Page 3 of Ground Truth

He reached another exit, which opened into a corridor to the owner’s rooms. He knelt and pushed an endoscope camera under the door. On the other side was an empty and dimly lit corridor. He waited and watched. Nothing moved.

Flint opened the door, counted twenty-five paces to the right, and turned to face the oak door that should have led to Fuchs’s study.

Another quick check with the endoscope confirmed Hedinger’s study was unoccupied, as expected. But the door was locked and the handle didn’t turn.

He took out a set of small, fine tools and began picking the lock. Thirty seconds later, the door clicked open. He swept in and eased the door closed quietly behind him.

More faint LEDs illuminated the room. He covered the gap at the bottom of the door with a towel before turning on brighter lights.

His watch showed 9:10. Thirty-five minutes to go.

Rich colored wallpaper adorned the walls with flowers and birds, a design Flint recognized as historic toile. Bookshelves lined one side of the study. Glossy leather-bound volumes were stacked in perfect order, indicating the books were there for decoration instead of reading. Flint wondered who Hedinger felt the need to impress.

An old stone fireplace occupied another wall, the grate filled with an enormous display of dried flowers. An ornate desk with matching leather chair sat in the middle of the room. Behind the seat, another glass wall offered an astonishing view into the darkness with lighted homes and villages below.

Flint knelt by the fireplace, placed a hand into the grate, and found a small button. When he pushed the button, an audible click came from the wall beside the fireplace. A hidden door popped open. The joint around the door was barely visible due to excellent craftsmanship. He grinned at the hard-to-believe cliché and silently thanked the construction workers who’d clued him in to the room’s secret entrance.

Flint stepped into another large room. Small museum-quality lights dotted the ceiling. They gave the room a subtle shine instead of heat or glare. For good reason. The walls were filled with Renoirs, Picassos, and Turners. Busts and figures in marble and gold stood on pedestals. Necklaces and orbs sat on velvet cushions in the middle of the room.

Flint ignored the breathtaking displays and strode directly to a violin on a pedestal.

The instrument had a dark golden hue that twinkled in the soft lighting, a reflection of copper and aluminum traces in its own unique varnish.

A small label stated,Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1709.

Created by the master himself and one of the greatest violins ever made. The owner, Flint’s client, paid twenty million dollars for this one a year ago. It was worth more now.

Flint smiled at the irony of what he was about to do while a string quartet played three floors below.

Working quickly, he took off his jacket and shirt. Two cans of spray foam and two large plastic bags were taped to his midriff under a layer of latex. He pulled them all off.

He found a case for the Stradivarius in an opening behind the pedestal and rested the instrument inside it. He added a half-pound bag of desiccant to keep the violin dry and stable, given the conditions to which the masterpiece was about to be exposed.

He opened one of the large plastic bags. He inserted the case and violin into the bag and compressed it to expel excess air. After that he sealed the bag with a zipper.

He shook one can of foam and filled the second bag halfway. Then he squeezed the first bag into the sticky substance. Holding it in place, he used the rest of the foam to completely enclose the violin in six inches of the sticky material and ziplocked the second bag.

According to his calculations, the foam would insulate the contents so that they would suffer a change of only one degree in temperature for every ten minutes of exposure.

Flint had tested the foam’s claim that it would solidify in minutes. It performed perfectly here in the field as well. The entire can hardened within two minutes.

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Chapter 3

He wrapped the latex around his torso and donned his shirt and jacket.

The next part of his plan would be frigid. He’d chosen it after rejecting everything else. Plan A was the least risky option.

He pulled at the belt around his waist, which yielded two long tapes. He wrapped them around himself and the violin, attaching the foam package to his back.

All he had to do now was get out with the Stradivarius without damage to either of them.

When Flint returned to the study, he looked out through the enormous glass wall. Even though the glass was triple glazed, he could feel a chill rising from the surface. The exterior temperature was exponentially colder and quickly falling lower.

Each floor of the building had an emergency escape mechanism installed. On this, the downhill side, the escapes had been made of collapsible ladders. Hedinger didn’t want ugly metalwork to adorn his château.Aesthetics above safetyseemed to be his motto throughout the construction.

According to the magazine, the ladders were stored in shelters on each of the balconies. He relied on the escape setup to get him out and down without being discovered.

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