Shaw had picked the spot earlier. A deep, narrow split in the slope of the north shore, out of the range of the estate’s lights. The grass grew tall in the split. He could lie almost prone and remain unseen by anyone more than twenty feet away. Looking through the reeds and flowering strands, he’d spot anyone approaching the gallery from the estate.
The gap in the slope was as comfortable as he could expect. Under the breeze, the sugary scents of pollen and decaying salal berries filled his nostrils. He would be covered in grass stems and seeds when he got up. Couldn’t be helped.
If Rohner wasn’t imagining the threat, what was the thief’s plan? A missing piece of statuary wouldn’t go unnoticed for two days until the guests left. No sane person would try to spirit it away in their luggage.
A boat could easily beach on the shore under cover of darkness to pick up the statue. Maybe to pick up the thief, too. But leaving the island would be the same as admitting guilt, for both the thief and whichever of the executives had brought them. Shaw supposed that one of the unwritten rules of their strange game was to get away clean and for the missing piece not to be noticed until it was too late.
He couldn’t guard the gallery around the clock. A burglar would have to at least case the place, and there were only six or seven hours of darkness to allow any thief a close examination of the collection’s defenses. He’d grab sleep while the execs were in conference tomorrow if he needed it.
Shaw continued watching. It was a skill he’d been practicing as long as he could remember.
First with his grandfather. Absent a babysitter, Dono would bring young Van along while casing possible scores. The two would sit in Dono’s work truck or in a vacant apartment or house. When Van asked what they were looking for, his grandfather would have him assist by writing down the times of people coming and going. He would later quiz Van on what he remembered about them. Their clothes, their attitudes. As Van became more confident, Dono took full advantage of the presumed innocence of a child, sending him through neighborhoods on his bicycle or chasing a Frisbee onto private grounds, to report back on the security features he’d seen.
The Rangers had trained his patience to another level. On one mission, before he’d made sergeant, Shaw and his fireteam had been in Khost Province near the Pakistan border to recon a river crossing. Intel suspected that an insurgent convoy would cross the river on the ramshackle bridge of stone and repurposed steel beams. The where was vague enough. The when was even less certain. The platoon had hiked from the LZ at night and concealed themselves at key vantage points along the road and the river. Shaw’s team wallowed in muddy wetlands a quarter mile upstream.
One day had passed, then another, while the platoon barely stirred. Still the intel reports insisted that the convoy was imminent. Finally, after six days of almost complete silence, not daring to move during daylight hours, they’d received word that the convoy had chosen another route. The fireteam stood upright for the first time in nearly a week that night. Their five-mile hike to the extraction point was such a relief it had felt like a vacation.
So Shaw waited in the island grass. Almost philosophical. He couldn’t control whether the thief decided to hit the gallery tonight or at all. For now, until he had another trail to follow, this was what he could do.
Midnight came and went. The main house a black temple behind the squat block of the gallery.
The thief might not show. Shaw weighed the idea of breaking in himself, if only to see what the black crates contained.
He removed a device about the size of an old-style pager from his pocket and switched it on. The strip of display screen on the device glowed yellow-green as numbers blurred too fast for the eye to follow. Broadband frequencies. Within five seconds the device had locked on to a wireless signal. The signal sent by the alarm’s control panel to the transceivers on the doors and skylights.
Jamming a cellular alarm signal was no trick with the right equipment. But jamming was also prone to error. Shaw’s method was better. His device would mimic the nearest transceiver, catching the signal from the control panel and sending it back again. Shaw could then open a door or a skylight without interrupting the expected exchange.
A chink in the gallery’s armor, assuming there wasn’t a backup system that Anders hadn’t mentioned. Shaw wouldn’t put it past the enigmatic chief of staff.
He switched the device off and tucked it away. Messing with the gallery and its safeguards tonight could only lead to trouble and maybe scare off the burglar before Shaw had a chance to catch them in the act.
Shaw frowned and stretched. Perhaps there was no thief. Anders seemed to subscribe to that theory, even if he wouldn’t voice it. Was Rampage Rohner more than eccentric? Maybe the magnate was delusional and his family and inner circle were doing their best to shield him from the consequences.
The lights in the passageway to the main house came on. Shaw sank back into the grass.
Olen Anders descended the steps from the house to enter the gallery. Shaw saw its roofline brighten as the interior lights came on, shining through the skylights.
The chief of staff was a night owl. Checking on whatever was in the crates, Shaw surmised.
Within five minutes two figures appeared on the flagstone path between the house and the south wing. Shaw could make out their shapes and hear their footsteps, but it wasn’t until they descended the path to the exterior door of the gallery and its overhead light that he could identify them.
Nelson Bao and Avery Morton. The two chemists. The door opened, and Shaw saw the long arm of Anders ushering them to enter.
He waited another half hour. The three men remained inside. Whatever reason they might have for their midnight visit, it was taking a while.
A thief wasn’t going to make a run at the statues with the gallery occupied. Shaw’s stakeout was a bust, at least until Anders and the chemists left. Better to relax while he could and circle back.
He slipped away from his hiding place and down the north shore. From his high-rise apartment, Shaw had an enviable view of downtown Seattle and the bay, but even on the clearest of nights he could see at best a scattering of pinpoints in the sky. Here on the island, the stars made an infinite mural overhead. A hint of what it must have been like for fishermen and sailors in centuries past, before human innovation began to blot out the heavens.
As he walked, he picked at the grass and bits of bur stuck to his barn jacket. His fingers brushed across C.J.’s fountain pen in his pocket.
The pilot was probably already asleep in the staff quarters. He might not catch her tomorrow if the plane left early. He decided to walk down to the seaplane. If it was open, he could leave the pen in the cockpit.
Someone had switched off the dock lamps. The only illumination came from flat solar LEDs screwed into the planks every ten feet, equidistant between the mooring cleats. Shaw walked the L shape of the dock to the seaplane. The pilot’s door was unlocked. He set C.J.’s pen on the seat where she’d be sure to find it.
He’d closed the seaplane door when footsteps on the wooden planks of the dock made him turn.
Kilbane. With Castelli and Pollan just behind.
Kilbane was showing some expression for once. The hint of a smile. Shaw didn’t care for it at all.