The Prisoner's Gold

28

Sarah walked through the gallery, pretending to admire the works of art on the walls while making her way to the slice-of-life display in the mostly empty hallway. The entire operation hinged on crackerjack timing, and Garcia was in charge of the clock.

The long wooden table was filled with an assortment of items from the thirteenth century: a few cups and bowls, a nicked sword, a small shield that looked more ornamental than battle-tested, and a swath of fabric from a shirt supposedly worn during that era. The book was there as well, tucked in the back corner of the display like an afterthought — even though it was the most interesting item in the case. Unlike the dishware that looked remarkably similar to modern china, the journal didn’t look like a modern book. Instead, a twelve-inch long slat of wood held together long sheets of parchment that had been folded like an accordion. Roughly six inches wide, every fold made up two pages of the codex.

Sarah ignored the table and continued down the hallway toward the gallery where the lecture was about to start. One of the larger rooms in the museum, it displayed mostly Christian artwork, which would be the main focus of Dr Pelati’s presentation. In the center of the cavernous gallery, a thick slab of dark mahogany served as a bench for weary patrons. It was currently occupied by a portly Italian man, who looked like he might nod off at any moment.

If he did, they would have to work around him.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief when he stood and walked to the other side of the room. This cleared a spot for her on the bench. A waiter strolled past with a tray of champagne, but he barely glanced at Sarah, who kept her head down as she looked at her phone. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted one lone security guard by the doorway through which she had entered.

He seemed even less attentive than the waiter.

Sarah put her phone to her ear and pretended to speak into it. In reality, she was talking to Garcia over the comm. ‘I’m ready when you are.’

‘You’re good. I’ve looped the camera in the gallery.’

Sarah leaned forward and stealthily slipped her hand under the bench. Her fingertips coated with latex, she wasn’t the least bit concerned about leaving prints on the small device that she anchored to the wood with double-sided tape. To complete her charade, she casually adjusted the black laces on her shoes before she stood up. She strolled around the room for a few minutes, looking with interest at the paintings on the wall.

No one paid her any mind.

‘Device is in place,’ she whispered. ‘I’m ready to move.’

Garcia acknowledged her comment. ‘Okay, people. It’s show time. Everyone set your watches on my command. Three … two … one … mark.’

Sarah started the timer on her digital watch. They had planned how long everything would take under perfect circumstances. If things went poorly, they knew how long it would be until the local police arrived.

She took a deep breath and waited for the watch to hit fifteen seconds, then slipped out of the lecture hall, past the bored guard, and into the hallway with the glass display case. At the thirty-second mark, Garcia pressed a button on his laptop.

An instant later, the fun really started.

The high-tech device she had planted underneath the bench emitted an intense burst of ultrasound beyond the range of human hearing. It was the perfect pitch to shatter all of the glass in the lecture hall. The cases didn’t explode outward — flying glass would have been too dangerous — they ruptured inward with a frightening crack that startled the nearby patrons.

One person screamed, followed by another, and another.

Before long, everyone was shouting and running.

The display case in the hallway shattered as well. As Sarah walked by, she swept up the book and slid it into a waterproof sack strapped against her side and underneath her long coat. Multiple security guards rushed into the gallery to calm the chaos inside while Sarah blended in with the rush of people surging toward her in the hallway. As expected, stainless steel bars slowly began to descend from the top of the hall’s arched entryway to prevent possible thievery and limit damage to other parts of the museum. But in this case, all the bars really did was trap multiple guards inside, just like Sarah had planned.

She knew that a heist in a highly secure facility was practically impossible when it was closed and the guards were on high alert. But something going wrong during an event was more likely to be viewed as an accident or even a prank. There were plenty of disgruntled groups in Italy forever setting off smoke bombs and trash can fires to draw public attention to their causes. It wouldn’t be a stretch for the guards to picture such protestors attacking a simple lecture. Sarah hoped to use the panicked crowds and the guards’ desire to get everyone out of the building as cover for the theft. With any luck, they wouldn’t realize the book was even missing until the following day when they were picking up all the shards of glass.

Then something happened that Sarah didn’t expect.

According to her research, a simple fire alarm should have sounded that would direct patrons to the nearest exits, but that’s all that should have happened since no paintings had been pulled from the walls. Instead, a hideous piercing noise that sounded like an air-raid warning started blaring. Then the rest of the museum’s alarm systems went off inside the gallery. Loud klaxons rang outside the museum, and pre-recorded messages announced in a variety of languages that tourists should step a respectful distance away from the building.

Sarah cursed at the development.

Things were about to get crazy.

Inside the sealed lecture hall, Dr Maria Pelati shook her head in amazement as she took in the scene. She leaned close to her traveling companion, a muscular man with mocha skin, and whispered, ‘I can’t stand this country. Every time I come here, something bad happens.’

‘Quit complaining,’ David Jones blurted as he held his hands in the air. ‘You know damn well who the guards are gonna blame. That’s right — the black guy.’

Outside the south end of the building, Cobb piloted an inflatable Zodiac with an outboard motor up to the quay. A nearby dock was home to a red-and-white pedal boat that could be rented by tourists who wanted to splash around the river, as well as two crew-style rowing boats with seating for eight. Just inland was a twenty-foot-high concrete wall that bordered the road and led to the south wall of the museum.

A few people milled about, looking at the building and wondering what was happening. None of them noticed Cobb as he moored the boat then casually strolled up the road behind the Uffizi.

Sarah moved toward the window where Maggie had disabled the alarm earlier in the day, but it was no longer a viable escape route. She watched as a heavy metal grate descended from recessed housings above the framing, sliding down on greased tracks and silently sealing in place. She glanced down the corridor, hoping to spot another option — with the sirens already wailing throughout the museum, she wasn’t worried about security sensors — but the other windows were blocked as well, all the way down the hall.

‘Shit,’ she cursed as the guests in the hallway went from panicked to frenzied. ‘Hector, I’m trapped. The windows are sealed.’

‘What do you mean? The device should’ve worked. It should’ve prevented the windows’ electromagnetic locks from engaging.’

‘Maybe so, but bars slid down to cover them before I had a chance to find out.’

‘Bars? What bars? There were no bars on the schematics. They have to be new,’ Garcia complained as he tried to make sense of things. ‘What do they look like?’

‘What do they look like?’ Sarah snapped at him. ‘Holy shit, Hector! I have more important things to worry about!’

‘Yeah, dumb question. Sorry about that.’ Back at the hotel, he scanned all of the camera feeds from the museum, looking for a way out. ‘I guess we’ll just have to improvise.’

‘Improvise?’ Cobb nearly choked on the word. ‘There’s no need to improvise. We planned for this possibility. The team is in place. Move to Plan B.’