Author: James R. Hannibal
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/james-r-hannibal/page,18,492524-the_gryphon_heist.html
“Let’s see if we can speed things up.” Tyler pushed an earpiece into place and signaled for her to do the same. “Eddie, we’re up on comms.”
“Welcome to the Matrix,” the geek said from his Mission Control room at the chateau. “Call me Red Leader.”
“No,” Talia said.
“And Mac will be Wheels.”
“Not on your life, Wee Man.”
Talia heard a sigh through her earpiece. “You people are no fun. Did you get what I asked for?”
“Coming to you now.” Tyler removed Bert-the-window-washer’s key card from his breast pocket and swiped it through a handheld reader. That explained the limp, which set the stage for the feigned stumble while getting into the basket. He had picked Bert’s pocket. He held the card under the glow from his phone and squinted at the small print. “You’re looking for Digby . . . Bert. The code he typed in was four-five-seven-one-three-six.” Tyler lowered the card and looked out at the night. “Can you speed us up?”
“Working on it now.”
The basket jolted to a stop. Talia grabbed the railing to keep from pitching over the side. “Eddie!”
“Still Red Leader, thank you. Patience please. I’m typing in raw code, here. It’s not an exact science.”
“Actually, it is.”
“Yeah. Okay. Good point.” The basket started moving again, at twice its original speed. “Three meters per second,” Eddie said. “That’s as fast as she goes—up, anyway. Going down is an entirely different story.”
Down did not make Talia feel any better.
At its new speed, the basket passed the viewing platform on the seventy-second floor less than a minute later. Above that, the main structure gave way to an open cloud deck where glass walkways and styled metal scaffolding joined the three penthouses to the spires. The middle penthouse boasted an infinity pool on its upper balcony, already filled even though the apartment was not yet finished. Sporadic rainfall filtered down through the spires above to disturb the waters, and Talia wondered if the shower had started during their ascent, or if they had simply climbed high enough to meet it.
The basket stopped at the roof of a glass walkway connecting an elevator shaft to the top penthouse—the new London home of Livingston Boyd.
“Keep a firm grip and don’t look down,” Tyler said and helped her climb out of the basket past an ankle-high rail designed for the clips and tackle of the window washers.
“Don’t look down.” Talia latched a hand onto Tyler’s belt, wobbling on the edge of vertigo as they walked. “Everyone says that, but it never helps.”
The walkway ended at a small lobby, little more than a throw rug and a pair of potted trees. They dropped in through a washer’s access panel and stepped up to a twelve-foot bronze door.
Tyler gave it a perfunctory knock. “Red Leader, we’re at the penthouse.”
“Copy. Stand by.”
The door beeped and then clicked. Tyler gave it a tug and it swung wide on brand-new hinges. He grinned at Talia. “Knock and the door—”
“Will be opened.” She walked past him. “Yeah. I get it. I went to Sunday school every week until I was seven.”
The Fabergé carriage had found a prominent place among the pricey knickknacks Boyd had used to furnish his new place. It sat on the recessed mantel of a marble fireplace, surrounded by other Fabergé artifacts—eggs, a castle, a spherical clock. Talia cringed as Tyler used his pinky to open the carriage door, but no alarms sounded. Tinkling music played. The six miniature horses reared their heads one after the other.
“The genius of Fabergé is not merely in the application of jewels or scrollwork”—Tyler stepped back to admire the piece—“but in the intermingling of motion, beauty, and sound, inspired by the ballets of his time.”
Talia knew all about the excesses of the nineteenth-century Romanov jeweler, and at that moment she didn’t care. They had bigger concerns. “What about our cat burglar? The chief window washer let us inside. Who will Finn use? The deputy?”
“Not Finn’s style.” Tyler crossed the open great room to a wall of windows looking out through the Shard’s spires to the city beyond. He drew a short scope from his satchel and scanned the night sky. “He’s a preening egoist in the tradition of the old swashbucklers. Common sense takes a back seat to feats of derring-do.”
