CHAPTER TWELVE
The plane hit turbulence as it climbed to the requisite thirty-thousand feet, and Dante’s body jerked against the harness that strapped him in. He was a thrill seeker by trade, but he had to admit that HALO jumping wasn’t one of his favorite parts of the job. But it was a necessary part, so The Gravediggers put in the hours of training every month. Just for situations like this one.
Okay, maybe not a situation exactly like this one.
The night had always been his favorite time. It was when his energy peaked and he felt invigorated to complete the task at hand. Once the sun went down, his senses seemed to sharpen. It was as if the cloak of night gave him permission to be his real self.
He’d spent the last week in Dubai, soaking in the sights and sounds of the city, watching the palace from afar, and he and Elaine worked in tandem to re-create the security system on the vault and then practiced opening it over and over again. It had been extremely helpful for Shiv Mittal to do an exclusive interview with 60 Minutes, giving an in-depth tour of the palace and the vault. It hadn’t been difficult for Elaine to hack into the newsroom’s files and video archives and pull deleted scenes they hadn’t been able to air on television.
He barely slept, the anticipation of the job fueling him—research during the day, and then at night, he’d slip out like the thief he was and do the exterior recon work. A good thief always had multiple escape routes at his disposal.
Everything had been done to prepare. Now all he had to do was put his skills to the test.
The specially modified King Air B90 had been waiting for him on a private airstrip, the pilot going over the final checklist before takeoff as Dante approached. The discreet gold trident was visible to the right of the door, and he’d held the gun beneath his gear, ready to shoot if the pilot didn’t give the signal that portrayed him as a member of The Shadow, the prep, cleanup, and support crew who made The Gravediggers’ work possible.
The pilot delivered the signal, and Dante had reciprocated with the answer. He’d walked up the ramp and strapped himself in, then donned his oxygen mask. HALO jumping brought health risks above and beyond the hazards of regular parachuting. The last thing he needed was to pass out during the jump and fail to pull the chute.
Every piece of equipment and clothing was built specifically for jumping out of a plane at thirty-thousand feet in the middle of the night. He wore a black insulated skinsuit beneath his specially made black pants with the extra tubing he used during a heist. It was his own design, everything place precisely where he needed it to be. Every second counted. On top of the layers of clothing was a black jumpsuit. He had a full ski mask pulled over his head. Temperatures dropped as low as negative fifty at that height, and frostbite was another possibility, along with decompression sickness and hypoxia. The goggles would keep his eyeballs from freezing.
His bag of toys were strapped to his back beneath the flight suit, and he counted his breaths—in and out—slow and easy—to make sure he got all the oxygen in his blood that he needed.
There was a long beep followed by a click, and the side door of the plane opened. Dante unstrapped himself and did a final check, then adjusted his goggles. The palace was lit up as bright as day, so he should have no trouble seeing his landing target. The biggest challenge was to land close enough to the guard to take him out before he sounded the alarm and Dante ended up with a hailstorm of bullets in his body.
During all the simulation runs he’d had Elaine throw at him, he’d only been successful at landing in the right place and taking out the guard once.
He held on to the strap that hung by the open door, and at the last moment he removed his oxygen and replaced it with his portable breather. He watched the red light flash once—twice—three times, and then it turned green and he jumped.
He spread his arms and legs, letting the flight suit catch air while he changed direction so he was headed directly toward the palace. The lights of the city looked like twinkling diamonds, and they grew larger and brighter as he hurtled toward the west tower of the palace. It was the wing reserved for guests, and there were only two in attendance who were registered with the palace guard.
The onion-domed west tower was completely encircled by a balcony, and there were decorative arches that all led to the spiral staircase that descended to where the guest suites were. There was one guard stationed here, as there was at each of the other towers.
Timing was everything. He had to pull his chute at the last possible second and aim for one of the open archways, without the chute getting caught and dragging him backward—and then, without missing a beat, take out the guard before things went south.
His heart hammered in his chest as he approached at full speed, his vision dotted with black spots from the force as he fell to earth. He saw the guard, who was looking the other way, and adjusted his incoming angle just slightly, anticipating the man’s movements. And then he pulled the chute and shot into the west tower, directly under the arch.
As soon as his feet touched the ground he moved to his left and came face-to-face with a very surprised guard. Wasting no time, Dante gave him a quick chop to the neck, dropping the guard to his knees and then the floor. He quickly pulled in his chute so there was no sight of it from the outside, and then stripped out of his flight suit and mask, keeping an eye on the guard.
Grabbing zip ties from the satchel across his back, Dante bound the guard’s hands and feet, then put duct tape over his mouth and covered him with the black parachute. It had taken seconds, from the moment he touched down.
