They left the hostel before the sun was up, escaping down the sidewalk to the train station under the cover of a faint sunrise. Just moments after purchasing their tickets for Amsterdam, the women heard the sound of sirens in the distance. As they’d suspected, the police were driving furiously into the city toward the castle.
“Early for a crime that requires so many police,” the husky brunette woman behind the counter said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Adriana said. “Does that happen often in this town?”
The woman pursed her lips. “No. It’s usually pretty calm around here at this time of day.” She smiled as pleasantly as she could for having to be at work so early. “You have a safe trip.”
Adriana thanked her, secured her rucksack over her shoulder, and strode away with the tickets. Allyson was waiting by a digital arrival-and-departure board thirty feet away.
“Did you hear those sirens?” she asked, taking her ticket from Adriana as she extended her hand with it.
Adriana looked out toward the hillside where Klugen’s home sat hidden in the trees. “Yeah.”
“What did the ticket woman say?”
“She said the train leaves in twenty minutes. We’ll be cutting it close. My guess is the authorities will start setting up a perimeter in ten. They’ll shut off ways out of the city in twenty to thirty.”
“That will be cutting it close.”
Adriana cocked her head to the side. “Let’s just hope this town’s trains are as efficient as the rest of the country’s.”
The two women had made their way through the station and found the platform listed on their ticket without encountering any issues. Theirs, along with one other train parked a few rows over, were the only sources of life in the otherwise deserted area. People had been wearily boarding the train cars, semiconscious, still trying to wake up from a night’s slumber. Some carried paper coffee cups, sipping from them anxiously as they waited their turn to board.
The train left right on time, and not a moment too soon. Adriana could see more police cars and a special unit truck making their way down the road toward the castle as the train crept its way along the tracks, picking up speed as it gained momentum.
An hour into their journey, and with no incidents, they changed trains in Frankfurt. It was the only stop on the journey, and it would take them all the way to Amsterdam.
Adriana wouldn’t relax until they’d crossed the German border and were safely in Dutch territory. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t do a little research while she was waiting.
As the train rolled through the German countryside, passing old castle ruins, robust villages, mountains and rolling hills, forests and vibrant cities, she focused solely on her phone and the image of the Westerkerk.
Allyson dozed off a few times, her head rolling to the side until it came to rest on the window. Inevitably, it startled her when the smooth ride hit a bump. She would wake up and then begin the entire process again of trying to stay awake.
Adriana stared at the photo on her phone. The painting was incredibly realistic. Whoever the artist was had been a master, if not one of the Old Masters. She admired the detail in the bricks, the shades of green in the trees, even the facial expressions of the parishioners outside the building. She’d looked up as much information as she could find on the Internet regarding Rembrandt and the old Dutch church. When he died, Rembrandt didn’t have a penny to his name. Hard to imagine considering his paintings sold for tens of millions in the present market. Ironic, she thought.
To date, no one had ever been able to locate the painter’s remains, and while many speculated on potential locations both inside the church walls and around the exterior grounds, most historians tended to agree that his body was buried somewhere under the massive stone tiles inside the sanctuary. Again, it was just speculation, but one of the theories lent a clue as to the meaning of the strange letters and numbers at the bottom of the painting in Klugen’s home: NW-1-14.
As she was reading through the various pages, Adriana found one that suggested Rembrandt was buried under one of the stones along the north wall. That certainly offered an explanation as to the meaning of the NW. Following that logic, she assumed that the number 1 stood for the row, and the 14 represented the stone number. That meant underneath row 1, stone 14, Rembrandt was entombed within the church. It also meant that Greta Klugen had journeyed there and buried the painting with him.
There were more questions and matters of logistics than Adriana cared to imagine. How did Klugen gain access to the church and receive permission to unearth the stone? How had she escaped Germany into the Netherlands? When she got there, why was she not captured?
It was too much to worry about. Right now, Adriana had to focus on what they needed to do. Retrieving the painting from the church would be no simple task. There was no way the people in charge of the Protestant house of worship would allow her to simply walk in, dig up one of their stone tiles, and stroll out with a painting possibly confined within.
No, this would require something she’d hoped to avoid for most of her time as a professional thief. She shook her head and continued analyzing the points of entry: the windows and every other image of the interior she could find to make sure everything was covered. Adriana prided herself on being meticulous. As much as possible, she tried to make sure there would be no surprises. Those led to trouble. If this heist was going to go down, it had to go down smoothly, and quickly. Once they were done, the two thieves would head to the rendezvous point, make the drop, and then follow the Belgian’s goons to wherever he was hiding.
Allyson startled again when her face touched the train’s cold window glass. She looked outside at the sun coming up over the golden farms and green hills in the east. She rubbed her eyes and noticed Adriana was studying something on her phone.
“Figure out the riddle of the strange letters and numbers yet?” She half joked.
“Actually, I think I did.” She turned her phone around so Allyson could see the screen. “Some people believe that Rembrandt is buried along the north wall in this church.”
Allyson caught on immediately. “Oh, I see. NW. Clever. I thought it meant northwest or something. What about the numbers?”
“Only thing I can come up with is that it is the row and stone number. Those stones that line the floor of the church are in neat rows from front to back. I assume that one and fourteen are the exact location of Rembrandt’s burial stone.”
Allyson raised a warning eyebrow. “You know what they say happens when you assume.”
Adriana shook off the comment. “It makes sense, but there’s only one way to find out. We’re going to have to do something I’ve never done before. I have to admit I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea.”
“Really?” Allyson frowned at the notion. “You’re a thief. You steal things from other people. And you’ve killed people. What could possibly make you uncomfortable?”
“First, I only kill people who try to kill me. And second, I’m not a thief who steals for personal gain.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So tell me. What is it that you’ve never done before that’s got you so worried?”
Adriana’s nostrils flared as she drew in a long, slow breath. “We’re going to have to break into a church.”
15
Adriana stepped lightly as she walked down the center of the Westerkerk. Her shoes had fairly soft soles, so her movement barely made a noise. It was partly out of reverence and, in part, so no one would pay attention to her. She wanted to appear as unmemorable as possible.