The Great Heist

Chapter Sixteen

Breathtaking!

That was the only word Ander could come up with on the spot as his steely blue eyes scanned the massive lobby of the Doha Museum of Art.

He had realized from the moment he stepped into the lobby that the interior of the museum was no less spectacular than its exterior. Actually, he somewhat found the museum grander and postmodernesque on the inside than the outside.

In an unresplendent, subtle kind of way, the interior of the museum with the fusion of modernistic trends in architecture and deep rootedness in Islamic historical identity oozes unprecedented magnificence and up-to-date refinedness through several geometrical patterns and abstract arts of the Islamic world that bedecked its spaces. This was evident on the sprawling marbled floor embroidered with crisscross patterns and shapes, the domed ceiling tapestried with Islamic art mosaics and designs; and even, on the centerpiece of the central atrium—the narrow double staircase that curved upward to the first floor.

His gaze swept up the staircase to the giant, ornate metallic chandelier hanging down from the domed ceiling and echoing the bend of the stairs. Then climbed further up to the oculus at the top of the atrium, which captures and reflects light within the faceted dome. Until coming to a final rest on the three transparent floored bridges from across the atrium.

Ander thought he had seen it all until moments later when his eyes snapped impulsively over to the northern side of the lobby. There, standing at what he presumed to be around forty-five meters in length, was a very large five-storied window that offered an unimpeded panoramic view of the Persian Gulf from across the bay. The biggest and the most impressive he had ever seen.

“C’mon now, Ander. You’ve been gawking around for like two minutes straight. We should really get going.” The gentle burring of the director’s mellow voice calling out to him jarred him from his minutary fascination.

It took his reemergence back into the present to realize afterward that he hadn’t been advancing with the others and had practically stopped breathing.

“Oh, yeah! Right after you, Julia,” he muttered back, shaking his head a couple of times to knock off the faraway look he had on his face, before trailing after the director and his team.

“I see you’re riveted by the grandeur of it all,” Julia said, indicating the sprawling space of the lobby with a wide sweep of her hands when he finally caught up with her.

“Riveted is quite an understatement,” he admitted frankly and offered, “I think enraptured is exactly the word you’re looking for.”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” she retorted on the fly, throwing him a sideward glance.

Their gazes seemed to lock only for a split second. But those split seconds were enough for her to catch a glimpse of the look he had on his face then—the one he’d been throwing her way whenever he seemed lost or vague on the direction of their exchange since they met some twenty minutes ago.

Shrugging her shoulders, she explicitized. “Obviously, we get that every time.”

“I see,” he drawled dramatically, steering the course of their conversation ever smoothly. “I have noticed the crowd is a little too thin here today ever since we walked in. Is it always like this?” he inquired, throwing glances over his shoulder at the scant tourists sauntering around the lobby.

“You’re quite the observant type, Ander. I must give you that,” Julia said with a sidelong smile. “But no, it’s not always like this here at the Doha MIA. Although, we sometimes do have low turnouts. But I think today’s own is a bit different and can be linked to two causes: The first one is that we’re nearing the museum’s closing hour. The museum opens at 09:00 Am and closes at 07:00 p.m. Arabian Standard Time (AST) every day. The only exception is the Park, which opens 24 hours a day, 365 days a calendar year. The second, which perhaps is the more obvious reason is; the big event today in Lusail which, as you already know ended catastrophically.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he conceded with a slow nod of his head, falling behind the director as they both ascended the two bow-shaped staircases—the very one that conveyed the traffic to the first floor of the museum, in particular.

As they both climbed the stairs, Ander with the freewheeling nature of a child ran his hands over the glass railing of the stairs, stopping momentarily to admire the sight of the famed light sculpture directly overhead.

After spending a whole minute climbing up the flight of stairs which he normally would have made in less than forty seconds. That is, if he hadn’t been counting off each step silently in his head and getting a 360° view of the museum’s lobby from up there on the stairs, he finally arrived on the first-floor landing, where the director was waiting with his team.

“Mr. Leigh, I know this is entirely irrelevant to your visit here, but I hope you don’t mind getting a little tour of the museum with your team before we get right down to business?” Julia asked as soon as he arrived beside him.

Lips upturned in a lopsided grin, he shrugged and returned, “You damn well know I wouldn’t have loved anything more, Julia,”

Inching his face to hers in a way not suggestive as loose and rather not too formal, he added. “Time and work can always wait, you know? And besides, I doubt if it’s every day someone gets the chance to have a private tour of the MIA with her director.”

