Chapter 8 - The Gala Trap
The City Museum of Antiquities was a monument to opulence, its marble floors polished to a mirror shine and its halls echoing with the laughter of the city’s elite. Beatrice walked through the grand entrance, her movements slow, her gait slightly uneven. She wore a modest, charcoal-gray dress that made her appear invisible against the backdrop of glittering sequins and tuxedos.
To the guards at the door, she was just an elderly woman who had somehow wandered into the wrong event. One guard stepped forward, his hand hovering near his holster. "Ma'am, this is a private—"
"I’m looking for Lucas," Beatrice interrupted, her voice trembling just enough to be convincing. "He promised to take me home. He said he’d be here, but I can’t find him anywhere."
The guard softened, his eyes tracking the room. "He’s in the West Wing, ma'am, near the private collection. But he’s busy. You shouldn't be back there."
Beatrice nodded, her eyes wide with a carefully rehearsed confusion. As the guard turned to wave off a colleague, she slipped into the service corridor. Once behind the heavy velvet curtains of the exhibition hall, her posture straightened instantly. She tapped the tiny microphone hidden in her brooch.
"Echo, I’m in," she whispered.
"Copy, Colonel," the voice in her ear replied. "The Syndicate leadership is assembling in the vault room. Lucas is with them. They’re preparing the transfer of the ledger’s digital copy right now."
May you like
Beatrice moved through the shadows of the exhibits. She didn't have her weapon—she had left the Glock in a locker at the train station to pass through the gala's metal detectors—but she didn't need it. She had something far more dangerous: the override codes for the museum’s internal fire suppression system.
She reached the control panel in the maintenance closet and keyed in the sequence. She wasn't going to start a fire; she was going to turn the West Wing into a gas chamber of dense, obscuring foam.
