False Impression by Jeffrey Archer Read Free Book Online Page B

sixty million dollars necessary to stop
the painting leaving the country.
    Especially after
the National Galleries of Scotland had recently failed to raise the required 7
pounds 5 pencemillion to ensure that Michelangelo’s Study of a Mourning Woman
didn’t leave these shores to become part of a private collection in the States.
    When a Mr
Andrews, the butler at Wentworth Hall, had rung the previous day to say that
the painting would be ready for collection in the morning, Ruth had scheduled
one of her high security air-ride trucks to be at the hall by eight o’clock.
Ruth was pacing up and down the tarmac long before the truck turned up at her
office, just after ten.
    Once the
painting was unloaded, Ruth supervised every aspect of its packing and safe
dispatch to New York, a task she would normally have left to one of her
managers. She stood over her senior packer as he wrapped the painting in
acid-free glassine paper and then placed it into the foam-lined case he’d been
working on throughout the night so it would be ready in time. The captive bolts
were tightened on the case, preventing anyone breaking into it without a
sophisticated socket set. Special indicators were attached to the outside of
the case that would turn red if anyone attempted to open it during its journey.
The senior packer stencilled the word ‘FRAGILE’ on both sides of the box and
the number ‘47’ in all four corners. The customs officer had raised an eyebrow
when he checked the shipping papers, but as an export licence had been granted,
the eyebrow returned to its natural position.
    Ruth drove
across to the waiting 747 and watched as the red box disappeared into the vast
hold. She didn’t return to her office until the heavy door was secured in place.
She checked her watch and smiled. The plane had taken off at 1.40 pm.
    Ruth began to
think about the painting that would be arriving from the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam later that evening to form part of the Rembrandt’s Women exhibition
at the Royal Academy.
    But not before
she had put a call through to Fenston Finance to inform them that the Van Gogh
was on its way.
    She dialled
Anna’s number in New York, and waited for her to pick up the phone.
    There was a loud
explosion, and the building began to sway from side to side.
    Anna was hurled
across the corridor, ending up flat on the canvas as if she’d been floored by a
heavyweight boxer. The elevator doors opened and she watched as a fireball of
fuel shot through the shaft, searching for oxygen. The hot blast slapped her in
the face as if the door of an oven had been thrown open. Anna lay on the
ground, dazed.
    Her first
thought was that the building must have been struck by lightning, but she
quickly dismissed that idea as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. An eerie
silence followed and Anna wondered if she had gone deaf, but this was soon
replaced by screams of ‘Oh, my God!’ as huge shards of jagged glass, twisted
metal and office furniture flew past the windows in front of her.
    It must be
another bomb, was Anna’s second thought. Everyone who had
been in the building in 1993 retold stories of what had happened to them on
that bitterly cold February afternoon. Some of them were apocryphal,
others pure invention, but the facts were simple. A truck filled with explosives
had been driven into the underground garage beneath the building. When it
exploded, six people were killed and over a thousand injured. Five underground
floors were wiped out, and it took several hours for the emergency services to
evacuate the building. Since then, everyone who worked in the World Trade
Center had been required to participate in regular fire drills. Anna tried to
remember what she was supposed to do in such an emergency.
    She recalled the
clear instructions printed in red on the exit door to the stairwell on every
floor: ‘In case of emergency, do not return to your desk, do not use the
elevator, exit by the nearest stairwell.’ But first Anna