Chapter Seven #2
“This my store,” the man said. “I sell noodles. Takeout. Very good.”
“Do you have a back door?” Gabriela asked him.
He pointed to a door behind him. Gabriela went to the door, opened it, and looked out into an alley.
“We also have front door,” the man said.
Gabriela smiled at him and nodded. “I’ll leave through the front door.”
She left the storeroom and passed through a small kitchen with steaming stockpots. Several people were standing at the takeout counter where the female version of the small Asian man was filling orders. Gabriela reached the front door and turned to look back at the two noodle makers.
The man raised his hand. “Bye-bye,” he called to Gabriela.
Gabriela returned the wave. “Have a nice day.”
She stepped across the street and took a photo of the takeout noodle shop. She walked to the corner and got her bearings. The Holborn tube station was half a block away. She stepped into a doorway and called Kilchester.
“I’m out of the tunnel and on my way back to the museum. You can clean up the area around the air shaft. I need to talk to the director. Do you want to be involved?”
“Yes. I’m already involved. The screen around the grate got his attention. I hope it’s all right. I told him you were investigating. He seemed relieved.”
“I appreciate your help. I’ll meet you at the director’s office in twenty minutes. I’ve acquired some cuts on my hands. It would be great if you could bring a first aid kit with you.”
Rafer and Harley were slouched on the couch, watching a match on the oversized flat-screen TV, when Gabriela walked into her room.
“Hey, Gabs,” Rafer said. “Get a brew from the fridge and join us.”
“This is my room,” Gabriela said. “Why are you in my room?”
“It’s bigger than our rooms,” Rafer said. “You have a couch and a fridge.” He swung his legs off the couch and went to help her shrug out of her jacket. “Are you okay? What’s with your hands?”
Kilchester and the director had been horrified at the sight of Gabriela’s bleeding hands, and the director had called in a paramedic. Her hands were now so swaddled in gauze that she’d barely been able to get her room key out of her purse.
“Blisters,” Gabriela said. “Not a big deal. It’s actually been a really good day.”
“Yeah, I can tell from the blood on your shirt,” Rafer said. “It is blood, right?”
Gabriela looked down at herself. “It’s from my hands.
I found an air shaft in the Egyptian sculpture gallery.
Everyone assumed it was part of the HVAC system, but it turned out to be a relic from a defunct underground rail system.
I didn’t realize how rough and corroded the rungs were on the shaft leading down to the train tracks.
I should have gotten gloves before climbing down.
And then at the end, I had to climb up another shaft that was even longer than the first one. ”
“And this was worthwhile?” Rafer asked.
“I’m ninety-nine percent positive that this was how they got the stone out of the museum.
They lowered the stone down by rope, put it on a dolly, and wheeled it to a crude offshoot of the main tube.
They put three bullets into the head of an expendable team member and hauled the stone up the shaft and into the storeroom of a noodle shop.
Then they most likely took it out the back door and drove it away.
I don’t know where the stone went after that. ”
Harley had turned his attention from soccer to Gabriela. “They took the Rosetta Stone into a noodle shop?” he asked. “Why would they do that?”
“It was the end of the line,” Gabriela said.
Rafer had his thumbs stuck into his jeans’ pockets. “I want to know about the guy with the bullet holes.”
“I found him about twenty feet away from the end of the offshoot and the exit shaft,” Gabriela said. “Very decomposed. Looked like he’d been there since the robbery. Big guy. I’m thinking he was the muscle. The thieves also abandoned a massive amount of rope and the guts to a pulley.”
“Was the noodle shop involved in the heist?” Rafer asked.
“That’s being investigated. I briefed the museum director, and he’s running with it.”
“So, you know how it got out, but you don’t know where it is now,” Harley said.
Gabriela unwrapped a layer of gauze. “True.”
“But the noodle people might know where it is,” Harley said.
“They might, but it’s unlikely. My best guess is that the thieves took the stone out when the shop was closed. It backs up to an alley. The noodle people didn’t look like the sort to participate in a heist of this level. Still, I guess it’s possible.”
“So, you’re at a dead end?” Rafer asked.
“More like a detour,” Gabriela said. “The museum director confided in me that the lead museum IT guy was found washed up on a bank of the Thames River two weeks ago. At least part of him washed up. And the part that washed up had a bullet hole in it. I think we have a team of pros who enlist locals and then eliminate them when they’re no longer needed. ”
“Like John Mackey,” Rafer said.
“Exactly,” Gabriela said. “First thing tomorrow, I want to pay another visit to Mrs. Mackey and the pub in Brixton.”