Drawn in Blood (Burbank and Parker 2)

The designated member of the team followed orders, exiting the van behind one of the trucks and walking nonchalantly toward the building. He placed a cigarette between his lips, simultaneously fumbling in his pocket for a pack of matches. Coming up empty, he scanned the area and pretended to catch his first glimpse of the smoker just outside the back entrance.

He slid a large knife out of his other pocket, gripping it behind his back as he headed in the kid’s direction. Approaching him, he asked for a light in heavily accented English.

The kid was happy to oblige, pulling out a cheap disposable lighter. In one smooth motion, the intruder bent over to accept the light, reached behind his victim, and plunged the knife in his back. Before the kid could react, the killer slapped a hand over his mouth, muffling the inevitable cries of agony.

The struggle was over quickly. The young guy dropped to the ground, dead.

Without so much as a second glance, the killer bent down and ripped the key fob holding the victim’s car keys off his pants. He then signaled for his colleagues to join him.

The leader and one other team member jumped out of the van and headed toward the building, while the driver remained at the wheel, ready to take off the instant the job was done.

The three Black Eagles dragged the lifeless body into the building. Shutting the door with a loud clang, they rushed upstairs to the main command center where a technician was huddled over a bank of monitors.

The guy spun around, expecting to see his buddy back from his cigarette break. Instead, he was greeted by the business end of an MP5K.

“Where’s John?” the terrified technician stammered, his gaze darting around frantically for his smoker chum.

“Dead,” the leader replied calmly. “He died”—a quick mental search for the right English word—“unexpectedly. Now I ask you question. Tell me administrative password.”

The technician hesitated. The leader veered sharply to the left, aiming his subgun at a nearby chair. He blew its back to bits in a hail of gunfire, transforming the plastic molded chair into a stool. Ejecting the empty magazine and inserting a fully loaded one, he turned back to the technician and moved in, holding the barrel of the subgun so close to his face that the man’s nostrils burned from the smoking barrel and the hot, acrid smell of spent gunpowder.

“Password!” the leader shouted.

The technician needed no further convincing.

“‘Mortal Kombat,’” he blurted out instantly, his voice quaking with fear as he spelled the password. “The M and the K are capitals. The rest of the letters are small. It’s all one word: ‘MortalKombat’—no spaces.”

The leader smiled, motioning for the technician to move over and sit in the chair he had just blasted with gunfire. The second gunman forced the technician’s hands behind his back and secured them with Flex-Cufs. Then he rifled his pockets, confiscating his car keys.

At the same time, the third gunman sat down at the console, expertly navigating the menus and logging in to the administrative application. With a clear knowledge of how the alarm-monitoring software functioned, he located the museum’s account and quickly changed all the alarm dispatch codes from “immediate” to “call first.” With a chuckle, he replaced the series of phone numbers for key museum personnel that were listed in the system with Phil Leary’s office number and Ben Martino’s factory and home numbers.

That done, he placed the entire museum account on “test” for the next twenty-four hours. Everything he had completed would ensure that all alarm signals received from the museum would be ignored. No police. No fire department. Even if someone at the alarm-monitoring company tried to contact the museum, all they would reach was the disconnected number of a dead person or a drunk. As a final mocking gesture of what was about to take place, he changed the administrative password to “JOHNSON.”

“Finished,” he announced in Albanian, rising from the console and giving the thumbs-up sign to indicate the task was complete.

Nodding, the leader turned and opened fire with his subgun, obliterating what was left of the stool-chair along with its struggling occupant.

“Finished,” he echoed, smiling as he led the others back down the stairs, past the corpse, and out the rear entrance.

The van driver spotted them the instant they appeared.

He shifted the van into drive and eased out from between the trucks to pick up the team leader. In the meantime, the other two men raced through the lot, splitting up as they neared their arranged goals. Each one of them located one of the dead technicians’ cars, unlocked it, and climbed in. Seconds later, they turned over the motors.

“Done. No problems,” the leader was informing the driver in Albanian, as he settled himself in the van.

He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the two other cars pulling up behind them. “Go,” he commanded.

The three vehicles swerved out of the lot and through the streets of Long Island City, on their way to Manhattan.

The Jaspar Museum was the brainchild of billionaire venture capitali

st Edward Jaspar. With Jaspar supplying the seed money, and the help of some affluent sponsors who were patrons of the arts, the new SoHo museum had been built on two adjoining properties on Crosby Street. Millions had been spent to create a small but effective space for exhibiting Jaspar’s eclectic art collection, as well as showcasing the talents of new, unique, and gifted artists.

Tonight was an invitation-only soirée intended to tap into Jaspar’s rich friends and raise additional funds for the museum’s aggressive expansion plans. In honor of the occasion, Jaspar had filled the museum with some of his most cherished artwork, including Innocence, which was the talk of the elite art crowd. Innocence had been painted by Christian Arlington, a newly discovered young American artist with incredible talent. His paintings were already commanding six figures. And Innocence was worth even more.

Unfortunately, Jaspar wasn’t willing to sell it.

Wallace Johnson sipped at his champagne, strolling through the connected exhibition rooms. He’d already stopped three times in the central viewing room to stare at Innocence. No one could appreciate or want it as much as he. He’d be willing to pay any amount Jaspar asked. But Jaspar had made it abundantly clear that this particular painting was not for sale.