Tyler held the scope still and motioned for Talia to take a look. The rain clouds parted like curtains, revealing a field of stars, brilliant in the blue-green of the light-enhanced display. At the dead center was a weather balloon.
“That’s him,” Talia said. “Not exactly original. He’s using the same entrance he used at Bellavista.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Tyler was right. Talia took control of the scope, watching as Finn’s dark form dropped from his launching platform. There were no sparks and no ball of flame. Whatever material he had used for the balloon burned up with barely a flicker in the scope—invisible to the naked eye.
The dark form rocketed down through the gap between the spires and then jerked as a black chute opened, with mere inches of clearance. Finn leveled out and sailed along a glass walkway exactly as he had sailed down the glacier runway.
Talia backed away from the window and placed the scope in Tyler’s waiting hand. “We should hide.”
“No need.”
After a jogging landing on the walkway roof, Finn cut his chute loose and aimed a bulky pistol at some unseen target above the penthouse. He fired a hook and cable, clipped the gun to his harness, and leaped into space, swinging over to the windows.
He hit the glass with a thump right in front of Tyler, and began fishing around in a pouch dangling from his belt.
“Mirrored glass.” Tyler exchanged his scope for a flashlight. “He can’t see me. Yet. Watch this.”
Tyler waited until Finn had affixed a large suction cup to the window, then put his nose to the glass directly opposite the thief’s face and flipped on his light.
With a muted shout, Finn kicked away, arms flailing. He recovered quickly, though, and swung back to the same spot. He pressed his eyes close.
Tyler gave him a finger-wiggling wave.
Finn rolled his eyes and laid his head against the glass.
Chapter
forty-
one
THE SHARD
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
WEARING A WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? FACE, the Australian cat burglar motioned Tyler back and drew what might have been a toothpaste tube from his pouch. He drew a wide circle of white goo around the suction cup, slipped the tube back into the pouch, and held on to the suction cup’s handle.
Vapors rose from the goo. Talia heard a distinctive crack, and Finn pushed the circle of glass inside. He ducked his head in and held the circle out to Tyler. “As long as you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful, yeah?”
Tyler obliged him, taking the circle and setting it on the floor.
One limb at a time, Finn entered the penthouse, unclipped his line, and walked past the other two. He turned to face them, rubbing his arms with gloved hands. “Whew. Cold out there. Hope you enjoyed the show. No autographs tonight. I forgot my special pen.”
“Funny.” Tyler made no move to grab the thief or block the door. “Sorry about the light. I didn’t think you’d scare so easily.”
“Surprised, mate. The word you’re looking for is surprised.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Tyler took a seat on Livingston Boyd’s brand-new velvet couch. “You used a complicated ingress. Showy, but not very elegant.”
“Not elegant? I dropped in from three thousand feet and threaded the needle between the spires.”
“You left your chute behind. And you broke a window.”
“And I suppose you bribed a window washer, who could testify against you in court.”
Tyler shrugged.
“Typical.” Finn wandered over to the mantel. “I see you haven’t nicked the carriage yet. I’d say that makes
it fair game.” He gestured at the hole in the window. “Exit’s over there.”
Talia couldn’t take much more of Finn’s cockiness. The snow-bunnies might have melted at his accent, but she found it abrasive. “We didn’t come for the Fabergé. We came for you.”
“Bellavista, right? The motorbike? I shoulda recognized you earlier, but—to be fair—women chase me all the time.”
Talia’s hand went to her Glock.
“We’re here to offer you a job.” Tyler shot her a glance that said, Let it go.
“You’re Mr. Lukon, right?” Finn walked into the kitchen and cracked open Boyd’s fridge. “I heard through the vine you were looking for me.”
“Lukon. Just Lukon. The payout is good.”
“Don’t need a payout—not from you.” Finn drew a water bottle from the fridge, looking disappointed he had found nothing else, and pointed it at the mantel. “I’m about to score a million and a half.”
