Encrypted (56 page)

“You may be vaccinated,
Lino
, but
you
are not immortal.”

Fury twisted
Lino’s
face. “Cut through it,” the young man barked at his assistant.

“But the police
—
”

“
Now
.”

* * *

Probably best not to piss off the crazed religious lunatic
, Quirk thought but didn’t bother to voice, because, well
,
the crazed religious lunatic was already pissed off.

The metal shone blue under the assailant’s torch. They didn’t even have to make a very big hole. Just enough for a gun barrel
,
and then it would be like shooting…well
,
shooting four idiots in a gallery. Zach had tipped over the benches to act as a cover, but really
,
how long was that going to hold off the semiautomatic weapons?

Ronnie suddenly turned to Zach. “Burn them.”

“What?”

But
,
Ronnie being Ronnie
,
she
picked up the acetylene torch and set
fire
to
The Wave
. The beautifully stylized crest of a foamy ocean wave warped and bubbled.

Quirk grabbed her wrist. “You are going to set off the fire alarms!”

Ronnie glanced
at
Lino’s
man who had nearly made a muzzle
-
sized hole in the mesh gate. “Exactly.”

Quirk followed her gaze to the ceiling. “Got it!”

Zach still looked confused
,
so Quirk shoved the burning painting at him while Ronnie moved onto the next. “Use this to light the others on fire.”

Quirk had to give it to the FBI agent
.
H
e looked completely perplexed
,
but did exactly what was asked of him, setting a
Manet
aflame. What was once a delicate reverential moment was now a fire frenzy. Francois used the other torch to light even more masterpieces. Quirk got his camera out, recording the swirling symbols. So many and who knew in what order, but at the least they were capturing them.

Then
,
as the flames licked up the wall, the automated fire suppression system kicked in. The first step, the glorious first step
,
was for a heavy, bulletproof acrylic shield to lower in front of the metal mesh. The plastic guard was necessary to block the doorway so when sprinklers overhead shot out their FE-13 mist, the fire suppression gas would be contained to this room
—
and only this room.

Lino
shoved his gun through the hole in the mesh and fired, point
-
blank
,
yet the shield held. A white, heavy mist filled the room. Zach gulped in a big breath and hunkered to the ground. Quirk snickered.

“Dude, that’s so 1996.”

Quirk took in a deep breath. Modern halogenated compounds were perfectly safe to inhale. Zach looked only moderately embarrassed as he continued setting paintings on fire.

The symbols glittered, dancing amongst the fog like characters in a fairy tale. So many. Maybe too many for his boss to interpret in real time. The mist loved these crackling symbols
,
though
,
as the white particles were drawn to the magnesium fire.

The scene would all have been so very beautiful if it wasn’t for the little facts that
Lino
was trying to shoot his way in, the police were about t
o
descend on the building, and the Black Death was on a rampage.

* * *

Zach set the last painting on fire. The mist made the act seem almost magical
—as if
they hadn’t just destroyed a huge swath of the world’s greatest paintings. What would his mother call it? Wanton destruction? His only small comfort was that the painters, the originators of these exquisite works of art
,
had always intended, when the worst came, for them to be set alight. But it felt a small comfort that the only remains left of over a dozen masterpieces were scorched frames.

Suddenly
,
the gunfire stopped. Zach turned to see
Lino
step back from the mesh. Was he backing away in defeat? He should have been walking away in defeat. After all
,
the police and fire sirens were right outside the front door. Instead
,
the cocky bastard just smiled that cool, insidious smile.

“As I stated,”
Lino
said. “Trapped.”

With that
,
the prick nodded to his man. An explosion rocked the building, sending soot and ash into the air as the lights cut out. Just as the emergency lighting bloomed to life, a second explosion sounded from downstairs, plunging the room into complete darkness. The only illumination in the gallery
was
from Ronnie’s screens.

In the eerie
,
wan light,
Lino’s
teeth glistened in a fierce smile before he turned and charged down the hallway to the exit.

Ronnie was already at work trying to get the gates to lift
,
but Zach could tell by the set of her jaw
that
it wasn’t going well.

“Talk to me.”

“We’ve lost the hydraulic lifts to get the gates up.”

Zach raced to the front of the room and put his shoulder into it. With a grunt
,
he pushed up on the acrylic shield. It rose a quarter of an inch
,
and
then slammed back down. Even with all four of them, he doubted
that
they could raise it the foot they needed to crawl out.

“Tell me you’ve got a Plan ‘H.’
”

* * *

Ok
ay, it was more like Plan
L
,
for ludicrous. She hoped that everyone in the room remembered that when they packed to break Zach out of the CIA safe house that they had not expected to assault the Metropolitan Museum of Art, let along escape an airtight room, with the police breathing down their necks to boot.

