render him unconscious. The second, as predicted, had barely registered our presence at that point, and even then, was not able to move his muscle-clad frame fast enough to prevent our attack. He went out cold, quite easily.

I reached down and grabbed a key card from the guard’s belt and slipped it into the reader. There was a
click,
a small light turned green, and I pushed open the heavy door.

Nicole sat in the middle of the tiny room on a wooden chair, tied up, gagged with a filthy rag, and blindfolded. She looked petrified, trembling in her chair. A quick scan of her face and body revealed no bruises or other visible injuries. Which was unexpected, but a relief.

The room was lit with a single garish fluorescent strip-light and it was cold. The space was mostly bare, apart from some shelving with ammonia and cleaning supplies. There was a smell of bleach, and mildew from an old mop in a bucket.

I pulled the rag from her eyes. She blinked and her gaze shifted between Brooke and me, her eyes wide with bewilderment. I untied the gag and Brooke put a finger to her mouth to indicate quiet. Nicole nodded.

As Brooke worked at the ropes that bound her arms, I crouched down at Nicole’s feet to untie her. “Cat?” she whispered. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Cat is black ops,” Brooke said smoothly. “She’s been working with Jack. Top secret. That’s why you didn’t know anything about her.” I flicked a glance at Brooke. That was actually good. Nicole looked satisfied.

We released her and she stood, rubbing her wrists. “What did you do about the guards? And how did you find me anyway? How did you get in here?”

“Okay, no more questions. You’ve got to get out of here,” Brooke said.

“Here’s a copy of the blueprint—can you make it to the Clock Tower? Right there?” I pointed to the map. Brooke was clipping an anti-CCTV mechanism to the back of Nicole’s jeans.

“No, I want to help,” Nicole said earnestly. “That Sandor guy is crazy, you know that? He keeps mumbling about making things right and correcting old wrongs. I heard him say something about being worthless unless he can fulfill his quest. He’s completely fanatical.”

I frowned.

“I want to help you stop him,” Nicole said.

There were a lot of reasons why this would not work. Nicole’s eyes were heavily shadowed; she was clearly exhausted. Not exactly the assistant I typically preferred. Besides, I generally did my best safecracking when I didn’t have an FBI agent hanging over my shoulder.

“This is nonnegotiable, Nicole,” Brooke said. “You’ll meet us at the Clock Tower.”

Nicole reluctantly agreed.

“If we’re not there by three a.m.,” I told her, “then you’ll need to go without us. Here, this will help you escape.” I handed her a small pack that contained a rappelling harness and rope.

“But wait until that time if you can,” Brooke added. “If you try to escape too early, you might raise an alarm prematurely.”

Nicole nodded, understanding. As she disappeared I watched her with a warm flush of relief, and pride. Whatever happened, she’d be safe now.

A tiny barb hooked itself onto my heart. She’d soon be back in Jack’s arms. The truth was, he’d be a wonderful comfort. He always was to me.

 

Brooke and I dragged the guards into the utility closet. Each man measured roughly the weight of an adult mountain lion, so we had to do it together. I leaned back and pulled hard on one muscle-bound arm while Brooke pulled the other. Together we dragged them into the utility room and locked the door. We climbed back into the ventilation shaft, using a grappling hook and rope. The grate scraped lightly as we slid it closed. We were in darkness, once again.

The interminable crawl through the veins of the building began. After a short time my shoulders and thighs were cramping and I longed to stretch my back. Sweat clung to my neck and face, and I could taste the dust in my mouth.

At last we reached our destination. Below us was a large grate. I crawled up beside Brooke, we took off our night-vision goggles and peered down through the grid into the lobby of the vault.