The Medusa Plot Read online

  “Leonardo Da Vinci?” asked Amy, overawed.

  “The story goes that somebody gave Da Vinci a shield to decorate, and he painted the face of Medusa on it—you know, turn your enemies to stone.” A flash of the world-famous grin. “Nobody’s ever seen Da Vinci’s shield, but according to legend, Caravaggio used it as a model for his own ‘Medusa.’”

  Hamilton frowned. “How many ‘Medusas’ are there?”

  “Only one ‘Medusa’ that matters,” Amy told him with certainty. “The one we have to steal from the Uffizi.”

  Dan took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and held it out in front of Jonah and Hamilton. “Here’s some more stuff we’re going to need.”

  1 pair coveralls

  1 extension ladder (30 foot)

  1 glass cutter

  1 artist’s portfolio (large)

  1 water pistol

  1 bottle india ink

  1 portable trampoline (collapsible)

  1 bicycle w/ basket

  4 pizza boxes

  Jonah whistled. “I hope you’ve got some crazy evil-genius strategy, ’cause — straight up — I don’t get it.”

  Amy favored him with a slight smile. “You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The next morning was chilly and clear. The streets of central Florence bustled with commuters on their way to jobs. Tourists moved at a slower pace, getting an early start on a day of sightseeing.

  The Uffizi Gallery didn’t open until eight-fifteen, so the famous building was deserted, except for a lone workman in coveralls, perched atop a ladder, polishing a high window. A sign at the base declared CAUTION in several different languages. A casual observer would never have noticed that the washer’s interest extended only to one window—on the third floor, the Caravaggio room, number 43.

  Hamilton Holt peered through the glass into the gallery. It wasn’t hard to spot the “Medusa” on the far wall. God bless America, the real thing was even more hideous than Jonah’s copies! Why anybody would want a train wreck like that was beyond Hamilton. Then again, the Holt family had never been big art fans. Ultimate fighting and tractor pulls were more their speed.

  He took note of the mounted security cameras. Luckily, they were focused on the paintings, not the windows. From the pocket of his coveralls he took out the glass cutter and pressed it to the lower part of the frame, feeling the blade digging into the thick pane.

  A uniformed figure stepped into the Caravaggio room. A security guard! Frantically, Hamilton hid the cutter behind his cloth and resumed his polishing. The man’s eyes panned the various artworks on display and then settled on Hamilton outside the window.

  A moment of fear. The Cahill team knew nothing of the window washing procedures at the Uffizi. Maybe the regular service used a crane or scaffolding. Maybe their uniforms were a different color. Maybe the Uffizi guards would recognize the usual employees.

  The danger passed. The guard completed his sweep of the room and moved on.

  Trembling with relief, Hamilton pocketed the cloth and wielded the glass cutter again.

  Twenty-seven inches wide by four high, he said to himself.

  Those had been Amy’s instructions. Big enough to get the job done, but not so large — they hoped — that it would be noticed in the time between now and the heist, at eleven A.M.

  He drew the blade across the glass, estimating the length of the incision. He removed the long rectangular strip of glass to ensure the cut had gone all the way through. Delicately, he replaced the piece, careful not to push too hard. Broken window shards on the Uffizi floor would be a dead giveaway.

  Dead …

  The word resonated in his mind like a weight slamming against the stack of a Universal machine. If this robbery was a bust, Reagan and the other hostages might very well end up dead. The thought was a sucker punch to his gut, and he stumbled as he climbed down to street level and folded the ladder.

  Hamilton thought the plan was crazy, but you didn’t bring in a Tomas to think. Even as he aced his SATs and early acceptances rolled in from colleges everywhere, he understood that muscle would be his main role in the heist. He knew he was smart, but his sister’s life was an awful lot to bet against five hundred years of Tomas history.

  So he was here for the heavy lifting, leaving the strategy up to the others. Amy, Dan, and Jonah had been over it a hundred times, and the answer was always the same: If they couldn’t get the painting out via the door, and they couldn’t get the painting out via the roof, that left only one possible exit.

  Through the window.

