12 Seven
I was drowning.
The water was black and thick, crawling into my lungs like oil.
I tried to push up but something restrained my arms. Ropes, maybe, or hands with too many fingers.
Faces surfaced and vanished, warped by bubbles, their mouths opening in perfect Os.
They wanted something I didn't have, or wouldn't give.
I kicked, clawed, broke the surface into cold air, and woke up to the taste of blood in my mouth.
It took five slow breaths before I recognized my ceiling.
The room was empty as always. No windows, just the soft blue hum of the light strip running along the upper edge of the wall. I lay flat, hands still balled into fists, sweat slicking my ribs. I waited for the memory of the dream to drain off. It didn't.
I rolled over and checked the time. 03:13 AM. I hadn't been asleep for longer than a couple of hours. My mouth was dry, teeth sticking to the inside of my lips.
I sat up, swinging my feet onto the concrete, put my elbows on my knees, letting my pulse catch up to the fact I wasn't being waterboarded.
After a few minutes, I grabbed my earpiece from the crate, stuffed it into my ear and pinged Viper.
He answered right away, voice a little groggy. "You ever sleep, Seven?"
"If I have time," I said. "What's the latest?"
"You calling for a bedtime story?" He made a fake snoring noise.
"Story on the second target," I said, knowing full well he had five more jokes lined up.
Viper cleared his throat. There was some shuffling on the line. I imagined maybe he was getting out of bed and moving to his computer desk. Again, I had no idea what his workstation looked like and if he even was in the compound. Many of the operatives lived outside. You had to earn it, of course.
"Guy's been busy," Viper started. "He's got a buyer lined up for that Picasso piece we flagged the other day purchased on the black market.
The piece is supposed to be off-grid, lost in a war.
He'll make it look like he's got it from a private auction.
Buyer is a high roller. Dominic Castellano.
The Castellano," he stressed the last name like I was supposed to know who it was.
"Okay."
"Collector of anything with a provenance," Viper went on. "It's going down at a charity gala. Mid-Wilshire. Castellano wants it made public. Great PR for both."
I could hear Viper clicking through tabs as he talked. "Security will be tight."
"Can we tap in their system?" I asked.
"Piece of cake, boss."
"Castellano's endgame?"
"Show it off, then park it in his vault.
Possibly until the value triples. Occasionally, he does lend his toys to museums." Viper's voice shifted, all sarcasm gone.
"Or maybe use it as collateral for something nastier.
Don't have a full dossier on Castellano yet.
In any case, target's going to make a killing on this. If it works."
"Anything else I should know?"
There was a brief pause, probably Viper taking a drink of whatever energy poison he lived on.
"Castellano is obsessive about two things—his image and his privacy.
He'll have every inch of that gallery under lockdown since the painting is moving the night before the gala.
They'll have it in their basement vault until the reveal. "
I already had a plan forming. "How tight is the schedule around the vault?"
Viper whistled. "Dodger Stadium game day parking lot tight. The crew responsible for the vault are all pros. But I've got an RFID sniff on their badges. You'll get pinged when they are within a hundred feet."
"How hard is it to access the vault?"
"You'd need a science fiction limited series blowtorch and six hours to get through. Or you could just paint your own, if you're feeling artistic. Will be easier to crack." I heard the smile in his voice. "You ever painted, Seven?"
"No."
"Yeah, me neither. I know a dude who does. He's pretty damn good at it too. Cool hobby if you ask me."
"Well, I didn't. Ask."
"Anyway, after the gala, the painting will be in Castellano's private collection. Basically, forget it. It's in the wind."
"Castellano's not our problem."
"True that, boss. Unless someone pays us to poke at him. But they haven't. So he's just a collateral damage in this one."
Getting the Picasso before Castellano had his hands on it was the goal. The word fake was suddenly at the forefront of my mind and I had an idea flowing. "Viper, can you get me schematics on that vault?"
"I sure can, boss. Just give me a couple of hours. Are you going to try and break the baby anyway?"
"Maybe."
"Gonna be a tough one."
"Yeah you said that. Science fiction shit."
"Did you just make a joke?"
"Fuck off."
Viper laughed, then asked, "You want me to keep digging in case this plan you're cooking up is a bust and we need a backup option?"
I flexed my hands, cracking the knuckles one by one. "No. I can work with this."
I could work with five grams of air if I needed to. But I never told this to anyone. I liked when people underestimated me.
