Chapter 24

The Chamber jet dropped out of the clouds over the Irish Sea, and we could see the coast of Ireland ahead of us. The battering the plane had taken while descending through the clouds intensified, and I silently cursed Wil for talking me into flying.

I had to admit that the private airplane was comfortable. Sitting in overstuffed chairs situated around coffee tables with a side table next to each chair was a lot better than being crammed into a tiny seat with no legroom and fighting for elbow space with the person next to you.

And it was fast. We covered the distance from Eastern France to Dublin in a fraction of the time trains and ferries would have taken. But trading speed for the prospect of an imminent death wasn’t looking like a good bargain. The winds bounced the plane around like a madman’s idea for a carnival ride.

“Are you okay?” Wil asked. He should have suspected I wasn’t—by the white-knuckles of my left hand holding the armrest, or by the fact I was crushing his hand with my right.

“You’ll pay for this,” I said between clenched teeth.

“We’ll be down in a few minutes,” he said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of. They say most passengers survive until the plane hits the ground.”

A glance out the window showed a fishing trawler below fighting its way toward the shore through whitecaps taller than the ship. We had hit the storm just after passing over one of humanity’s greatest monuments to stupidity. Much of Paris was still intact outside of the areas where the bombs had exploded. The jihadis had set off a dozen incredibly dirty bombs, and the radiation levels were so high that scientists declared a fifty-mile exclusion zone around the city. The Mona Lisa still sat in the Louvre, but it was suicide to visit the museum.

The storm itself was the remnant of a hurricane that had ravished the east coast of North America. It hit the west coast of Ireland with one hundred twenty-five miles per hour winds and buckets of rain, but the pilot assured us that the flooding in Dublin didn’t extend to the airport.

I think the Irish pilot’s definition of flooding was different from mine. The plane splashed down and sent a huge wave of water flying up past the windows as we taxied into the hangar.

“Home sweet home,” I said to Kieran as the plane came to a stop.

She gave me a sour look and said, “There are reasons why so many Irish people move abroad.”

“You don’t get that many hurricanes in Ireland,” Wil said. His voice sounded a bit funny due to the filter plugs he wore in his nose to fend off Kieran’s pheromones. She hadn’t tried anything since I broke her nose, but we didn’t trust her.

“So, are you putting me up in The Dublin?” she asked. The Dublin was a five-star luxury hotel.

Wil chuckled. “Even better. You’ll have a suite on the fifteenth floor of Chamber headquarters. It has a lovely view of the bay.”

We walked through a tunnel from the hangar into the airport terminal, then took a Chamber car to the headquarters building. The driver detoured around flooded streets several times. When we arrived, he stopped in front of the building.

“Have to let you off here,” he said. “The parking garage under the building is sealed off to keep it from flooding.”

It was only a short dash up thirty steps to the entrance door, but we were soaked by the time we got inside. A squad of female guards whisked Kieran away to her new digs, while Wil and I stood in the foyer and dripped.

“So, where are we going?” I asked. “All my clothes are at the townhouse, but I have no idea whether we can get there, or if it’s dry.”

He winked at me. “We are going to the hotel across the street. It’s not The Dublin, but it is very nice, with a great restaurant and room service.”

There was a tunnel, so I didn’t have to get wet again. And he didn’t lie about the quality of the food, which was delivered about the time I finished soaking in a nice, hot bath.

The following morning, while I waited for Wil to shower, I checked the news. To my surprise, the Vancouver art scandal was still on the front page, but for an unexpected reason. As soon as I heard the shower turn off, I called out to Wil.

He came into the main room of our suite, and I pointed to the screen. The day after Kieran ran, Michael Reagan had marched into Chamber headquarters in Dublin and filed charges against her for theft.

A quick search found the vid of the interview he had given the media shortly afterward. I about choked on the interviewer’s introduction.

A blonde bimbo with a microphone said, “Michael Reagan, world famous art collector and philanthropist, has revealed an event almost as shocking as the revelations out of Canada last week. A conspiracy at the world-famous Vancouver Art Gallery may have an Irish connection. Kieran Murphy, who is being sought for masterminding the thefts in Vancouver, once worked here in Dublin, according to Mr. Reagan.”

The camera switched to Reagan. “I recently hired Miss Murphy to catalog my collection,” he said. “Of course, I was as shocked as everyone else when the charges against her in Canada came to light. I checked and discovered several paintings, very valuable paintings I might add, are missing, as is Miss Murphy. I will be contacting the authorities in Canada as well. She spent considerable time at my Vancouver Island house, where she was supposed to catalog the portion of my collection that I keep there.”

Wil shook his head. “There’s no honor among thieves, is there?”

“Hey! Watch your tongue, mister. Just because those people are a bunch of lowlifes, it doesn’t mean we all are.”

He looked startled for a moment, then laughed. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I promise never again to disparage the honor and customs of the illustrious Thieves Guild.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But you need to watch your stereotyping,” I grumbled.

He kissed me on the top of the head and began to get dressed. “What do you want to do about breakfast?” he asked.

“Room service.” I gestured to the window and the rain blowing sideways outside. “I’m waiting on some clothes to be delivered, but who knows when they’ll get here with all of this going on.”

“Who’s bringing you clothes?”

“The store. I ordered them online. I can’t go around dressed in a cat suit all the time. Some of your burglary boys might wonder.”

“Can’t you just, you know…” He wiggled his fingers.

I morphed into the image of Danielle Kincaid wearing a designer dress with pearls.

“Yes, I can do this, but I’d still be wearing a cat suit that needs washing and yesterday’s undies. I’d rather be comfortable.”

