* * *
—
Katrina lifted the Styrofoam cup to her lips for a sip of coffee. Nothing happened. She glanced into the cup—it was empty. She didn’t remember drinking it all. But she had to admit her mind was not really tracking at the moment.
She dropped the cup to the tabletop and closed her eyes. She told herself to take deep, calming breaths. Slowly in, slowly out. It didn’t work. She sounded like she was panting. And she hadn’t calmed down at all, either. When will this end? she thought unhappily. And the answer came right back: at midnight, of course.
And when was that? Katrina opened her eyes to look at her watch—or she thoug
ht she did. But she couldn’t see anything. Had she forgotten how to open her eyes? She blinked a few times; no, her eyes worked fine. But it was still as dark as if her eyes remained closed.
Her first thought, as rattled as she was, was that she had gone blind from the nervous strain. But then she heard a distant sound—br-r-r-r-r-r-rap!
Gunfire. Followed by voices shouting.
She wasn’t blind—instead, she was an idiot. The electricity had been cut. And she didn’t need to look at her watch, either. Because the sound of gunfire could only mean one thing.
It was midnight, and the thief had come.
* * *
—
Lieutenant Szabo was at the central point of his team’s deployment, his men spread out on both sides and combat-ready. Szabo stood near the entrance to the exhibition gallery, eyes moving from side to side, weapon held waist high.
Szabo had just begun the move to look at his watch when the lights went out. A moment later, he heard the shots. They were not close, but he was positive they came from the roof—Coulomb! “Fuck!” he said aloud. If the Iranians had killed the thief before Szabo got a crack at him—
“Snyder!” he yelled, waving to his left. Snyder looked his way. “You got lead!” And without waiting for a reply, Szabo ran for the roof.
He sped through the door, up the stairs to the second floor, still in darkness. As he ran across the second floor to the roof door, he couldn’t help but notice that there were no Iranians on guard anywhere—they had clearly all run to the roof when they heard the gunfire. Szabo felt a brief surge of pride; his men would never do anything of the kind. And then it occurred to him that it was exactly what he was doing right now, running from his post toward the first sound of gunfire.
Never mind; he reached the end of the hallway and ran through the access door, taking the stairs to the roof three at a time all the way up to the metal fire door. He slammed into it, shoved it open, and burst out into the cool night air of the roof.
After the darkness of the interior of the museum, the starlight was more than bright enough to light up the scene on the roof. The Revolutionary Guards stood in a loose circle, their AKM assault rifles pointed at a figure writhing on the ground at their feet.
Coulomb.
And he was alive—but obviously wounded.
Szabo hurried over and pushed through the circle of Iranians. The Iranians glared at him but let him through. He looked down at the figure on the roof. The Frenchman had been shot in the right thigh, and he was rolling around in pain, eyes shut. The wound was bleeding profusely, but it looked like Coulomb would live.
Shurgin had been right. The Fed was legit.
That meant the wounded man might be the chief’s killer. And this could be his only chance to find out.
Szabo knelt by the Frenchman’s side. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “Parlez-vous anglais? Can you talk?”
Coulomb opened his eyes. “Talk!” he exclaimed. “Bloody fucking hell, mate, I’m fucking shot! They’ve buggered me leg!” he said in an accent that was pure Cockney.
Szabo blinked. “You’re not French . . . ?”
“Oh, fucking Christ, no—and I’m not a bloody radish, neither, mate. So I am bleeding to death—how about a fucking tourniquet?”
Szabo felt his jaw drop. For a second that seemed a great deal longer, he just squatted there, his mind whirling. Not Coulomb—not even French. But Shurgin had been positive—the thief would be French. What had he said? “If a French thief doesn’t come, I’m something else.”
A French thief had not come. That meant Shurgin was something else. But what? Why was he here, waiting downstairs, when he had to know Szabo would find out and come down to confront him? All Szabo had to do was go down to where Shurgin stood waiting—
Waiting all alone—with the jewels.