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“They designed it. Installed it,” Szabo said.
“And you trust them?” Shurgin asked. He sounded like he couldn’t believe it was a good idea to trust anybody, and if you did, you were an idiot.
Szabo shrugged it off. “Completely,” he said. “I know most of them. They’re from the Teams.”
“Which teams would that be, Lieutenant?”
Szabo took a breath. This guy was absolutely getting under his skin. Maybe it was a technique, a way to knock people off balance and get the truth out of them. Even so, it was pissing him off, and he couldn’t let that happen. “The SEAL Teams,” he said. “They all have a top security clearance.”
“Mmm,” Shurgin said. “Anybody else?”
“The director of the museum. Miller.”
Shurgin nodded. He looked around the lobby. Szabo wondered if he could really see anything. “Can I assume that this wonderful, updated, first-rate system includes video surveillance?”
Again, the guy was just being a douchebag. But Szabo reminded himself that he had lived through worse. “Of course,” he said. “Archived for two weeks.”
Still looking away, Shurgin said, “I’ll need access to the archived footage.”
“All right,” Szabo said. “You going to tell me what this is all about?”
“We have reason to believe there will be an attempt on the jewels. By a man we take very seriously.”
“And you think this guy can get past the electronics, AND my team, AND the rag— and the Iranians?”
Shurgin looked back at Szabo and blinked again. “He thinks he can,” Shurgin said. “He might be right. It’s kind of his specialty.”
Szabo shook his head. He was pretty sure nobody could get past all the guards, electronic and human. “He must be Spider-Man or something.”
“He is,” Shurgin said, with no trace of humor. “He is an expert at parkour—you’ve heard of that, I assume?” Szabo nodded, but Shurgin went on without noticing. “That means he can come at his target from any direction. Even the unexpected ones. And he has used these skills to execute highly improbable—an
d successful—thefts around the world. He’s smart, relentless, ruthless—and he doesn’t mind committing murder if it will achieve his ends.”
Szabo perked up at the word “murder.” If this superthief had already made a stab at the treasure—and killed the chief in the attempt . . . “Did you get briefed on what happened here last night, Agent Shurgin? It might be connected—”
“That’s why I’m here,” Shurgin said irritably. He rubbed his forefinger across his mustache. “Last night’s attempt—if it was, in fact, an attempt—will not be the last. He’ll come again. And again. He’ll keep trying until he succeeds. And if he has to, he won’t hesitate to kill again—unless we apprehend him first.”
He raised an eyebrow, which, for some reason, looked bizarre: a thick band of fur jiggling above the thick lenses. “This exhibition has powerful implications for our national security. A theft of any one of the items on display would have catastrophic diplomatic consequences.” He gave Szabo another unnerving blink. “You understand, Lieutenant?”
“Of course,” Szabo said. “Who is this guy?”
“A man named . . . Hervé Coulomb,” Shurgin said, and he added, unnecessarily, “He’s French.”
* * *
—
Szabo installed Special Agent Shurgin in the conference room, with a video monitor and playback, and he began to go through the archived footage from the security cameras. Szabo left him there, hunched absurdly close to the screen, presumably so he could see through his thick glasses.
Szabo went back to his post at the security console, where a handful of his men were waiting. “Miller isn’t coming in today,” Taylor said as Szabo approached. “His wife just got here—alone. Said he’s not coming.”
“Why not?”
Taylor shrugged. “Dunno. Chief’s girlfriend isn’t here, either.”
“She probably all busted up ’bout the chief,” Tremaine said.
“Yeah,” Snyder said. “Think Miller is, too?”
