Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

Jeff had told her tonight about a specific coin, rarer even than the museum’s prized Mercian specimens, that would be one of the highlights of the new exhibition.

“Tomorrow I’m gonna get to hold it in my hand. It’s Merovingian gold, minted for a Frankish king back in the sixth century. I swear to God, Tracy, it’s not much bigger than a quarter, but the workmanship! It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Instinctively, without even thinking about it, Tracy’s quick mind began to work out the best way to steal it. The awful thing was, there were so many options! Maybe I should offer my services to the museum’s trustees as a security consultant? she thought idly. God knows they could use the help.

Then she realized she was about to become far too busy to hold down a job.

She was about to become a mother, at last. It was the one role she had dreamed of and longed for her entire life. Everything else had been a dress rehearsal.

For Tracy Whitney, tomorrow had finally come.

She slept.

CHAPTER 3

AGNES FOTHERINGTON OBSERVED THE gathering crowd outside the exhibition room and felt a warm glow of pride. Merovingian Treasures was the biggest event for Anglo-Saxon history enthusiasts in a generation. Not since the famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo was unearthed in the late 1930s had such an impressive array of treasures from the period been found in one place, and so perfectly preserved. And once again, Agnes Fotherington was part of it.

A keen amateur archaeologist, Agnes had assisted on some of the later digs at Sutton Hoo back in the 1980s. She’d been in her midforties then, teaching history at a local grammar school in Kent. Her husband, Billy, had gone with her, and together they’d had a whale of a time.

“Imagine!” Billy used to say, over a steak-and-kidney pie at the Coach & Horses in Woodbridge after a long day on-site. “A couple of nobodies like us, Ag, becoming footnotes to history!”

That was his expression. Footnotes to history.

Agnes missed Billy.

He’d been dead ten years now, but he’d have loved to see all the fanfare today. Jeff Stevens, the lovely American antiquities director, rushing about like a blue-arsed fly, anxious for everything to go well, but somehow always with a smile for everyone, despite his nerves. Billy would have liked Jeff.

He’d have liked Rebecca too, Jeff’s young assistant. So many young people were getting interested in the period now; that was the really marvelous thing. Anglo-Saxon history used to be considered distinctly unsexy. It had never had the pizzazz of Egyptology, say, or the popular appeal of Ancient Rome. But perhaps Merovingian Treasures would change all that. How wonderful if the golden wonders unearthed beneath a Norwich parking lot should one day become as famous as Tutankhamen’s tomb.

“It’s a great turnout, isn’t it?”

Tracy Stevens, Jeff’s young wife, put an affectionate arm around Agnes Fotherington’s shoulder. Agnes liked Tracy. They’d met a few times in the run-up to the exhibition when Tracy had popped in to say hello to Jeff or to help out with the cataloging. Of course all the volunteers knew that Mrs. Stevens was pregnant, and that she and Jeff were over the moon. The pair of them were obviously madly in love. Agnes Fotherington was sure they’d make wonderful parents.

“Phenomenal turnout,” Agnes agreed. “And do look how young some of them are. I mean, take that chap over there with the tattoos. You’d never peg him as a seventh-century history buff, now, would you?”

“No,” said Tracy, who’d been thinking exactly the same thing, although for very different reasons. “You wouldn’t.”

She’d already spotted at least four potential thieves in the crowd. The tattooed young man looked more like your smash-and-grab type. But there were others. A pregnant woman who seemed overly interested in the CCTV cameras in the lobby. A pair of Eastern European men in jeans and T-shirts who appeared nervous and kept making eye contact with each other without speaking. One dark-suited man in particular, quiet, unobtrusive and here alone, had caught Tracy’s attention. It was nothing she could explain rationally. More of a sixth sense. But something told her he wasn’t just an interested tourist.

Part of Tracy wouldn’t have blamed them for trying to make off with the gold. With security this lax, the British Museum was almost asking to be robbed. She said as much to Jeff, but he didn’t seem worried.

“I guess we’ll just have to take our chances. A robbery attempt might even give the exhibition some spice! After all, there’s nothing more authentically Anglo-Saxon than a bit of looting.”

Tracy had loved him for that comment. It was the old Jeff to a tee.

At eleven o’clock exactly the red rope was unhooked from its silver clip and the visitors began streaming into the first of four display spaces. Their handbags and backpacks had already been spot-searched at the main entrance, but they were not examined again now, Tracy noticed. Instead the visitors were offered a chance to leave their coats in a cloakroom and encouraged to buy programs and take advantage of the audio tours being handed out by two of Mrs. Fotherington’s friends.

After that they were ushered in a slow-moving figure eight past the various displays—weaponry, coinage, ceremonial objects and daily life—before being funneled into a temporary Merovingian Treasures gift shop, selling replicas of all the above, along with the usual key rings and “I Love the British Museum” T-shirts.

Jeff and Rebecca mingled with the visitors, moving from room to room. Tracy left them to it, limiting her support for Jeff to an encouraging wave as she returned from the ladies’ room to the front desk.

“Tracy, thank goodness. We’re almost out of brochures!” Agnes Fotherington grabbed her arm in a panic. “I had a hundred copies here but they’ve gone in about six minutes.”

“I can go and grab some more from the gift shop if you like,” Tracy offered.

“Would you?” The old woman was visibly relieved. “You’re an angel.”

Weaving her way through the exhibition, already packed with people, Tracy hurried toward the shop. As she moved through the coin room she noticed the man who’d caught her attention earlier in the lobby. He was leaning over the display case housing the rare Frankish coins, looking at them with a controlled intensity that made her distinctly uneasy.

I must mention him to Jeff.

At the gift shop, Tracy had just collected a stack of brochures and asked Maurice Bentley, the volunteer in charge, to call down to the stockroom for more when it happened. An earsplitting alarm rang out, a combination of sirens and bells and a grating, electronic vibration that made the cheap Merovingian coins rattle and jump in their plastic display cases.

“What on earth . . . ?” Maurice Bentley covered his ears.

“What is that?” Tracy shouted through the din at a passing staff member. “Has something been stolen?”

“No. It’s the fire alarm. Probably just kids messing about.”

Or not.

Tracy’s heart rate began to quicken.

“DON’T LOOK SO PANICKED,” Rebecca shouted in Jeff’s ear. “It’s probably just kids messing about.”

Jeff wasn’t listening. He was in Amsterdam, at the diamond-cutting factory. The lights went out and an alarm sounded, just like this one. An alarm that he and Tracy had triggered. In Amsterdam, steel shutters had slammed down over doors and windows, sealing the exits. But Jeff and Tracy had still made off with the Lucullan Diamond.

Tracy had posed as a pregnant tourist for that job, Jeff as a technician. Wasn’t there a pregnant woman in the crowd outside today?