That was another thing she had to consider. Crossing the border in a plane with any weapons or special equipment would draw curious eyes, despite the slack security policy for going from the US into Mexico. She’d have to cross by car and then catch a plane from Tijuana. Adriana could fly a small plane easily enough. She’d learned how to pilot aircraft long ago. But for something like this, she’d rather have someone else in the cockpit with her, a person who knew the little nooks and crannies of the Mexican countryside. She had a feeling that her connections in Atlanta might be able to pull a few strings and locate just such a pilot.
She hung a sharp right and opted for the stairs instead of the elevator. Her room was on the fourth floor, but Adriana didn’t mind the exercise so long as it kept her from being trapped in a box where being a target could present mortal danger. In a stairwell, at least there were movement options.
By the time she reached the fourth floor landing, her thighs had started to burn a little, but she could easily make it up another fifteen or so flights if she had to. She pulled down on the shiny metal latch and hurried down the hallway to her room.
Inside, she found all her belongings in order, which helped allay some of her fears. Her expectations were to find the hotel room trashed and some of her things missing: typical concerns of her occupation that today remained unrealized. As far as she could tell, no one had gone through her stuff, and the room was just as she had left it.
Adriana went through the room like a whirlwind. She grabbed the small collection of travel gear and went out the same way she came in. Once she was back downstairs, she pulled out her phone once more and dialed. After several rings, a man’s voice answered on the other end.
“Hello? Adriana? What’s up?”
“Tommy. I need a favor.”
16
As expected, the security officer at the airport had given her passport an extra glance due to the different hair color and style. He’d asked her when she got her new hairdo and she explained that a week ago she’d decided to try a different look on a whim. He accepted the explanation and let her pass after she playfully bit her lower lip and gave him a short up and down stare. Men like that were easy. When in doubt, flirting would usually buy her time or get her out of a sticky situation.
Adriana’s jet cut through the sky over the ocean and the continental United States, speeding toward Las Vegas.
While onboard, she knew that sleep would be at a premium and was able to nap for an hour or so while over the Atlantic Ocean. Her phone dinged twice on the side table next to her beige leather seat and roused her from the short slumber. She picked up the device and blinked a few times to rid her eyes of blurriness. It was a message from Monique. Before leaving Holland, Adriana sent one of her email addresses to the Dutch woman via text message. This would allow for larger files, images, and schematics to be sent.
Adriana tapped the screen and scrolled through the explanation of the images that followed. She was pleasantly surprised at Monique’s thoroughness. The woman provided everything short of a full-on blueprint to Espinoza’s mansion. Every exit was clearly marked. Photographs detailed almost every inch of the interior, along with notes attached to every point of interest.
After a few minutes of scanning through the images, Adriana found those depicting Espinoza’s private gallery. She couldn’t help but wonder how Monique might have acquired them, but those questions didn’t matter right now. She had them. That was what counted.
The gallery images were taken from three points of view. The circular room displayed several paintings, one every three or four feet. In the first picture, Adriana noted the van Gogh Monique wanted. Trying to scoop two paintings was an irritation, but there was no getting around it. If Adriana didn’t nab the van Gogh along with the Bellini, Monique would probably blow the whistle on her. In this case, that would undoubtedly involve telling Espinoza. Of that, she was certain.
Adriana peered at the next image but didn’t see the Bellini until she scrolled to the last picture. To hope that the two paintings would be next to each other was too much, but finding that they were hanging on almost completely opposite sides of the room would complicate things.
On top of that, there were cameras in four different positions. Monique’s message noted their locations. This meant there was a security room somewhere in the mansion. Before she could make a play for the paintings, Adriana would have to take out those security guards and switch off the cameras. There was no way of knowing how many guards might be in the control room, which could also present a problem.
Her eyes went back and forth, looking over the home’s layout until she found an outbuilding that had way too many lights on to be a shed or maintenance structure. From the looks of it, the square wooden building sat about fifty feet away from the west end of the pool, on the edge of a cliff that descended down the small mountain.
Having a control room away from the main building could have its advantages for the owner. While it posed potential problems for Adriana’s mission, it also gave her a window of opportunity. A plan formulated in her head as she analyzed the estate’s layout.
After the long flight, it felt good to be back in one of her homes, even for the briefest of moments. Adriana had properties in a few locations around the globe. The one perched on the edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains was one she’d bought as a result of a fascinating discovery. She stood in front of the enormous window, staring out across the foothills that rolled into the oasis of Las Vegas. She remembered the blistering hot day when she stumbled her way into the cave, now surrounded by her palatial modern cabin and a securely locked steel door.
She’d deciphered a riddle that led her to this spot. Following the clues, it was here she found a secret diary of Francisco Coronado, tucked away in a shallow cave. Coronado had been one of the early Spanish explorers who’d searched desperately for the lost city of gold that many called El Dorado. When he died, he was nearly bankrupt. But he’d left behind a small, leather-bound book that eventually aided Adriana and her new friends in uncovering one of the greatest mysteries of all time.
Building the cabin around the cave had, at first, seemed like an extreme measure, but she felt an almost spiritual connection to the place after what was an exhausting search.
She wished she could stay longer,but time was running out. Her deadline was less than forty-eight hours away, and she’d be cutting it close. She turned and gazed at the sparse collection of tools she’d laid out on the table: her favorite lock picking tool, a compact utility knife that folded into the shape and size of a credit card, a Springfield XD .40 subcompact, and of course, her black-handled dagger.
The pistol was for emergency use only. The last thing she wanted to do was alert every armed guard on Espinoza’s property to her location and motives. Stealth was absolutely paramount. Her mission, her father’s life, depended on it.
She packed everything into her rucksack and stuffed in a couple of extra fully loaded magazines just in case things turned nasty. Along with all the tools and weapons, she tucked a few tiny metal discs into one of the side pockets. She’d received the objects from Sean, a gift to him from a friend working for a weapons research and development sector of the government. He claimed to have used them in a narrow escape from an Italian train station. She didn’t see how, dubiously eyeing the little discs. They didn’t look like much, about the size of a silver dollar. Looks were deceiving, however, since the objects were essentially a miniaturized version of a flash bang grenade with enough power to blind an enemy for at least fifteen to twenty seconds.