Encrypted (54 page)

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I think the better question is
,
“W
hat did
you
do?”

Henderson glanced over. “What’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath. Well
,
as deep a breath as she could with pneumonia rattling around in her lungs. Amanda could feel herself becoming shrill. It was one thing to be called a Chicken Little
.
I
t was quite another to act
like
one.

“The CIA data stream seems to have been cut off.”

“Or someone is hogging it again,” Devlin countered.

Before she could retort
,
Henderson put up a blotchy hand. “Or what if it wasn’t someone
here
doing the cutting off?”

To think that the CIA had a Hidden Hand mole? Exactly how organized
were
these people? Had they infected Langley as efficiently as they had infected Plum Island?

“I’m going to contact my superiors,” Devlin said as he rose creakily.

“You do that,” Henderson said
,
getting back to work.

Amanda stared at the frozen screen. She had been gutting it out. Working on faith that somehow her work could change the course of the disease. That somehow she could isolate vaccinated populations in order to find the cure. But if the CIA was compromised, even if she did somehow pull the rabbit out of the hat, who in the world could actually retrieve the vaccine?

She looked up to find Henderson watching her. He had never seemed quite so grandfatherly as he did right now.

“You can’t stop being Chicken Little now,
Rolph
,” the director said
, and
then went back to work.

It wasn’t exactly the most rousing pep talk in history
.
H
owever
,
it was exactly what she needed to hear.

Closing out the frozen screen, Amanda focused on the data they had already collected. There had to be enough information there. There just
had
to be.

CHAPTER 24

Metropolitan Museum of Art

7:35
a
.
m
.,
E
ST

Quirk groaned as his box cutter snapped off. Again. The stupid painting, a Degas
,
if he wasn’t mistaking his ballerina painters, refused to be freed from its frame. Museums had taken to attaching the canvas to thick metal plates, thereby preventing someone like Quirk from cutting the painting out of the frame. Like he said. Stupid.

Unlike Zach and Francois. They hit the old painting lottery. The other display halls were rotating through much lighter defenses. A little goading from Ronnie’s algorithm added to having two acetylene torches and the boys were literally cutting through their grocery list. But he and Ronnie?

They had tried everything to lift the paintings from their moorings
—
to no avail.

“
Be c
areful not to work up a sweat,” Ronnie said from the other side of the room as she worked to free a Giorgione.

“
Har
,
har
,” Quirk
laughed sarcastically,
not needing her to start in on his lack of
an
exercise regime. Was it so wrong
that
he liked his arms lanky and not muscle
-
bound?

“No, seriously,” she said, blotting her own forehead. “They’ve got humidity sensors
,
and while not linked to an alarm, if a guard notices the temp spike and humidity…”

It might have them looking in the wrong direction.
Their
direction.

“Fine, but
—
”

His palmtop rattled along the wooden floor.

“Quirk!”

“On it!” He dove for the device, snapping it up. That had to be some
mondo
alert to have kicked off the vibration setting.

Quirk flipped through the screens. Everything seemed fine. They hadn’t trigged anything here or in the Pacific Islands exhibit where Zach and Francois were collecting the last of their set.

Wait. What was that? A silent alarm had been tripped. But none of the museum exhibits were armed with silent alarms. Those alarms were about as loud as they could get.

“Quirk?”

“Tasking.” He followed the thread of the alarm back to its source. “It looks like it is coming from the core computer.”

Ronnie was on it. “Zach, are you anywhere near the security office?”

The FBI agent’s voice came over Quirk’s earpiece. “No
.
I
s there a problem?”

“Maybe.”

Well, not maybe, there was definitely a problem, just whether it was catastrophic or not was the question. Quirk studied all the feeds coming in from the security room. Had two of the guards gone out on patrol? That was off schedule. Had they changed their routine
because of
the temperature change? But then
,
where was the third guard? They always left a guard to attend the monitors.

But what was on the security screen? Quirk zoomed in. They had to be kidding
!
Someone spilled ketchup on the keyboard.

Wait. Ketchup didn’t glisten. He risked tilting the camera to the floor.

“Oh
,
my
G
od,” he breathed out.

* * *

“Come again?
I didn’t get that,” Zach stated,
finishing burning through
the Asian masterpiece
,
The Wave
,
cabling
. The damn thing had to weigh a hundred pounds. How could a canvas and wooden frame weigh a hundred pounds?

“Zach,” Ronnie said
,
then gulped. His ears perked up. It was never good news when Ronnie gulped before speaking. “Someone has killed the guards and set off a silent alarm.”

