The Florentine Deception (10 page)

“Oops.” He grinned sheepishly.

“That's coming out of your share,” I said, shooting him a dirty look. “All right, let's try the attic before you destroy the place.”

A few minutes later, the three of us had ascended Steven's ladder and were perched upon the attic rafters, flashlight beams crisscrossing across the pink fiberglass insulation.

“Where to, Inspector?” I asked, wiping perspiration from my forehead.

Flashlight in hand, Steven teetered from plank to plank through the oppressive heat before stopping at a section of fiberglass batting about twenty feet away.

“Here are the three missing recessed lights.” He sidestepped right a few feet. “So the hole I made …” He squatted and dislodged a corner of the insulation. “Is right here.”

We cautiously followed, and, reaching an adjacent set of planks, I stooped down to peer through his makeshift opening.

“It's a hidden hallway, all right,” I said, withdrawing my flashlight. “I'm betting we can enlarge the hole pretty easily. Give me a hand.”

With Hillary manning the cam and a flashlight, Steven and I began stripping the large wad of insulation from between the rafters. After a minute of tugging and a typhoon of noxious particles, we'd cleared the three-by-five-foot strip and exposed the underlying gray mineral-fiber ceiling board.

“What do you say I take out the whole quadrant?” Steven asked.

“It'd make it easier to get through,” I agreed. “Go for it.”

I rose to my feet and stood next to Hillary.

Steven popped the snap on his holster, withdrew his knife, thrust it into the exposed ceiling board, and began sawing along the beams. After several minutes of hacking, the board began to sag.

“Just a few more inches,” he said, his knife still engaging the plaster-like interior of the board.

All of a sudden, the sheet cracked and fell toward the floor, ejecting a miasma of powder and filaments. Steven, his hand wrenched by the plummeting mass, lurched forward and down through the cloud. Before the horror could register, we heard a thud and a groan.

“Steven, are you okay?” Hillary screamed.

A languid, breathless, “I think” drifted through the dust.

Adrenalized, I grabbed hold of the beams on either side of the hole and lowered my body until I was dangling a few feet above the floor. Leaning forward through the thinning cloud, Hillary trained her light through the hole and onto Steven's body, allowing me to drop safely beside him.

In a miraculous and most likely accidental feat, Steven had landed flat on the ground, face up, his knife and tools sitting inches from his head. How he'd managed such a landing after falling headfirst, I had no idea. I crouched beside him.

“You okay?” I asked. He tried to sit up.

“I think so. I got,” he paused, “the wind knocked out of me.”

“Anything broken?”

He took a few seconds to consider, moved each of his body parts, and shook his head, still clearly dazed.

“Honey, we've got to get you out of there,” Hillary stared down helplessly at me. “How are we going to get him out?”

“Give me a second.” I swept the surrounding walls with my headlamp.

“One sec. I think there's a light switch here.” In fact, there were two switches, one of the common up-down style and the other a red button, both unmarked. I stepped around Steven to the end of the hall and flicked the up-down switch; instantly, three recessed lights along the hallway ceiling flickered to life and bathed the walkway in a harsh yellow light.

“Better. Steven, let's move you away from the bookcase wall.”

Steven took my hand and stood up slowly, wobbled for a second, and then steadied himself against the wall opposite the bookshelves. A trickle of blood had slid down the side of his face and onto his t-shirt.

“Okay?” I asked.

He gave me slightly foggy all-clear eyebrows.

“All right guys, grab hold of the beams for a second. I think I found the button for the door.” I paused. “Ready?”

Hillary grabbed a rafter and nodded. I pushed the button.

Chapter 17

Russian Safe House—Downtown Los Angeles

Present Day

“What did you find in the house?” asked the brawny man.

“
Nichego
.” Nothing
.

“Shit! We're running in circles.”

“Calm down. I think—”

“Calm down? If we don't clean this up before Internal Affairs finds out, we're dead. They'll make fucking borscht from our testicles. Don't tell me to fucking calm down.” The brawny man hammered back a shot of vodka and carelessly wiped his chin on a hairy forearm.

