Heist Society (21 page)

From the backseat of Arturo Taccone’s Bentley, the entire world seemed to be falling apart. A small television showed live coverage of a correspondent who stood a mere twenty feet away. Taccone looked between the scene on the screen and the one unfolding in real life, and he wasn’t quite certain which showed the real picture.

“Things have taken a dramatic turn here at the Henley today,” the correspondent was saying.

“What do you want me to do, boss?” the driver turned and asked.

Arturo Taccone took a last look at the scene, then placed his sunglasses over his eyes. “Drive.” His voice was cool and free of emotion; as if another round of his favorite game were finally over. A bystander wouldn’t have known if he had won or lost. Arturo Taccone was simply happy to be able to play again another day.

He leaned farther back into the plush seat. “Just drive.”

The first men through the gallery doors that day were seasoned professionals. They had trained with the American FBI and the UK’s Scotland Yard. Most were former military. Their equipment was state of the art. The Henley staff took it as a personal insult whenever a great museum got robbed. Some might have said that their extreme security measures were overkill, a waste, but at this particular moment on this particular day, they seemed like a very good idea.

Ten men stood at the gallery’s entrance, tasers drawn, gas masks over their faces, as they watched doors swing open up and down the Henley’s halls.

Collectively, they represented one of the most highly trained private security forces in the world.

And yet nothing could have prepared them for what they saw.

“Wait,” the news correspondent said, and immediately Arturo Taccone turned back to the screen. “We are receiving the first, unconfirmed accounts that the Henley might be secure.”

“Stop,” Arturo Taccone said, and his driver pulled to the curb.

“Kids!” Kat heard one of the guards yell through the haze that filled her mind. “It’s a bunch of kids!”

She rolled onto her side and looked up through the fog as a man knelt on one knee and leaned toward her. “It’s okay,” he told her softly.

“Gas,” she mumbled and coughed. “Fire. The museum was on—” A coughing fit cut her off. Someone handed her a mask, and she breathed in fresh air.

There was more coughing around the room. From the corner of her eye she saw Simon holding a mask to his face. He was lying on the ground beside an empty artist’s stand, clutching a blank canvas. The guards were busy helping Angus and Hamish to their unsteady feet, so they never saw the smallest of the boys smile behind his mask. But Kat saw.

Lying on the floor that day, Kat saw everything.

“What is this?” Kat knew the voice. She had last seen the man disappearing into the crowd and the smoke, but this time Hale was not beside him. “Who are these children?” Gregory Wainwright demanded of the guards.

The guard pointed to the seal on Simon’s burgundy blazer. “Looks like they’re from the Knightsbury Institute.”

“Why weren’t they evacuated?” the director asked of the guards, but didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and snapped at the teens. “Why
didn’t
you evacuate?”

“We—” Everyone in the room turned to the girl with the long legs and the short skirt who was rising unsteadily to her feet. Two of the guards rushed to take her by the arm and help her to stand. “We had a”—coughing overtook her for a moment, but if Gabrielle was playing her part too fervently, Kat was the only one to think it—“had a class.”

She pointed to the bag at her feet. Brushes and paints were strewn across the marble floor where they’d fallen in the chaos. Wooden easels stood in a long line, facing the rows of art. No one stopped to notice that there were five children. Five easels. Four blank canvases. No one was in the mood for counting.

“We were supposed to . . .” She coughed again. One of the guards placed a hand protectively on her back. “They told us to wait here. They said this exhibit was closed so that we could try to copy those.” Gabrielle pointed from the blank canvases on their easels to the Old Masters that lined the walls. “When the sirens sounded, we tried to leave, but the doors were—” She coughed one more time and looked up at the men who surrounded her. Her eyelashes might have batted. Her cheeks might have blushed. A dozen different things might have happened, but the end result was that no one doubted her when she said, “Locked.”

Well, almost no one.

“What class? Why didn’t I know about any such class?” the director growled at the guards.

The gas was almost completely gone. Kat was breathing more normally. She smoothed the skirt of her uniform, feeling as if her balance had almost completely returned. Two and two were starting to equal four again as she turned and pointed to the sign on the open door, which read: GALLERY CLOSED FOR PRIVATE LECTURE (THIS PROGRAM MADE POSSIBLE BY THE W. W. HALE FOUNDATION FOR ART EXCELLENCE).

“But . . .” the director started, then turned. He ran a hand across his sweating face. “But the oxygen? The fire security protocols should have killed them!” He turned back to Gabrielle. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“Sir,” one of the guards cut in. “The fire was isolated in the next corridor. The oxygen deprivation measures wouldn’t have kicked in here unless—”

“Keep searching the galleries!” the director yelled. “Search them all.”

