“I’ll be fine—my eyes are burning, that’s all. I was close to the door. All I remember was someone said Dr. something, and then the fun began.”

The elevator doors opened, and Zachery rushed out, barking orders to the five agents on his heels.

Nicholas said, “Your techs, Mike. We’ve got to get into the exhibit room.”

But she was already on her feet, running down the hall, the train of her dress flaring out behind her like a bullfighter’s red cape. He shouted to Zachery, “The exhibit room—we’re going to check.” And he ran down the hall after her.

27

Mike was banging on the thick metal door. “It’s locked and no one’s answering. How do we get in?”

“Bo,” he said, then ran back to the communication center, found his uncle in the hallway beside Savich and Sherlock, wiping his eyes and trying to draw in clean air.

“Bo, how can we get into the exhibit space?”

“I’ll let you in, but you’ll have to guide me,” Bo said. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

Nicholas walked him down the hall. He realized the fire alarm had been turned off. He hadn’t even noticed until now.

Bo said, “The pass is in my pocket. Put my hand in the reader, then swipe the pass.”

Mike followed his directions, and the door beeped. “Good job, okay, the code is 35767336.” She keyed in the code and the air lock clicked open.

“Stay here, Bo.”

“Ready,” Mike said, her Glock raised. She held up her fingers, one, two, three, and in they went.

No smoke or gas in here, just two FBI agents sprawled on the floor, unmoving.

“Paulie, Louisa?” Mike dropped to her knees by her people, felt for pulses. There was blood coming from the back of Paulie’s head. Both Paulie and Louisa had taken blows hard enough to knock them out.

She knelt up. “They’re not dead, thank the good Lord above, but knocked out cold.”

There was something wrong, Nicholas knew it. He heard something—

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“We have to them out of here, now!”

She didn’t waste her breath. They dragged Paulie and Louisa out into the hall where Bo was waiting, still blinded by the gas, Sherlock and Savich beside him.

Nicholas said, “There’s a bomb in the exhibit space, Uncle Bo. Savich, no, you and Sherlock stay put, you’re still half blind. Mike, get Zachery to evacuate everyone and call the bomb squad. I’ll see what we have so I can brief the bomb squad when they get here.”

Bo lurched toward him. “No, Nicholas, wait—”

But Nicholas cut him off, “I know what I’m doing, Uncle Bo. Mike, get everyone to safety.”

When he ran back into the exhibit room, he stopped cold and listened. He’d swear the ticking was louder in the now empty space.

He heard Bo shout, “You have two minutes!”

Nicholas ran to the vitrine cases that held the crown jewels. All looked fine. No, wait, the center vitrine case, the one that held the queen mother’s crown with the fake Koh-i-Noor gracing its center—the case was cocked open. The closer he went, the louder the ticking became.

The crown was tilted at an angle away from him. He expected to see the case wired, but what he saw instead was a gaping hole in the crown. The fake Koh-i-Noor was gone—no, it hit him. Not the fake, he thought. Bloody hell.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

No time to waste. He knelt and pushed under the case, saw the bomb attached to the glass.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

There was little light in the room, but still he could see there was no clock on the faceplate, so no way to know how much time was left before he and the room exploded into bits. He looked closer, saw the bomb had multiple wires attached to a cell phone. The sucker could go off at any second; all that was needed was a call to the number.

“Bloody, bloody hell.” He needed more light. He pushed himself out from under the case and ran back out into the hall to see Mike standing by the open elevator.

She grabbed his arm. “Everyone’s out. We’re last. Let’s go; the bomb squad’s close.”

“No time—the bomb’s set to a cell phone trigger. I’ve got to defuse it myself. You get out of here.”

He pulled away, ran into the comm center, grabbed a Maglite, and took off back down the hall.

28

Mike didn’t think, she simply ran after him. When she got to the exhibit room door, she saw him on his back under the center case.

“Nicholas, are you insane? Get out of there!”

“I should have known you wouldn’t do what you’re told.”

She shimmied under the center case to lie on her back beside him. “I’m here, I’m staying. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“It’s a standard cell phone–activated explosive, like they use for IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, and suicide bomb vests. Vibration sets it off; the ringer will be set to vibrate, and if the number is called, the movement will cause the trigger to go. I’ll use a jamming frequency, remove the phone’s faceplate, cut the wire to the ringer.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing. Give me the Maglite, you need both hands for this.”

“If I screw up, we’ll find out soon enough. Aim the light here. Good.”

He heard Tommy Magallan, the head of London’s bomb disposal unit, saying over and over, his voice soft and firm, No hesitation; hesitation means you die.

He worked with his mobile for a moment, activated the jamming signal, waited ten seconds for it to take effect, and pried off the faceplate with the screwdriver on his Swiss Army knife.

He set the faceplate aside, looked closely at the guts of the detonator. It was attached to a seven-by-twelve-inch gray paper-wrapped brick, most likely C-4, a couple of pounds of it, enough to take down a large section of the museum, not to mention destroy the priceless crown jewels.

He counted three, two, one, and snipped the small piece of wire running to the ringer. He used the flat of the blade to edge the battery away from the phone, and time started again.

Safe.

The ticking continued, unnerving and insistent. But that was all right. He knew it wasn’t coming from the bomb.

He and Mike pushed out from under the vitrine case and stood. He saw her face was pale, but she hadn’t panicked. He righted the queen mother’s crown, lifted it to see a small metronome in the shape of a skeleton.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

He used his finger to stop its motion.

Silence.

Where had he seen this skeleton before? He’d had very little sleep for more than a day, his adrenaline was still doing the rumba, and he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. But what? Then it came to him.

He said in the silent room, “The Fox.”

She was staring at the skeleton. “What fox?”

He handed her the small plastic skeleton.

“What is this?”

“A metronome—a toy, really—meant to scare the crap out of us. It worked, too. When I saw the detonator was a cell-phone trigger, well, fact is, they don’t tick. I knew there was something else in the room making that noise. She’s a devious bitch. She set it up right under the crown.”

He shook his head and laughed. “Oh, you clever, clever girl.”

Mike said, “Who set it up? I’m clever? All I did was hold the Maglite.”

“An excellent job you did, too. Do you remember seeing Dr. Browning when you came upstairs?”

Her brain clicked into place. She said slowly, “No, I didn’t see her.”

Nicholas said, “Because she wasn’t in the comm center. Our curator stole the real Koh-i-Noor diamond ten minutes ago, right out from under our noses.”