“Listen, Sergej. Listen. I may have another lead.”

“What lead?” Sergej slurred.

“After I finished searching the house, I did a background check on the name from the envelope—Alex Fife.”

Sergej shook his head. “And?”

“This man is the former chief engineer at ViruTrax, the cyber-defense firm.”

“A computer security expert?”

“
Da
. His SVR dossier is nearly two hundred pages long.”

“Quite a coincidence.” Sergej closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. “You think he's after the Florentine?”

“Why else would he be casing Lister's house?”

“How could he possibly know about it? Lister wouldn't sell to a white hat.”

“I don't know. Perhaps someone in the underground tipped him off?”

“
Niet
. We'd be locked up in a Moscow interrogation facility right now if there were any mention of this in the hacker circles. But I can't see how else he would find out.” He took a deep breath. “We need to interrogate him.”

“Too messy. He's a wealthy man. That could attract unwanted attention, and we can't afford that until we've secured the Florentine.”

Sergej stared at the ceiling in thought. “This is true. Perhaps it makes more sense to surveil him and see what he knows. Then we can decide how to proceed.”

“That sounds more prudent.”

“Either way, the moment we secure Lister's copy, if this man has any knowledge of the program, he will have to be liquidated.”

Chapter 18

Latigo Canyon House—Malibu, CA

Present Day

With little more than a mechanical whisper, the leftmost bookshelf sank straight down and into the floor. About ten seconds later, the top of the bookshelf, dust, footprint and all, sat flush with the library floor, allowing brilliant afternoon light to flood through the aperture.

“I guess there weren't midgets after all,” Steven said weakly.

“I'll climb down the ladder and meet you in the kitchen,” said Hillary anxiously.

I grabbed Steven by the arm and led him through the opening, down the stairs and into the kitchen. A moment later, Hillary had him sitting in a folding chair and was swabbing his forehead with a wet paper towel.

“Does it hurt?” she asked. Steven brought his hand to his head and prodded it gently.

“A little. I banged it against the wall going down.”

Hillary fumbled through her purse and a moment later presented him with a wrapped chocolate truffle.

“I'm feeling better already.”

I believed he was.

While Hillary tended to his wounds, I took a seat in a folding chair and picked up the pouch containing Richard's will.

“Okay, time for a bit of Richard Lister trivia.” They both stared at me expectantly.

“Richard also included a life insurance policy in his packet. For five hundred dollars, how much did Richard insure himself for?”

“Half a million,” guessed Hillary. I looked at Steven.

“Who knows?” he croaked. “A million.”

I issued a buzzing noise.

“Two million. Okay. Next question. What did Mr. Lister specify should be done with his body when he dies? Or rather, when he died.”

“That's in the will?” asked Hillary.

“He's got some other paperwork in here too.”

“Cremation?” guessed Hillary.

I delivered another buzz.

“Preserve it in plastic?” asked Steven goofily with a slightly steadier voice.

“Close,” I said. “He donated his body to the UCLA Medical School.”

“Ewwww,” said Hillary, dragging a faux scalpel-finger down Steven's chest. “How'd you like to be dissected, hon?”

“Anyone want to take a second stab at the passage?” I looked to Steven, who seemed to be improving rapidly post-truffle.

“I think I'm feeling good enough to at least take a look.”

Hillary considered Steven, then nodded and helped him up from the chair.

“Can you stand on your own?” she asked.

“Yeah, I'm okay now.”

“Good,” she said, and the three of us walked back up to the bookshelves.

I was the first to step over the bookcase and into the hidden hallway; by this time, the sun had lowered, leaving only a thin beam of light to illuminate the top of the newly revealed entrance. The hallway lights were on and Steven's tools were on the floor, just as we'd left them.

We walked the length of the hallway, all of about fifteen feet, to the end. Instead of a stairwell as Steven had guessed, a steel ladder descended vertically down a shaft of about twenty-five feet, illuminated overhead by a dangling 60-watt bulb.