His blood was pumping and his heart pounding. There was no other feeling on earth like it—except for sex. The rush of adrenaline. The brief moment of free-falling into outrageous pleasure.
The spiral stairwell that descended into the west wing was dark, but he’d studied the layout and could’ve made his way down blindfolded. His footsteps were quiet, and when he reached the bottom he carefully tested the door that led to the west wing. The guard had left it unlocked, making Dante’s job that much easier.
The door opened on silent hinges, and he peeked through the crack, getting a view of the serpentine hallway. Wall sconces emitted a soft glow against the mosaic-tiled walls, and the doors of the guest suites were spaced far apart on either side. The marble floors were patterned in a diamond inlay, light reflecting off the jewels they’d used, and in the center of each diamond was a gold dallah, a sign of welcome to the guests staying at the palace.
There were no sounds and no signs of other people, so he slipped through the door and closed it quietly, locking it behind him. He moved quickly down the long corridor, then slowed as he reached the end of the hallway. The walls disappeared and in their place were pink marble columns veined with gold. All of the wings of the palace opened into this central area, and even those on the upper floors where he was could look up and see the inside of the big central onion dome, or down to the opulent great room.
There was a guard on each floor who, Dante knew, was able to make an entire round of all the wings in fifty-six minutes, and that included checking the unoccupied rooms for any unwanted guests. Dante needed to be in the east wing and up a level to get the Turner painting from the master suite. The vault was in the north wing, and the only entry point was from Mittal’s office.
Dante moved like a ghost, disappearing behind the columns and reappearing again only to do a visual search for possible threats. He caught sight of the guard across from him in the opposite wing, coming out of a room and closing the door behind him. His pulse hammered in his throat and he waited patiently as the guard went the opposite direction down the hallway.
The grand staircase looked like an Escher as it connected the floors, veering off to different wings. The carpet was red and rich and vibrant but, most important, it was plush and soft. He moved toward the stairs and went up slowly, his footsteps muffled by the carpet, watching to make sure he didn’t have an unexpected run-in with the guard on the top floor.
He checked his watch and noted that the guard should currently be checking the bathhouse area. There were multiple hot tubs and plunge pools, as well as sauna and steam rooms. Shiv Mittal woke early and liked to use the area before anyone in the palace rose for the day, but Dante still had more than an hour before Mittal would be moving about.
He made his way down another serpentine hallway, the marble floors encrusted with rubies and pearls, and the red sandstone walls done with intricate carvings and gold inlays. It was a riveting sight, but he had no time to linger and look. There were no other rooms next to the master suite, but there was a door on either side of the hallway, each leading into a private sitting area.
He brought the blueprint of the suite to mind. It was shaped like a large horseshoe—a private apartment for the master of the palace. If he’d gone in through the carved double doors, he would have walked into an entryway, and then into the small kitchen area. There was a master suite on the left with an adjoining bathroom and sitting room, and there was a suite on the right for whatever woman Mittal happened to be entertaining at the time.
The tabloids loved Shiv Mittal. One magazine had dubbed him the sexiest nerd alive. And he was never photographed with the same woman on his arm twice. He was considered a playboy, and he’d never had a long-term relationship that Dante could find. He’d never been married and had no children, which many people thought scandalous because there was no heir to the now defunct sultanate. Tradition was important. And Shiv’s father had more than a hundred wives. Most thought it was long past time for Shiv to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Dante used a metal pick from his pack and quickly unlocked one of the side doors. There was no noise as he turned the knob and cracked the door open. He slipped into a very feminine sitting room done in delicate blues and creams, the walls carved in floral patterns, and the floor swirls of darker blues and golds.
The Turner was in the master bedroom, according to the 60 Minutes interview Mittal had given to show off his collection. It was a good collection. But nowhere close to what Dante had amassed over the years.
He made his way silently through the rooms until he reached the master suite. The door was closed, but not locked. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken something from a room occupied by people. It just added an element of excitement to the job.
He slowly turned the knob until the door was cracked, and then he waited, listening for the soft sounds of even breathing. But he didn’t hear anything of the sort. What he heard was the shower spray from the bathroom. Shiv must have gotten up earlier than usual.
Dante took a chance and stepped inside the room to assess the situation. The bed was empty, the covers tossed back and halfway onto the floor. He must have had a restless night and decided sleep was futile. But Dante quickly lost interest in Shiv’s sleep patterns when he saw the Turner hanging gloriously over the bed. He felt that quick rush of appreciation, followed by the need to possess it, at whatever cost.
He scanned the large room, noting an array of framed photographs and other personal items, though it was too dark to see most of the images. He glanced at a grouping of frames on top of the dresser that were cast in the light from beneath the bathroom door, and he saw Shiv Mittal with three other dark-haired, dark-eyed women, who he was assuming were his half sisters, considering the resemblance.
