Mr. Collins's Rembrandt

	The heavy door squealed loudly in the dark, otherwise silent hallway. Viktor winced, but there was nothing for it. This was the only way through. He looked up into the ceiling of the hall before he entered, and found what he had expected: a security camera. The red light shone traitorously, giving away the camera’s exact location above the door, pointing down the hall to catch any wrongdoers. A guard somewhere was probably watching the camera on a cycle as he ate chips, drank gas station coffee, and watched some kind of playoff game. 
	It was no real matter to Viktor. The camera was rigged so that it would warn the viewer if a cord was cut or there was some kind of power outage, but if Viktor could just cover the lens, it wouldn’t know the difference. If he was lucky, the guard wouldn’t be paying enough attention to note the difference between a black screen and a dark gray screen. Viktor would be forewarned if anyone discovered a problem – he’d stolen a radio from one of the guards he’d incapacitated – but once he entered this hall there was no easy way out.
	Well, it was now or never. He’d only be in town for a week, so he’d better make this count, and he’d better make sure the Agency never found out he was here. If he got caught while on Agency duty, they would probably get him out of trouble. If he got caught off-duty…he wouldn’t attempt contact. He’d assume he was burned. If that happened, he knew that only Esteban and Johnny, partners close enough to be blood brothers, would come for him then. They would burn themselves in the process. Caroline might help, but not at the expense of getting burned. In the end, it really was best for everyone’s careers if he didn’t get caught tonight.
	Viktor slid his night vision visor down over his eyes and chose his position carefully and silently. He slid a blow gun out of his pocket, considered his target and popped a soft packet into the end of the gun. He inhaled, his chest pressing out into Kevlar, and blew hard. The packet hit the camera and splattered black paint all over its lens.
	But of course this would not be enough. He must check for motion detectors as well. With one short burst of dust from a small gun he carried, he saw that there was nothing immediately in front of him. He treaded slowly down the hall, blasting dust and watching for lasers all the while through his visor, the soft rubber of his shoes making hardly a sound against the concrete. 
	He was lucky. There seemed not to be any motion detectors in the hall. However, he did not put his dust gun away just yet. He had to try doors first.
	Of course, he had the master key to every door in the mansion from his search of the guard. Hopefully, its use would circumvent any security systems the doors themselves might have. Decisively, he opened the first of four doors in the hall. He held his breath, the knob turned, the door opening slowly inward. Nothing happened on the radio except the usual chatter. He let out his breath and pumped dust into the room. There were motion detectors here, but as he looked around, he thought it unlikely the painting he sought was in this room. The only things stored here seemed to be hundreds of shoe boxes storing who-knew-what. He closed the door again, uninterested in pursuing that particular room for now. He’d look again if he couldn’t find what he was looking for in the other rooms.
	Methodically, carefully, Viktor used the same process for the second door, and the third. The second room contained a wardrobe of some kind – probably family garb from generations past. (Blue bloods could be so strange sometimes. Why keep clothes you won’t ever wear?)  The third was completely filled from floor to ceiling with a display of family jewels and two ornamental rapiers. (Interesting, but not the goal of his mission tonight.) The fourth…
	The fourth door’s lock wouldn’t take the skeleton key. Instead the door was fitted with a fingerprint reader. A slow grin spread across Viktor’s face. Of course. They wouldn’t trust even the law-abiding guards with such a secret. This must be the room.
	Out from yet another pocket Viktor drew a small box filled with pre-formed, labeled fingerprint samples. He chose the left thumb of the male head of house. It seemed fitting that the egotistical mule would make the door respond only to him. It would also make sense for him to hold the handle with his right hand and the scanner under his left thumb.
	Quickly, he took off his left glove and slipped the silicone mold over his own cold, narrow, pale thumb. He gave it a moment to warm up and to settle onto his finger. If the fingerprint reader couldn’t detect his pulse and body temperature, it wouldn’t open the door for him. When the mold seemed to have acclimated, he tried the door, pressing his left thumb onto the scanner, holding the handle of the door with his right, praying to anything or anyone that it would work.
	It did. He heard the handle click, felt it give way in his hand. Adrenaline and glee flooded him as he carefully turned the handle. 
	And there it was. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, hanging on the wall directly opposite him, glorious, perfectly preserved, hidden away from the world for far too long. He had not expected it to look this grand, and to be sitting out in plain view, free from glass case or concealing curtain. For a second he simply stood there staring at it, his mouth agape. Then, he slipped his left glove back on and got back to business. No glass case certainly made things easier for him. 
	Of course, there were motion detectors in this room. He could see the lasers making a green X in his visor through the center of the room at knee height. Too simple. He stepped over the lasers, carefully avoiding tripping them, moving in a smooth circular direction toward where the painting hung.
	Now for the hard part: getting the painting back out of the mansion and into his rental truck. There was probably a trip wire on the back of the painting, just to start with. He patted the chest of his jacket, searching for the tool which would allow him to neutralize the sensor, when he heard a change in the chatter on his radio.