He didn’t bother to ask who
it was
. The Hidden Hand had obviously followed them. He didn’t even bother to ask how. They were ninja priests.

“I am on my way back to you,” Zach said, but then pulled to a halt as a shadow passed by the hallway. He grabbed Francois and shoved the Frenchman against the wall. Zach watched the bronze mirror as the reflection of four men cloaked in black pass
ed
by
,
then pause
d
.

Ronnie was speaking in his ear, but he turned the earpiece off. The last thing he needed was for his position to be given
a
way by a malfunctioning audio piece. He stood there waiting, hoping the men would move off, but they clearly were having a confab. Trying to decide in which direction to head.

“
Lino
,” Francois hissed
,
trying to take a step forward. Zach held him in place
,
but studied the golden
-
haired man. Actually
,
this
Lino
looked like a teenage boy
.
Y
et the others clearly deferred to him.

Luckily
,
the boy leader was as decisive as he was tall. With a snap of his head
,
he got the others moving down the hallway. But not all of them. Two were left behind. At exactly the junction Zach needed to pass to get back to Ronnie.

Zach didn’t want to admit it, but given
the
automatic weapons
of
those two,
he and
Francois were trapped.

* * *

Ronnie tried not to freak out, she really did, but how could she not? In crisp HD video
,
she watched Zach retreat into the exhibit.

“Honey, we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Quirk stated.

She tried to ignore her assistant, but he shoved his palmtop over hers. “Zach is at least
safe
. Those other two are making a beeline for this exhibit.” He indicated around them. “And if you hadn’t notice
d,
we are a little shy on defenses.”

Quirk was right. That didn’t make her heart hurt any less to watch Zach have to slink into the shadows.

“Girlfriend. Now!”

Ronnie tore her eyes from the Asian exhibit feed and refocused on the approaching blips on the grid. Quirk brought up another screen showing the actual men. “It looks like that one thinks he’s grade
‘
A
’
hacker.”

That the man did. From the keystrokes, the hacker was trying to find their heat signature. Which could work to their advantage. Ronnie had to be subtle. She couldn’t just give away their position. She had to make the guy believe
that
he really had broken into one of the world’s most sophisticated security system
s
.

Thank goodness these guys were just that arrogant.

Carefully
,
Ronnie brought up just the wisp of a reading,
and
then brought it back down. That got the guy to stop. From his excited hand gestures
,
he thought he was on
to something. Another deft flash of a signal caught his attention. He pointed to a room.

The Medieval Gallery. The gallery
where
she had planted their false heat signature.

The younger man clearly seemed more skeptical of this “find.” But in the end
,
he trusted the technology rather
than
his gut. Thank
G
od.

The two turned to the right and headed down a hallway
,
angling away, a full city block away from them.

“Phew,” Quirk exhaled. “Next time
,
we bring more deodorant.”

He was kidding. Ronnie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

Now to get Zach the hell out of there.

* * *

Zach wished he could create a weapon out of thin air. A
Glock
in his hand would sure feel nice.

He made sure Francois followed close behind as they made his way through the Asian Art Wing. Lots of pottery
,
but no weapons. Why the hell couldn’t they have gotten trapped in the armament gallery? He’d take a broadsword right about now. And a suit of armor? Priceless.

“Here,” Francois whispered
,
leading them into the Australian Aboriginal Art exhibit.

Zach tried to resist
;
however
,
the old man could be strong when he wanted to be. In the wan light
,
Zach could make out dozens of the prerequisite pots and clay shards. Nothing that could help their cause
,
though.

Until Francois pointed out a case. A case filled with aboriginal weapons. Many knives and even a few spears
,
but those required them to get far too close to the enemy. They needed long-range weapons. A boomerang caught Zach’s eye. Not exactly what he would have put on his wish list, but
if
they were deadly enough to bring down large game, they could work here.

Zach switched on his earpiece. “Ronnie. I need the
—
”

Before he even asked, the case’s latch sprung open. She must have been watching.

“Service with a smile,” she replied
,
only her tone seemed about half as lighthearted as her words.

“Give me five, and we will be on our way.”

Turning off the communications device
,
he turned to find Francois picking up a didgeridoo. The long
,
hollow stick was decorated with elaborate dots and aboriginal artwork.

“You do realize that is a musical instrument,” Zach explained as he picked up a few stone knives just in case.

Francois swung the wooden staff up and over his head, then around his side finally coming to rest in an attack angle. Okay. Good to remember. Francois did descend from a line of ninja priests.