Powerstone by Malcolm Archibald

yours.’

Chapter
Five
    New York , March
     
     
    Irene presided over the gathering,
sitting slightly nervously in the centre with Patrick directly opposite and the
five others in a loose circle around them. There was a half empty bottle of
Jack Daniels in the middle of the table with a coffee pot at its side, while
cigar smoke hazed the room.
    ‘Thank you all for coming,’ Irene
stood to speak, as she had done in a score of board meetings in her previous
job, but then she had been practically certain that the committee members were
not responsible for an unknown number of murders. ‘My colleague, Patrick McKim
has brought you all here, but until now you are not aware why.’
    The faces stared at her, some unemotional,
others questioning. Allowing the ash to fall from her cigar, the only other
woman lifted the bourbon bottle and poured herself a drink.
    ‘I have been contracted by an
influential client to steal the Scottish Crown Jewels. I need help to do this.
That is why you are here.’
    ‘Steal the what?’ The woman looked
over the rim of her glass. Although only in her mid-thirties, bitter lines were
already forming around her mouth.
    ‘Let me explain,’ Irene said.
Taking a couple of steps, she closed the dark blinds that covered the windows
and pushed a button. The computer at her back clicked into a PowerPoint
demonstration. ‘Let’s start from the beginning; this is a map of the United Kingdom ,’ and she waited until their eyes
had adjusted to the bright screen, before pointing to the northern third. She
clicked again. ‘And this is Scotland .
Until 1603 Scotland and England had separate kings, with separate
crowns and separate crown jewels. Until 1707 they were separate countries with
different parliaments.’
    The woman poured herself another
drink and stared pointedly at Patrick. ‘Do we have to listen to this?’
    Irene sensed that others in her
audience shared the woman’s impatience and rushed things along a little. ‘In 1707
the parliaments were united into what is now the British parliament in Westminster .’
    ‘Jesus, do we really care?’ The
nearest and smallest of the men was staring at the ceiling.
    Controlling her nerves, Irene
patted his arm. ‘If you listen, Desmond, you might learn to care,’ she allowed
her smile to wash over him. ‘One of the conditions of that Union was that the Scottish crown
jewels, known as the Honours of Scotland, were never to leave the country. The
Scots stuffed them in a wooden box and forgot them for over a century, but then
a man named Walter Scott brought them out and put them on public display.’
    ‘Get down to facts. How valuable
are they?’ The burliest of the listeners spoke with a thick Eastern European
accent. He was tall, with a shock of blonde hair but eyes that were so intense
that Irene struggled to hold them.
    ‘Invaluable,’ Irene said, ‘they
could not be bought. But my client wants them.’
    The man slunk back into his chair,
his eyes never straying from Irene’s face. ‘What will he do with them? Wear the
crown when he’s on the can?’
    The crude comment raised a grunt
of laughter, as Irene’s feminist side registered the automatic acceptance that
her client was a man.
    ‘What happens to the Honours after
they are stolen is not our concern,’ said Irene deliberately choosing
gender-neutral terminology. Let these creatures believe what they wanted; she
would use them as required and discard them when necessary.
    ‘Patrick and I have checked out
the Honours in the castle, but there’s no way they can be taken from there.
They are held in a small room at the top of a flight of steep stairs. The only
entrance is through a steel door with a score of electronic security devices,
and the building itself is in the middle of an army barracks.’ Irene clicked
again, showing various views of the castle and the Crown Room. For good measure
she had added the shots of the Royal Scots that she had taken. ‘These are not
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