Page 43 of The Diamond Thief
I realize for the first time that there are no windows in this hotel room. That would not have been normal. I should’ve caught that sooner. Dammit.
I keep knocking on the walls. The only way to redeem my pride is to find a way out of here.
I pause and take a deep breath. I need to do this carefully and thoroughly.
The average person might not know what to do, but I think I understand Jacob a little better than most. I remember his flare for the dramatic, evidenced in his ridiculous sequence that allowed me into his vault.
I know, or at least I think I know, that he doesn’t come from a standard crime ring family. Even if he made up the story about his mother and father, most likely there is some kernel of truth in what he said. Instead of looking for cracks in the wall, I decide to look for the tech he would need to create an elaborate escape door.
I know it won’t be as easy as a camera in a corner. Jacob is way too subtle for that. It’s going to be someplace amusing or ironic. It will be something I’ve never seen before, because he prides himself on being original.
I hear the instructions that were drilled into me as if they are being whispered into my ear. Break the room down into parts. Search each part on its own.
I glance around to decide where to start. I no longer see Jacob on the bed. He is not a part of what I’m doing. My focus is laser sharp as I examine the room for the most likely candidate for a hidden exit.
I go back to the front door. This is the least likely place, but it gives me an idea about the structure I am inside.
I knock on the metal. Then I knock on the wood just beside the door. Then I knock a little farther down. I knock my way around the room, listening for changes. The wall with the door is the most dense of the sounds. I sense there is nothing but earth beyond that wall.
The two walls adjacent to it would be the least likely to have a door. It would be more difficult and vastly more expensive to hollow it out in that direction.
That brings me to the wall with the bathroom. It has a giant portrait of a bright purple rhododendron in full bloom. I tap the wall to its left, and then the wall where it hangs.
They’re very different. This is the one. It’s a fake-out, because part of this wall is shared with the bathroom. I measure off with my hands where I think the bathroom actually ends. There is a good three feet of difference.
I’m pretty sure I have it. The wall appears unbroken. I wonder how this can possibly be. It’s painted a flat white.
But if this is the wall, and if he has a camera that gets you through it, it would be close by. It would need to have a front angle, so that your motions would be visible to the camera as you did whatever moves Jacob dreamed up for this one.
I examine the portrait of the flower again. I look at each crevice in the frame. At the bottom is a typical tarnished brass plate that names the artist. I stare at the tiny screws that hold it down.
Bingo. They’re not screws at all. They are very fine lenses, a matched pair.
I take a few steps back. Even though I found the camera, and I know the mechanism to get in, I still don’t know the moves.
I run through the two sequences that I already know. The tango. The quickstep. Fingerspelling the name Janice.
Nothing happens.
I sit on the edge of the bed and face the wall. I’m probably stuck. Of course it would be locked in some way. And the cameras mean that the mechanism is completely on the other side, so no way to defeat them except through this camera.
But I don’t know what to do.
I’m stuck.
“Give up yet?” Jacob asks.
I nearly jump out of my skin. I totally forgot he was there.
Let him think that I don’t know anything at all. Perhaps he saw me staring too hard at the plaque and he knows anyway.
Instead of considering Jacob’s typical way of opening the door, I have to predict what he would do in the event that he was hurt or unable to dance the sequence. Unlike the vault, where you’re trying to get in, here in the bunker, he might need to getout.
I kneel on the floor before the wall. As I move, I notice a subtle shift in the lens of the so-called screws.
What would he do down here? What action would override his normal sequence?
He fingerspelled a name before. I had tried that one.