Talia was no thief, but she knew Finn was overstating his take. She called him out. “That’s what it sold for at auction. You’ll never get the same on the street.”
“Really, sweetums. What do you know about it?”
“Sweetums?”
“Don’t do it for the money, then,” Tyler interjected. “Do it for the challenge. I’m talking about a target in the mesosphere, literally the mesosphere. Record-breaking. You’ll be a legend.”
“I already am a legend.”
Talia let go of the Glock, raising her hand. “I’d never heard of you until three days ago.”
Finn gave her a half grin. “Not interested. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’ll take my treasure and go. Feel free to help yourself to the egg. It’ll probably fetch a hundred K or so.”
He took a step toward the mantel and Tyler shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not, Mr. Lukon?”
“Just Lukon. Do you know what this is?” Tyler lifted a small silver remote from the burl-wood coffee table.
Finn stiffened. “That’s a panic system.”
“Correct. Rich people are so paranoid. This one is brand new. Perhaps we should test it out for Mr. Boyd.”
Finn raised his hands, lips parting in genuine surprise. “Okay, mate. You have my attention. No need to be rash.”
“Sorry. We’ve already started down this path. Might as well see where it leads.” Tyler mashed down the button.
Alarms sounded. Strobe lights flashed. Finn made a grab for the carriage, but a steel gate dropped down over the recessed mantel, nearly crushing his fingers. He growled at Tyler. “You’re insane.”
“And now you need me.”
“What’s happening?” Eddie asked through the comms. “I’m reading an alarm in the building.”
“Ty—” Talia cringed inside at the blunder she’d almost made. “Lukon pressed Boyd’s panic button. Can you shut it down?”
The alarm went silent. The flashing stopped. “Done. But the system alerted a guard station twenty floors down. They’ll be entering a high-speed elevator any moment now. You have thirty seconds.”
“Can you stop the elevator?”
“Don’t.” Tyler squared his shoulders, standing between Finn and his hole in the glass. “What’ll it be? A payday with us or prison? You may never reach the prison. This building is owned by Qataris. They don’t always play by the rules.”
The two stared each other down.
Tyler’s fingers tapped against the side of his leg. “The guards are coming, Finn.”
“I’m in.”
“Good. Eddie, stop the elevator.”
“I stopped it twenty seconds ago, but it’s moving again. They must have a manual override. I can’t get control.”
As if to punctuate the fear in Eddie’s voice, the bronze door burst open. Two men in cheap black suits barged in with guns extended. The first locked his aim on Talia. “Freeze!”
As Talia went for her Glock, Finn dropped the guy from behind with a flying elbow.
The guard stumbled unconscious into his partner and both of their guns slid across the floor. Finn and the second guard dove after them. The guard got there first, shoved Finn away with a wild kick, and scooped up a weapon. Rolling over again, he pointed the gun at Talia—the only one of his intruders holding a weapon. He pulled the trigger.
“No!” Tyler threw his body in front of Talia’s as the guard cracked off three rounds. The window shattered. Talia and Tyler crashed through into empty space.
Chapter
forty-
two
THE SHARD
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
THE GLITTER OF BROKEN GLASS.
The strange pelting of raindrops falling only a little faster than she.
Talia had felt that weightless, tumbling sensation once before, in a place she could only recall in her nightmares. Water rushed up at her, littered with the tiny ringlets from the rain shower. Was it water in that ditch beside the road? Was she back again?
A jarring impact.
She sank into darkness.
“Talia!” the voice was close, but faint, as if calling to her through a brick wall.
“Talia. Can you hear me?”
She couldn’t answer. She forced her eyes open and saw her father’s face, scruffy and smiling, hovering above her.
“Puiule Natalia, do you hear me? It is time to wake up.”
Talia rubbed her eyes and looked around at her bedroom. The Cat in the Hat still lay atop the covers from when he had read her to sleep the night before. She pushed it aside and sat up against her pillow. “It’s still dark outside.”
“That is the point, is it not?” His Romanian accent had never left him, even after a decade in the United States. “Did you forget what day it is?”
