Chapter 32
32
Beatrice had done a great job of being inconspicuous because when Magnus arrived at the Grand H?tel, it took him several minutes to locate her in their massive lobby. She hid behind a potted plant, on a settee, face down in her phone.
“She’s been googling extradition laws between Sweden and the United States,” Lawrence said in his ear. “Tell her we have this under control.”
Magnus sat beside her on the settee. “We have this under control, Bea.”
She looked up with tears swimming in her eyes. “This is all my fault.”
He sighed and took off his glasses before slipping hers off her face. “Lawrence, could you give us the room and watch Santiago for a minute?”
“Muting,” the old man said.
Magnus set their glasses on the small table beside them and took Beatrice’s sweaty hands. “This is not your fault.”
“No, because when I doubted how you guys did things, you told me that everyone knew their roles, everything just fell into place,” she whispered. “Maybe I got too cocky. Maybe my role is just to be back at the command center. I thought that I could be like...” She dropped her head with a sigh.
“First of all, you’re not the one who got caught. I watched you through those monitors, Bea. You covered your angles and moved with caution. You even dropped off a supply bag for us. You have enormous potential to be as good as Celeste if that’s what you want. But it’s going to take a few years of training to get you there.”
Beatrice lifted her head. “You think?” she sniffed.
He wished he understood what drove these three women. None of them were blood related, but through Beatrice’s eyes, he could clearly see the ambition of Celeste and Doris staring back at him. “I know you’re much more talented than how you feel in this moment. You’re going to look back on today and it won’t be as devastating as you think.”
She nodded. “It’s just—I know how important Stockholm is to you and Celeste. I don’t want to be responsible for messing that up...again.”
Ahh, so there it was. “Bea, you’re not responsible for the mistakes she and I made years ago.”
“I know, but—”
“No,” he said, firmly. “Celeste and I fucked up that night. We didn’t do our due diligence to study the princess’s schedule. We didn’t pick the right night based on weather reports. Celeste got impatient and threw the case before I could see her. And I couldn’t catch it, I got angry, took my toys and went home without trying to work things out with the crew.”
Before he knew it, Beatrice released his hands and patted him on the shoulder. “I see it now.”
Magnus frowned. “See what?”
“You and Celeste. I see why you two were a thing,” she said with a lopsided smile. “After watching you work and bicker with each other, I know that you’re basically the same person.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
She shrugged. “It’s only bad if you guys can’t communicate based on your similarities. If you keep trying to convince yourself that you’re so different from her, you’ll never see her perspective on anything. Considering you two share a common goal.”
He scoffed. “Which is?”
Beatrice frowned as she stared at him. “This.” She gestured to the space around them. “This job is what you both want, more than anything. You’re both obsessed with proving something to Doris even if she’s not here. And that thing you do—calling her reckless? You saw how she worried over me this morning. You guys clearly care if we stay safe. You care about each other.”
Magnus was stunned silent. Here he thought he’d rushed to the hotel to comfort a young woman, new to the game. Instead, she assured him that he still had something to learn. When he spoke, he was hesitant to reveal too much to the all-knowing Beatrice. “I don’t want my partner to be hurt. I don’t think you need to read into that.”
Beatrice narrowed her brown eyes at him. “I’m a really smart person, Magnus. Every day, I read code far more complex than you. You’re going to have to try harder.”
“I see that,” he said in a flat voice. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not talk to you about your mentor. Just like I didn’t want to talk to Celeste’s mentor about her.”
“Fine, then,” she relented. “Are you sure Santiago is going to be okay?”
He nodded. “The thing about Santiago is that he always lands on his feet. And this is not his first time in jail.”
Beatrice’s brow shot up.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Magnus grinned. “His charm is a bit hit or miss. It either gets him out of a jam or straight to jail. But he has so many identities, the Swedes will never find his record before we get to him.”
“That makes me feel a little better, I guess.”
He peered closely at her. “You really care for him, don’t you?”
Beatrice blushed and gestured dismissively. “I don’t want to lose a valuable member of our crew.”
Magnus laughed. Talking to her was like talking to one of his students. She sat there, twisting one of her loose braids around her fingers bashfully. “Now, now, Bea... If you’re forcing me to look at my life, I need you to examine your own for a minute. Do you like our getaway driver?”
She scoffed in irritation; a sound Celeste made all the time. “He’s fine.”
“Just fine?” he asked, teasing her. Magnus was glad her tears had disappeared, and she now appeared calm enough to take a walk with him.
He rose from the couch and took her hand. When they left the hotel and faced the bright sun, Beatrice glanced back in the direction of the museum. “He’s handsome, funny and charming,” she admitted. “And I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”
“The worst thing that will happen to Santi is that his Armani suit will get mussed during booking.”