“The galleries are all secure, sir,” one of the guards assured him.

“We thought
this
gallery was secure!” Wainwright looked down, mumbling something to himself about oversights and liability. “Search them!”

“Sir,” one of the guards said softly, stepping closer. Kat savored the irony as he whispered, “They’re just
kids
.”

“Sir,” Simon said, his voice shaking so violently that Kat believed he was honestly on the verge of tears. “Could I call my mother? I don’t feel so good.”

And then one of the most brilliant technical experts in the world passed out cold.

The sound that came next was unlike anything Katarina Bishop had ever heard. It wasn’t the screech of an alarm. It was anything but the roar of sirens. One of the busiest museums in the world was like a ghost town, echoing. Haunting. And as the guards carried Simon into the grand promenade and its cleaner air, Kat half expected to see the shadow of Visily Romani hovering over them, telling her somehow that she’d done well, but she wasn’t finished. Not yet.

Through the Impressionist gallery’s open door, Kat watched Gabrielle slowly putting the blank canvases into the large carrying cases. Hamish and Angus hurriedly stuffed paintbrushes into backpacks. Kat moved to comfort Simon, but then she stopped. She listened.

A thud. An echo. A footstep.

She turned just as the man appeared at the end of the promenade. His arms pumped. His feet banged against the tile floor. And the whole world seemed to stop turning as he told them, “She’s gone.”

The words weren’t a cry, and they were far from a whisper. They held no trace of panic or fear. It was more like disbelief. Yes, that was it, Kat decided, although she couldn’t tell if it was his or hers.

“Leonardo’s
Angel
,” the man said again as the party made its way down the center of the grand promenade. The big double doors to the Renaissance room were standing open. A fireproof, bulletproof Plexiglas barrier still stood, sheltering the
Angel
from harm. Lasers shone red all around. But there was no mistaking that the frame at the center of it all—the heart of the Henley—stood empty.

“Gone?” Gregory Wainwright stumbled toward the Plexiglas barrier, reaching out for a painting that was no longer there. “She can’t be—” the director started, then seemed to finally notice that the frame wasn’t empty after all. The
Angel
was gone, but something remained: a plain white card and the words, “Visily Romani.”

If they had searched Kat, of course, they would have found a card exactly like it. If they had peeled back the top layer of canvas that covered the four frames Kat’s crew carried, they would have seen that
Angel Returning to Heaven
was not the only painting to leave the Henley that day, although somehow Kat imagined that only four walked out the front door.

Leonardo da Vinci’s painting was gone. The five children trapped in the mayhem were no longer a top concern. And so it was that Simon, Angus, Hamish, Kat, and her cousin walked out into the fading drizzle with four masterpieces secured in their artist’s portfolios, covered with blank canvas—a clean slate.

Kat breathed the fresh air. A clean start.

In the days that followed, no reporters would be able to interview any of the young artists who had been in danger that day. The Henley’s trustees waited for a call or visit from one or more attorneys, and word about what monetary damages there might be, but no such call or visit ever occurred.

It seemed to some as if the schoolchildren who had been locked in the Impressionist exhibit that day had simply gathered their bags and blank canvases, and walked out into the autumn air, and faded like smoke.

One of the docents reported seeing the children board a waiting school bus, an older driver at the wheel.

Many people tried in vain to gain a statement from officials at the Knightsbury Institute, but no one could uncover where the school was located—there certainly was no record of any such institution in London. Not in all of England. Some of the children had sounded American, the guards had said, but after three weeks of failed attempts, the coughing children with their hazy eyes were forgotten for a bigger story on another day.

No one saw the man in the Bentley who sat watching them walk from the museum in a single line. No one but he noticed that the portfolios they carried were a tad too thick.

No one but his driver heard him whisper, “Katarina.”

Gregory Wainwright was not a foolish man. He swore this to his wife and to his therapist. His mother assured him of that fact every Sunday when he visited her for tea. No one who truly knew him thought that he was personally responsible for Henley security—he employed specialists for such things, after all. But the
Angel
. . . the
Angel
had gone missing. Had disappeared. And so Gregory Wainwright was fairly certain that the powers that be at the Henley would be inclined to disagree.

Perhaps that is why he did not tell a soul that his security card had somehow gone missing in the chaos of the fire. Perhaps that is why he did not say a lot of things.

If it had been another painting, perhaps all might have been forgiven. But the
Angel
? Losing the
Angel
was too much.

The article that appeared in the evening edition of the London
Times
was not exactly what the public had expected. Of course, the color picture of the lost Leonardo loomed large in the center of the page. It went without saying that a headline about the robbery at the Henley dominated everything above the fold. And it was only a matter of time, Gregory Wainwright knew, before the old stories about the
Angel
would resurface. His only surprise was that it had taken less than twenty-four hours for the press to turn the story from a recounting of the Henley’s—and society’s—loss, to a retelling of the Henley’s shame.

