Eye of the God (15 page)

“Control to all security teams. We've had a level one breach. Lockdown will commence in three seconds. No one goes in or out.” He punched a code in the main terminal, locking all windows and exterior doors.

“But, sir, we're in the middle of a shift change.”

Daniel closed his eyes and shook his head. “Yes, we are, and he knows it.” He stepped back and regarded the screens before him. “We've got the footage. We can find him.”

“Footage, yes. Real time feed, no. He could be out of the building by now.”

Daniel stuck the pen in his mouth and gnawed on the end. “We'll find him.”

“We don't even know if he took anything, sir.”

“He took something. He was in my building with a stolen ID, and he didn't come here to play hide-and-seek.”

Marshall turned his attention from the closed circuit TVs for the first time since the motion detector went off and looked at Daniel. “What do you think he was doing down there?”

“Gathering information.”

“On what?”

“That's what I want you to find out. What do we keep on those servers?”

Marshall pulled up a security grid of the building and located the room where the motion detectors had gone off. “That room is ITS three. It's where we store all the video footage from the security cameras. How could that information possibly be important to anyone but Smithsonian staff?”

“I don't know yet, but we're going to find out. Can you tell me what he accessed while he was in there?”

“No, sir. I'm not showing that any of the video feed was interrupted. If there had been a disconnect we could have traced it. But if he just tapped into the source without disrupting the flow, there's no way to know what he accessed.”

Daniel Wallace settled into his chair. “I want to know what he was after. This is going to hit the fan tomorrow.” He tapped the pen on the console and then stuck it back in his mouth.

10

D
R. PETER TRENT WAS TEMPTED NOT TO ANSWER THE PHONE. HE SAT
at the antique wooden table in his kitchen, stirring a fifth spoonful of sugar into his coffee.

Senator Baker, no doubt, calling to harass me about the event again. I swear that woman could strip the paint off a barn door with her barbed-wire tongue.

The phone stopped ringing, and Peter sighed in relief. He unfolded the
Washington Times
and opened it to the Arts section. Just as he reached for his cup, the phone rang again, and he tipped over his coffee, soaking the paper with the dark French roast.

“Peter Trent,” he snapped into the receiver, shaking coffee off his paper.

“Daniel Wallace, sir. Sorry to call you so early.”

Peter looked at the clock. Six-thirty. “Early, indeed. How can I help you?”

There was a long pause on the other end. “Sir, we've had a level one security breach at The Castle.”

“When?” Peter dropped into his chair.

“Early this morning, sir.”

“What happened?”

“An unidentified man snuck into the basement using a stolen security badge.”

Peter rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Was anything stolen? Accessed?”

“Not that we can verify, sir. We suspect he tapped into our surveillance storage system, but we don't know for sure.”

“Did you at least retrieve the stolen security badge?”

“I use the term
stolen
loosely. Somehow he managed to obtain a badge used by one of our guards on vacation.”

“But all security personnel are required to hand in their access cards when they take leave.”

“True.”

“Did you not have the card of this officer?” Dr. Trent rose from his chair and paced across the kitchen floor.

“That's just it, Dr. Trent. I did have the card. As soon as we detected the intruder and verified the card scan I retrieved it from my desk. I was looking at it while he was in the building.”

“Then how did this intruder manage to get his hands on a security badge? Much less the very one you had in your possession.”

“That has yet to be determined, sir.”

“When he's questioned by police I want them to find out.”

Daniel cleared his throat. “That's just it, sir, we didn't apprehend him.”

“Excuse me?”

“He got away. Just before we put the building on lockdown.”

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Just how exactly do you presume I will explain this to the Board of Regents?”

Silence on the other end. And then a faint clicking sound.

“What is that?”

“What is what, sir?”

“That clicking?”

“Oh. My pen, sir.”

“Well, stop it!”

Daniel cleared his throat, and Peter knew he was working up the courage to say something else.

“Daniel, please don't tell me there's more bad news.”

“No more news, sir, it's just that—”

“
What?!”

“I think we should reconsider the Hope Diamond celebration this weekend.”

The face of Senator Elizabeth Baker loomed in Peter's mind—her expectations and her threats. She had made it perfectly clear on more than one occasion that this event was high on her priority list. “Daniel,” he said, “I don't think we need to be rash.”

“This was a major security breach.”

Peter Trent closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “I understand. We'll discuss this later.”

“But—”

“Good-bye, Daniel.”

“Dr. Trent—”

“Listen, Daniel,” he snapped. “You are one of the most hard-working employees I have. No one doubts your devotion. But we have no reason to believe the breach is connected to the event.”