Beatrice shot him a glare. “I’m not hearing enough concern from you, Magnus.”
“Ooh, I’ve touched an ‘I love Santi’ nerve, haven’t I?”
She shoulder-checked him. “I love him about as much as you love Celeste.”
He had to force himself to laugh. He didn’t know how she did it, but Beatrice’s youthful insight always punched him in the gut. He’d just arrived to the idea that there was no other woman for him quite like Celeste, but he wasn’t ready to go out on a limb and admit that he loved her. That was a bridge too far.
“I like Celeste very much,” he said cautiously.
“Mmm.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
It was her turn to tease him. “Nothing. I just think you two are fooling yourselves if you think we can’t see what’s going on.”
“Ugh, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“If it makes you feel better,” she continued, “I haven’t seen her light up with excitement around another guy since I’ve worked with her. She likes you very much, too.”
“That information has no effect on my feelings whatsoever,” he lied. “Speaking of which, when was the last guy?”
Beatrice’s loud laughter startled nearby passersby as they strolled back to the safe house, and it put a smile on his face. If they ever had another job after this, he would welcome Bea into his crew with open arms.
Once you got past Aksel Lindgren’s sheer size and stature, it was plain to see what kind of congenial personality he possessed. Magnus still wasn’t used to being completely dwarfed by the man, though. As they stood around the dining room table coming up with plans to spring Santiago from his cell and rob the Nationalmuseum, he had to give up puffing his chest out to match the man beside him.
“These are your invitations to the museum gala, courtesy of Princess Astrid,” he said, handing him two envelopes.
While on the phone with Sebastian, Celeste glanced at the invites and gave a quick nod. She walked to the other side of the living room to continue her conversation.
“Will you be under an alias?” Lawrence asked.
“It will be easiest to pose as a married couple,” he said, catching Beatrice’s tiny smile.
“That’s probably for the best,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Monday?” Celeste exclaimed from the next room. “That won’t do at all. What if we need to get the hell out of Stockholm? I’m not leaving him.”
“Uh-oh,” Aksel murmured. “Problem?”
Magnus could have guessed that Sebastian was filling her in on Swedish bureaucracy. Santiago was carted off to jail on a Friday evening, which meant getting him out before Monday could prove challenging. “With the gala being tomorrow night, we’re short a man, so yeah, we might have a problem.”
“Let’s try to take care of one thing at a time,” Lawrence said. “The event starts at 8:00 p.m. You and Celeste will be accompanying the princess, who will introduce the Swedish historian, Mats Bergen, at eight thirty.”
“That will take place in the sculpture garden downstairs,” Aksel said, pointing to a large room on their map. “Right in front of the café. After they’ve concluded the talk, partygoers will walk upstairs to the exhibit.”
Celeste walked back into the dining room with a tight expression. “What does Sebastian suggest?” Magnus asked.
She put Sebastian on speakerphone and held it out for him to speak to the crew. “My suggestion is for Santiago to sit tight. I am flying into Stockholm tonight with my men, but the earliest I can negotiate with local authorities is Sunday. One of you may want to relay this information to Santi.”
“On it.” Beatrice was still hooked into Santiago’s earpiece feed and watching everything through the camera in his glasses. She murmured something in a soft voice to their captive crew member before turning back to the group. “He says the Swedish jails are surprisingly clean and comfortable. Nothing like the Florida job? What happened in Florida?”
Magnus chuckled. “We don’t have time to get into it, but he’s right about the comparison.”
“You are sending men here?” Aksel asked Sebastian.
“Oui. I thought I might be helpful to the cause.”
“He’s based in Tallinn with a lot of friends in low places.”
The giant nodded. “Oh.”
“I don’t want to insult your character, Aksel, but could we count on you to jump in as one of those friends?”
The man’s face broke into a wide grin. “I would be delighted to join your crew temporarily. I have been known to create a good distraction from time to time.”
Which is what they might need. “Before we can get into the particulars,” Magnus said, “can anyone tell me what kind of force we might be up against...besides the assholes who held Santi up?”
“This guy,” Aksel said, issuing a manila folder. “Princess Astrid’s nasty little Belgian inspector.”
Magnus and Celeste put their heads together and flipped through the dossier of the man who had obsessed over the royal jewels for the past five years. He was nasty all right. Hugo Vermeulen had twenty-six years of experience in the Fine Arts Theft and Recovery division of Interpol. Ten of those years were devoted to insurance fraud. And by the looks of his records, he usually got his man.
Luckily, his attention was incorrectly focused on the princess.
“What Astrid left out was that he’s been completely against the unveiling from the start. He believes that the exhibit is a mistake and, at the very least, should be much shorter than the museum has planned.”
