What she needed was a gallon of coffee and a big fat dose of adrenaline. She saw him slowly rotate his shoulder. Well, he hadn’t gotten off scot-free from their short war. When she’d lain in her bed last night, thinking about the battle before she went to sleep, it hit her that the whole attack had lasted less than five minutes. It had seemed much, much longer.
Zachery got things started, meeting each person’s eyes as he told them about the attack in Mike’s garage six hours before, ending with, “So that’s why Nicholas has some bruising on his face and Mike has a lump on her head the size of our missing diamond. One bad guy is dead and as yet no legitimate ID on him. He’s not in AFIS. We’re spreading out the net to Interpol.”
Mike knew to her boot heels there wouldn’t be any ID coming from anywhere. She said, “Nicholas, tell them about the Kicker.”
“Where’d that moniker come from?” Ben asked.
Nicholas said, “He’s the one who kicked Mike in the head. I was chasing him down an alley. I saw some white hair had slipped down out of his black ski mask. The thing is, though, he didn’t move like he was old. He was fast and smooth, and when he kicked Mike in the head, his leg swept up and his follow-through was perfect. He was in charge, no question in my mind. I’m thinking he has to be working for Victoria Browning, aka the Fox.”
Zachery said, “We’ll find out. Now, because Mike and Nicholas are both skilled and fast—”
“And lucky,” Mike said.
“And lucky,” Zachery repeated, “both of them are fine. People, we had a hard night. But everyone’s alive, and we know who the thief is. We’ve started bigger cases with a lot less.
“Everyone’s been hammered with the media reports on every TV station, and all over the Internet. Not a surprise this theft is the biggest, splashiest news all over the world.
“But we’re being crucified, along with anyone even remotely connected to the Met and Dr. Victoria Browning. Needless to say, Director Mueller isn’t happy, nor is the president of the United States. Not to mention the insurance people, who are trying to shift blame to get out from under some of the upcoming crushing payout if we don’t get the diamond back.
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do to stem the tide, no excuses to make. We’re in the spotlight until there’s a worse catastrophe somewhere in the world. There’s only one thing we can do: we have to find the Koh-i-Noor, and fast. Now, Gray, where are we with finding Browning?”
Gray Wharton stood up. “Here’s what we know.” He dimmed the lights with a remote. A slide came up on the screen, and Dr. Victoria Browning stared out at them, studious, elegant, understated, and wearing a complacent Mona Lisa smile Mike wanted to slap right off her pretty face.
“This is not Victoria Browning. We don’t believe there ever was a Victoria Browning. We believe we have fact and fiction expertly mixed to create this identity. It’s very possible this woman is indeed a British citizen, thirty-eight years old, who grew up in Scotland and attended school there. According to her passport records, she entered the United States in April of last year on a work visa.
“We believe she created this identity specifically for this job. In other words, she’s legit up to a point. The best lies are based in truth, and according to everyone who worked with her at the Met, she was an expert on the crown jewels, and had contacts in the archaeology world that couldn’t be faked, which means she might have indeed gained her doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. We will verify once we upload the university’s records.
“However, to our everlasting despair, they’re having a snowstorm over in Scotland, and there’s no one at the school to transmit the records. It will be a day at a minimum before we can access that information.”
Ben said, “Sometimes I hate that we have to play by the rules and can’t hack into the university records.”
Nicholas smiled, threaded his pen through his fingers.
Sherlock said, “When did Browning cross paths with Elaine York?”
Ben said, “Last year. Elaine worked with Victoria long-distance on the exhibit until she moved to New York four months ago.”