Jude Watson: A King's Ransom

She quickly scanned the lobby, focusing on the fashionably dressed women.

A sleek blond woman stood close to the doorway, checking her smartphone. She had a raincoat slung over one arm and a replica of Amy’s purse on the other.

“That one,” she told Dan. “Ready?”

They slipped through the door and came up behind the woman just as she switched her handbag to her other arm in order to put on her raincoat.

“Allow me,” Dan said, stepping up to assist her.

“Thank you, young man,” the woman said approvingly in a French accent. “And they say American young people have no manners!” She twisted as Dan helped her on with her coat. Dan twisted at the same time, and the woman was suddenly tangled in her coat.

“Sorry!” Dan smiled winningly, and turned again, now pinning the woman’s arm around her back as if by accident.

“Let me go, young man!”

“Sorry … just a minute. If I can just … get this around like … that …”

Amy moved up behind Dan. She was there to catch the handbag as it slipped down and quickly replaced it with her own. Without breaking stride she melted into the crowd.

“There you go!” Dan said, finally getting the woman untangled. “Have a great day!”

He caught up with Amy, but they slowed their steps, keeping their heads down and concealing themselves from the guards. The woman moved ahead of them. As she passed the security check, a piercing alarm sounded.

Frau Gertler’s head jerked toward the checkpoint. She began to push her way through the crowd. Amy and Dan wriggled closer.

“May I see your handbag, madam?” the security guard asked.

“Absolutely not! This is absurd!” the woman protested.

The security man held his hand out. “Madam.” It wasn’t a question.

“What’s going on?” a silver-haired man asked in English. Someone else asked something in French. Amy didn’t need a translator to realize that rich people don’t like to be prevented from doing what they wanted to do.

Frau Gertler checked the security screen. “It’s the Rembrandt,” she said in a low tone to the guard. “We have to search the bag.”

“Somebody stole a REMBRANDT?” Dan yelled. “What kind of security do you have here, anyway?”

“My Leonardo!” someone cried.

“Go ahead and search her, but I have an appointment!” Amy shrilled above the crowd’s murmur.

“I have a plane to catch!” someone shouted.

“My driver is waiting!” a stout man insisted.

“Let them all go and detain this woman,” Frau Gertler muttered.

Amy and Dan joined the crowd thronging toward the doors. As they passed through, they saw the security man hold up a sandwich.

“What is it?” Frau Gertler demanded.

“Ham and cheese, Frau Gertler,” the man said.

“Aha!” the woman trilled triumphantly. “You see? I’m innocent! I’m a vegetarian!”

When they hit the cool air, Amy tossed the purse into the bushes and jumped in the car after Dan.

“Just drive,” she told the chauffeur, and crashed back against the seat.

FROM: V-1

TO: V-6

Remind me of your mission again? Oh, yes. Surveillance of targets Amy and Dan Cahill. That was it. Now enlighten me as to the reason for your utter failure to complete mission. Care to check in? Or would you like to check out permanentemente, cara?

Vesper One slammed the phone down. Took a breath, then another. It was a shame he couldn’t do everything himself. He had to rely on the Wyomings for muscle and surveillance. They were a ruthless pair. But they needed … prodding.

Fear was such a great motivator. Look at Amy and Dan, scampering around like hamsters, just for him!

The de Virga map was the piece needed for the next step. The thought of it made his palms itch. He could feel it dropping into his hands. Amy and Dan could do it. Given the right incentive, they could do just about anything.

In an odd way, he believed in them. Certainly, he was rooting for them. They would collect the pieces and he would assemble them, and then …

Eyes closed, he envisioned it all. What he would gain. Nothing less than everything.

Cheyenne Wyoming shoved her phone back in her purse as she swung down the Trullhofstrasse in Lucerne. Vesper One was making threats. In his usual style, of course, calling her cara , an endearment in Italian, even while he was threatening to kill her.

It had taken her years to work herself up to Vesper Six. After Casper had totally botched the job in Zermatt, when he’d almost died trying to get the ring … well, she’d vaulted right ahead of him. Casper had been furious.

And even she didn’t like to get on the bad side of her twin. The bad side was … extremely unpleasant. She rubbed her wrist absentmindedly. The fracture had required a small metal plate to repair the bone. Casper hadn’t liked discovering he was out and she was in.

Just then a yellow BMW pulled over to the curb. “Hey, want a ride, fraulein?”

She stopped and shook her head. “Are you crazy, Casper? What are you doing in that car? Surveillance is supposed to be covert . That means nobody is supposed to notice you.”

Her brother smirked. “Spoken by the tuba player of the Wilmington Wowzabelles?”

“Wasn’t I right? Didn’t the tuba totally draw them in?” She slid inside the car and had barely closed the door before Casper gunned the motor and took off. “Your timing couldn’t be worse. I lost the Cahills. The GPS is all wonky. Satellite problems – it keeps going in and out.”

Savagely, Cheyenne ripped off her dark wig and took the pins out of her long blond hair. She shook it and it cascaded down past her shoulders. Then she tossed her glasses out the window and popped out the dark lenses. She tilted the mirror and drank in the sight of her own baby blue eyes. She was herself again. Immediately, she felt calmer.

“I’m getting kind of sick of dancing to V-One’s tune,” she brooded. “And having V-Two breathing down our necks all the time, waiting for us to make a mistake.”

“Word. And now you’ve played right into it. We might get dropped from the Council of Six.”

Who’s we, bro? Cheyenne wanted to say. I’m the one in the Council. You don’t even have a number anymore.

But she couldn’t say it. She still needed her brother.

“Now it’s going to take us even more time to climb up the ladder,” Casper continued.

She looked out the window as the picturesque streets of Lucerne slipped by. Streets with fancy stores with things in them that cost a lot. Things she wanted and deserved.

A plan was forming in her mind. “It doesn’t have to take more time,” she said. “Not if we’re proactive.”

A small smile began on Casper’s lips. “Oh, sister-friend. I know that tone. What are you thinking?”

“If you want something, you take it,” Cheyenne said, repeating what the two siblings had told each other from the beginning of their lives in crime. Back when their parents robbed banks, pulled scams, dragged them all over the country. Cheyenne and Casper had added Internet scams to the family’s crimes, and they’d pulled in more than they’d ever dreamed. Soon they were known in the criminal underworld. And to the FBI and the police departments of various states. So when the Vespers came calling, Casper and Cheyenne were only too glad to ditch their parents (now serving twenty-five years to life) and join up with V-1. Now they weren’t just criminals – they were master criminals, linked into a global network.