The Missing Piece by Kevin Egan Page B

McQueen. “It’s not like whoever took it is going to broadcast it.”
    Gary clicked the mouse and brought up a web page on the right-hand screen. A banner along the top showed a head shot of a man with a leonine head of curly gray hair and a thin matching beard. Beside the head shot, the name Dieter van der Weyden appeared in Gothic letters.
    â€œThis guy claims to be a descendant of a Renaissance painter. Whether that’s true or not, he’s one of the foremost art critics in the world and an expert on the Salvus Treasure. He posted this a couple of months ago.”
    Gary highlighted a section of text.
    â€œâ€˜The heist of the urn from a New York City courtroom was the worst thing that could have happened to the Salvus Treasure. In bodily terms, it lopped off a limb. The treasure was greater than the sum of its parts and, conversely, the loss of one of those parts has had a disproportionate effect on the value of what remains. The thugs who stole the urn know this. They can sell it to someone, who might sell it to someone else, who in turn might sell it to someone else again. But they would only be making pennies on the dollar, so to speak. The true payoff can only come from one sale, which will be to the party who prevails at the retrial. If there is a retrial.’”
    â€œOkay, so?” said McQueen.
    â€œSo this expert says what I’ve been thinking for a long time,” said Gary. “The piece is impossible to fence and it will command the greatest price once the new trial is held and declares who owns the treasure.”
    â€œBut there is still an awful big world out there where it could be.”
    â€œCould, but isn’t,” said Gary. “I think the missing piece never left the courthouse.”
    â€œThat’s crazy,” said McQueen.
    â€œExcept,” said Gary. “Now I have proof.”
    He ran McQueen through the timeline it had taken him hours to piece together: the two gunmen coming into the building, snatches of them moving down several corridors, and then exiting by the rear door just before the courthouse was locked down. The images showed nothing in their hands, not the guns and not the urn.
    â€œSo,” he said after the last feed ran, “you see anything that looks like the treasure piece leave the courthouse?”
    â€œHow do you know these are the guys?”
    â€œThey are the guys,” said Gary. “You were out cold on the floor, but I was watching those two guys as carefully as I could in case I ever needed to ID them. When I was in the hospital, I replayed those images until I burned them into my brain, because even though I wanted to forget I also wanted to hold on to what I remembered, even if it hurt like hell, because I figured that some day it would matter. I’ve constructed models of them in my mind. I’ve only seen them walk, but I know how they would sit, I know how they would lift a fork or drink a beer. I’ve created them in my head the way a paleontologist can create a dinosaur out of a single bone. Okay? Those are the two guys and they don’t have the piece.”
    â€œSo who’s got it?” said McQueen.
    â€œWhoever was their inside guy.”
    â€œWho said anything about an inside guy? I never heard anything about this being an inside job.”
    â€œThat’s because no one’s ever going to say that out loud,” said Gary. “Think about it. Think about how difficult it is to get one gun, let alone two, into the courthouse. Unless…”
    â€œUnless you don’t need to clear the mags,” said McQueen. “A court officer?”
    â€œAnyone who works in the building,” said Gary.
    â€œThat’s five hundred people,” said McQueen. “But even if it was an inside job, whoever helped them could have taken it out any time in the last three years.”
    â€œYou’re right,” said Gary. “But my theory is the piece is in