Encrypted (53 page)

Quirk kept his nose pinched as he exhaled
air
milliliter by milliliter. The gauge went into a concerning chartreuse then morphed back to that refreshing mint color. The guard got bored and went back to watching “Lost” reruns.

Zach scowled. “I didn’t think this room had temperature sensors.”

“
Yeah
,” Ronnie answered, “Neither did we.”

Those dumb rotating defenses
, Quirk thought. Okay, they weren’t dumb, they were entirely too sophisticated for their own good. They forced the group to drop their core body temperature to seventy
-
two degrees, be able to move without causing the air to stir, and create no pressure on the floor.

Or, at least that is what an average art thief would need to do. You know
,
ones without the mad hacking skills. Ronnie was already working on a compensating algorithm.
She was f
eeding data back to the system that compensated for their added heat.

“Francois, take a step forward,” Ronnie asked.

“Hold on,” Quirk interrupted. “Shouldn’t Zach go first? He is the hottest.”

His boss frowned, “Quirk, enough.”

“No,” Quirk hurried on. “I mean, literally
,
he is the hottest.”

He showed Ronnie the heat scan. Zach registered nine eight point
nine
. A good three tenths of a degree warmer than any of them.

“See?” Quirk challenged. “Scientific proof
that
he’s smoking hot.”

Ronnie’s lips drew down
,
but she nodded to the FBI agent. “He’s right. Your heat signature will challenge my counterprogram
m
ing the most.”

They hung back as Zach inched forward. “Am I supposed to do anything?” the FBI agent asked.

“Nope,” Quirk answered. “Just work your natural
hottie
-self.”

* * *

Zach became acutely aware that all eyes were on him. He was pretty damn sure
that
his temperature was going up under the scrutiny.

“We’ve got a cool lime going on,” Quirk stated, looking relieved.

He g
uess
ed
that was a good thing as Ronnie instructed Francois to join him, but after a few feet, Ronnie pulled them back.

“You are just too hot, dude,” Quirk stated.

That had definitely never been a problem before now.

Ronnie agreed, “Not only are you warmer, but you radiate your heat further, comingling with anyone else.”

Before the world’s future hung in the balance
,
Zach
had some distinct ideas about how to comingle heat, but now it just presented a roadblock.

“We’ve got to go with ‘plan D,’
” Ronnie stated.

“I didn’t even know we h
ad
a ‘plan C,’
” Zach admitted.

Ronnie’s cheeks flushed a bit. “Yeah, that was kind of “we hope
our
luck doesn’t run out.’
”

Clearly
,
that had been a pipe dream.

“So, what next?” he asked.

“We don’t have time to run a full hack on the temperature sensors. Those are spanking brand new
,
with all the latest anti-tampering software. The best I can do is run interference.”

“But
I
can’t go in,” Zach clarified.

“Correct.” Ronnie said
,
looking up. “It also means that we can’t use the torches to cut down the paintings.”

Crap. He hadn’t even thought of that. Ronnie truly was running circles around him. “Then
,
how are we going to get them down?”

“I’ve got a few ideas, but they are going to take some time,” Ronnie explained. “Which means
that
we won’t have time to get the painting
s
from the other collections. Unless…”

“Unless?” he asked. Not liking the sound of it.

“You and Francois go to the other exhibits.”

“No,” Zach stated flatly. “We are not splitting up.

“As we know
,
not all exhibits have the same defenses. The chances that the other, more minor exhibits have all these bells and whistles is slim,” Ronnie hurried on, “
s
o you and Francois could gather the other paintings while we figure out how to deal with the bulk of these.”

“No,” Zach emphasized.

“Zach,” Ronnie sighed. “I get it. Trust me
.
I do not want you out of my sight
,
either, but there’s just no other way to get all this done in the time we have. You’ve
got
to go.”

“
No
,” Zach repeated. He did not go through all of this hell to lose her. Even for half a second.

* * *

Ronnie grabbed Zach’s hand. God
,
how she loved his determination and fierce desire to be at her side. Unfortunately
,
it forced her to speak some harsh truths. Truths she knew might hurt his feelings, but
these
truths needed to be spoken.

Ugh. How she hated being a grownup
!

“Zach, if you stay, what are you going to do?” His eyes scanned her features. Begging her not to go where she needed to go. “You can’t go in the room. So
,
what are you going to do while our time whittles down?”

“I don’t like it.”

That was an improvement over the curt “
nos
” he had been giving her.

“Like Quirk would say, you’ve got to get your full FBI
on.”

Zach’s eyes followed her gaze as her assistant nodded vigorously in agreement.

He looked back at her. “I am hot-footing it back here if there is even a whiff of trouble.”

