Andrew looked to the entrance at the other end of the building. There were at least ten security guards.
All armed.
Surely they wouldn’t be so stupid as to try to steal the damn thing?
His eyes returned to the room they had been sitting in. They were both gone. Andrew quickly ran to the main entrance of the artifact room.
There he was met by the same lady who’d retrieved the artifact for the two men.
“Where did they go?” he asked, urgently.
“Where did who go?”
“Sam Reilly and Tom Bower. They were examining the Arcane Stone.”
“I’ve never heard of those gentlemen.” She smiled helpfully and said, “But there is a Mr. Duchamp and his associate, from the British Museum, who are examining the artifact.”
She turned her head to point them out, but they were no longer able to be seen.
“I’m sorry. They appear to have left.”
Andrew turned around, scanning the area, and then said, “And they took the Arcane Stone with them. Call security. Place the archives into emergency lockdown.”
“Who are you to give me orders?”
Andrew showed the lady his ID card. She stepped back in visible fear.
“Yes, of course, Mr. Brandt.”
Chapter Nine
Sam Reilly followed Tom, who walked confidently out the front door of the artifact storage room. Neither of them ran but to a casual observer appeared focused and moving toward a purpose. No one would have expected them to have committed a great theft.
He took note of the man in the dark suit with a blue tie. Sam thought he looked out of place reading the history of the development of Amsterdam’s waterways. Even at a glance, Sam thought the man appeared to be more suited to a boardroom as an executive than an archeologist. Then he saw the distinct bulge on the side of his coat.
The man was packing a weapon of some sort.
Judging by the shape it made, Sam was pretty confident it had a silencer attached to its barrel. And that meant he wasn’t part of the good guys’ team. He certainly didn’t look like any of the security personnel he’d taken note of when they entered the building.
Sam looked at Tom’s face. One glance, and Sam knew they shared the same evaluation of the man. The two quickly moved behind the next row of shelves. Without saying a word, they began following the miles of bookshelves deeper into the heart of the National Archives Center.
And then the alarm sounded.
“Well Tom, that was unexpected,” Sam said calmly. “Do you think you might let me know next time before you steal an ancient relic?”
Tom looked guilty. “Sorry, I figured we don’t have time to play by the rules. It was meant to have been made of copper or something. Can’t be too valuable. I didn’t expect them to have someone guarding it.”
“Well, it’s done now.” Sam picked up his phone and rang a secure number.
“Who’re you trying to call at a time like this?”
“Elise. And I’m trying to get us out of here.”
Elise was a computer whiz Sam had met years ago during his specialized training as a Ghost Agent for the U.S. Military. He never saw her in person, only through computer challenges and games of riddles designed to test how each of them responded had they become friends. From what he’d heard, Elise had an IQ of 162 — that was two points higher than Einstein, and she’d been recruited by the CIA when she was still a teenager.
Elise had discovered something that she didn’t agree with while working for the agency and a few years later, simply disappeared. Sam worried that her malcontent had gotten her killed, but last year she started sending him encrypted messages that only he and four other people on the planet could possibly decipher. Since then, Elise had been working intermittently on a variety of projects for Sam.
Sam took the lead and started running down a set of stairs, which led deeper into the archives storage, where millions of boxes covered more than ten miles of basement.
“Where the hell are you headed? We’re only burying ourselves deeper by going that way.”
Sam ignored the question and kept running.
“Sam, what do you need?” It was Elise, his computer whiz, who answered. Her voice was curt, as though she’d been expecting his call.
In front of them, a solid glass door was locked. Tom kicked at it several times without making so much as a scratch.
“You know how we discussed plan A and plan B for getting the Arcane Stone?” Sam said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, Tom decided he’d elect for plan B. Now we’ve got about twenty security guards, and some sort of spook I’ve never seen before, after us. We’ve just reached the basement, and the first door is locked.”
“Ah, boys. You sure will get yourselves into trouble.”
Above, someone started shooting at them. He guessed it must have been the man with the silencer, because he couldn’t hear the sound of the shots being fired. Only the sight of bullet holes ahead let him know. They were off by several feet. More warning shots, he guessed.
“Not to rush you Elise, but we’re a little short of time. Can you open the basement door or not?”
“Hang on. I’m just getting you on their CCT. Ah, there you are. Tell Tom he looks guilty as hell.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because he is. Not that it’s gonna matter much if you don’t get us out of….”
And then the glass doors clicked open.
They both ran towards the end of the corridor, where the next door opened automatically for them, and then the next one.
“I’m just going to superimpose fictional characters over your bodies, so that the investigators don’t get an accurate image of you two. You’re now Santa Claus, and I’m afraid Tom’s one of the reindeer… you know that one with the bright red nose, or something…”
“Rudolf?”
“That’s the one.”
Sam stopped. Dead in his tracks. The last door remained firmly locked.
“Elise, I’m going to need the last door opened.”
“Are you sure? That’s a pressurized room — they’re not going to be very happy if you destroy their sterile atmosphere.”
“And I feel terrible about it, really I do… but if you don’t open it, I’ll be asking you to break us out of prison, or more likely, find us a nice place to be buried!”
The door opened.
And the two men walked into the sterile room.
Sam looked around, pulling covers off drawers, searching for something.
“Stop where you are! You have no way out, and we’re armed.” It was the stern voices of the security guards.
The security door closed once more.
A couple of the guards kicked at it aimlessly before accepting that it was locked and had been designed to offer protection against force.
Sam looked behind and saw that the man in the dark suit with the blue tie was ordering them about. He stared at the man for a second. There was something sinister about his grey and intense eyes.
Who are you?
Confident that the door was sealed for the time being, while Elise had control of their computer system at least, Sam turned to ignore them and kept pulling expensive drawers out of the desks around the sterile room.
“What are you looking for Sam?” Tom asked.
“A way out, anywhere.”
“Um… those are just drawers. What are you expecting to find?”
“This,” Sam said revealing an opening.
Sam turned to look at the man who had been following him since he arrived at the National Archives Center.
And then stepped into the garbage chute.
Chapter Ten
It was a short fast ride to the bottom, where Sam landed on a pile of garbage. He cringed when he considered what type of previously sterile equipment could have been thrown out.