Paulie said, “That’s right, your dad is the Omaha chief of police. Zachery didn’t bigfoot him?”
“Not that Dad ever said. He did mention a couple of the local agents started to give him trouble, but once he gave them his patented ‘don’t make me hurt you’ look, they minded their manners.”
Paulie said, “Even so, I’ll bet the transition’s gonna be tough. Horsley trusted all of us implicitly.”
“Zachery will, too. Give him a little time to get settled and learn his way around. The New York Field Office is a different zoo than he’s used to.”
The elevator dinged and they stepped out into a wide hallway, silent as a tomb in the dead of night. No insomniacs on this floor. Elaine York had the end apartment.
Paulie unlocked the door. “I got the keys from the super while I was waiting. He went back to bed, no show of curiosity at all—a real New Yorker.”
She edged into the dark apartment, and the smell hit her in the face—the heavy, dead air, the beginnings of rot. Her hand went to her Glock.
“Step back, Paulie. We got trouble.”
8
British Airways Flight 117
Over the Atlantic Ocean
Thursday, 9:00 a.m.
Nicholas stared at his uncle. “Stolen? The Koh-i-Noor? I can’t believe it. That bloody stone is impossible to steal. And your security has to be unbeatable. So what happened?”
Bo shook his head. “I thought stealing the diamond would be impossible, too, but the fact is it’s gone. It’s been replaced with one of the two cubic zirconia replicas the palace allowed made some ten years ago. The good thing is we’re pretty sure we know when it was stolen—yesterday we had a power outage. All computers, all video feeds, all communications, everything was offline for five whole minutes, then just as suddenly it came back on. There was a thorough check of every treasure in the Met, and I personally checked the Jewel of the Lion exhibit room, but the crown jewels looked untouched. Everything was where it was supposed to be throughout the museum, so we chalked it up to a glitch somewhere in the system, nothing nefarious.
“Then the curator of the Jewel of the Lion exhibit, Dr. Browning, received a call from Arizona, a man named Peter Grisley, who owns the two cubic zirconia replicas of the Koh-i-Noor. The replicas had been stolen. Dr. Browning came to me right away, quietly, worried something was wrong. It was her idea to test the diamond, and sure enough, the tester showed the Koh-i-Noor to be a fake.
“Talk about a hit to the chops. We’re doing all we can, but to have this happen on American soil, during a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit? It’s more than a disaster. It might start another Revolutionary War.”
Not an understatement.
“Uncle Bo, worse than a war, the world media will crucify the U.S. Of course you know that no one on the outside could have done this. Have you pinned down possible staff not accounted for during the power outage?”
“First thing we did. They were all accounted for. There aren’t that many involved—only designated museum staff and the insurance people have access to the exhibit space where all the crown jewels are displayed. In addition, you know we vetted everyone and their pets three ways to Sunday, over and above the designated staff.” He paused, then said quietly, his voice heavy, “There was only one person we couldn’t account for during the power outage: Inspector Elaine York. And now she’s dead.”
Nicholas spoke carefully, seeing now where his uncle was headed. “Perhaps the diamond wasn’t stolen from the museum at all. Perhaps it was taken before it left England, or maybe during transit.”