“
Helo
,” Ronnie said. Zach looked confused
,
but Quirk brightened.

“Oh
, m
y
G
od!” Quirk exclaimed. “Brilliant!”

He immediately swiped his screen, dismissing the security feed
,
which was now nothing more than a blank blue screen
,
and booted up
Helo’s
command sequence.

“Do I even want to know what he’s doing?” Zach asked.

“Probably
not
.”

From the other side of the gate, one of their equipment bags shook and lifted a few inches from the ground. Then the bag burst open
,
and their
small, perfectly
-
to
-
model helicopter hovered above the ground.

“Meet
Helo
.”

Quirk’s smile could not be contained. “I always knew I liked aviation.”

With a few deft moves of his wrist
,
her assistant got
Helo
up and zipping down the hallway
,
when the craft suddenly lost altitude and circled lazily to the left.

“Quirk?”

“I don’t know,” he said, rapidly trying to compensate. Then his palmtop sparked. Quirk’s pupils dilated as he turned to her. “Oh
,
no. The FE-13.”

She was way ahead of him, wiping off her screen, shaking off any remnants of the substance. While it was safe to inhale, if not a little stinky, the one major drawback of the
fire retardant was its penchant
to fritz electronic devices. Especially high-end electronic devices. Which of course, all of theirs were.

“Pass the controls to me,” Ronnie ordered, but Quirk stalled.

“No, it’s okay. I’ve got
—
”

Then his entire screen w
ent
blue, then fuchsia
, and
then a glaring yellow.

Poor
Helo
ducked and swerved without guidance. Ronnie keyed in the code, taking control, steadying out the mini-helicopter’s flight.

“I’ll take it from here,” Quirk said
,
reaching for her palmtop.

“Hey, you might have built it, but who tested out the controls?”

Before Quirk could argue, Zach stepped between them. Physically. “No matter who is driving, I don’t get how this toy
—
” Even Zach stopped at Quirk’s sharp glare. “I mean
,
incredible feat of engineering
,
is going to get us out of this room, especially since it is flying away from us.”

She loved how cute Zach looked when he was trying to go all logical on her. His was a linear mind. God love it, so linear.
She and
Quirk didn’t just think outside the box
—
they lived
outside
it.

Many people would ask why you would need a perfectly functioning mini-helicopter rigged with a directional blast payload. Those people were not Ronnie and Quirk. Of course
,
they
thought they were going to use
Helo
during
the break
-in
of
the vault at Lloyd’s of London
,
but hey, they at least knew
that
they might need it for something important.

“Just watch and learn,” she teased.

* * *

Lino
squinted. Was that a sliver of light up ahead? The emergency exit could not be far. Which was a most fortunate thing
,
since the yells of the police were in the building. They had enough firepower to subdue any attempt to contain them, but
Lino
would rather
that
they make their escape without notice. So
,
fewer witnesses to dispose of.

“What’s that?” the brother next to him asked.

Slowing,
Lino
cocked his head. A tinny
,
oscillating buzz filled the air. He raised his gun. What could still be functioning after the complete blackout?

A spotlight came around the corner
,
blinding him for an instant. He shot reflexively, knowing
that
he missed the mark. Once his eyes adjusted
,
a strangely small helicopter flew directly for them. Ducking, the vehicle streaked over their head
s, and
then made the turn to go up the steps.

They fired, rocking the helicopter to and fro, but the damnable thing disappeared out of sight.

That witch and her mechanical familiars.

They did not have the time to
dispose of the witch
and her companions. At th
e
eleventh hour
,
did it really matter? He’d seen enough of the angelic script to know where they headed next.

To the heart of the Hidden Hand.

There
,
they would meet God’s final fury.

* * *

Zach watched the screen as the helicopter bobbed and weaved. It had taken several hits during its encounter with
Lino
. Would it make it to wherever Ronnie needed it to go? He’d guessed somewhere above them, but since he’d never been to the Met, one of those things
that
his mother kept bugging him about, he wasn’t sure where.

“No, you’ve got stabilize its flight path by compensating to the right,” Quirk whined over Ronnie’s shoulder. Backseat drivers were bad enough. Mini-helicopter backseat drivers Zach imagined were the worst.

“I’ve got it,” Ronnie emphasized although the chopper did seem to be veering to the left a lot.

Finally
,
the craft burst from the staircase and coursed into the second level, shining its bright light on the American
W
ing. Instead of the typical block
ed,
square galleries on this floor and just about every other museum in the world this new wing was built in what Zach could only describe as “fish eye” bubbles. Each room’s front came out in a circular manner, resembling that a fish eye.