The Job Read Online Free PDF Page A

bravery, and business acumen that our family grew and spread across Europe, much like the tulip. The
kilij,
or saber, represents our family’s, and our foundation’s, enduring patriotism, strength, and determination.”
    Ceren walked past the main entrance and took them to the side of the building where police tape cordoned off an area around a fire exit. The steel double doors appeared to have been forced open. An armed uniformed police officer guarded the door.
    “This is where Nicolas Fox broke in two nights ago,” Chief Inspector Atalay said. “He forced open the door with a crowbar.”
    The nature of the crime matched the simplistic approach of the Gleaberg job, Kate thought. It bore no resemblance to the audacious, precisely planned heists that were the trademark of Nick Fox.
    “Where were the guards and patrols?” Kate asked.
    “There weren’t any,” Ceren replied. “Naturally, we have guards during the day when people are going through the museum and could steal or vandalize items in the collection. But at night, we rely upon state-of-the-art alarm systems that include motion detectors, heat sensors, infrared beams, and complete video surveillance of the interior and exterior of the building. All the alarms worked perfectly and the police were here within five minutes, but by then it was already over.”
    “Have you looked at the video?”
    The line of Ceren’s mouth tightened. “There isn’t any video. It was disconnected a while back during a service call, and was never put back on line.”
    “Oops,” Kate said.
    Atalay nodded. “An unfortunate oversight, but at least weknow the thief arrived and escaped by boat. We would have cut him off on our way here if he was using any other kind of vehicle or if he was on foot. There’s only one road leading to this museum.”
    Atalay opened the door, and the three of them went inside. They climbed a few steps and walked through another door into a gallery with a low ceiling and walls covered with mosaic tiles. The shattered display case was in the center of the gallery, surrounded by jeweled artifacts, including piles of gold coins, housed in other cases around the room. There were ornamental vases on pedestals as well.
    “Tell me about the cup that was taken,” Kate said to Ceren.
    “It was a jewel-encrusted goblet,” Ceren said. “It belonged to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He first drank from it to mark the settlement in 1555 of the Ottoman-Safavid war that granted him rule of Baghdad, and the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The goblet has incalculable historical importance.”
    Kate knew the Demirkan wasn’t the first private museum to rely entirely on their alarm systems for after-hours security. The Kunsthal in Rotterdam made the same decision. They had been robbed a couple years before of seven paintings worth more than $130 million in just two minutes. The thieves were caught, but the mother of one of them incinerated several paintings in a tragic effort to get rid of the evidence.
    “This isn’t Fox’s style,” Kate said. “Everything I know about him tells me this isn’t his work.”
    “We found Fox’s fingerprint on a shard of glass inside the display case,” Atalay said.
    “That’s another reason why I don’t think it’s him,” Kate said. “He’s not that sloppy.”
    “He was in a hurry,” Atalay said. “He knew he couldn’t beat the security system, so he gave up, and ignored the sensors, setting them off. He knew that would give him only two or three minutes before we descended on the museum in force. People make mistakes under that kind of pressure.”
    “He wouldn’t put himself in that situation,” Kate said.
    “Unless he was desperate,” Atalay said. “And I think it’s fair to say that he probably is desperate. He’s been on the run for a year since his escape.”
    She could have told him he was wrong, that Nick’s escape was planned by the FBI, and that he was now working for the U.S.