Chapter 12 Operation Rembrandt
Operation Rembrandt
“I SWEAR, I’M still 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. “At last,” 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 with everybody, but Liam had caught some speculative glances on both their parts, and he had to agree with Josh on this one: Molly was due.
“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 the whole job, 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.
“Bite me, morons,” Molly said amiably. “I’m stealing the diamonds to put on my own creation. One day this Marie Antoinette thing will be wearing Thieves’ Clothes, TM pending.”
“Ooh, did you already buy the name?” Grace asked.
“Mmmaybe,” Molly teased. “Liam, you there?”
“Do you people really talk to yourselves this much?” Liam asked irritably.
“It looks like we’re on our phones,” Josh said, which Liam knew, because he’d run ops before, but this… this was quite different. “Yay, Bluetooth. We don’t even need to touch our earpieces and glance over our shoulders.”
“You wankers are making my arse sweat,” Liam told them baldly, feeling cranky. My God, they never shut up. It was like they knocked over museums for kicks.
“Well, stop sweating,” Molly said. “I see Tienne coming. Josh, you almost at the target?”
“Just planted the goods,” Josh said. “Grace, you at your mark?”
“Sparkly acquired,” Grace purred. “Give me ten seconds to hit the alarm.”
Liam turned and started ambling toward the stairs. They’d clocked three minutes to get from the ancient worlds section to Josh’s spot by the old European masters—in particular, Rembrandt van Rijn.
Okay, then. So the guards would be coming from Liam’s left toward the stairs—mark.
“I’ve got the guard entrance from the south,” Molly murmured. “Mark.”
“I’ve got the east entrance,” Liam said. “Mark.”
And then, from nowhere, Tienne joined their comm-party. “It is me! I’m here. I’m running. Like planned. The guards are after me! Josh, is the underwear in the bathroom?”
Liam must have made a choking sound, because Stirling’s voice came next, sweet and indulgent.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re all encrypted. Tienne, say ‘mark.’”
“Who’s Mark?”
And while everybody—including Liam—tried to control their laughter, a shattering alarm exploded the peace of the Louvre.
“Shit,” Josh muttered. “Grace!”
“I went early,” Grace said, sounding so pleased with himself Liam had to swallow the obvious retort.
Stirling had known Grace far longer. “Do you brag about that to your boyfriend?” he snapped. “Goddammit—the guards are coming now!”
“Running faster!” Tienne hummed. “Mark’s coming early too!”
“Lucky Mark,” Liam muttered.
“Mark!” Tienne cried, and then Josh said “Oolf!” like he was supposed to, and then he whispered, “Dammit, Tienne, ouch—no, don’t stop—keep going to the bathroom!”
“Oh! Sorry! So sorry!” Tienne called—and it sounded like he was talking loudly, as though running away from the person he’d accidentally shoved up against a wall. “On my way!”
Liam’s guards had shown up by then, and he braced himself for impact in three-two-one—“Oolf!” He unobtrusively propelled himself underfoot at the same time Molly greeted her guards, the scuff of the guard’s hard-soled shoe against his shin painful and then forgotten.
For a moment, the comms were full of the Liam and Molly show: “Oh my God, so sorry—no, let me help you up! Oh shit—didn’t mean to—oh no, I’m—oh wait—no! I’m just trying to help!”
The two of them, sacrificing their bodies and definitely their dignity, managed to trip up the guards rushing toward Grace’s burst alarm, and by strategic placing, managed to keep them out of the hall where Josh was hurriedly replacing a reproduction of a lost painting with the painting itself.
In Liam’s head he could hear Josh singing, “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twe-el-elve!” with a familiar jingle in the numbers.
Liam had to smile—it was the same counting jingle he’d hummed when they’d been working the night before.
Liam had needed to learn the thieves’ bits just in case, and he assumed Molly could have stolen the diamond or dismantled the clear plexiglass frame for the painting almost as quickly as Josh or Grace too.
“Twelve?” Grace asked, intruding on Liam’s mental picture of unscrewing the tiny bolts, replacing the modestly sized sketch, and then fitting the bolts again.
“Twelve?” Molly whispered.
“Twelve?” Liam asked, backing away before the guards arrested him for their assortment of bruises.
“Twelve,” Josh muttered, and Liam breathed a sigh of relief.
“Everybody’s clothes are in the bathrooms,” Josh said. “Ten minutes to change. Break.”
Tonight, Liam thought, when he’d literally rinsed away the sweat in his armpits and asscrack and held Josh in his arms, he’d ask Josh where the expression “Break!” came from.
The crew used it a lot, and he wondered if it was a sports term, since their basement meeting room was decorated with the colors and logos of every sports team in Chicago.