A few days later, I walked through the service corridor of the venue that would host the gala. I kept my head down, baseball cap shadowing my eyes, face downcast even with the N95 respirator over my nose and mouth.
Habit.
People think the hardest part of a job like this is the breaking in. Wrong. The hardest part is acting like you belong until it's true.
I wore a faded blue jumpsuit of a pest control worker.
The ID clipped to my collar was a copy, scanned and photoshopped by Viper himself.
The patch on my sleeve was real, but it had belonged to a guy who wouldn't be missed for at least two weeks since he was on vacation.
The QR code on the ID belonged to him too.
If anyone tried to track me down they would end up finding Jose Rivas from Total Hygiene Solutions instead.
But Total Hygiene Solutions did service this building, so that gave me two passes.
Two passes to prepare and execute my plan in a very short window of time.
It took exactly nine minutes to reach the freight elevator. I waited until a cleaning crew passed, then hit the button with my gloved thumb. The doors parted with a sigh.
The vault was in sub-basement C, two floors below where the official plans said the building ended.
I waved my ID at the security guard stationed downstairs and he let me pass.
I pretended to spray the common areas until I disappeared from his line of sight to slip into the narrow hallway behind a nondescript door.
There I went through a secure entry with a scanner for the access code.
Viper had taken care of that for me too.
The vault door was at the end, unmarked except for the brushed-steel handle. The camera above the door was real, but the feed looped thanks to Viper.
I went to work.
Most keypads are easy. This one was not.
It used a rolling code, the numbers in a different order every time you touched it.
But Viper had a solution for that as well.
I peeled a wafer-thin membrane from my glove and pressed it flush against the panel.
The embedded micro-filaments mapped the heat residue left by the last six entries. The pattern resolved itself.
The keypad lit green. I breathed once.
Next, the biometric. I'd already lifted the print from a wine glass in the target's office two days ago when I posed as the fire inspector. The gel-based replication fooled anything not military-grade. I pressed it to the plate and held it for three seconds. The vault beeped. The lock disengaged.
I slipped inside and closed the door behind me.
The temperature dropped immediately. There were two cameras, both mounted high, and both tracking. I had a jammer with me to disrupt the feed since Viper hadn't been able to access anything inside the vault.
The Picasso was in a locked glass case in the center of the room. It was smaller than I expected—eighteen by twenty-four, not counting the frame. The case was alarmed. I rolled the second jammer from my breast pocket and flicked it on. The indicator glowed blue.
I crouched, examining the base of the case. The hex bolt at the back was loose, like someone had serviced it in a hurry. I gripped it with the ratchet, three turns, and slid the glass top off with one hand.
There it was. The real thing.
I could have taken it with me now. But the rest of the security would be finishing up their lunch soon. And then there was the hiccup with the independent appraisal the evening of the gala. The only optimal time this piece could be moved was the night of the event.
I took a deep breath and got to work.
First I shot every angle with a camera. Whole painting, quarter sections, then the frame, the backing, the security tag. I set the camera on the ground, lifted the piece an inch, and photographed the shadow it cast, the way the oil caught the light.
Then I did a digital scan with a scanner.
Next I spread clear acrylic polymer gel over the entire canvas, waited for it to dry, peeled it off, and applied it to the similar size empty canvas.
I returned all my tools into my backpack sprayer dummy, including the impression of the original.
Once done, I just stood there, looking at the image inside the case.
I wanted to test a theory that had been swirling inside my head ever since that ridiculous call from the client.
I knew art was supposed to move you, to make you feel things.
I'd been considering a possibility I was becoming weak, but I felt absolutely nothing as I studied the brushstrokes and colors.
So no, it wasn't me. It was her.
Shoving the thought aside, I left like I'd never been here.
In the parking lot, I slid into the back seat of the car I'd drive to the venue and dialed the Bureau's forger on the encrypted line.
The voice on the other end was a woman, voice scratchy and amused. "Thought you'd call sooner. What do you need, Operative Seven?"
"I have a rush job," I said. "Same delivery protocol as before."
"You have the files and the parameters?"
"Yes."
"Send them," she replied, bored. "I'll need the palette and the lighting specs. Want it to pop like the original, or you want the subtle version?"
"Perfect match. Down to the stretch on the canvas. Edge fray on top left, signature exact. No variations."
"That's what I do, honey."
I killed the call.