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He fell back, a hand to his head. “Ugh, that hurts. I was going in and out, but I know she said something like ‘Noon at the ark.’”
Mike said, “The ark? Like, Noah’s ark?”
“That’s what it sounded like. It’s all I remember, Mike. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, it’s wonderful information. We’ll track it down. Agent Savich is recovering all the video she erased, so maybe we can get more context. You rest now, okay? I’ll be back to get you in the morning.”
Nicholas’s dark eyes met hers as they rode the elevator down. “Noon. As in noon tomorrow? That would give us less than twelve hours to catch up to her. It’s going to take longer than that to get to Mount Ararat.”
She smiled. “I have faith in Savich. He’s a magician, he’ll figure it out.” She got on her cell as they left the hospital and called Zachery. “Sir, we really need Savich to lift the audio from the feed during Browning’s attack. Paulie heard Browning say something about noon at the ark after she hit him.”
36
New York, New York
250 West 50th Street, Apartment 2324
Archstone Midtown West
Friday, after midnight
Mike and Nicholas went with lights and sirens across town to the home address on file for Victoria Browning. The light snow had stopped, and the city looked frosted, park benches and wrought-iron railings silvered in the moonlight.
The streets were slick and nearly empty, and Mike was doing her best not to crash the car as she hurried around the south end of Central Park, then shot down Broadway toward the theater district. Usually jammed with people at all hours, tonight most everyone in Midtown was tucked up in bed, and the trip was going quickly.
Nicholas said, “You’re frowning. What’s wrong?”
She shot him a look. “I was thinking about what my father would do in this situation. He’s the chief of police of Omaha, Nebraska, that’s a state in the Midwest—”
“Thank you, they did teach American geography at Eton. And what would your dad have to say?”
“He always told me to check out the stripes first, even if I was sure it was a zebra.” She swung around a lone cab with one guy in the back who looked passed out.
“And what have you decided? Is the Fox really a zebra?”
“Not so far. She’s anything but, given all the twists and turns she’s tossed in our path. I’m hoping her apartment will tell us a lot about her.” She stopped at a red light, watched a bundled-up bag lady push her grocery cart piled high with stuff across the street. “I hope she’s got a warm place. The temperature’s plummeting.”
Unlike Nicholas, who felt like he was in a canyon, black monoliths on either side of them, the old woman looked like she knew exactly where she was going. He said, “It’s eerie, seeing the city sleep like this, all hunkered down, looming. London rarely gets quiet, but then again, London isn’t this overwhelming, so in-your-face.”
She said, “It’s after midnight and it’s snowing. If you’re sane, you’re inside. I’ve always thought that in the deep of night, the city knows something we don’t know, and always, bad things happen.”
Her cell rang. “It’s Ben.” She put him on speaker so Nicholas could hear.
Ben said, as if in mid-thought, “We’re FBI, the most suspicious people in the world, and the most cynical, so tell me, why did we take her at face value? Browning raised the alarm, claimed the stone was fake, and we all believed her. We didn’t even check to make sure she was telling the truth. Makes us look like idiots.”
Mike knew exactly how he felt. “Well, Bo did check. Victoria used a fake diamond tester, so even he was tricked. So why wouldn’t we believe her? She reported a major robbery. She had the credentials, the trust of the museum staff. She engineered the whole thing to get Paulie and Louise into the room to fingerprint the ‘fake’ diamond. It was a pretty ballsy plan, and it worked. Yeah, we’re idiots.”
“Sorry, I had to vent. What are you up to at this late hour?”
“Nicholas and I are on our way to tear apart Browning’s apartment.”
“Be careful, Mike. This woman is no dummy, she’s got more end-arounds than Harbaugh’s playbook. She’s not predictable, so watch your back.”
She hung up and looked over at Nicholas.
He said, “I wonder which Harbaugh he meant.”
“You know American football?”
