Chapter 4

Priscilla headed to Gallery 3, checking her watch as she did so.

She had six minutes to get into position…

Almost as soon as she entered Gallery 3, she made a left and passed through another opening, entering Gallery 4. She then meandered at a sedate pace, making her way casually, but not too slowly, towards the rear of the gallery, occasionally stopping to peer more closely at a work of art, looking like every other visitor in the museum.

Eventually, at the back end of Gallery 4, she passed through to Gallery 5.

She smiled at the guard stationed just inside. She knew there were at least two others in here, wandering around, keeping an eye on the visitors. She proceeded to make her way south, appearing to be admiring the art on the wall. This gallery—which was used for featured exhibitions—was currently showing Korean polychrome paintings, from contemporary works to those going back to the nineteenth century. Temporary walls had been put in place in the gallery, creating a kind of maze-like path that the visitors had to follow as they journeyed through, admiring the works.

She reached the south end of the gallery. At the southeast corner, one of the walls was displayed two paintings. There was also an Exit sign attached to it. That was because there was a way around the wall, leading to a section behind it…but it was only for use if people needed to leave the museum via the emergency exit. The first emergency exit door opened into a stairwell, with stairs that led down from the second floor's emergency exit. Once in the stairwell on this floor, another door led outside.

The door was alarmed. But that wasn't going to be a problem today.

She checked her watch.

Less than a minute…

One of the wandering guards made a brief appearance in this section of the gallery, turned around, and then headed back from the direction he came.

The only other people around her now were two old ladies—the type who had the kind of free time to allow them to visit museums in the middle of the day. They were currently engaged in a discussion about the paintings on the wall hiding the emergency exit.

Priscilla pretended to look at the same paintings, but at a distance behind the women, who seemed to take no notice of her.

She removed the Android phone from her jacket and activated the screen. A few seconds later, the app told her that once again—for the fourth time—the cameras were now blind…

***

In the command center, the video feeds from the cameras went blank.

"There they go again," Tyrone told Erwin.

Erwin looked up from the logbook he was writing in, saw the dark screens, and shrugged.

"What difference does it make?" he quipped. "There's nobody up on Two to steal anything anyway."

"You know, that's a good idea, Boss," Tyrone said. "How about we both run up to Two and grab our retirement funds off the walls?"

Erwin laughed.

"Tempting," he said, still writing in the logbook. "Although, I'd probably end up using most of the money the first time my wife's new Mazda needs a fucking oil change. Goddamn computers."

***

Without hesitation, Priscilla purposely and quickly walked around the wall and towards the emergency exit. If the two old ladies had even noticed her, she was certain they would think nothing of it, assuming the person who had just rounded the corner was a museum employee.

She gently pressed the bar which unlocked the exit and pushed open the door.

No alarm sounded.

In the stairwell, she took a pair of gloves from her right jacket pocket and slipped them on quickly. She then hurried upwards, taking the steps two at a time, until she reached the door leading back into Gallery 18, where she had been just a little while earlier. She pulled open that emergency exit door and entered the gallery. She ran through the empty space, landing on the balls of her feet with each stride of her long legs. The loafers she had on made no sound on the wooden floor. The sewage smell was just as strong as before, but she simply kept her mouth open as she moved, and that helped. As she ran through the gallery, she didn't spare a glance at The Rialto Bridge. The truth was, she couldn't care less about that painting.

Once she reached the entryway which separated Gallery 18 from the rotunda landing, she slowed down and eventually stopped. She needed to be very careful here…

If she stepped too far out onto the rotunda landing, she would be visible from downstairs.

From another jacket pocket she removed a small switchblade knife, and pushed the button to extend the blade.

She dropped to her hands and knees and then crawled out of Gallery 18, making an immediate left turn, and keeping herself pressed against the wall. From this position, she couldn't see down the rotunda to downstairs, which meant downstairs couldn't see her.

