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Right now, no one is worried about the past—only their futures.
Gray turned to his group. Seichan marched with her mother. Zhuang led a force—twenty strong—of triad fighters. Gray had tried repeatedly to raise Painter on his sat-phone. He had managed a few sporadic connections, none that lasted longer than thirty seconds. Still, he had tried his best to share his intent, to ask for support. While he knew Governor Raffles had kept an office here, Gray had no clue where to find it.
Cut off and operating on only tidbits of information, he felt as if he were flailing in the dark. Breaking into the museum was a long shot, but it was the only move he had left.
Seichan drew closer and pointed between the columns ahead. “Looks like we’re not the only ones who had this idea.”
Shutters had been ripped off a window flanking the main entrance. The glass had been shattered and brushed away. Gray raised an arm to slow his group. As he approached, he heard angry shouts and spats of gunfire from inside.
Gray shifted next to Zhuang. “We go in swift and shut that down.”
The shots sounded like small-arms fire. He studied their group’s automatic weapons and hoped it was enough. He gripped his SIG Sauer and Seichan raised her Glock. Zhuang carried a pistol in one hand and his antique saber in the other. Gray was unsure which was the deadlier weapon for the man, especially in a close-quarters battle.
Only one way to find out.
Gray pointed ahead. “Let’s go!”
They set off in a tight group and flowed through the broken window, crunching over the shards of glass as quietly as possible. They hurried across the dark entry lobby and into the museum proper. Doors opened in all directions.
Gray led his group to the right, to where the gunplay and shouts continued within a side gallery. So far, no one seemed to have noticed theirtrespass. Gray flanked to the left of the gallery entrance with Seichan and her mother, along with the triad deputy Yeung, who carried an arsenal of weapons. He was a veritable walking tank.
Zhuang took a post on the doorway’s far side with the rest of his contingent.
Gray poked his head around the corner. The gallery’s long hall was lined by tall display cabinets and dotted by pedestals. A few emergency lights glowed in the darkness. One of the cases toppled with a shatter of glass. More shouts erupted in Indonesian and Javanese. A pistol cracked off four shots.
Gray counted six or seven shadowy figures nestled among the cabinets. They were masked like his army. On the gallery’s far side, a clutch of men and women hid behind a low marble pedestal that supported a reclining Hindu goddess. Those defenders wore matching beige shirts. They were likely museum staff trying to guard the place.
From the attackers’ disheveled nature and disparate weaponry, they must be looters who had come to take advantage of the chaos.
Gray scowled and motioned Zhuang to take the gallery’s far side. He led his group along the closest wall. He paused until Zhuang was in position, then their two groups swept in tandem down the hall’s edges and ambushed the looters from both sides.
A brief firefight ended the standoff. Bodies fell, glass shattered. Finally, the last of the attackers fled down the center of the gallery and out the far door. Zhuang sent a handful of men after them to make sure they left.
One of the staff members called over from their hiding spot.
Guan-yin responded in kind, proving her fluency in the Indonesian language. After some back-and-forth, the others revealed themselves. Gray crossed with Guan-yin to meet them.
The leader of the defenders stepped forward. He was a tall stern-faced Indonesian. He had to be in his late sixties, but he looked capable of wrestling someone half his age to the ground.
“I’m Kadir Numberi, the museum director,” he said, introducing himself in English. “Thank you for helping us.”
“Glad to be of assistance,” Gray said.
Kadir frowned at the masked army behind Gray. “But how did you come to be here?” he asked with clear suspicion.
Gray tried his best to explain an abbreviated version of their story, one that connected to events two centuries earlier.
Even with this explanation, the suspicion in Kadir’s eyes dimmed only slightly.
“We need to find where Sir Stamford Raffles once kept his office,” Gray finished.
“Back when he was governor?”
Gray nodded. “That’s why we’ve come. Nothing more.”
Kadir turned to his staff and spoke rapidly. He got nods back, then turned to Gray. “In truth, I have no idea where his office was, but there are old schematics and records going back to the building’s founding in 1710.”
“Can you show us?”