	“Say, Bill, I’m seeing that Mr. Collins went into the fingerprint room in basement storage. But I’m not seeing him anywhere here; he’s sleeping in bed.” The speaker sounded like he was trying, and failing to be casual rather than conspiratorial.
	“Anything on the camera?” came the fairly quick response.
	“No, I haven’t seen anything.”
	“Weird. We should probably check it out just to be safe,” Bill suggested. “Meet me at the side drive and we’ll head down through the cellar door.”
	“Fuck,” Viktor whispered. Time was running extremely short. 
	More quickly and perhaps less cautiously than he would have done otherwise, he slid the wire catcher under the bottom of the painting, found where it attached to the back of the frame, and nicked off the portion of frame attached to the catch. Then, he lifted the painting off the wall, wobbling slightly under its weight – it was rather large – and performed his anti-laser dance back across the floor of the room. He closed the door behind himself, checking to make sure that nothing had been disturbed. Then, hefting the large painting’s weight up again, he backtracked through the hall to the door as quickly as he could. If he could just get out of this death trap of a hall before the guards appeared, he needn’t do anything too rash. 
	Mercifully, he slipped out the hall door and closed it behind him just as he heard footsteps approaching the cellar door above and to his right. He stowed the painting propped up against the wall, painted side toward the wall, next to some other miscellaneous things of little worth stored in this room. As the door was unlocked and swung open, Viktor sank down behind a shelving unit, watching from between two baskets of what appeared to be antique door handles.
	Light from the motion sensor light outside flooded the room. Viktor nearly hissed in pain and pushed his visor back up onto his head. Luckily, he’d done so before the guards flicked on the room’s overhead lights. They put their flashlights away and headed straight for the hall door Victor had just exited, passing without a second glance the painting worth half a billion US dollars leaning against the wall. He held his breath. They flicked on the hall light and proceeded on, not yet having noticed the paint splattered all over the camera. They hadn’t noticed the paint on the camera in this room, either, or on all of the cameras leading up to this location. But they probably would once they turned back, and then he’d be in trouble.
	Making his choice in a split second, he burst from his location behind the shelving unit, hefted the painting off the floor, and burst up the stairs leading to the side drive. They’d left the door open. He slipped through about was well  as he could with the painting in tow, careful not to make a mark upon the piece, and stole into the clear, calm, humid night. 
	He panted and sweated uncomfortably, tearing up the side lawn of the mansion, heading for the bushes along the edge of the property. Damn summer nights in the state of Georgia. He thought he’d dehydrate before he got to his truck. 
	Just as he reached the shadows, slinking thankfully out of the motion sensor lights, he heard his radio go off again. “Requesting backup. Everyone meet in basement storage for a briefing. James, please wake Mr. Connor.”
	Viktor chuckled. James was lying unconscious at the perimeter of the property.
	So they had found the paint on the cameras, then. Viktor watched from the shadows as all the guards hurried toward the door he’d just exited and left ajar. Once their backs were turned, he hurried along the line of bushes, unwilling to shove the painting through the poking branches, hoping to find a gap soon. He almost laughed as the image of how ridiculous he must look at the moment crossed his mind, but he suppressed it. There would be time later for laughing, probably with Esteban in one of their apartments over gin and whiskey.
	To his dismay, there wasn’t a break in the hedge until he reached the driveway, meaning he would have to exit and sprint down the long drive, hauling this painting along with him. He climbed up the lawn toward the guard’s gate, hurried through it, and stopped momentarily at the guard post. He raided James’s body for a flashlight, clicked it on, and quickly searched the back of the painting.
	There, just in the bottom right corner of the frame, was a small GPS bug. He detached it and threw it onto the guard’s limp but still-breathing body. Keeping the flashlight, key, and radio, he took off down the drive as fast as he could without dropping the painting or flinging it around. His truck was parked just around the bend in the grass, beyond the view of the security camera at the gate, now covered in paint since his entrance into the grounds.
	He rounded the bend and saw the black SUV right where he’d left it, parked in the shadows, still undiscovered. Viktor slowed down his pace and opened its hatchback trunk with the physical key rather than the key fob, avoiding causing noise and blinking lights. He slid the painting carefully in through the back of the vehicle, which already had its back seats flipped down and a newly purchased cotton sheet covering the area in preparation for the theft. He unfolded a second fresh sheet and spread it on top of the painting to protect the work, closed the hatchback, and climbed into the driver’s seat. 
	“James is unconscious at his post.”
	The warning came through the speaker of the radio, which Viktor had kept on one breast pocket. He locked the doors of the SUV, made one last habitual check of the inside of the vehicle and his surroundings with his pale blue eyes, and turned the key in the ignition. It started easily. Leaving the headlights off but turning the air conditioning on full-blast, Viktor made a U-turn over the drive, straightened out, and left.