Dante decided it was best to wait until Shiv left before he took the painting from the wall. He was still well ahead of schedule, and Dante knew how to wait—how to be so still and silent that no one would feel his presence.
He was just about to crawl beneath the bed when he heard a familiar sound from the bathroom. There were some sounds that were unmistakable, and sex was one of them. Especially loud and boisterous sex. Moans were easily audible over the running water of the shower, along with a steady conversation of very creative suggestions. Who knew? The sexy nerd liked to talk dirty. And apparently whoever he was talking to liked it very much, because her moans grew louder and turned into a litany of “Oh, my God” over and over.
Dante had never been one to enjoy voyeurism, but he had no choice. He crawled under the bed and hoped they were making their way toward the grand finale. He checked his watch one more time, then raised his brows at Mittal’s verbal creativity. He lay there patiently for another fifteen minutes until the woman’s screams hit the peak of a crescendo and Shiv roared like a lion through his orgasm, yelling the name Yasmin again and again.
Then he waited another ten minutes, the silence broken only by the sound of the shower as they cleaned up. When the bathroom door finally opened, Dante watched Shiv’s bare feet as he made his way to the wardrobe for clothes. He got dressed quickly, then returned to the bathroom and stood at the open door.
“Take your time soaking in the tub, love,” he said. “And then get back into bed and get some sleep. Pamper yourself today. I’m going to head over to the spa, and then I’ve got some work to do in the office. But I’ll meet you for breakfast at ten o’clock, if you’d like.”
It was hard to make out what the woman was saying because her voice was so soft, but she must have agreed, because Shiv said, “See you at breakfast,” and then he left the room.
Dante didn’t waste any time crawling from beneath the bed. It was larger than a king-size, so he had to climb on top of it to get to the painting. His movements were smooth and practiced as he removed the painting from the frame and cut the canvas from the wooden frame it was stretched on. He took the replacement picture from the tube that had been built into his pants, and inserted the rolled-up Turner. It only took a few seconds to put the replacement picture in the frame and rehang it on the wall.
He stepped down and grinned at his handiwork. Maybe he was sick, but it gave him immeasurable pleasure to see a print of Dogs Playing Poker hanging above the bed. He checked his watch again, and clicked the timer. He had to be in and out of the vault before Mittal got to his office for the day.
He moved to the door on the opposite side of the room that led to Mittal’s sitting area, so he could take the side door that led back into the hallway. Just in case Mittal was lingering in the kitchen. His hand was on the knob when he felt a presence behind him.
“What are you doing here?” a woman’s voice asked.
His heart thumped once in his chest, but he wasn’t afraid. Completing the mission successfully was his only goal. He’d accomplish it however he needed to. He turned around slowly, his arms relaxed at his sides, and fixed a cocky grin on his face—then froze when he saw her.
Beneath the shock was anger—fierce and undeserved—that swept through him at the knowledge she’d just been with another man. He had no right, but he’d always thought of her as his alone.
His first thought was that she hadn’t changed—but the woman standing in front of him was worlds different from the woman he’d last seen as he’d jumped to his death. Her face was thinner, her cheekbones more pronounced, and her eyes were glacial. She was dressed in expensive silk lounging pajamas, the tank baring her toned stomach and prominently displaying the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Her hair had always been a fascination to him. He loved the color and the texture, the way it felt across his chest. It was longer than when he’d seen her last. She had it pulled over one shoulder and it fell down past her breast.
“Liv, my darling. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
Her eyes narrowed and something changed in them that he couldn’t quite identify. She came toward him, and the way she was looking at him made him want to take a step back.
“Who are you?” she asked.
And then he knew. It came to him in a moment of utmost certainty. “Dear God,” he whispered. “Elizabeth.”
“No,” she said, terror in her eyes. “You’re not taking me.” She struck out with a right hook that had him seeing stars, and followed it up with a knee to his groin that brought him to his knees. And then she was gone.
“Shit,” he wheezed, trying to catch his breath and get to his feet. She packed a hell of a punch.
He lurched to his feet and went through the door, hoping he could chase her down before she alerted the guards, but when he made it back to the red sandstone hallway, she was already gone. He couldn’t even hear her footsteps against the tiles. But her fear had come from the thought of him trying to take her. That’s what she’d said.
You’re not taking me.
Maybe she wasn’t running to alert the guards. Maybe she was running to stay hidden. She’d done a hell of a job of it up to that point. There was no record of her, or Yasmin, if that’s the name she was going by, in any database he’d searched. The photograph he’d gotten in the dossier on the palace was the only evidence of her—no name, no description—but it was obvious that she and Mittal were involved. She was the palace’s best-kept secret. And he couldn’t help but wonder why.