  Zero hour was set for eleven A.M. to give the Uffizi a chance to fill up. That turned out to be unnecessary. By ten o’clock, the place was a mob scene. The crowd was mostly tourists, but there were art students as well, carrying sketching equipment in large portfolios. Amy blended right in — and her portfolio contained a lot more than paper and pencils.

  She toured the gallery, marveling at masterpieces by Giotto and other Renaissance painters — huge triptychs and frescoes that left her thankful the “Medusa” was a manageable size. At 10:45, she made her way up to the Caravaggio room, taking note of the faint lines that marked the location of the window slit. Hamilton was already in position in the group surrounding the “Medusa.”

  It all seemed completely casual, but the place where she set down her portfolio had been very carefully chosen — just beyond the scrutiny of the security cameras.

  The countdown began. Amy took out a pad and pretended to sketch, mostly to keep her hands from shaking. She had risked her own life many times during the Clue hunt; today it was the lives of seven others that hung in the balance.

  She caught a sideways glance from Hamilton, noting that he was pale, and his T-shirt was dark with perspiration. Nobody could sweat like a Holt.

  10:59. She watched, strangely detached, as the second hand of the wall clock swept up to zero hour.

  Now.

  Amy pulled a water pistol from the portfolio and shot a stream of ink at the near surveillance camera, coating the lens. Without hesitation, she turned to the other and did the same, just as the clock struck eleven.

  Hamilton leaped forward and wrenched the “Medusa” off the wall. An earsplitting Klaxon howled. Throughout the Uffizi, doors slammed shut and locked. At the main entrance, heavy steel sheeting descended, blocking any escape. Security officers scoured banks of video monitors, searching for the source of the alarm. An army of guards fanned out around the building.

  In the Caravaggio room, the visitors were frantic, shouting and screaming, bumping into one another and the four walls. Amy yanked the three “Medusa” fakes out of the portfolio and tossed them into the frenzied crowd. The instant the last copy left her hand, Hamilton Frisbee’d the real “Medusa” over the sea of bobbing heads. Amy caught it and in a single motion slipped it into the precut slit in the window.

  The glass strip popped out easily, but the opening was too narrow for the convex shape of the shield.

  Leave it to a Holt to make the hole too small!

  Summoning all her martial arts training, Amy delivered a powerful karate kick to the window. The glass shattered, and the “Medusa” was falling, leaving the three forgeries and utter chaos in its wake.

  The wail of the alarm was Dan’s call to action.

  He had the trampoline unfolded in seconds and looked up to see the painting plummeting earthward, much closer to the gallery wall than he’d anticipated. Yikes! He scrambled to push the contraption flush against the building, but one of the collapsible bars caught in the cobblestones. In desperation, he hefted the entire frame and dove forward, his mind awhirl with visions of a four-hundred-year-old masterpiece shattering on the street right before his eyes. When the shield hit the trampoline, the webbing stretched with the force of impact and flung the artwork up and out. Dan gathered the “Medusa” into his arms like an NFL receiver making a highlight-film catch.

  He hit the stones hard, but his precious cargo was unscathed.r />
  Touchdown, Cahill!

  He could already hear police sirens over the wail of the Uffizi Klaxon. The hottest item on the planet was in his hands. He had to make it disappear fast!

  He placed the stolen artwork inside a pizza box. It fit so perfectly that he couldn’t help wondering if Caravaggio himself might have designed it that way—a pizza-size “Medusa.”

  He shut the lid and stuck the box one from the bottom of a stack of four, which he loaded into the basket of a rusty bicycle. Then he got on the bike — it was a little too big — and began a wobbly ride away from the gallery.

  Police were streaming from every direction, surrounding the Uffizi. Dan pedaled faster, determined to put some distance between himself and the scene of the crime. He jounced along the uneven stones, turning toward the river. He could see the water straight ahead, but he could also see cops — lots of them — forming a makeshift roadblock.

  No need to freak, he told himself. You’re just a regular pizza guy, doing your job.