She crawled underneath a painting by Bernardo Bellotto, until she reached the next wall, which was at a 90-degree angle.

She was now far enough away from the edge of the rotunda landing to stand up, which she did carefully but quickly. At this point, the only way she could be seen from downstairs, was if someone started climbing the marble staircase in the rotunda, up to this level.

There was a painting on this wall that she was pressed up against.

It was this painting she was after…

It was called The Young Shepherdess, and it had been painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1885.

It depicted a very pretty, dark-haired, young peasant woman, standing in a field, with a couple of sheep in the distance. She is barefoot, and although her body is turned away from the viewer, she is looking over her right shoulder and directly into the eyes of whomever gazes upon the painting. In her two hands, which are behind her back, she is holding a leafy branch which such young girls used—according to what Priscilla had learned—to call the sheep back to their pen.

Priscilla had been in love with this painting since she was a little girl and had seen it for the first time in this museum. In fact, it was this painting—and not any of the works in her father's vast collection—that had been the spark which had set aflame her passion for art.

There was no time to waste.

Using all of her strength, she lifted the heavy frame from its moorings on the wall and lowered it to the floor. She then brought the knife up and ruthlessly stabbed it through the canvas at the upper right corner, and then ran the blade along each of the four edges of the frame: across the top first, then down the right side, then along the bottom edge, then finally up from the bottom, along the left edge.

The Young Shepherdessfell away from where it had been imprisoned for over a century.

Priscilla folded the knife blade, jammed it into a jacket pocket, and then began rolling the canvas from the top down, creating a tight roll that was a little more than twenty-eight inches long.

Again, she dropped to her knees and crawled along the floor, back to the entryway to Gallery 18, being careful not to put any of her weight on her left hand, which was holding the canvas.

Inside 18, she stood and ran back to the emergency exit, pushed open the door and entered the stairwell, closing the door very slowly behind her as to prevent it slamming shut.

She hurried down to the first floor, still carrying the canvas.

On the first floor landing, she stopped.

She lowered her palazzo pants…

On her left thigh, just above her knee was a wide, black elastic band. Pulling it away from her skin with her right hand, she managed to use her left hand to slip the rolled canvas between it and her leg. Releasing the band, she felt it satisfyingly grip the painting tightly against her flesh.

Pulling her slacks back up, she examined the result and nodded. The wideness of the palazzo legs prevented the fact that she had something strapped to her leg from being seen.

Time to go…

After removing her gloves, and sticking them back in her jacket, she then took out her iPhone and opened the emergency exit door, using her hip to depress the release bar. But she didn't open the door which led outside. Instead, she opened the one which led her back into Gallery 5.

Carefully closing the door behind her, she held the phone to her ear, as though on a call, took a couple of steps, and carefully peered around the wall. If one of the guards saw her emerging from behind the wall—where visitors were not allowed—she would claim that she had ducked back there to answer an important phone call. However, when she peered around the corner, all she saw were three museumgoers who were taking no notice of her, and so she stepped from behind the wall, into the gallery proper, and resumed the air of a woman simply spending her afternoon enjoying art.

With the canvas strapped to her leg, she was forced into keeping her left leg straighter than normal with each step she took, but because she was simply slowly moving from one Korean painting to another, she knew it wasn't noticeable. Once she started walking faster, however, she figured it might appear as if she was limping slightly, as though having pulled a muscle.

But she wasn't concerned about that…

Considering what was about to happen, no one was going to notice how she was walking.

She slipped her iPhone back into her pants pocket, forced herself to mentally count to sixty, and then removed the Android phone from the jacket. Activating the screen, she saw that the museum's video cameras were still off, controlled as they were by the box Cyrus and his team had installed on the server.

The app showed the Kill button as grayed-out and disabled.

Beneath the Kill button was another button. It was red, and had the word Activate on it.

She used her thumb to tap that button.

All hell was about to break loose.

Just as she planned it…