Danny’s cackle sounded a little unhinged, but then, why wouldn’t it.
“I’ll tell them to engage,” he said.“Let me know when stage two is complete.”
“Sure,” Lucius said.“Dear God.Next time,Iwant to be on the ship!”
Operation Rembrandt
“I SWEAR, I’Mstill full,” Josh mumbled as he, Liam, Grace, and Molly all disembarked from the train in the middle of Paris.
“Well, yeah,” Liam said, thinking fondly of his mother’s “full Irish” breakfast.Ham, potatoes, eggs, sausage, toast, and—probably because Grace and Molly begged for it—fruit.And beans.Mustn’t forget beans, because toast and beans were a staple no matter how much the yanks complained.“Another reason to only go home every few months.Mum can cook, but it’s all starch.Potatoes, turkey pot pie, big gluey pots of pasta with sauces inspired by three cultures.She’s great—but everything needs its own little dish of Tums.”
Molly chuckled, and the four of them glanced around to get their bearings.“Palais Royale,” she said.“This platform.”
“Is Stirling in place?”Josh asked.
“Café St.Honoré,” Molly said.“He’s got a good view out the balcony, he says, and he just got there.He and Tienne have some time to linger.”
“Good.”Josh took a deep breath.“You guys give them a hug for me, okay?I… I really miss having everybody nearby.”
“Any news?”Grace asked, and it was a sign of his absolute faith in Hunter that he didn’t sound nervous at all.
Josh—who had been listening on his earbud to Danny’s relayed information—nodded.“They’re about to start stage one,” he said.He grinned at Molly.“Lucius apparently has a whole new respect for you, in case you were wondering.”
Molly grinned.“Atlast,” she said, and then she gave Liam a sly glance.“Think maybe we could put your brother in the same room with him and Chuck?They could, you know, talk me up?”
Molly and Robert had bantered back and forth much like Molly bantered witheverybody, but Liam had caught some speculative glances on both their parts, and he had to agree with Josh on this one: Molly wasdue.
“Of course,” Liam said dryly.“But honestly, Molly-girl, all you’ve got to do is show up and be yourself.Robert won’t know what hit him.”
“Keep him,” Molly said, pleased.And then their second train drew near and they all hopped on.
The minute they jumped on, they separated, with Josh and Liam going one way and Molly and Grace going the other.Liam could see Grace pulling his stocking cap over his sparkly hair as he went.They would enter the museum at five-minute intervals, each one of them dressed in black, with a black stocking cap, black baggy khakis, a long-sleeved microfiber shirt, and skillful makeup that evened out everybody’s complexions, making Josh’s pallor and Liam’s ruddy cheeks match Grace’s tawny complexion and Molly’s vampire white.Molly was wearing a binder and shoulder pads, which made her look stocky and sexless but not feminine, which was the point, and the others had used similar prosthetics inside their clothes.
They were all close enough in height, Josh being the shortest, Liam being the tallest, for them to appear hauntingly similar.
The effect for the cameras would be the four of them, crisscrossing the museum, nobody in the same place long enough to do thewholejob, everybody smoothly doing their part and hiding it while Stirling played merry-hob with the shockingly small number of monitoring devices kept by one of the world’s biggest museums.
And of course with Tienne playing the shill—the innocent helpful bystander who was so very good at distracting attention.
They’d run through the con so often, their feet seemed to carry them without conscious thought.
They split up completely when the train let them off, circulating through the Palais Royale mall underneath the Louvre.While they were there, Josh bought—as planned—two cheap string backpacks in pale yellow, the kind people used to keep their water bottle and sunscreen, and Liam, at another vendor, bought two in the same pale yellow color.They both wore a similar pack—in black—on their backs, and their new purchases were quickly balled up and shoved in their pockets as soon as they left the shopping concourse.
And then, Josh first, they made their way into the Louvre.They had twenty minutes to get to their places, and it was both the longest and shortest time Liam had ever spent inside a museum.His heart leapt in his throat the minute he split off into the ancient world displays.
“Ooh….Sparkly!”Grace said into their commlink as Liam eyed old Egyptian graffiti on a temple.With amusement he saw that the translation was along the lines of “My commander can suck dick.”
“Remember our mission,” Josh hummed.
“Remember my side quest,” Grace hummed back, happy as a pig in slop at the Galerie d’Appollon.Liam didn’t approve of the side quest.But then, he figured the Louvre could be short one giant pink diamond if it meant Kadjic’s guns, drugs, and human trafficking operations could all be halted in their tracks.
He did have to suppress a smile, picturing Grace tooling through the opulent settings of some of the crown jewels of French royalty.Grace’s side quest had been chosen with Grace in mind.First, it slaked Grace’s urge to steal just to prove he could, and second, it provided a distraction when they needed one the most.
“Okay, losers,” Molly whispered.“I’m in.”
“Will it be Dolce and Gabbana?”Josh chided.
“Givenchy?”Grace asked.