  The officers were all around him now, stopping cars and pedestrians, jabbering in excited Italian. Any container larger than a wallet was searched. Dan set his eyes on the Arno, not daring to glance to the left or right as he rolled through the thick of the investigation.

  The river was so close that he could read the names of the boats passing under the famous Ponte Vecchio. Just a few more yards! He was going to make it.…

  “Fermati!” ordered a gruff voice.

  A huge hand closed on his shoulder, bringing him and the bike to an immediate stop. A thick-necked policeman peered into Dan’s face and then moved down to the flat boxes sitting in the basket. He flipped open the lid of the top one, revealing the sight and delectable aroma of a pizza margherita. Reaching below, he opened the second box. Parmesan and fresh basil.

  With a grunt, he replaced both lids and waved Dan along. Grinning to conceal his relief, Dan pedaled on, truly amazed that he hadn’t fainted and toppled into the gutter. If the officer had looked into the third pizza box, he would have found something not quite so appetizing — the face of the “Medusa.”

  He rode on shaky legs to the river’s edge, veering out of view of the roadblock he had just cleared. Right on schedule, a sleek powerboat appeared under the bridge. At the rail stood Jonah Wizard, holding a long-handled fishing net. The craft slowed as it approached the shore. Dan extracted the third pizza box from the stack and tossed it into the waiting net. Within a few seconds, the “Medusa” was drawn aboard, and the boat was back up to speed and gone.

  The Uffizi Klaxon still howling in the background, Dan helped himself to a slice of pizza and sat down on the grass, sharing generously with the ducks on the Arno.

  Art theft gave a guy an appetite.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Florentine police kept the Uffizi Gallery in full lockdown until the surveillance tapes could be scrutinized and every single visitor could be interrogated and searched. It was almost midnight by the time Amy and Hamilton were released by the authorities.

  Once they were free and in a taxi back to their hotel, Amy called Dan, choosing her words carefully.

  “Sorry to be so late. We got a little tied up at the museum. Terrible thing — a priceless painting has been stolen. How was your day?”

  “Pretty good,” Dan replied carefully. “Jonah and I shared a pizza at lunch.”

  “Got it,” Amy acknowledged, flashing Hamilton a thumbs-up. “We’ll be there soon.”

  Hamilton had a complaint. “Why did you have to tell the cops I’m your boyfriend? That’s gross, Amy. We’re related!”

  Amy was disgusted. “We had a common ancestor, like, five hundred years ago. Besides, if they think we’re together, we only have to come up with one story, and I can do all the talking.”

  “Hey, I got early acceptance at Notre Dame,” Hamilton said defensively. “I can talk.”

  “Of course you can,” Amy soothed. “It’s what you say that might get us into trouble.”

  Back at the hotel, they walked into their suite, where an appalling sight met their eyes. There in the sitting room, glaring hideously down at them from the wall, was the “Medusa.”

  “Are you crazy?” Amy fumed. “What if room service sees it?”

  Dan shrugged. “We don’t need room service. We’ve got leftover pizza. Want a slice?”

  Jonah peered critically up at the Renaissance masterpiece. “Man, the copies don’t do it justice. This one’s the truth!”

  “Only a Janus,” groaned Hamilton.

  “Didn’t anybody see you take it?” asked Dan.

  Amy shrugged. “The cameras were blind, and the guards were going after the three fakes floating around the crowd. By the time they figured out anything was missing, we’d already slipped into the next room in the confusion.”

  Jonah regarded her with respect. “The Janus ought to put you on the payroll to scoop up a few of our artworks that fell into the wrong hands over the years.”

  A loud ringtone filled the parlor. Amy instinctively looked to the secure Vesper phone, but the sound was coming from her own cell phone, its vibrate function carrying it across the surface of the coffee table.

  “Hello?”

  Distant cheering wafted over the handset.

  “I knew you could do it!” exclaimed Sinead’s voice.

  “Brilliant!” added Ian.

  “Very well done,” approved William McIntyre.