Ronnie squeezed his hand. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

His features softened as he entwined his fingers in hers.

“Um?” Quirk stated. “Are we going to rob this museum
,
or not?”

And
just
like that, Zach was back to being a Special Agent demigod. He dropped her hand and picked up both acetylene torches. “Since you can’t use yours?”

“Go for it. We’ve got to play it cool.
Literally
.” Ronnie turned to Francois. “We just need you to tell us which paintings we need to grab.”

The old man looked startled,
as if
he didn’t understand why in the world she would ask him such a question.

She coaxed Francois along. “We have the list of painters
.
N
ow we need which of the paintings we need to burn.”

“How would I know such a thing?”

Dear
G
od. Now was not the time for the Frenchman’s mind to go offline. “But your carvings
,
and your time within the Hidden Hand…”

Francois’ eyes looked crystal clear as he spoke. “My dear, the angels have not yet told me.”

Ronnie blinked. Now they not only needed to get one painting from each artist, but all the paintings from that artist. How long would that take? And could they even be sure to find the right painting with the right symbol?

“So we grab all the paintings from the artist on the list?” Zach asked.

“I guess,” Ronnie said
,
glancing over her shoulder at the room full of the master
work
s. That just quadrupled the number of paintings they had to secure.

Zach seemed unshaken by the news. “We’re off then.”

With that said, he guided Francois around the corner
,
angling toward the African artwork exhibit. Would he look back? Would she break and ask him to stay?

“Again,” Quirk nagged. “The whole world depends on our expediency thing.”

Ronnie turned back to the European gallery. “Kind of how we might have known about the heat sensors if you hadn’t been making gooey eyes at the pilot?”

“Touché.”

She might have taken more satisfaction in besting Quirk at his own game if she had any clear idea of how they were going to get all the paintings
that
they needed off the wall without increasing the heat in the room. With about five hours lead time she could have found the source code for the heat sensors, but they were down to about fifteen minutes before her loop would start to fray.

Quirk must have come to the same conclusion. “We’ve got a few toys, he said
,
indicating the duff
el
bag filled with their “beta” projects. However
,
none seemed suited
for
the task.

“I am thinking that we flash
-
freeze the metal?”
s
he offered. “Making it more brittle and easier to break?”

“Great idea,” Quirk said
,
and
then chuckled. “Of course
,
that would require being
able
to flash
-
freeze the metal. And of course
,
that would lower the temperature of the room, throwing us into the blue on their sensors.”

Damn it, her assistant was right. Every scenario she posed in her head was equally improbable. She took a moment to settle her mind, glancing around the room at the masterpieces. Ronnie had been so stressed out she didn’t even realize that one of her favorite Monet
works
was right in front of her
—
Water Lilies
. A painting she not
only
loved but desperately needed to burn if they were going to save the world.

It turned out that stealing some of the most famous paintings in the world was
hard
. Who knew?

* * *

Lino
strode through the door. How convenient that
the
heretics and betrayers had broken into the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of his men held a computing device, tracing the illustrious hackers’ cyber footsteps. This man was, of course, no match for the whore’s skills, but they needed to only get so far upon her work. From there
,
Lino
had other plans.

He liked the large echoing chamber they entered. It smelled of musk and pine. To think
,
once the plague ran its course all places such as this would be the Hidden Hand’s. This indulgent notion that the great masters should be availed to the public would cease. Great beauty would be reserved for great men.

His team of four quickly crossed through the docking bay and headed down a side hallway.
Lino
had limited his team to be numbered four, slipping in under the hacker’s shadow.

Rapidly
,
they made their way to the security station. A large
,
numeric keypad blocked their entry. No matter. God’s grace once again shined down upon them. Long entrenched in the world of art and commerce, the Hidden Hand had many fingers.

One of his men typed in the current access code. Once the door opened,
Lino’s
team burst into the room, swiftly dispatching the guards. Even the one who had offered up the security code. He choked and gagged at
Lino’s
feet. Clutching at
Lino’s
pant leg, asking with his eyes,
W
hy
?

The answer was simple.
Lino
tired of betrayers. If this man could so easily be coerced to betray his employer, what did that say for his devotion to the
Hidden
Hand? One of
Lino’s
men moved to snap the man’s neck, but that would not do. No, this man must suffer in equal measure to his fickle morals.

Lino
leaned in and whispered
,
“It may h
e
arken you to know
that
your family will soon join you.”

The guard’s eyes dilated and his fingers clawed at
Lino’s
clothes, but nothing would shake his decision.

The long season of betrayal was coming to a swift end.

* * *

Amanda hit the
“
R
efresh
”
key. Again. Nothing happened. Why wasn’t the CIA data updating? She looked over to Devlin
,
who seemed to be having the same problem.