My clothes were delivered along with breakfast. We ate, then took the tunnel back to Chamber headquarters. I waited outside while Wil had a long meeting with his Irish counterpart. While the Chamber of Commerce was a world-wide organization, each main jurisdiction acted independently in local matters. Since charges had now been made against Kieran both in North America and in Ireland, Wil was afraid things might get tricky.

He came out of the meeting and smiled at me. “Not a problem,” he said. “Let’s go talk with Kieran.”

Kieran’s flat was much nicer than our hotel room. Obviously, it was kept for visiting Chamber executives who didn’t want to lower themselves to staying in a five-star hotel. Wil handed her a list.

She glanced at it, then up at Wil. “What’s this?”

“The list of paintings Michael Reagan said you stole from him.”

She looked back at the list. “That sorry bastard.” She closed her eyes, and for the first time I saw what I thought was genuine emotion on her face.

“Director Wilberforce,” she said, “this is a list he made up to pull an insurance scam. Michael told me that at one time or another, all of these had been owned by the various owners of Castletown House. They were either stolen before The Fall, were damaged or destroyed in some way, or they were quietly sold by previous owners to pay their bills. He had me sign authentication documents so he could insure them, then he planned to stage a burglary.”

I looked over her shoulder and saw there were seven paintings on the list. None of them were world famous, though most were by recognizable artists. Reagan was smart, and he hadn’t tried to do too much, but the scheme would probably pay him millions.

“And has he insured them?” Wil asked.

“Oh, hell yes. That was before I moved to Vancouver. Michael is a planner. It doesn’t bother him to wait years for a payoff. He told the insurance company that the paintings were found in the attic.”

“So, the paintings don’t exist?”

“No, not a single one of them. At least not to my knowledge.”

“But it does a hell of a good job of discrediting her,” I said.

Wil nodded. “It certainly complicates things.”

I sat down. “Kieran, are there any stolen or forged paintings at Castletown?”

“Unless he’s moved them, there were when I left. At least a dozen that are on the Art Loss Database. Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield with Cypresses—both the original and the forgery were there.”

“If he did move them, where would he move them to?”

She thought for a while. “I guess it depends on what he’s trying to do. I have a flat here in Dublin that he owns. If he wanted to implicate me, he could move them there.” She got up, walked across the room, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Turning back to us, she said, “There’s the house here in Dublin, and he has a house north of Galway. Not too many people know about it.”

“What about O’Bannon’s house near Cork?” I asked.

“I didn’t know Gavin had a place near Cork.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now, you got out of the compound without any problem. What kind of security measures are in place?”

“The guards all know me, and they know the car I took. I just wave, and they open the gate for me.” Further questioning about the estate’s security revealed only that Kieran hadn’t paid any attention at all to the systems or guards.

We left her rooms, so we could discuss what to do next.

“We can check all those other locations fairly easily,” I said.

Wil shook his head. “Just because we have been out of town doesn’t mean his estate wasn’t covered. There hasn’t been a truck large enough to carry a bunch of paintings leave his place since she did.”

“So, they’re still there.”

“If she’s telling the truth.”

“We’re back to sneaking me in there so I can verify there’s a reason to go after him.”

Wil didn’t look happy, but he slowly nodded. “That might be our only option.”

The Irish Museum of Modern Art was originally built as an English royal hospital in western part of the old city of Dublin. It was an impressive building, with an inner courtyard and surrounded by beautiful gardens. The Irish government had renovated it as a museum in the late twentieth century. As luck would have it, it was built on a hilltop, and after the oceans rose, it survived as an island.

The museum had a large fundraiser scheduled the following week. Wil set up an appointment with Madison McCrory, the director. Our goal was to talk her into inviting Reagan to give him an award for his generous support through the years. Chung promised a donation to fund the award.

“Flirt with her,” I told him as I sent him out the door. I had checked, and the director was late forties, divorced, and good looking.

“Libby, I can’t do that. I have to maintain my professionalism.”

“Bullshit. Flirt with her. Don’t ask her out or do anything you’ll regret, but there’s nothing wrong with being friendly.”

He came back three hours later, smiling from ear to ear. “We’re on,” he said, holding up his thumb.

We knew when Reagan would be out of the house, and for about how long. With three to five hours, I could search the place completely. The problem remained as to how I would get in.

“Set me up with a car exactly like his,” I told Wil, “and I’ll go in as his chauffeur.”

He shook his head. “Too risky.”

“No, as soon as I park the car, I blend into the background. No one will see me.”

Stubborn damned man. He called in some Irish operatives to brainstorm.

“Have you ever done any skydiving?” one guy asked me.

“You mean jumping out of a perfectly good airplane hoping a piece of silk handkerchief will save my ass?”

Several of the people in the room chuckled, and the guy who made the suggestion said, “I’ll take that as a no.”

A woman asked, “Are you afraid of heights?”

Wil chuckled. “No, she isn’t.”

The woman got excited. “We could drop her on the roof with a glider.”

“I could just bounce over the fence with a jet pack,” I countered. “Look, I don’t need any video science fiction stuff. When they open the gates for Reagan, a good distraction will do. I just slip in before they close the gates.”

“Someone will see you and blow the whole operation.”

They argued for a couple of hours. Eventually, I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms over my chest, and gave Wil a look he should have been familiar with. He was. He thanked everyone and ushered them out of the room.

When he turned to me, I said, “Occam’s razor. Create a distraction, and I’ll use the front gate. Another distraction when he comes home. It’s a no brainer.”

“What kind of distraction?”

“I don’t know. Something mundane that doesn’t make them suspicious. Set off some firecrackers in the woods. Hire some local kids to do it. You can’t tell me that Reagan doesn’t have problems with the local kids pulling pranks. That fancy house almost demands it.”