	He drove for a ways, carefully and calmly, not wishing to attract attention. After about a mile, he lost connection with the guards back at the mansion and started picking up random conversations from a pair of truckers on the highway.  An ambulance headed in the opposite direction, lights and sound blaring, and he pulled over obediently. It looked as though James would get help soon.
	After a while, Viktor turned right onto a quiet, remote country road and continued driving for a couple of miles into the darkness. The trees hung over him oppressively as he drove, obscuring the night sky and his surroundings. Eventually, Viktor found the paved area he’d located earlier, where a supply or farming truck might pull over. He pulled in and parked. This wasn’t over yet.
	He exited the SUV and found four tires and the rental’s original license plate waiting for him on the side of the road. As quickly as he could, he changed his tires and rear plate. Thankfully, no one who passed him stopped to ask him if he needed help. These damn southerners were hospitable but cold toward foreigners, or even just “Yanks” from their own country. In the present political climate, he didn’t think a Russian accent would warrant anything less than the barrel of a shotgun in his face. 
	He shoved the four old tires into a couple of black trash bags and managed to stow them all in the passenger seat area. For good measure, he included the radio and flashlight. The key he would keep…not to re-enter later, as Mr. Collins was sure to change his locks. No, this key would be a memento of tonight’s rediscovered work.
	Before he took his u-turn, Viktor looked back once more upon the painting, covered in a soft cotton sheet, a stolen treasure of the Rennaissance. Yes, this piece was worth remembering.
	Earlier that day, Viktor had identified a park with a public-use dumpster which was due to be emptied in about two days. When he reached the tiny town where he and his comrades were staying for a mission, he located the park and threw the tires, fake plate, flashlight, and radio into the dumpster. Then, he went back to the hotel.
	He was free. It was unlikely that the police would be called, as Mr. Collins would be questioned for owning it. This piece had been stolen from a museum in Boston in 1990. They wanted it back so badly that they still offered a $5M reward for its return, and still reserved its empty space on the wall in romantic tribute to the Art Theft of 1990. The police would want to know how Mr. Collins had obtained the painting, and why he hadn’t returned it to the museum. Mr. Collins would, naturally, wish to avoid the confrontation. He would have to fume alone, unable to report or investigate. He could hire a private investigator, of course, but it would be too late. The trash would be taken out, the rental car returned washed and vacuumed with its original plates and tires. Viktor will have given the painting back to the museum and left the country by then. And generations of children to come would be able to view this incredible painting once again. Perhaps some of them, like his late sister, would even be inspired to become an artist one day after having seen and studied this piece.
	When he returned to the abandoned building where they had set up base, Viktor pulled up to a side door, parked, and looked up into one of the windows. Sure enough, Esteban was looking out one of the windows, taking a watch shift while Johnny slept. They made eye contact. Esteban lifted his bottle of root beer in salute. Viktor looked around. The gravel expanse was completely lit with streetlights and deserted. Good. No one here but friends, who he wouldn’t startle by entering base. The last thing he wanted was to surprise his brothers in arms and take a long look down Cassandra’s barrel – that was the name Esteban had given his military-grade shotgun – or have to try and dodge Johnny’s throwing hatchet.
	He opened the side door of the building and moved the painting, covered in the sheets, inside. On a work bench he had already placed a large shipping box and a bag of packing peanuts. He loaded the box with a few peanuts and desiccating packets, added the sheet-covered painting, and filled it almost all the way up with more peanuts and desiccators. As a final touch, he added to the front of a frame a minute digital camera the size of a fly, designed to detect motion, snap a few photos, and send the photos to his device before finally frying its own memory. 
	Finished, Viktor filled the rest of the box with packing peanuts and sealed it. Before they left town at noon sharp, he would drive to the next town and drop the painting off at a post office which had an automated package drop-off. He would also drop his rental truck off there. It was Sunday. Neither business would be open, but he didn’t need or want them to be. He didn’t want anyone to see him doing it, and he didn’t want to have to put his return address. This wasn’t for the money, after all. This was for principle and thrill.
	When he had safely stowed the box between the work bench and wall, he turned around to see Esteban watching him quietly from the stairs leading up to their temporary living quarters, still sipping his root beer.
	“Evening,” said Viktor. “Is it my turn to take watch?”
	Esteban nodded. “Are you too tired? I can wake Johnny.”
	“No, no, I’m just fine. You get some sleep.”
	Esteban nodded again and went back up the stairs. He understood Viktor best, and therefore knew that if Viktor had wanted to talk about what he was doing, he would have volunteered the information without prompting. Before Viktor joined his comrades, he grabbed the vehicle GPS tracker sitting on the work bench to return it to the underside of the rental. Satisfied with his work, he shut the warehouse door and barred it closed from inside, and ascended the stairs in his near-silent combat boots. He would tell Esteban tonight’s story once they had returned home, where he could feel free to laugh about all of this. 

 

Tags: humor, inspirational, scary, dark, fear,