Icy Control (14 page)

“The area where the stars were drawn from—where is it?” Rob asked, hoping to give El time to settle her temper a bit.

“A small province in the mountainous region of China,” Chambers replied. “Understand, I don’t have the…uh…intricate level of access you have, so you might be able to find more data. But it seems to be just a small, almost empty region. A few townships, no large or intimidating structures at all.”

Baffled, but not wanting to show his hand, Rob nodded as if this was what he had expected. He made a mental note to make sure they followed up on that, double-checked Chambers’ findings. He believed the man, but that was no reason not to make sure there were no nasty surprises hidden, either underground or within this seemingly empty area of land.

“Is it possible for you or Mr Burnt to give us the details of the man who knows the decryption key? We have our own analysts working on it, but the faster we can unlock this text, hopefully the quicker we can stop the violence occurring.” Rob stood, sensing Erik had given them everything he could.

“Of course,” the elder man replied. He reached out to take the small bell on the spindly legged table near his chair. Ringing it, he summoned Mr Burnt. After only a few moments, the doors opened.

“Yes, sir?”

“Leonard, please give Ms Williams and Mr Stevens the contact details of that enterprising young man who decoded the Cezanne’s secrets. Oh, will that be all?”

El had stood while Chambers spoke. Rob caught her gaze. She nodded to indicate she was willing to leave. Glancing back at Chambers, Rob tilted his head in a nod.

“Yes, you’ve been most helpful, thank you, Mr Chambers.”

“My pleasure. Please excuse me for not seeing you out, but Burnt can take care of you.”

They exchanged their farewells and Rob stepped to the side to let El go first. Something about the house, or maybe the courtly, semi-formal tone to the whole interview had his latent chivalrous self coming to the fore. Burnt closed the door behind them and held out a card to El, who stood closer to him.

“I’ve been following the news, and from what you said earlier managed to piece together the basics,” Burnt said. “Shannon Hansen was the man who did the work for me, and that’s the number I contacted him on, though it’s many years ago now. If you feel I can be of more service, my own contact details are below Mr Hansen’s.”

El nodded.

Satisfied, Rob held his hand out to shake Burnt’s. He and El were silent as they walked back to the car. Rob ran over everything in his mind, analyzing it for things he might have missed, tones, inflections and anything else that could help them wrap this up quickly.

Chapter Seven

A few minutes down the road, after having chewed on his thoughts for a while, Rob pulled out his phone and quickly texted Julia.

Chambers said origin of C was China. I owe you a second box. Rob.

“I believe him,” he said. “I’ve texted Julia that Erik said the painting originated in China.”

El nodded. “Unfortunately, I believe him too, though I bet Julia will continue with her search exactly as she’d planned. She’s not one for cutting corners or speeding her work up because we want data faster. Dammit, it would have been much simpler if Chambers had an agenda, or something we could push to finish this. The truth is always better than neat and tidy. It just rarely makes our work easier.”

“Agreed,” Rob said.

They were both quiet, each lost in their own thoughts.

Rob enjoyed puzzling through their various options. His brain was an analytical one for the most part. He enjoyed the comfortable peace between his partner and himself and ran though scenarios, trying to find a good fit that satisfied his innate sense of justice while also resulting in the safety of Sally and others who came into contact with the painting.

“Once Masters has decoded the text, I think there’s a way to wrap this all up,” he finally said. “It might mean twisting the Gallery’s arm, though.”

“After all the death, violence and destruction this has caused, I’m sure we can pitch it to Waldron in a palatable way he can enforce up the chain,” El said wryly. “Run it by me, just so we can be on the same page.”

Rob nodded, glad that El was willing to support him without even hearing his plan. Not that he’d made one yet. They always worked best as a team, so he started thinking aloud to see what she thought of his ideas.

“We’ll need to refine the pitch before we make it to Waldron, but here’s the gist of it. Let’s assume Masters can crack this thing and have a transcription of the text in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The guy’s good and tenacious and hates to be beaten, so it’s a decent bet to make.”

