Son-of-a-bitch—!
A strong feeling of panic combined with dread and anger flooded through Szabo, and he jumped to his feet. “Shurgin—!” he bellowed. The Iranians stared at him, but he pushed them roughly aside and ran from the roof and down the stairs, twice as fast as he’d run up only a minute ago. He clattered out into the hallway on the main floor and sprinted for the exhibit, passing several of his men, who gave him startled looks as he galloped past.
Szabo slid to a halt at the door to the exhibit. One quick glance told him he was too late.
Shurgin was gone.
Szabo spun and raced toward the lobby, skidding to a stop when he saw Snyder. “Shurgin!” he bellowed. “Where the fuck is he?”
Snyder shook his head. “He left, like, two minutes ago,” he said. “Said he had to report, and he’d hook up again at the police station.”
Szabo ran as fast he could through the lobby and out the front door onto the street. The traffic was light at this hour, mostly cabs. Shurgin would have had no trouble grabbing one and escaping. Szabo looked up and down the street anyway, but it was hopeless. Shurgin was gone.
Szabo walked back to the exhibition room, knowing he was just plain fucked, him and his whole team and by extension even Black Hat—and, much worse, his country. Because the Iranians would blame him and call it a plot by the crime-infested society of the Great Satan. And he would just have to take it because the Iranians were right. He had fucked up. His gut had told him there was something wrong about Shurgin, and he hadn’t listened to it. And now he was thoroughly, totally fucked.
There was one remaining question before he made his report: What exactly had Shurgin taken? Szabo went into the hall, checking the cases one by one as he passed them. They were all apparently untouched, their contents still gleaming undisturbed in the glow of the emergency lighting. But that big jewel in the center, the one Shurgin had been “guarding”—that one was small enough to grab and conceal.
Szabo approached the central case with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, certain he would find that case empty. He reached it, looked down through the glass . . .
It was still there.
Bewildered, he looked around the room. And they were all still there, all the crown jewels, every fucking item.
The big, priceless, easily grabbed and concealed jewel was right there in its case. Shurgin hadn’t taken anything, not one fucking thing. But he was gone—and wait a minute, what the fuck was going on here? Because the guy on the roof was not French but a Brit—which meant Shurgin was not legit and the whole thing had been some kind of setup—and the only reason for any setup was to take the fucking jewels—except they were all there, nothing was missing—and that meant . . .
What, exactly?
Szabo stood there for several minutes, just breathing hard and thinking. He couldn’t think of anything that made sense of what had happened: A thief captured, but the wrong one. An FBI agent who wasn’t, or maybe not, except then what the fuck was he? And he’d engineered what should have been a successful attempt on the jewels except nothing was taken. An absolutely perfect setup that worked like a Swiss watch—but a setup for what?
Because no matter how many times he looked into the case, the big fucking jewel was right there where it was supposed to be. They all were.
The main lights came back on, and the big jewel really came to life, glowing like it was filled with a living fire. Szabo stared at it. He hadn’t really looked at it before, and it was worth a long look. Beautiful, completely filled with light. It was easy to understand why somebody would want to own this thing. It made the love of jewels reasonable, even inevitable. Its name, posted on the neatly lettered sign beside the case, was no exaggeration.
The Ocean of Light.
It really was just that, a deep pool of beauty that radiated a light so perfect you could almost swim in it.
And it was still right here. Untouched.
“What the fuck,” Szabo said at last. It was about all he could manage.
CHAPT
ER
32
When Special Agent Frank Delgado heard on the news that there had been a death at the Eberhardt Museum at the grand opening gala for the Iranian crown jewels, he knew right away what it meant.
Riley Wolfe.
But the news also said that the collection was intact and open to the public. So Delgado waited. And the next night, when reports came of a thief captured on the roof of the Eberhardt Museum, he moved—but not to the Eberhardt, and not to the police station.
An agent who did not know Riley Wolfe as Delgado did would almost certainly have gone to one or the other immediately, with all possible speed. Delgado did not. He knew with absolute certainty that it had not been Riley Wolfe who had been captured on the roof of the museum. So there was no point in checking with the police, or going to the Eberhardt. Instead, he got into his car and drove through the Holland Tunnel, all the way over to Newark.
This might seem like a strange reaction to the news that Riley Wolfe, the man he had devoted so much time and energy to finding, was on the job in Manhattan. It was not. Instead, it was the only possible reaction, and only Frank Delgado could know that. Only Frank Delgado knew what was there at this particular spot in Newark, and what it meant to Riley Wolfe. He had found this place after a week of careful and methodical search, and he had been watching it and waiting for this exact moment.
So Delgado drove through the Holland Tunnel and over to Newark and parked his car in the small and crowded parking lot of the Gentle Ease Long-Term Care and Rehabilitation Center. He had already been here, twice, but had not yet gone inside. This time, he did.