Just Watch Me (Riley Wolfe 1)

There was some shouting in the street—I couldn’t make it out; it was in Farsi. I looked around the chimney. One of the suits was waving an arm, and the others were moving on him, double time, back down the alley with their weapons at the ready. In less than a minute they’d all disappeared. A minute after that, the SUVs and the armored truck pulled out in a column and headed downtown.

I waited another minute, just to be safe. Then I crab-walked back away from the edge of the roof and to the far side of the building. Then I put my earbuds in and cranked up my music: “Celebration,” Kool and the Gang. I let the beat take over and drive me across the rooftops of the city.

* * *

—

Katrina took a last look around the exhibition hall. She had to admit, even if she had done some of the work herself, it looked absolutely spectacular. The glass cases, each with its own jeweled wonder, stood around the room, widely separated to allow for a crowd at each station. Dominating the area closest to the entrance, among a series of smaller cases containing bracelets and necklaces, was Empress Farah’s crown, with its spectacular 150-carat emerald. Another case featured a bejeweled sword of a type known as a yataghan, then a pair of epaulets encrusted with hundreds of diamonds and emeralds and a case filled with lesser pins and brooches.

And at the dead center of the room, the greatest marvel of all. It stood alone, literally and figuratively. Nothing else in the collection—nothing else in the world—could compare. There it sat, isolated in its perfectly lit case.

The Daryayeh-E-Noor. The Ocean of Light.

Velvet ropes were up all around it to keep the crowds at a safe distance, and a pair of guards—one American, one Iranian—stood beside the case. More guards were stationed around the room, and another dozen patrolled on a random schedule, which might have been a little off-putting except that they were all dressed in full military splendor and ordered to smile and be polite.

Katrina frowned as she surveyed the room, looking for some flaw. She found none. Somehow they’d done it. The information placards were finally in place on their easels, the lights focused, the floor polished to a supernatural gleam—they were ready. She sighed, part contentment and part fatigue. It was done. And she even had time to get ready for the gala. She glanced at her watch. “Shit!” she said. She actually had only ten minutes to get across town to her cosmetologist. And then all the way home to get dressed, all the way back into town—it was going to be a horse race.

She hurried out of the room, looking for Randall. He had to get ready, too. He couldn’t very well show up looking like the plumber’s helper. Luckily, she found him in the lobby, in an intense conference with Angela, which Katrina had no qualms about interrupting. “Randall!” she called. He looked up. “I have to go get ready—and so do you!”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t leave,” he said. “They’re doing a final test of the security system, the caterer is coming in an hour—and I just found out they don’t handle the drinks—”

“Well, but you still have to get presentable, that’s going to take some time,” Katrina said. “You, too, Angela.” Angela just bobbed her head and smiled.

“It takes time for you,” Randall said with a small smile. “Men are different. Hell, I don’t even have to shave.” He ran a hand over his beard. “I’m a manly man,” he said solemnly, and she smiled. “Just bring my tuxedo with you when you come back. I’ll dress in the office.”

Katrina shook her head. “Be clean when I get here,” she said, leaning in to kiss him. “You smell like the Jets locker room at halftime.”

He kissed her right back. “In that case,” Randall said, “bring some of my cologne. The Agua Brava? That’ll cover it up.”

“Sometimes, my dear,” Katrina said, “you get a little too manly.”

* * *

—

That should do it, Chief,” Mallory said. As the lead tech on this operation, he’d been working as hard as anybody, but he showed no signs of being tired. He tapped the control panel gently with the tip of his screwdriver. “We just need to tap in the pass code, and we’re good to go.”

“Let’s get everybody together,” Bledsoe said. “You can show the staff how all the pretty buttons and levers work.”

“Ragheads, too, Chief?”

Bledsoe blew out a breath. “Fuck, I guess so. The lieutenant said we gotta liaise with ’em.”

Fifteen minutes later everyone had gathered in the exhibition hall—museum staff, Iranian diplomats, American and Iranian guards, the Tiburon technicians, and even a representative from the State Department. The Iranians clustered together on one side, and the men from Black Hat opposite. The museum folks—Erik, Randall, and Angela—stood in the center between the two groups.

Bledsoe stepped up in front of the central case, the one that held the Ocean of Light. “Ladies and gentlemen . . . and others,” he began in his you-are-a-useless-dim-pogue voice. “Welcome to a new day in security systems, brought to you by the most advanced team in the world today—Tiburon Security.” He looked around at the crowd with what could only be called a self-satisfied glare. “You are in the presence of a genuine miracle of security systems innovation.” He paused while one of the Iranians from the advance team translated into Farsi. “The major elements of this system have never been deployed before, anywhere in the world.” Pause. “For starters, every possible entry point in the building has been fitted with motion detectors, infrared sensors, video cameras, and some slightly more standard alarm components.” Pause. “Every single one of them is totally new technology that can. Not. Be. Hacked.” Pause. “And every single display case in this room is equipped with similar safeguards—plus pressure sensors that detect the slightest change in weight.” Pause.

“If any single alarm point is triggered, an alarm will sound. And the location of the intrusion is indicated on the main panel, which is always manned and always in communication with all active guards.” He pointed to the far side of the room, where Lieutenant Szabo stood beside the panel. Szabo waved.

“Also at every alarm point, you will find a multitasked camera,” Bledsoe continued. “Additional cameras have been placed at strategic locations all around and through the museum, providing complete surveillance of every possible angle of attack, from cellar to rooftop. They send the image to the monitor on the control panel, as well as to a storage drive that keeps these images for up to two weeks.

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“And, ladies and gentlemen—these cameras are not mere cameras. These devices capture and record every movement within their field of focus. Movement by anything within the programmed guidelines will cause an alarm to sound on the control panel, and the image will show on the monitor screen. And that’s just the start.

“These cameras also scan in infrared, and when needed they can penetrate any solid object up to eight inches thick and capture an image of whatever may be inside. They contain sensors that record, analyze, and differentiate seismic shocks from a bunker-buster bomb right down to a sparrow’s fart.

“The system as a whole is not even close to state of the art,” Bledsoe continued. And he watched the crowd frown and mutter with a slight smirk growing on his face. “Because state of the art is not good enough for Tiburon. This system is twenty years ahead of state of the art.” Pause. “It represents the most advanced, complete, futuristic technology ever deployed, and it is all brand-spanking-new.”