It wasn’t Wainwright’s fault that Veronica Miles Henley had purchased the
Angel
soon after the end of World War II. Wainwright hadn’t taken the painting from its original owner and offered it to a high-ranking banking official who had been of great service to the Nazi party. Gregory Wainwright wasn’t the judge who had ruled that, since the
Angel
had been purchased in good faith from the banking official’s estate, and since it would hang in a public exhibit, it should not be forcibly removed from the museum’s walls.

None of this was my fault!
the man wanted to scream. But, of course, screaming simply is not done. Or so his mother told him.

The press was loving all of it. The Henley was being villified, and Romani was being made out as some sort of hero—a Robin Hood who headed a merry band of thieves.

Still, if there was one thing that Gregory Wainwright could be grateful for, it was that the journalists never heard about the boy.

Wainwright remembered every detail of that day as if he were reliving it over and over again. . . .

“Our guards assure me that the room in which you were found had been completely evacuated prior to the fire-protection procedures taking effect,” Gregory Wainwright said as he sat across from the young man with the dark hair and blue eyes, in the small interrogation room of Scotland Yard. The detectives had assured him that they were too concerned with tracking down the real thief to take much time with the boy; but the Henley’s director had felt otherwise.

“I’m not going to sue,” was the boy’s only answer.

“How exactly did you get into that exhibit?” the man asked again.

“I told you. I told the guy before you. I told the guys before him, and all the way back to the guys who found me, I was in the exhibit when the sirens sounded. I tripped on my way to the door. By the time I got up, I was locked in.”

“But I was in that room. I personally can attest to the fact that our doors only lock when a room has been evacuated.”

The boy shrugged. “Maybe you’ve got a security problem.” This was, if anything, an understatement, but Mr. Wainwright was not in the mood to say so. “Maybe my mom can help you with that,” the boy offered. “She’s real good at that stuff. You know she works for Interpol.”

The woman at the boy’s side was attractive and well dressed, Gregory Wainwright could see. He had, after all, an eye for framing people; so many of them walked through the Henley’s doors every day. He knew tourists and collectors, critics and snobs, but he could not truly grasp the woman in front of him.

“How did you survive the oxygen deprivation measures?” the director asked, and the boy shrugged.

“Some old dude left his wheelchair. He must have breathing problems, because there was oxygen on the back.”

Gregory Wainwright winced slightly as one of the richest men in the world was referred to as “some old dude,” but he said nothing.

The woman began to stand. “I understand if there are waivers or documents which you will need us to sign, but I can assure you, you have no grounds to hold my son, and he’s been through quite an ordeal.”

“I’m afraid your son cannot go anywhere until he has been cleared of—”

“Cleared?” the boy snapped. Gregory Wainwright could not be sure if it was indignation or fear, but there was no mistaking the edge in his tone.

“I was under the impression that the robbery took place in a different wing of the museum,” the mother said.

The boy held his arms out wide. “Search me. Go ahead. Just tell me this: exactly what did I take?” His mother placed a calming hand on her son’s shoulder, but her look at Wainwright seemed to say that
that
was an excellent question.

“We have no interest in prolonging this matter, Mr. Wainwright,” the woman said coolly. “I’m sure you have many things to do today. If I could offer some advice, I’d remind you that in matters such as these, time is essential. If you don’t recover her within one week, you will likely never do so.”

“I know,” the director said, pressing his thin lips together in a tight line.

“And, of course, even if she is recovered, fifteenth-century paintings do not do well when they are shoved into duffel bags or thrown into the trunks of cars.”

“I know,” the director said again.

“And I’m sure I do not need to tell you that what happened to my son today was no accident?”

For the first time, it seemed as if the woman held his full attention. The man gaped, looking from mother to son as if he didn’t have a clue what to say.

“Someone planned that fire, Mr. Wainwright,” she said, and then laughed a very soft laugh. “But I feel silly telling you this.” Her dark red lips curled into a soft smile. “I’m sure you probably already know that it was nothing more than a massive diversion.” She held one elegant palm over the other. “A sleight of hand.”

The museum director blinked. He felt somehow as if he too were still trapped in the oxygen deprivation chamber while a fire raged outside the door. Amelia Bennett stood to her full height and gestured for her son to join her.

“I’m sure a man like you must already know that my son is as much a victim of Visily Romani as you are.”

And with that, the final child who had been locked in the Henley that day turned and walked out the door—vanished without a trace.

And Gregory Wainwright was able to go about his nervous breakdown in peace.