The Thomas Crown Affair meets National Treasure in this page-turning debut thriller.
In Paris, a priest is murdered, his mutilated body dumped into the Seine. He has taken a secret with him to his death -- a secret that is revealed during the autopsy, reawakening memories of Depression-era politics and a seventy-year-old heist.
Jennifer Browne, an ambitious FBI agent, is assigned to the case. For her, this is a final opportunity to kick-start a career that stalled three years ago, after a fatal error in judgment. She is determined that this time there will be no mistakes.
Her investigation soon comes across a daring robbery at Fort Knox. The immediate suspect is Tom Kirk, a brilliant young art thief and a man whose very existence threatens to bring down the newly elected president.
Caught between his desire to get out of the game and his partner's insistence that he complete one last job for the criminal mastermind Cassius, Tom faces a race against time to clear his name -- a race that takes him from London to Paris, and Amsterdam to Istanbul, in a search for the real thieves and the legendary Double Eagle.
The Double Eagle
By James TwiningHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 James Twining
All right reserved.ISBN: 0060762098Chapter One
Fifth Avenue, New York City
16 July -- 11:30 p.m.
Gracefully he fell, his body arcing in one smooth movement out from the side of the building and then back in, like a spider caught in a sudden gust of wind as it dropped on its thread, until with a final fizz of the rope through his gloved hand he landed on the balcony of the seventeenth floor.
Crouching, he unclipped the rope from his harness and flattened his back to the wall, his dark, lithe shape blending into the stained stone. He didn't move, his chest barely rising, the thin material of his black ski mask slick against his lips. He had to be sure. He had to be certain that no one had seen him on the way down. So he waited, listening to the shallow breaths of the city slumbering fitfully below him, watching the Met's familiar bulk retreating into shadow as its floodlights were extinguished.
And all the while, Central Park's dark lung, studded with the occasional lights of taxis making their way between East and West Eighty-sixth Street, breathed a chilled, oxygenated air up the side of the building that made him shiver despite the heat. Air heavy with New York's distinctive scent, an intoxicating cocktail of fear, sweat, and greed that bubbled up from subwaytunnels and steam vents.
And although a lone NYPD chopper, spotlight primed, circled ever closer and the muffled scream of sirens echoed up from distant streets through the warm air, he could tell they were not for him. They never were. Tom Kirk had never been caught.
Keeping below the level of the carved stone balustrade, he padded over to the large semicircular window that opened onto the balcony, its armored panes glinting like sheet steel. Inside, he could see that the room was dark and empty, as he knew it would be. As it was every weekend during the summer.
A few taps on each of the hinges that ran down the side of the right-hand window and the bolts popped out into his hand. Then carefully, so as not to break the alarmed central magnetic contact, he levered the edge of the window away from the frame until there was a gap big enough for him to slip through.
Once inside, Tom swung his pack down off his shoulder. From the main compartment he took out what looked like a metal detector -- a thin black plate attached to an aluminium rod. He flicked a switch on the top of the plate and a small green light on its smooth surface glowed into life. Keeping completely still, he gripped the rod in his right hand and began to sweep the plate over the arid emptiness of the floor in front of him. Almostimmediately the light on the back of the plate flashed red and hepaused.
Pressure pads. As predicted.
Moving the plate slowly over the spot where the light hadchanged color, he quickly identified an area that he circled withwhite chalk. Repeating this procedure, he worked his waymethodically across the room, moving in controlled, precisemovements. Five minutes later and he had reached the far wall,a trail of small white circles in his wake.
The room was exactly as the photos had shown it and had thedistinctive smell of new money and old furniture. A largeVictorian partners' desk dominated, a masculine marriage of polishedEnglish oak and Italian leather that reminded him of theinterior of a 1920s Rolls-Royce. Behind the desk, the wall waslined with what looked like the remnants of a once substantialprivate library, now presumably scattered across the worldaccording to auction lots.
The two sidewalls that ran up to the window were painted asandy gray and symmetrically hung with a series of drawings and paintings, four down each wall. He did not have to look closelyto recognize them -- Picasso, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klimt. ButTom was not there for the paintings, nor for the decoy safe heknew lay behind the third picture on the left. He had learned notto be greedy.
Instead, he picked his way back through the chalk circles tothe edge of the silk rug that filled the floor between the desk andthe window, its colors shimmering in the pale moonlight. Withhis back to the window, he gripped one corner of the rug andthrew it back. Underneath, the wood was slightly darker whereit had been shielded from the bleaching sun.
Kneeling, he placed his gloved hands flat on the floor and slidthem slowly across the dry wooden surface. About two feet infront of him, the tips of his fingers sensed a slight ridge in thewood. He moved his hands apart along the ridge, until hereached what felt like a corner on both sides. Placing his knuckleson these corners, he leaned forward with all his weight.
With a faint click, a two-foot square panel sank down and thensprang up about half an inch higher than the rest of the floor. Itwas hinged at the far end and he folded the panel back on itselfso that it lay flat revealing a gleaming floor safe.
The safe manufacturing and insurance industries cooperate onthe security ratings of safes. Manufacturers regularly submittheir products to independent testing by the UnderwritersLaboratory, or UL, who in return issue the safe with aResidential Security Container Label that allows the insurers toaccurately determine the relevant insurance premium.
The safe that Tom had revealed had, according to its freshlyaffixed label, been rated TXTL 60. In other words, it had beenfound to successfully resist entry for a net assault time of 60minutes. It was one of the highest ratings that UL could give.
Even so, it took Tom just eight and a half seconds to open it ...
Continues...Excerpted from The Double Eagleby James Twining Copyright © 2005 by James Twining. Excerpted by permission.
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