“I’d almost say a pessimistic one,” El agreed, concentrating fully on the road as they zoomed back to London. “Masters is one of our best. He might have it done as early as tomorrow morning, especially if he has one of those epiphanies he’s known for.”

Rob agreed with her assessment.

“Okay, so we assume he has our answers in a short enough timeframe that we can act on them before we have to release physical custody of the painting.” Rob paused.

El nodded that she was with him so far.

“The problem all along with this has been secrets,” Rob continued. “Various factions have only had part of the story—either they know there’s a code or they know somewhere in the painting is important information or even they’ve heard a mangled telling and have simply taken away the painting is important, special. Whatever. They’re all fighting amongst themselves to get the prize. So we go public in a big way. We splash the ‘secret information’ all over the news, the papers, the Internet and leak the works. I know it’s not our usual course of mingling the truth with a pretty fictional story, or even just burying the lot of it and spinning the media, but this is beyond that.”

He knew what he was suggesting was risky, but he honestly thought going public would be the safest route in the long term. He watched El as she drove, interested to know how she felt about it. Often it was he who came up with the crazy ideas and she who refined them into working solutions.

El frowned, seeming to think over his proposal.

“Enough groups know pieces of the truth and a whitewash or clever story isn’t going to jibe with what they have,” El said.

“Exactly,” Rob agreed readily. “We can’t release twelve stories pandering to the different bits and nuggets they all have—hell, my gut says we don’t even know all the parties currently invested in this. It’s all moot anyway. We can only go with one version of the story, which leans me toward insisting on the truth.”

“That means we need to be a hundred percent certain the data—whatever it turns out to be—is safe for public consumption. That’s a big ask when we haven’t even got the proper script yet.” El shook her head.

“I know. That bit might need finessing,” Rob admitted, willing to agree to the holes in his plan. “But even if it is dangerous—or let’s go with sensitive for now—surely making it public property and on every Internet search engine would lessen the sting.”

“Having ‘how to make a bomb in ten easy steps’ pages on the Internet hasn’t stopped people blowing each other up,” El pointed out.

“But neither do you hear endlessly of bombs going off day in and day out. If people want that information badly enough, they’re going to do it, regardless of how much effort they need to expend.”

There was a short silence as they both thought. Rob tried to find a serious problem with his solution, but it seemed the best way to get this all out into the open. He waited to hear what El thought.

“What about the stars in the sky?” El questioned, seeming to be thinking now along a different track. “I’m wondering if it’s a reference to maybe a laboratory, or where they ran experiments. Something sinister. What do you make of it?”

“I’m sure with satellite maps and all the topography references we have, Jules and the lab can look into it easily. But…you know what?” Rob replied thoughtfully. “I’d like to think it’s just a view of the sky, a reference to where the man who added these details was, lived or maybe worked. Nothing more than that. What if the guy who added that text added the stars as a kind of graffiti, like kids who carve ‘I woz ere’ or the date into a tree. I mean, there’s no data in the stars, it’s just a reference point, a very geeky way of signaling where you were. I’m inclined to believe it’s just his idea of a signature, or a joke,” Rob suggested.

El chuckled. “I can actually see that too, although I’ll feel better when we have a location for it. Bet you anything once we release that detail it will become a kind of Mecca, with pilgrims and a load of tourists taking photos.”

Rob nodded, inclined to agree. They drove in silence.

“Well, I’m with you on all of this in theory, partner,” El said. “I’m just not sure we can convince Waldron—let alone the Gallery—to get on board if the text is going to pose a threat.”

“The Gallery I’ve already accounted for,” Rob replied, feeling proud of himself. “We sell it to them as a special feature. It’s not a stretch. The Cezanne gets bills and publicized around the globe as the painting of secrets, or some such catchy name, and they sell UV glasses, or have tours every half hour where they shine UV light over the painting and people can see the code for themselves. Then around the painting itself you’d have panels up like a museum, a visible transcript of what the code says, plus the key and a translation. If it is a science-type fuel cell thing you’d have other panels explaining it in laymen’s terms.”