“Well then, try to keep up and don’t tarry too far behind,” she simply said with a smug smile, marching away from the spot in long, purposeful strides.

Without a word but a knowing glance cast at his team, Ander followed the lead of the director yet again. His team fell in line wordlessly behind them.

A while later, after they had cleared the long hall on the first floor, and stepped into the museum’s permanent galleries on the second floor, the director started pointing and calling out the eclectic textures and materials from woods to stones to textiles, to other objects like; tiles, books, manuscripts, portraits, carpets, ceramics, jewelry, glasses and metals that make up the astonishing collection of the museum.

“It’s amazing the collection of Islamic artifacts and objects you have here, and what you’ve carved out for yourself here in this part of the world in such a short time, Julia.” Ander enthused, closing on the director’s heels as she led him and his team toward the bank of elevators at the end of the big hall.

The director steered them to a stop before a particular elevator, punching in a simple command into the silver-plated panel bolted into the wall beside it to call up a car.

A loud ding announced the arrival of the car a brief instant later. As if on cue, they all sluiced into the elevator car at once. Its automated doors swished close behind them before the car began its climb for the third floor.

Thirty seconds into the car’s ascent, Ander’s eyes flew up from where he stood beside the director at the back of the crowded car to the roof of the elevator, where an assortment of Islamic symbols, patterns, and ornate calligraphy bearing the names of the Holy Islamic God and Prophet stared back at him.

The car arrived on the third floor in under fifty seconds. A little sooner than Ander, who had been trying to make sense of the patterns and symbols etched onto the roof of the elevator had expected.

Yet, it didn’t stop him from walking out into the sleek open floor plan of the third floor at the same time as everyone when the elevator’s door slid open.

“Why do I suddenly have this strange Déjà vu feeling that I have been to a museum with the same texture, thematic, and settings as yours?” Ander was saying to the director as she coursed them toward the galleries on the same floor, where several objets d'arts, weapons and instruments of war, and scientific instruments like astrolabes, Celestial globes, Qibla indicators, and sundials were on display.

“I guess that’s because you’ve indeed been in a setting like this one before,” Julia replied, keeping her gaze trained on the path ahead as she herded them farther into the hall.

Stunned by her response, Ander stilled a moment, trying to make sense of her words. “And where exactly would that be?” he later came out, the lost look on his face more prominent and unfaltering.

“The Louvre in Paris,” Julia prompted brusquely, hoping for him to catch on.

Upon a closer look at his face, however, she realized that the same befuddled stare on him before hadn’t cleared away one bit, and carefully elaborated. “Mr. Pei insisted on working with the same company that worked with him during his project at the Louvre. One of the many demands he made of the Qatari government before coming to work on the project.”

“You mean to tell me Pei personally asked for Wilmotte and Associates to be his partners on this project?” he queried, finding that hard to process.

“Absolutely,”

“Oh my, oh my! That China man is indeed something else,” he remarked, awe filling every word. “That explains why I have been feeling a kind of strange familiarity with the whole place and setting.”

“You bet,” Julia returned dryly beside him, came to an abrupt stop, and made an about-face.

“Now, to cap off your little tour of the MIA, I would like to present to you what I consider to be the finest showpiece in our collection.” She started with just the right amount of sales pitch enough to propel any prospective lead into binge buying.

“And what would be finer and grander than the masterpieces we’ve seen on display here already, Julia?” Ander shrugged, his brows creasing in question.

“Not to sound dramatic, but I think if I tell you that, then I will be defaulting on a very big rule there”— she paused for effect, pitching her voice very low as she added—“'Show don’t tell!’”
She walked off a few paces from the spot before she continued, “Okay, I get it. I’m being so dramatic at the moment. So, why don’t we just get to it already?”

From where he stood, Ander watched with heightened curiosity as the director took a few more steps away from them, before following suit like a lost puppy after its mother.

“There you have it, gentlemen, and lady, of course.” She said with a small smile, gesturing toward a corner of the gallery. “MS 474.2003; the finest Quran manuscript the Doha MIA has to offer.”

Ander’s eyes flicked over to the vitrine the director was pointing at in the corner like a shot, picking out at once the unusual item—the golden-leafed Quran propped open for display within its boxy enclosure.