“So, he’s going to be there in full force,” Celeste said, still holding her phone aloft. “Probably with local police.”
“Perhaps,” Sebastian intoned.
“Definitely,” Magnus said. “And if the princess is there, he’s going to keep an eagle eye on her.”
“We’ll need a couple distractions,” Celeste said, nodding to their large friend. “That’s where you and Sebastian’s friends could help.”
“Of course,” Sebastian said.
“We’re going to have to let you go, Fond du Lac,” Magnus said, taking Celeste’s phone. “If you find out any more about Santiago’s release, please let us know.”
Celeste arched a brow when he hung up. “What was that?”
“Our little crew is expanding far too quickly,” he said, handing her phone back. It was bad enough they were dependent on the princess they’d wronged, but Aksel was now hanging out in the safe house. Doris should have known better than to ask Magnus to be more accepting. “I’d like to get a handle on the plan before we start including others.”
“I’m very close to figuring out the building’s security measures,” Beatrice said. “I’d like to give you a system-wide blackout. That way, you’ll have time to work before an automatic reboot kicks in.”
“You think you can do that?” Magnus asked.
Lawrence chuckled. “Just you asking that is gonna fuel her flame. Watch and see, she’ll get it done.”
Beatrice grinned broadly. “Thank you, Lawrence.”
“What’s the longest you can manage a blackout?” Celeste asked.
The girl shrugged. “The longest I’ve ever pulled off? About ten minutes. It takes most places a while to flip the switch back on.”
“Ten minutes,” Magnus said with a nod.
“We’ve had worse.”
Though he didn’t like their odds, Celeste was technically correct. A job in Lisbon immediately came to mind. They had a very tight six minutes to run through a gallery, wrench Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii off the wall and exit before the guard made his next pass. Except back then, they had four weeks of prep and a key card that Celeste swiped from an employee.
Celeste sighed. “I hate to say it, but we probably should have brought the dart guns.”
“I thought you might say that later,” Lawrence said. “I broke one down and packed it in our luggage. I’ll let y’all fight over who wants to use it.”
“Oh, thank God,” she breathed. “I really don’t want to shoot anyone, but if I have to get out of a scrape, I’d like the option to knock someone out.”
“Way ahead of you, kiddo. We gotta take everything into account.”
Celeste studied the 2018 blueprints of the museum for a moment without speaking. Magnus could see the wheels turning in her head as she chewed her lip. When she was in the zone, there was very little that could distract her. Her dark eyes narrowed on the Treasury Room, where the royal jewels were displayed.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
She leaned closer to the blueprints and ran her finger around the perimeter of the room. “This,” she pointed, “is a ceiling grate for steel gates. They’re going to lower and lock into place in the event of an emergency. If Bea can trip the alarm, that will cause enough confusion for people to scatter, leaving one of us to book it upstairs and the other to go through the employee stairwell...”
“If Bea can leave it accessible during the lockdown.”
“Or I could come up from the bottom,” Celeste suggested.
Magnus quickly followed her line of logic before frowning. “The basement?”
“When Bea went to the bathroom, I saw a vent over her shoulder. In the first stall, closest to the wall. I could start in the basement and—”
“I’m sorry,” Aksel interrupted. “You’re going to climb a ventilation shaft?”
Their guest may have found it ridiculous, but Magnus had no doubt she could pull it off. He only wondered if it was the safest option. “That should clear you from having to outrun some of the security measures. If you can secure the jewels, I could meet you at the fire stairwell at the end of The Treasury. You just have to get through this hall.”
“That’s the Turn of the Century gallery,” Aksel pointed out.
“Right. Get to that stairwell and then get the hell out of the loading dock.”
“I’ll compare both routes and do a quick calculation on timing,” Beatrice said while jotting notes on her tablet. “In the meantime, I think someone should book a room at the Grand.”
“That’s a good idea,” Magnus said. “Anything goes wrong, it would give us an opportunity to have a base that’s much closer than this place. I’ll book a couple suites for us tonight.”
“Let’s take a break here,” Celeste said. “When we learn of Sebastian’s plans, I’ll have a better idea of where to put him and his team.”
“Sounds good to me,” Magnus agreed.
She paused long enough to give him a tired smile. “If it weren’t for today’s snag, I’d say this was some of the best prep work we’ve done in a long time.”
Magnus understood what she meant. When they worked with one mind, everything seemed to fall into place. It was a slightly more productive dance than the one they did in the bedroom. It reminded him of how the good years with Doris went. He returned her smile. “If we stay in sync, we could have a solid plan before we meet the princess again.”
“I’d really like that.” Celeste held out her pinkie finger. “Stay in sync tonight?”
Magnus gripped her finger in his and used it to pull her close until they touched foreheads. “Of course.”