First, prepare the space.
Micah strolled through the empty Italian warehouse, watching the custodians sweep out the last dust after it had been cleared. The warehouse was just over the Italian border from France and, more importantly, within inches of the dimensions that the drones had determined the size of the Novodevichy Cemetery warehouse was.
Far above, steel girders interlaced and formed the rafters. The last of the rain storm pattered on the steel roof, but sunshine was breaking through the clouds and beaming sunset-tinted light through the westward windows.
The doors at the end opened. Tristan “Twist” King walked in, another man walking with him.
Micah broke off pacing the dimensions of the warehouse and hurried over. “Blaze, I appreciate you doing me that favor in Atlantic City. Did the girls leave the area safely?”
Blaze Robinson was the fourth of the Scholarship Mafia quartet from the Le Rosey boarding school. As indecently tall as the rest of them, Blaze was a Midwestern American like Twist, but dark-haired and dashing with a strong jaw and cheekbones reminiscent of generations of Scandinavian farmers. His pale, Nordic blue-fire eyes were another genetic remnant of his Viking ancestors who’d looked to the sea to find new lands to conquer and defend.
Twist and Blaze had earned their Le Rosey scholarships with pluck and academic excellence. Micah’s scholarship, and, he suspected, Logan’s as well, had been procured the old-fashioned way, with connections and money changing hands.
Blaze held out his hand as Micah approached. “I purchased a used SUV for the three women and a booster seat for the toddler. It’s registered in my name, and I watched them drive out of that wretched apartment and turn for the freeway. They’re fine. I told them to buy prepaid phones to contact you and Kylie once they’re settled. They assured me they would, but it might take a while.”
“I can’t express how much I appreciate it. Kylie was beside herself. She’s the most loyal person I know, and not going back there to help them was about to tear her apart.”
Blaze gestured to the empty warehouse. His voice had a bit more gravel to it than the other two, as if there was hard use in its past. “And this is your next project. It’s interesting you called for backup. Usually, you’re on the other end of the phone when one of us calls.”
Micah shrugged. “It’s just happened that way. It’s good to see you.”
Blaze’s rueful smile was embarrassed. “It’s good to see you, too.” He barreled into Micah for a tight hug and then released him, staring up at the warehouse windows. “So this is it, the staging area for the operation.”
“Indeed,” Micah said.
Start over.
First, prepare the space.
When creating a work of art using oil paints, the first step is to prepare the supplies and the space, making sure the paints, oils, solvents, brushes, canvases, and the easel are ready for the work.
The warehouse was rented for a week, and Micah had diagrams and masking tape.
He handed a large roll of blue tape to Blaze, who teased the end away from the underlying layers and tabbed it, so it was ready to use.
Second, prepare the blank canvas by sealing it with primer.
The floor had been swept, but Micah directed the custodians hired for the day to run wide mops over the expanse to ensure the tape would stick before they were dismissed.
Ready.
Then, sketch the blocks of your image, making sure the proportions and values of your paint are correct.
Micah used his phone to shoot precise measurements, and he, Blaze, and Twist sketched lines with tape on the cement floor to represent the walls of the Novodevichy Cemetery warehouse in France.
The result was a rabbit warren of rooms. Some were larger for storage, but some had been converted into office space or just smaller spaces meant to confuse authorities looking for something in particular.
Fourth, begin to add color.
Using thinned paint, block in the major shapes of the image with their colors and the blank spaces in neutral gray. Use black rarely and sparingly, but never white.
Blaze, Twist, and Micah walked through their entrance to the warehouse and traced the paths where they would most likely be led.
Their route would be direct but innocuous. If Anatoly Ostrovsky, or the Chekhovskaya bratva in particular, didn’t want Micah and the other two to see something, they would be led around it.
They should recognize what spaces they were being led around.
The three men practiced when to turn their heads to glance inside other rooms, how a few steps down another corridor before their hypothetical guide noticed their mistake might allow a glimpse into places they weren’t supposed to see.
Between the three of them and a few bits of misdirection, they figured they could view over half the spaces in the warehouse instead of the less than twenty percent they might have seen without careful planning.
Next, build colors and shapes with more concentrated paint.
The three men sat on chairs in the middle of the cement-floored expanse, memorizing the taped layout around them. They practiced ruses, banter, and personas that they might use while they were inside the Novodevichy Cemetery warehouse.
Finally, add details and smaller blocks without breaking up the large blocks of color in the initial outline.
As they hashed out more details, some ideas were discarded, like calling in certain friends of theirs who owned a personal military because then they’d have to admit that Micah had stolen invaluable art from a Mafia kingpin.
Others were discussed in more detail and length.
After hours of walk-throughs and brainstorming, Blaze looked around the warehouse lit by the fluorescent tube lights in the ceiling and the darkness outside the windows. “The cars are leaving at nine tomorrow morning?”
“Nine-fifteen,” Micah said. “Ten o’clock arrival.”
Twist asked, “And it’s going to be just us three?”
Micah nodded. “Yep. Just us.”