  Amy smiled in spite of herself. In the awful tension of seven hostages in danger and the Vespers scheming toward who knew what terrible end, it was easy to overlook today’s accomplishment. Stealing the “Medusa” was a despicable offense, not to mention a felony. But it was also an amazing achievement.

  “How did you find out about it?” she asked.

  “You made CNN,” Sinead told her. “They’re calling it the crime of the century.”

  “We’re not criminals,” Amy said defensively.

  “You did what you had to do,” McIntyre soothed. “Admirably. Now you just have to wait for instructions from Vesper One.”

  “How long will that take?” Amy wondered.

  “Not long,” Ian predicted. “If it made the news here, it stands to reason that it made the news where he is.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a small commotion on the other end of the line. “What’s going on?” Amy prompted.

  She could hear urgent whispering in the background. Finally, Sinead hissed, “It’s the police — they’ve arrested an intruder outside the main gate!”

  A spark of alarm shot through Amy. “A Vesper?”

  “Perhaps we can get a glimpse with one of the front security cameras,” McIntyre suggested.

  “I’m way ahead of you,” Sinead confirmed. “Wait — I see him! Uh-oh —”

  “What?” Amy demanded.

  “It’s Evan,” Sinead told her with a sigh. “He’s so sweet!”

  Amy was aware of a mixture of relief and despair. Stubborn, loyal Evan. The very qualities that she admired most in him were coming back to haunt her.

  “Who’s Evan?” Ian asked.

  “Amy’s boyfriend!”

  “Amy, since when do you have a boyfriend?” Ian probed.

  “Since none of your business!” Amy exploded. “What’s Evan doing at our gate? He knows I’m out of town.”

  “He is obviously trying to see if you’re back in town,” McIntyre explained patiently. “The young man truly cares for you. Since you won’t respond to his calls, and your explanations have been woefully inadequate —”

  “What do you want me to tell him?” Amy demanded. “The truth?”

  “Certainly not,” the lawyer replied, “but you might take the trouble to make your lies a little more convincing. There is an awkward stage at the beginning of any romance between Cahill and non-Cahill. When your mother and father first began courting, I clearly remember Hope explaining to Arthur —”

  Sinead broke in. “The cops need to know what to do with Evan, Amy. Wh
at should I tell them?”

  “Shoot to kill?” Ian suggested.

  “That’s not funny.” Amy heaved a weary sigh. “Convince them to let him go. I’ll call him and clear the air.”

  “You’ve said that before,” Sinead reminded her.

  “This time I mean it.”

  “I told you, Evan. It’s a family emergency. I can’t give you the details because it isn’t all about me.”

  Evan’s voice over the cellular network was rising with his dismay. “This is crazy, Ames! I was just arrested for looking at your house! Have you taken out a restraining order or something?”

  “Of course not.” Suddenly, the phone in her hand weighed sixty tons. It was hard enough dealing with the Cahill madness when you were part of it. But when the repercussions affected outsiders, it was almost too much to bear. “The police are keeping an eye on the place because of what happened on the bus. They think it might have been a kidnap attempt on me or Dan because of our inheritance from Grace.” Oh, how she longed for the luxury of simply being honest with him. It would be easier for her, and it would save him so much anguish.

  “Who’s that new guy with the snooty accent who came out and talked to the police?” Evan persisted. “He looks like some kind of male model.”

  “That’s just my cousin Ian,” Amy explained.

  “Not much of a family resemblance,” Evan noted sourly.

  “He’s like a twenty-fifth cousin, ten times removed.”

  Evan was not satisfied. “You won’t tell me where you are. You won’t tell me when you’re coming back. You hardly answer my calls. You have to know how worried I am. If our roles were reversed, what would you do?”

  “I — I —”

  I will not stammer. Not with Evan, the one part of my life where I can just be me and my Cahill ancestry doesn’t matter.…

  “I’m sorry you feel so abandoned,” she finished with effort. “I promise that will change. From now on —” The Vesper phone chimed, drawing all eyes in the hotel suite. “Gotta go,” Amy babbled, and hung up on her boyfriend.

  There was a footrace for the special smartphone. Hamilton got there first and held up the message for the others to see.