Tabi sat up slowly, looked at Ryland, and asked, “So, is it all set up?”
“It is,” he said. “They’ll do a run-through right now and check out the lay of the land. The rest of the team is in place.”
“You’re putting a lot on this, taking a chance that they’ll come after me.”
“No,” he said. “But I’ll sweeten the pot because I’m coming with you, as me.”
She stared at him in understanding, and he appreciated it. Then her face pinched, and she whispered, “Of course you are.”
“Remember? The bigger pot of gold we bring in, the more chance Green’ll take the bait.”
“And, of course, Green already knows the rest of your team is here.”
“Yeah, they all used their real passports to land,” he said cheerfully.
She groaned. “How much time do we have?”
“It’s seven-thirty right now,” he said. “We’ll leave at nine-thirty.”
“Good,” she said, as she got up and went to the bathroom. By the time she came back out, he lifted the pot of coffee, only it was empty. She frowned and said, “Do we get more?”
“More and breakfast,” he said.
“I love this hotel,” she cried out joyfully. Sitting down, she looked outside and said, “It’s raining out.”
“It does rain here,” he said mildly.
“True. Very true. Still, it just seems like a bad omen or something.”
“It’s better cover actually,” he said. “For us and for them.”
“I’m still not happy about it,” she announced.
“Doesn’t matter either way,” he said. “It’s the cards we have to deal with.” When his phone buzzed, he said, “Breakfast is outside.”
She sighed, hopped to her feet, and raced to the door, then hesitated.
He smiled and said, “I’m coming too.” He got up, walked over, and opened the door. Once again, it was just the trolley.
“My nerves are so on edge,” she murmured. “I half expected people to jump through the doors, guns blazing.”
“You missed out on all that,” he said, chuckling.
“I know, but somehow it all still has that edge to it.”
By the time they ate, she was dressed and ready to go. She stopped at the doorway, looked at him, and said, “You’ll look after yourself, right?”
“Of course,” he said.
She frowned. “No unnecessary risks. And remember. You’re already hurt.”
He reached out, tapped her lips slightly, and said, “Remember? That’s not part of this.”
“It is part of this,” she said. “I don’t want you to get any more hurt than you already are.”
He leaned over and kissed her gently and said, “Neither do I. Besides we have a sailboat to buy and a trip to take.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said, as he slipped his arms around her and held her close for a long moment. Then he stepped back and said, “Come on. It’s time to go.”
*
It was calm and quiet as Ryland and Tabi walked casually down the street. When they arrived at the museum, they walked up the steps where Malcolm awaited Ryland. With a big smile the two men shook hands, and Ryland introduced Tabi. She smiled, tilted her head regally, and they walked inside.
Malcolm turned to Ryland, with a smile. “Man, you know how to bring trouble, don’t you?”
“I know how to get into trouble too, apparently,” he said.
Tabi chuckled and said, “You got that right.”
Malcolm looked at her and said, “I heard something about you saving his life.”
Such a note of admiration was in his tone that Ryland wanted to knock him back. “She did,” he said, putting an arm possessively around her shoulders.
Tabi smiled at Malcolm. “I was just at the right place at the right time.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes,” he said with a serious tone.
As they walked into the museum, Ryland leaned ever-so-slightly forward and said to Tabi, “Remember. Stay alert. Also Malcolm will be out of here soon, and he’ll be whisked back, so he’s safe.”
She shrugged. “There’s enough people involved.” He looked at her and frowned, then turned and left her standing in front of a particularly obscure piece of bronze. She walked around it, as if trying to figure out what it was. He had no idea himself. He would read the title later and hopefully an explanation would be found. Meanwhile he walked back to Malcolm. “Aren’t you leaving?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been requested to stay.”
Ryland frowned. “It could get very dangerous.”
“So I’ve been told,” he said, with a hard look. “Like I said, you know how to bring trouble.”
“You got a place to hole up?”
“Got an office.”
“I suggest you go find it for an hour.”
Malcolm looked undecided, but Ryland said, “Look. We’ve got a lot of men here. We don’t want a stray bullet to catch you.”
“Okay,” he said. “You got my number. Text me when I can come out.”
“Will do,” he said. He waited and watched as Malcolm turned and walked away. Then he walked back to Tabi. “Happy?”
She didn’t look up from reading the sign on the base of the statute. “Much better,” she said. “The fewer people who get hurt in this, the better.”
“Says you,” he said.
She looked at him. “I like him. He’s nice.”
He just rolled his eyes at her.
She chuckled and pointed at the plaque. “Do you ever wonder how stuff like this makes it in the art world?”
“What is it?”
“It’s called, ‘Eruptions of Thought,’” she said. “Looks like a volcanic eruption gone wrong.”
He chuckled at that too. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s stroll around slowly.” They walked around, commenting on the various art pieces. He thoroughly enjoyed hearing her mind come up with some of the most bizarre suggestions for what stuff really was. “You’re not really an art person, are you?”
“I know it’s trite to say,” she said. “However, I like what I like, but I don’t really know why.”
“I think even if you know that much, it helps,” he said, as they walked through into a large selection of massive paintings.
She walked up to one that just had a single black dot. It was at the eleven o’clock mark if looking at the face of a clock. “I don’t get it,” she said.
“It’s titled, ‘With a Question Mark.’ Does that help?”
At that, she burst out laughing. “Somebody probably made fifty grand for that.” She cast a last look at it, then turned and walked toward some others.
He kept looking around, hearing everything. Finally a tap came on his intercom. Alert. He walked over and slipped his hand in hers, so he could grasp her fingers and said, “Company’s coming.”
She stiffened and then relaxed. “Good,” she said. “That’s what we wanted.”
“It is, indeed,” he murmured. They continued to walk, much more alert and aware, but she didn’t appear to give any notice that anything was amiss. He really appreciated that about her. “You’re really good under tough circumstances.”
“I’m a surgical nurse,” she said. “Tough circumstances? That’s what we do. Quite often anyway.”
He thought about that and realized how true it was. “Do you lose many?”
“Not if I can help it,” she said. “Sometimes the person is already all but gone before we even begin. Sometimes things happen during surgery, you know? Like, if their heart stops. Sometimes they can have a full-blown heart attack while they’re in there. Sometimes it’s something that we didn’t even have any idea about, and, when we open them up to do one thing, we find they’re completely riddled with something else. Again you just never know.”
She pointed to a large wooden carving in the center. It was like a big circle with the top twisted up, almost in an inverted heart shape. “See? Now I like that one,” she said.
“But what do you like about it?”
“I love the texture of the wood. I love the softness. I love the almost eroticism of it maybe,” she said, standing here. “As if we’re both independent but are coming together, by will.”
He smiled and teased, “A romantic.”
“We all are, actually,” she said. “Just different variations of it. We all want a happily ever after. We all want to grow old and have that rocking chair on the porch. Still in good health and regaling our grandkids with tales of our glory days,” she said with a laugh.
“I can’t think of anything I’d like better,” he said, as they kept walking, hand in hand.
A few minutes later she whispered, “Still nothing?”
“You won’t know,” he said. “If we’re lucky, neither one of us will see him.”
“That won’t happen,” she said, as they turned to look at a piece that seemed to change colors.
Then he got a quick code. Move. “Move into the next room,” he told her, pushing her along quickly, then stationing her behind a big statue, as Ryland listened for further comm, while checking out the room.
Tabi had a few tense moments; then Ryland gave her the all clear.
“For the moment,” she whispered.
A vent above them opened, and a gunman dropped down in front of them.
It was Green.
He carried a Glock in one hand and a semiautomatic in the other. He smiled and said, “There you are.”