“Damn,” El said, seeming to be struck by his plan. “They’ll lap that up with a fucking spoon. I can totally see it. The Gallery will get a kick, charge an extra admittance fee for that specific showing. They’ll add in audio guides, special tour groups—at even more expense—and wristbands for VIP screenings. I take it back, you won’t have any problems selling that to the Gallery or its patrons. They’ll be beating down the door to see it all for themselves. The extra traffic alone will have them falling all over themselves to stake claim for the idea.”

“Yeah, I thought they’d manage to turn it into a profit-making machine, probably end up cheesy as hell, too. They’ll have models of the damage the Gallery sustained in the raid and dioramas of the exact route the thieves took.”

“Oh, man,” El snickered. “Chelsea and David will die if they become infamous. I can see it now, all the fresh-faced recruits in Dublin, pointing and whispering amongst themselves. ‘Those are the two who blew up the Gallery and helped steal the famous Cezanne’. It will almost make the sleep deprivation worth it if I can hold that over their heads.”

“I think you should stay, let James and Sally sit in on us reporting to Waldron and making the pitch. I agree, the force of weight he puts behind it will likely rest on Chambers’ information being accurate, but as long as whatever is in there is rubbish, we should be able to put this to bed.”

“Not quite,” El smirked.

Rob tilted his head, wondering what he’d missed. El stared at him for a moment, moving her head to check the road as she drew the moment out.

Finally he caved. “What? I can’t think of something I missed, I must be more tired than I realized.”

“You’ve got a report to write,” she said smugly. “And if you don’t get it in before Masters has that transcript, Waldron will be hassling us for a debrief synopsis too.”

Rob groaned, slumped in the car seat, but nodded, resigned.

“I’ll make a start on it before I go,” he promised. “Unless Sally’s about to crash, then I’ll take her home. But I won’t back out. I gave you my word and I’ll keep it.”

“I know, that’s why I’m all but doing cartwheels over here.” El grinned.

Rob chuckled, tilted back on the headrest and closed his eyes. He knew there was only fifteen or twenty minutes left until they returned to the office, but he reckoned he’d need the nap. It was looking like another long night.

* * * *

A week later

“Sal?” Rob called out as he pushed open the door to her loft. His arms were full of boxes and bags of take-out, his work stuff and a recently purchased evening newspaper.

She watched while he balanced everything and removed his keys from the lock. She’d been waiting for him to arrive, equal parts nervous and excited.

This was a massive day for her, one she’d been worried about and simultaneously looking forward to for months. Never in her wildest dreams could she have believed so much would have changed, particularly between them, but that made her more emotional now the time had finally come.

Rob looked around her studio flat and a jolt of lust seared through her as he spotted her near the far windows, pretending to paint on the single easel set up there.

“There’s only about ten more minutes of good light,” she mumbled, “but I’ve been waiting for this for too long, I’m not going to get anywhere now you’re finally here.”

She started to clean her brushes, surreptitiously watching Rob while he shut the door behind him and went over to the kitchenette. He placed the take-out on the tiny bench. Sally had unofficially moved into his flat, though the loft was a perfect studio and she couldn’t give it up.

Thankfully, he understood that and hadn’t even tried asking. Somehow life had turned blissful after the mess of their case had cleared. They’d fallen into the now-familiar routine of him meeting her here after work. Then they’d either go out for dinner or he’d bring something over and they’d end up at his place, make passionate love and fall asleep together in a tangle of limbs.

It was a way of life she could easily get used to.

Sally placed her brushes carefully away and as she came across the room, she noticed Rob looking at the paper.

“National Gallery Shows Secret Code Cezanne!” screamed the headline in enormous font.

She paused, surprised. It wasn’t uncommon for the ‘real world’ to pass her by, particularly when she’d been as consumed by a project like the paintings she’d just finished. Still, Sally was shocked she hadn’t caught wind of this. Clearly Bobby was letting her know in his own way.