Like the true art patron that he was, Ander was drawn in hypnotically by this rare manuscript like every other item of high art he had ever laid eyes on. Before he or anyone knew it, he was advancing toward the display case that housed the Holy Book as though drawn by an unseen magnetic field.

“Sometimes, I forget how tempting it must be for people to only look and not get the chance to touch this,” Julia whispered when she arrived beside him an instant later.

He dipped his hands rather casually into his pants pockets, to refrain from touching the glass case more than anything before responding. “No kidding, but I’d wager the only thing that comes close as tempting as this one must be the forbidden fruit.”

His remark forced out a chortle from the director, who bent almost in half in convulsive laughter beside him. “Here’s another thing,” she said in between the bout of laughter. “You do know you have a way with words, don’t you Ander?”

“Oh, do I now?” he feigned surprise, throwing his hands up innocently in the air.

Another five minutes passed during which the director spoon-fed him the details of how the MIA had come to the acquisition of the manuscript before she eventually led them away from there; toward their final destination—the museum’s conservation laboratory—which surprisingly was on the same floor.

When they arrived at the laboratory about some minutes later. They found some men and women in spick-and-span white lab coats hard at work in the sterile up-to-the-minute enclosure of the lab.

“Well, well, seems you’re not the only one with a team, here, Mr. Leigh.” The director said in a dry attempt at humor, beckoning to three men in particular, two of whom were assumed in the white lab coats as the others in the lab. “Here is my team, as well.”

“We can both shine together,” Ander shrewdly said with a bright smile, “can’t we?”

The director nodded acquiesce to this, then began with the introductions. “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Ander Leigh; a renowned American Art specialist,” she started, her gaze flickering over the faces of each man. “Mr. Leigh, meet Mr. Yusef Saruman, our head conservation scientist.” She said, pointing at the taller of the two men in lab coats. “And this is, Mr. Bilal Ahmed, our collection manager.” She indicated the bearded, stumpy man in a lab coat this time. “And finally, Mr. Ali Kunar, the museum curator.” She finished, at last indicating the dusky-skinned man in casual wear amongst the trio and the lab as a whole.

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Ander repeated over and over as he exchanged handshakes with each of the men.

“Gentlemen as you already know, Mr. Ander and his team are here courtesy of the museum’s patrons; the Al-Thani family. And through the duration of their 3-day stay here will be inspecting the conservative and preservative state of most of our collection here at the MIA. Also, together with his team of experts, they will be verifying the authenticity and documenting the latest objects in our collection. So I would like to plead with you and the men under you to cooperate and corroborate with Mr. Ander and his team as they set to perform their duties.”

If any of the men have a problem with that, none show it as they all nodded in agreement.

While the pleasantries and small talks went on, Ander’s cell phone beeped from somewhere in one of the pockets of his suit. However, a second hardly passed before he located and fished out the phone.

He smacked his lips when he saw the name displayed as the caller ID. “Wifey. Must be some routine check-up call to find out if we landed safely,” he announced, waving the cell phone in front of everyone. “Sorry, I have to pick this.” He completed, seeking permission.

“Feel free, please,” the director rightly returned, waving him on.

Sliding his index finger across the phone’s screen to answer the call, Ander excused himself from the group and slunk over to a quiet corner of the lab.

“Hey,” he breathed into the phone once he was remotely distant from everyone. “I’m sorry I can’t talk to you right now, hon. Let’s talk later, please.”

The person on the other end of the call got the message and disconnected the call at once.

Ander waited a moment after the three sharp beeps signaling the loss of connection, before scrolling into the phone’s message menu. There he unmistakenly speed-typed with the phone’s keyboard just three words—We landed safely.

He gave a final once over at the three words he had just typed, selected a recipient, and hit the send button before he headed back to the spot.

The director was wrapping things up already by the time he got back to the group. When she noticed his presence, however, she turned to address him.

“We’ve provided you with the bleeding edge equipment to carry out your work and have given you unrestricted access to over seventy percent of our collection. That includes both new and old objects we have in our storage.” There was a brief instant in which she gestured to the men to round up their team before she continued. “We’ll leave you and your team to get started now, Mr. Leigh. If there’s anything at all you need, even in my absence at the museum, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of these men.”

“I will be sure to ring if we need anything, Director,”

“Very well then and good luck,” she said, before turning away from the spot with the men.

It was long after the director had vacated the wide space of the lab alongside everyone that Ander turned to face his team and said, “Let’s get to work, guys!”