Adriana pulled on the latch and stepped through into a nondescript freight elevator. She hit the lower of the two buttons,and the machine began its descent. It only went down two stories into the bowels of the building. When it reached the bottom, she stepped off into an antechamber surrounded by eight-inch-thick concrete slabs. A shiny metal door was the only distinct feature in the ten-by-ten space. It was locked with a key code device. She stepped to it, entered her five-digit code, and twisted the latch when the light turned green. Beyond the threshold, another concrete room opened up. This one was larger, about two hundred square feet. It stretched out in a rectangular shape, and each wall was lined with black steel shelving and racks. Pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, and submachine guns hung around the room. One counter featured a dozen different kinds of knives. On the other side, magazines, boxes of ammunition, scopes, specialized targeting attachments, sound suppressors, grips, and stocks hung from designated places.
At the far end, four high-definition computer screens sat dormant, each connected to a small black box that was no larger than a standard hardcover book. They were some of the fastest computers in the world, capable of processing information and commands at a speed twice that of the best the public could purchase.
The room looked like something a wealthy doomsday prepper would have concocted in his wildest imagination. For Adriana and her father it was the armory. A place they could go if things on the outside world got a little too hot under the collar.
She grabbed a rucksack and a duffle bag and started taking what she needed. Two pistols, one of the Heckler & Koch submachine guns, and four throwing knives already sheathed in a nylon belt. After eyeing all the weapons, Adriana took everything out except the pistols and one knife. It was one thing to be prepared. It was quite another to carry enough weapons for a small army.
She made her way over to a shelf that housed a wide array of tools. To an ordinary person, the objects might seem odd or random, but to her, they were keys to almost every door on the planet. She stuffed some of the manual lock picks in the rucksack, along with a digital combination decoder, a wall scanner, and a pair of night vision goggles.
Adriana eyed the items on the counter next to her. It was the ordnance shelf. While having some explosives on hand could be useful, it could also be dangerous. Not to mention getting them across borders was often more complicated. In her experience, guns and blades were much easier. Bringing a block of C4 or some grenades seemed to raise eyebrows.
Four half-dollar-sized discs were propped against the wall, leaning at an angle. They were small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. Those, she would take. Her father had procured them from a friend at DARPA, the Pentagon’s above-top-secret research arm: an experimental flash bang grenade that was small and alien enough to not cause concern when crossing international borders. She scooped them up carefully and slid them into a side pocket in the rucksack. The devices required the user to press multiple times on a button that was flush with the rest of the disc, so there was no danger in them going off by accident.
Satisfied she had everything she needed, Adriana reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone again. She made a note of the time. It would take several hours to reach Moscow. The man in the video said she only had five days. That meant she couldn’t misstep anywhere along the way, or precious time would be lost.
3
Allyson Webster stared unwaveringly at the man holding the gun. The barrel aimed at her head did nothing to change her demeanor. The menacing expression on his face would have crumpled a weaker person, but she was not weak. If she’d been weak, Allyson would have died years ago.
“You know you can’t scare me with that thing,” she said. She raised one leg and crossed it over the other, showing just a small amount of smooth tanned skin above the knee. “Besides, you more than anyone know the best way to get me to do something is to pay me.”
The man was older. His gray, slicked-back hair revealed that truth to anyone who met him. His four-thousand-dollar suit screamed wealth, as did the sprawling study in which they sat. Mahogany panels wrapped around them with a few shelves showing off a collection of priceless first editions he’d probably never read.
His sinister gaze softened and gave way to a toothy grin, the brightness of which was a stark contrast to his tan, leathery face. “Nothing fazes you does it?” he asked in a North London accent.
She shook her head. “Not really, Frank. Not even you. And I know what you’re capable of.”
“Do you?” He set the gun on the table and leaned back in the high leather chair. His arms crossed, bending the pinstripes on his sleeves.
Frank Shaw’s reputation was coated in dirt, washed in mud, and then splattered in filth. On the outside, he looked like a legitimate billionaire businessman. His path to those heights, however, was layered in underworld dealings, shady networking, and illegal activity that would make a drug lord blush.
None of that frightened Allyson. She knew as well as he did that if it came down to it, crossing her would be the last mistake he ever made. No amount of muscle or money would be able to keep her from having her vengeance. It was something he both feared and respected about her.
“Please, you've called on me to do some of your dirty work for you, so do me a favor and get to the point. My time isn’t cheap.”
One side of his face twisted in a grin. He liked the American brashness she always carried. It was almost endearing.
“My dear, if I were twenty years younger—”
“I’d cut you in a way that would make you wish you weren’t,” she finished his sentence abruptly and passed him a mischievous grin.
He snorted a laugh. “I believe you would.” Frank eyed her for another second. “A colleague and I have a little bet going.”
“Little?” She interrupted again. “Frank, I’ve known you a long time. You don’t do little.”
“True. It’s a hundred-million-pound wager.”
She swallowed at the sum but remained calm. That was an enormous amount of money for almost anyone, even a billionaire like Frank.
He continued. “This colleague and I are searching for three lost pieces of art. They went missing during World War II. I want you to find them before he does.”
Allyson was dubious. “Frank, you’re the richest man I know. And one of the top one hundred in the world. You couldn’t have that many colleagues. Who is the other guy?”
He smiled and cocked his head to the side. “I’m not at liberty to say. But I can tell you this: He has his own thief. Although I highly doubt his methods of hiring that person are as straightforward as mine.”
She raised an eyebrow.
Before she could ask, Frank answered. “You think I’m dirty. This colleague has more dirt and blood on his hands than I ever could. The things he’s done make me look like a choir boy.”
“So he’s not just paying this person?”
Frank shook his head. “I’m sure he is. But he’s probably also trying to leverage his employee into doing what he says.”
A sincere curiosity crept onto her face. “Leverage?”
“He’s a power monger.”
“And you’re not?”
“Touché. However, he uses force when there could be other means of motivating those with whom we work, which brings me to my offer for you.”
“I was wondering when we were going to get to that.”
Frank stood and took one step over to a nearby shelf. It was empty save for a thick, yellowish envelope. He tossed it over to her, and she snagged it out of the air with one hand. She gave it a mildly interested glance and set it in her lap.