“You think I'm overreacting? I have security footage! Ask Blake Marshall. He was with me in the security terminus.”

Dr. Trent clenched his fist. “We can talk about this when I come into the office. But for now, everything will move forward as planned.”

Abby took a seat at the round mahogany conference table and set her purse on the floor. Daniel Wallace and Henry Blackman, vice president of Diebold, Inc., were already seated and engrossed in small talk.

“Sorry I'm late, gentlemen,” she said. “Things are a little crazy around my office these days.”

Abby gave the conference room a cursory look while she pulled files from her briefcase. The conference room was on the eighth floor of the Tower Building in downtown Washington, D.C., and looked out on the bustling activity of afternoon traffic. The clean, sparse room held nothing but the mahogany table, eight leather chairs, and two black-and-white photographs of famous architect Aldo Rossi's buildings. Efficient, just like the company it represented.

As usual, Daniel Wallace wore a three-piece suit, polished dress shoes, and the perpetual crew cut of a former military officer who hadn't quite adjusted to civilian life.

“You look tired, Daniel,” she said.

“Late night.”

“You shouldn't work so much.”

Daniel opened his mouth to reply, but turned away and cleared his throat instead.

Abby glanced between the two men seated at the large polished table and tried to order her thoughts. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us, Mr. Blackman,” she finally said, offering her hand and a pleasant smile.

Henry Blackman drifted somewhere in his mid-fifties and waged a losing battle against baldness. “The pleasure is all mine, Dr. Mitchell. It's nice to finally meet you in person” he said. Blackman took her hand and held it for just a little longer than she was comfortable with.

“This is our head of security, Daniel Wallace.” Abby pulled her hand free and motioned toward him. “He's assisting me on this project to ensure that the Hope Diamond is fully secure for our upcoming gala.”

Daniel leaned forward. “As you know, Mr. Blackman, we have a major event coming up, and we need your full assurance that the Hope Diamond will be secure.”

Blackman offered a toothy grin. “To the best of my knowledge, the Smithsonian has never reported an attempt to steal the diamond. When we engineered the current security systems in 1997, we made even the possibility of theft obsolete.”

Abby seemed less convinced. “I'm not sure that I share your confidence, Mr. Blackman. The Hope Diamond is a tempting challenge, and I believe there are those out there who would be willing to try.”

“Try, yes. Succeed, no,” he said. “You are familiar with the parameters we have in place?”

Daniel grunted. “Unfortunately, our records give us the bare minimum of information on the security features you designed.”

“Exactly,” Blackman said, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. He tapped his fingers together lightly. “When we were contracted to design the state-of-the-art system housing the diamond, we separated the various aspects among several different engineers. There is no one organization who understands how the system was put together, myself included. The design documents are kept in our vaults, and as you know, our burglar-resistant vaults have earned us the reputation of being the industry standard. I assure you, your diamond is safe.”

To eliminate feedback noise, Isaac adjusted the audio coming from the bug in Abby's purse. He and Alex watched the voice patterns of Henry Blackman fluctuate on the computer screen before them. Isaac looked at his brother with a malicious grin. “Looks like we've got ourselves a little challenge.”

Alex didn't respond. He sat with his feet propped up on the leather sofa. Abby's voice transmitted cleanly through the receiver, and as he listened to her talk he recalled the look of surprised pleasure that crossed her face when he kissed her temple the night before. She was responding just like he wanted.

“The diamond's display case is three inches thick and bulletproof,” Blackman continued, pride evident on his face. “If that is not enough of a deterrent, and someone actually tries to smash their way into the case, the jewel will immediately drop through the floor and into a specially designed vault below. When the remodel was done, the contractors reinforced the floor due to the weight of the vault. It cannot be broken into or lifted out without heavy machinery. And don't forget that even if a thief were able to bypass all those security features, which is technically impossible, he would still have to get out of the museum. Along with those hard security features, there is an intricate web of soft features such as containment security, electronic monitoring, and state-of-the-art alarm systems. We have created a total protective solution. Besides, our reputation is on the line. Not only do we protect the world's most precious gem, but also the foundation of America's history. In 2003 we were commissioned to build three customized high-tech vaults for the National Archives that store the U.S. Constitution,
the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. In addition to the vaults that hold those documents at night, we also created the permanent displays that encase them during the day at the Rotunda.”

Abby listened to Blackman's spiel, running the odds in her mind that anyone would be bold enough to try and steal the diamond. As much as she'd like to believe his declaration of total security was gospel truth, she knew better.

Blackman looked at Daniel. “I hear you spent a good portion of your career at the State Department?”

Daniel nodded. “Ten of the twenty years I spent in the service.”