Dante didn’t waste any time. He ran to the end of the hallway, stopping briefly to check for the guard. He heard his footsteps scraping across the hard floor, coming from Mittal’s office in the north wing, and Dante swore to himself. His run-in with Elizabeth had taken him off schedule. The guard was coming directly toward him to check the master suite next.
Making a split-second decision, he ran back down the hallway to the sitting room door and let himself in again, closing the door behind him. And then he waited, his heart pounding wildly in his chest as the footsteps made their way down the hall. He heard the guard pass by, a jangle of keys in his hand as he prepared to unlock the other sitting room door, and then Dante slipped out behind the man. He had him in a choke hold, and his air cut off in three seconds, and then he dragged him back into the sitting area. He used more zip ties to bind the man’s hands and feet and put a piece of tape over his mouth.
“Elaine,” he said, activating her on his watch.
“Your heart rate is elevated, Dante. Is everything all right?”
“Just a little unexpected surprise. I’m heading to the vault now. Time is going to be of the essence. We’ll need to move quickly.”
“I’ll be ready for your commands,” she said.
“Going back into silent mode.”
He left the guard in the room and ran down the hallway, expecting a squad of guards to be waiting for him. But still there was no one, and he started to get a little tingle at the base of his spine. Or maybe he was just paranoid and reading more into the silence than he should.
He cut across the large open space between the east wing and the north wing, using the large columns for cover, as he all but ran toward Mittal’s office. The white carved doors with gold swans as knobs were original to the palace, but the security panel next to the door was twenty-first-century technology.
“Elaine,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Approaching office door.”
“Ten-four, kemo sabe,” she said.
“Now’s not a good time, Elaine.”
“My apologies, sir. I’ve been practicing my pop culture. The panel to your right is keycard-operated. It’s a ten-digit binary code that’s changed weekly.”
Dante withdrew a black rectangular device the size of a cell phone from his bag and hit the button on the side. A black digital keycard snapped out and he slipped it into the card slot, watching the green numbers scramble on the reader, slowly ticking off each of the ten digits. When the final digit fell into place, he heard the tumblers of the locks click open, and he turned the gold swan handle and entered Mittal’s private sanctum.
It hadn’t changed from the 60 Minutes special. The furnishings were modern—metal and white leather—but the marble floor was original. There was a wall of screens playing continuous stock reports, but there was no volume. There were some lovely paintings on the walls—a Klimt and a Kandinsky—both of which Dante would’ve like for his own collection, but they weren’t his for the taking. At least, not on this trip.
He went behind Mittal’s desk and ran his fingers beneath the sleek black surface until he felt the small button. When he pushed it, a panel of the wall slid open, revealing another long corridor. He could see the vault door from where he stood. It was a large steel circle, impossibly thick and heavy.
He slid the panel closed behind him, and his footsteps echoed as he made his way toward the vault, which was set into a cove at the end of the hallway. There were walk-in niches on either side where large urns sat, and the second he stepped in front of the door he realized his mistake.
He heard the very familiar sound of a bullet being chambered in a pistol, and he put his hands up slowly.
“You son of a bitch,” Liv said. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
He turned to face her, and then wondered how he ever could have mistaken Elizabeth for her. Elizabeth was beautiful, but Liv was stunning. There was a spark, a vivaciousness in Liv’s eyes that drew him in. It was passion. And once it had all been his.
She was dressed in black, much like he was—black pants, a black long-sleeved shirt, and black gloves. Any sign of her pale hair was tucked beneath a black watch cap.
“Believe me,” he said. “I am.” And then all the charm and devil-may-care attitude he’d always relied on failed him and he said, “I’ve missed you, my love.”
The gun wavered slightly, and he took advantage. He slapped at the barrel with both hands and twisted, making the gun drop to the ground, and he was ready for her counterstrike, her body twisting and her elbow connecting with his ribs. She had a backup weapon at the base of her spine, and he pulled it free and held it on her as she broke out of his grasp.
She faced him, her breath heaving and rage in her eyes. “I watched you die,” she said. “You spineless, lying coward. I watched you jump off that tower and fall into the sea. You used me. You used me so you could stay one step ahead and you could keep stealing. I was getting too close, wasn’t I?”
“You were,” he answered honestly. He couldn’t lie to her anymore. “But I didn’t plan on what happened between us.”
“And what was that, Simon? Sex? Lust? A few laughs?”
“You know it was more than that,” he said.
“I know you’re a liar and a con artist. So what?” she asked. “Are you going to shoot me?” She nodded at the gun he was still holding.
He released the magazine and let it fall to the floor with a clank, then unchambered the last bullet.
“Of course not,” he said, turning the butt of the gun toward her to give it back. She took it with her left hand just as she was swinging with her right.