Helen turned away from the window. She sat down on the edge of the stiff mattress and grabbed the remote, turning on the small television mounted on the wall.
A local news anchor was standing outside the National Museum in Manhattan. The banner at the bottom of the screen read: Exclusive Private Antiquities Exhibition Tonight.
The screen flashed to a B-roll of the artifacts. Helen's stomach dropped. Her pupils dilated.
Sitting on a velvet pedestal was an intricate, dark wood Lotus Box.
It was her mother's. Alverta had carried it everywhere before she vanished.
Helen dropped the remote. She unzipped her duffel bag and pulled out a heavy, encrypted micro-laptop. She booted it up, her fingers flying across the keys in a blur of motion, bypassing firewalls to access the Dark Web's auction ledgers.
The data loaded. An anonymous donor had transferred the Lotus Box to the museum's underground vault for the night.
Helen knew the truth. Hidden inside the false bottom of that box was the biological key her mother had died trying to protect.
She slammed the laptop shut. She wasn't going to let it sit in a vault.
By midnight, Helen was dressed in a skin-tight, light-absorbing black tactical suit. She pulled a black mask over her lower face.
She opened the guest room window. She slipped out into the cold night air, gripping the copper drainpipe. She slid down the three stories in seconds, her boots hitting the grass without a sound. She vaulted over the estate's stone wall and vanished into the shadows.
At 1:00 AM, Helen crouched on the roof of the National Museum.
She pried open an air vent and dropped into the dark, narrow shaft. She crawled until she reached the main security junction box. She plugged a small, black decryption drive into the port.
Lines of green code raced across her tiny wrist monitor. Ten seconds later, the infrared laser grid in the hallway below flickered and died for exactly three seconds.
Helen dove through the grate, hitting the marble floor in a silent forward roll before the lasers snapped back on.
She moved like a ghost, hugging the blind spots of the security cameras, descending toward the underground vault.
She reached the massive steel vault door. She pulled a pen-sized thermal laser from her belt and pressed it against the electronic lock. The metal hissed and melted. The heavy door clicked and slid open an inch.
Helen slipped inside. The vault was pitch black, save for the faint glow of emergency lights. In the center of the room, encased in bulletproof glass, sat the Lotus Box.
She pulled a diamond-tipped glass cutter from her pocket. As she raised her hand, her ears caught a sound.
A microscopic scuff of rubber on marble. Someone was coming through the secondary service door.
Helen aborted the movement. She melted into the deep shadows behind a towering Egyptian sarcophagus.
The service door swung open silently. Four men in black tactical gear fanned out into the room.
The man leading them was massive. His shoulders filled the doorway. He moved with a heavy, predatory grace that commanded the space.
The faint emergency light caught the sharp angle of his jaw. Helen's eyes narrowed behind her mask.
It was Damian Montgomery. The man she had drugged and left in the dirt.
Damian raised his hand, signaling his men to spread out. He was looking for something, his eyes scanning the glass cases.
Helen cursed silently. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her combat knife.
She had to get the Lotus Box out from under his nose without letting him see her face.
