Dance Of Death

With a rapidity of movement marvelous for his advanced age, Menzies knelt, opened his satchel, and got to work. First he reached up and, with a sharp tug, removed his leonine thatch of white hair, shoved the wig into the satchel, then reached into his mouth and pulled out five molded rubber cheek and chin pieces. This act alone caused an astonishing transformation in the shape and apparent age of his face. Another pair of quick tugs took off the bushy eyebrows and a few small blemishes, liver spots, a mole.

Next, still kneeling, the man removed more than a dozen small dental mirrors from the satchel, mounted on bizarre little stands in a variety of odd shapes and sizes, all made of beautifully hand-machined brass. Next came an array of black objects wired together, a stack of thin Mylar sheets, several small cutting tools, exotic-looking metal instruments, and a flat of sticky pads, each the size and shape of a lentil.

When these had been arranged on the floor with military precision, the man waited, still crouching, unmoving, stopwatch again in his hands. He raised his head once to look at the hall in front of him. It was dark-utterly dark-without even the slightest gleam a

The watch gave another soft beep, and the man exploded into movement. With the speed of a ferret, he darted about the room, placing the dental mirrors in precisely fixed and calibrated locations, each mirror turned to the precise angle.

In two minutes, he was done and back in his place by the door, breathing slowly and regularly, watch in hand.

Another soft beep indicated the laser beams had gone back on- each one now redirected to a different path, ru

Again, the man waited, looking at his watch. Another soft beep and he was up again, this time carrying the Mylar sheets, which he stuck over the video camera lenses which had been placed in numerous strategic locations. The Mylar sheets, clear to the naked eye, were actually etched with holographs which responded strongly to infrared light, and which reproduced the precise scene that the infrared video cameras were pointed at-minus, of course, the man. When the video cameras came back on, they would see the same boring scene they had seen before. Only it would not be real.

Again, like a cat, the man retreated to his safe corner. Again, he waited until the stopwatch beeped another soft warning.

This time he scurried around the perimeter of the hall, setting a sleek black box in each corner, co

Once the radar jammers were in place and active, the man straightened up, dusted his knees, and gave a low, dry chuckle. Movements now almost languid, he removed a flashlight from the satchel, turned it on, and played the dull green beam about the hall- a precise wavelength of green light chosen because none of the sophisticated electromagnetic sensors in the hall could see it.

The man strolled casually to the center of the hall where a square, four-foot pillar had been constructed, on top of which was set a thick Plexiglas box. He bent down and looked in the box. Resting inside on thick satin was the dark form of a heart-cut diamond of extraordinary, almost incredible size: Lucifer's Heart, the museum's prize gem, which had been called the most valuable diamond in the world. It was certainly the most beautiful.

A fine place to start.

With a small cutting tool, the man opened a hole in the Plexiglas. Then, with a series of slender tools machined precisely for this purpose and some of the tiny, sticky pads, he reached in and removed the diamond, being careful to prevent the trigger pin under the diamond from rising. Another deft movement placed a large glass marble on the same stand, which would keep the pin depressed.

The man held the diamond in his hand, shining the flashlight up through it for a moment. In the green light it looked black and dead, without color, almost like a piece of coal. But the man was not perturbed: he knew that a red diamond under green light always looked black. And this diamond was red-or more precisely, a rich ci

He held it up and peered through it to the flashlight below. He could see his own eyes reflected and multiplied by the diamond's facets, creating a surreal kaleidoscope of eyes and more eyes, hundreds of them, staring every which way inside the gem. He moved the gem back and forth, from eye to eye, enjoying the spectacle.

And the strangest thing of all was that the eyes were of different colors: one hazel, the other a milky, whitish blue.

FIFTY-THREE

Larry Enderby sat at his console in the Advanced Technology Center, puffing slightly. The hollowness in his stomach had gone, replaced with an uncomfortable bloated feeling. He felt like a frigging suckling pig, to tell the truth. He belched, let out his belt a notch. All that was missing was the shiny red apple for his mouth.

He glanced over at his co-workers, Walt Smith and Jim Choi. Smitty-who, true to his nature, had acted with restraint-was staring at a bank of monitors, no worse for wear. The same couldn't be said for Choi, who was slumped at his terminal, a glazed expression on his face. During the fifteen minutes Smitty had allotted, Choi had indeed shown a remarkable ability to bolt down jumbo shrimp and glasses of champagne. Enderby had given up counting shrimp at sixty-two.

He eased up another bolus of air, then patted his stomach gingerly. They'd gotten to the food table just in time: the feeding frenzy was almost over. There was a dribble of caviar on his shirtfront, and he flicked it away with a fingernail. But that fourth glass of champagne he'd chugged at the last moment had probably been a mistake. He just hoped he could keep it together for the rest of his shift. He glanced up at the clock: only another hour. They'd verify that the Astor Hall's upgraded security system was fully operational, then go through the procedure of mothballing the old system. No sweat: he'd done it dozens of times before, he could probably do it in his sleep.

A low chime sounded. "That's it," Smitty said. "Twenty minutes." He glanced over at Choi. "What's the status of the Astor Hall system?"

Choi blinked a little blearily at his screen. "Test completed without incident." His eye swept the cluster of video feeds. "Hall looks fine."

"Error logs?"

"None. The system's nominal."

"And the beam modulation?"

"Every five minutes, as programmed. No deviation."

Smitty walked over to the wall of monitors. Enderby watched as he peered at the video feeds devoted to the Astor Hall of Diamonds. He could see case after case of the precious gems, gleaming faintly in the infrared light. There was no movement, of course: once the laser beams were activated after lockdown, not even guards were permitted in the high-security exhibition halls.