Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

Finn crawled back down to the window. Using the Velcro access panels in the legs of his wingsuit, he dug every bit of spare change out of his pockets and slapped two fistfuls down on the sill. “Hey, kid. These are for you.”

The kid scooped up the money and scampered off before the strange suicidal man changed his mind.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-

SEVEN

ST. VITUS CATHEDRAL

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

FINNMUTTEREDAQUICKPRAYER to the God Tyler claimed was watching over them all and jumped.

The fortress courtyard came on fast.

Years of daredevil stunts for big shows and burglaries had acclimated Finn to the terror of ground rush. This stunt, however, came with the unsettling knowledge that he would have to generate enough forward velocity to clear the battlements.

He snapped into the spread-eagle position and arched, begging the air to grant him lift. The toes of his Italian wing tips came so close to the battlements, they drew dust from the bricks. The worst was over. Beyond the wall, the steep descent of the fortress hill gave him an additional hundred twenty-five meters of free fall to play with. Finn breathed a sigh of relief and adjusted his path for a late-opening landing on the roof.

TALIA HEARD FINN’S JUMP CALL through her earpiece, but she didn’t look. The last thing she wanted was to draw some pedestrian’s attention to Finn’s covert entrance. The gray wingsuit against the gray dusk sky made him nearly invisible, but she knew better than to take chances.

As a doorman waved them through the entrance, Val whispered in Talia’s ear. “Your name on this one is Natalia Macciano. In character, I’ll call you Nat.”

“I hate that nickname. Call me Natalie.”

“I wasn’t giving you a choice.”

Talia had put a stop to the Nat thing on day one in kindergarten. Why would anyone think a little girl wanted a nickname homonymous with an annoying bug? “Do it, and I’ll make you pay.”

“Go ahead. I have lots of money.” Val fell into her Brooklyn accent, signaling the desk guard. “Hellooo-ooo. We’re Nat and Val Macciano, here to see Mr. Taner Atan.”

A deer-in-the-headlights response told them all they needed to know about the guard’s command of English.

Val tried again. “Ma-see-ah-no. Here to see Mr. Atan. Capiche?”

The guard held up a finger and flicked a switch below a panel of monitors. They showed the main hallways and the elevators, but not the interior offices. Good news for Finn. A moment later, the guard touched the headset cup at his ear, murmured a response in Czech, and nodded to Val. “Šesté patro. In English, eh . . . Floor 6.”

Three-foot copper letters, illuminated by warm spotlights and spelling out ATANINVESTMENTS, greeted Talia and Val as they stepped off the elevator. As if that much copper wasn’t striking enough, Atan’s receptionist sat dwarfed behind an oversize copper reception desk, lacquered with clear coat to make it shine. Eddie had mentioned their mark had a thing for the stuff. Funny, given the true content of their fake Bavarian Thalers.

“Copper is the lowest of the currency metals,” Atan explained when he came out to meet them. “It reminds me of where I started—the son of a penniless mechanic in an Albanian slum. As you can see, I have come up in the world. How may I help you ladies to do the same?”

Tyler coached them through the comm link. “Keep him away from his office. It sits too close to the coin vault where he keeps the XRF gun. Get him to the conference room.”

Val kept her Brooklyn accent running at full steam. “Don’t ask what you can do for us, Mr. Atan. Ask what we can do for you.” She pressed her thumb and forefinger together. “A unique opportunity has popped up in your little neck of the woods. We’re here to give you first crack.”

“Crack?” Atan’s smile flattened. “If I understand correctly, you are here with a proposal. But I am a busy man. You have thirty seconds to pique my interest.”

Val flung a hand over her shoulder. “I’ll do it in five. You’re a coin collector, right?”

“The term is numismatist.”

“Sure, honey. Whatever. Then maybe you’ve heard of the Bavarian Thalers.”

The sudden shift in Atan’s expression told Talia the hook was in.

“You see, Nat.” Val smacked Talia’s arm. “We came to the right man.”

To the right. Talia recognized the method in Val’s Brooklyn madness. The flamboyant accent kept Atan’s conscious mind distracted while key words and hand signals told his subconscious where to go—the conference room, to the right.

Val finished her play with a more obvious push. She ran a finger along the reception desk. “I’ve never seen so much copper. So gorgeous. I bet your conference table is made of the same stuff too, yeah? It’s gotta be ’uge.”

“Enormous.” The smile returned to Atan’s face. “Let me show you.”

“They’ve got him, Finn,” Tyler said through the comm link. “You’re on.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-

EIGHT

ATAN INVESTMENTS

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

A REDTILECRACKED under the press of Finn’s knee as he low-crawled across the roof. A piece slid away, threatening to bounce over the gutters and crash onto the street below. He caught it with a toe and held it steady until he was sure it would stay put.

If they had come a day earlier—skipped princess Talia’s church service and Sunday lunch—Finn could have done the job at night, properly. Instead, the rushed timing had made it an evening swap, still during business hours.

Risky.

On the plus side, daytime burglary took the break out of breaking and entering. Alarms were shut down for employee movement, especially the alarms on roof access doors in a country like the Czech Republic, where smoking was the national pastime.

The door opened with the tap and turn of a bump key. Finn adjusted his tie and walked down the steps as if he owned the place. He carried his backpack in plain sight—a young stockbroker with a twenty-first-century briefcase. “I’m in.”

VAL WENT ON about the gorgeous copper conference table, but