“What if there are traps?” asked Hillary as she leaned over the shaft and aimed her iPhone camera downward.

“I can't imagine the guy booby-trapped his own home,” I said.

“Well, if the guy was crazy enough to build a secret passage, he might be crazy enough to booby-trap it,” said Hillary, a little miffed.

“I'll take my chances.” I grabbed hold of the ladder, which was bolted into the back side of the library wall, and started down. Unlike the hallway, the shaft hadn't been finished and was framed by exposed two-by-fours and batted with the same pink insulation we'd seen in the attic. A bundle of wires ran down the length of the shaft, cinched to the beams every few feet with plastic cable ties.

After about five feet, I called up, “Why don't you stay up there until I reach the bottom and can take a look around.”

Neither of them objected, so I descended cautiously. About halfway down the ladder, the wood frame terminated and was replaced by a chimney of gray cinderblocks. The block-lined shaft continued another ten feet and ended at a familiar-looking limestone tile floor.

“I've hit the bottom.”

I loosened my grip on the ladder rungs, palms sticky from a combination of increased heat, humidity, and anticipation, and pivoted to survey the space. The narrow shaft opened up into a wider cinderblock hallway that led away from the ladder and toward the front of the house. The bundle of electrical arteries exited from the shaft and ran along the top of the corridor, sprouting glowing 60-watt bulbs every five feet through the rest of the passage, which ended in another wall of cinderblocks.

“It's okay to come down,” I yelled. The pair engaged in a barely audible but obviously energetic discussion, and a second later, Hillary came clambering down the ladder. Seconds later, Steven followed, with Hillary filming his descent down the shaft.

“Shall we?” I pointed down the hall.

“What's down there?” asked Steven.

“I've got no idea. I waited for you to find out.” I gestured to Steven. “After you.”

Steven took the lead down the passage, and, reaching the end, turned left at the corner and shouted, “I think we found the mother lode.”

I turned the corner and was equally impressed—just feet from the bend stood an imposing steel wall hung with a vault-like steel door. Mounted on the door were a ten-digit, phone-style keypad and a thick steel handle. An equally imposing grille covered an air vent about a foot from the ceiling and directly atop the door.

“It's a panic room,” said Hillary.

“A panic room with a hundred-carat diamond inside,” added Steven.

“What's this for?” asked Hillary. She pointed at a dinner-plate-sized mirror mounted face-height next to the door.

“Maybe the guy was a narcissist and liked to check his hair before he went to count his gems,” said Steven.

“Maybe he wanted to make sure no one was behind him when he opened the lock,” I suggested.

“Well, for now it's a mystery,” said Hillary.

Tired of the current conversation, Steven shifted his attention to the keypad and began tapping keys. After every six buttons, the keypad emitted two reproaching beeps and then flashed its backlit keys.

“Let me try,” I said, and I strained to remember Richard's password. “If I recall correctly, Richard's password was R, followed by the digit one, then C, H, 4, R, and D. We can enter the letters digitally just like on a telephone.”

“That password's never going to work,” said Hillary, panning the iPhone's camera between the keypad and me.

“Why?” I asked.

“The pad beeps after six digits. It takes a six-digit code, but R1CH4RD is seven long.”

“Crap.”

“Shazam!” exclaimed Steven.

Hillary shot a quizzical look at Steven and looked to me. “It must be the bump he took to the head,” she said.

I grinned.

“Woman!” Steven rejoined, “
Shazam
was the password Richard used for his email account.” He looked at me eagerly. “Let's try it!”

It was worth a try.

“Okay.” I consulted my phone's keypad. “S is 7. Hit 7.” Steven complied.

“H is 4. A is 2. Z is 9. Then 2 again. And then 6.” The three of us looked hopefully at the keypad as Steven entered the final digit. Alas, the keypad rebuked us with the same two angry beeps.

“Any other ideas?” asked Hillary. “How about getting a locksmith out?”

Still focused on the keypad and oblivious to our conversation, Steven took his phone from my hand, and consulting it, began entering sequences of six digits.