She had forgotten. She had forgotten so many things about that day. It took Talia a moment as the fog of sleep cleared. Then a smile spread across her seven-year-old lips. “My birthday.”
“Yes! Get dressed. I will get the tackle and the poles.”
Not many of the girls in Talia’s class loved fishing. But they had mothers, aunts, and sisters. Talia had her father. No one else. And fishing in the Potomac was their thing.
A light shower wet the roads as they pulled out of the driveway of their little Virginia duplex. No big deal. Talia had packed her red galoshes, and a little rain would give her a reason to cuddle close to her father on the riverbank, sheltering beneath his umbrella.
But even as the thought occurred to her, Talia knew they would never reach the river.
Time shot forward through rain and mist down the gray ribbon of the road, halted by a flash of headlights and the blaring of a horn. Her father muttered as the other driver whipped past in fog so thick it gave Talia the sensation of flying through clouds. Little Talia loved the idea of flying.
As if in a trance, the seven-year-old pulled her shoulder harness out of the way and pressed her eyes closer to the windshield.
“Natalia, not a good idea.” Her father reached over to push her back again, swerving in the process.
Bang.
A flash of yellow.
Talia screamed in surprise and confusion, but the grown-up inside her knew the front right tire had burst, cut by a two-inch drop at the shoulder of the new asphalt. The accident report she had read a hundred times told her as much.
Her father fought the skid, but physics outmatched him and the car rolled. The trees spun. The fog that had so fascinated Talia churned and swirled until the car smashed down into a half-filled ditch. The glass shattered. Water rushed in.
“Daddy?” Talia hung upside down from her lap belt. “Daddy?”
“Puiule Natalia.” His voice was a whisper—constrained, weak. Blood tinted the broken glass beneath him.
“Puiule Na . . .” His eyes closed.
“Daddy!”
With a smash, the remains of Talia’s window came flying in. A black knife, exactly like one she had seen on her father’s bookshelf, sliced past her eyes an
d cut her lap belt. Strong arms pulled her free.
“No! Daddy!”
“Don’t kick, honey. The glass. Don’t kick.”
She didn’t care. Talia kicked and thrashed all the more, cutting both legs, but the strong arms were relentless. They tore her away from her father. His form faded and disappeared among the twisted aluminum.
Talia’s thrashing made her slip down, but not enough to escape her captor’s grasp. The strong arms did not bother pulling her into the air again. They dragged her, pink, flowery Keds leaving tracks of mud across the asphalt. She came to a stop on a grassy bank, and the strong arms took the form of a broad-shouldered silhouette. Her captor positioned himself between her and the car. Talia scrambled to rise. The man pinned her down with one hand, looking back. He watched, but he made no move toward the car.
“Help him! Help my daddy!”
“Close your eyes, honey. Please, close your eyes. Don’t look.”
She did look.
The car exploded. A fireball lit up the trees.
“Daddy!”
In the sudden light, Talia saw the man’s eyes—green, rimmed with gold. He closed them for a moment, and she thought she saw a tear. “Natalia. That’s your name, right? Are you Natalia?”
Talia woke with a start, feeling the strong arms around her once again. They dragged her over the rough concrete at the edge of a swimming pool. Fighting a dull pain in her neck, she tilted her head back to look up, and found the same green eyes.
“Talia, are you all right?”
Tyler. It was Tyler standing over her. Boyd’s penthouse, with its broken window, lay two stories above him.
“Wha . . . I . . .” Talia blinked. They were on the open deck of the unfinished penthouse below Boyd’s. The pool had saved them, and Tyler had pulled her out—the way he had pulled her out of the wreck years before.
Was that right?
Talia looked at him hard. Those green eyes. Pupils rimmed with gold. Those were the eyes from her memory. Had Tyler been present at her father’s death, or was trauma of the present inserting itself into the muddled memory of a trauma long past?
As soon as Tyler had her on her feet, Talia backed away from him.