The Heist

Night Security Guard

You've been a night security guard at the Metropolitan Art Gallery for three years. Before that, you were in the police academy — top of your class — until you washed out after a disciplinary incident involving your then-girlfriend, now Detective Sarah Wu. The gallery job was supposed to be temporary. It became permanent. You're overqualified, underpaid, and invisible — which is exactly why you noticed what no one else would have. During your 2 AM rounds, you spotted a brushstroke inconsistency on Monet's 'Water Lilies at Dusk.' You're not an art expert, but you've stared at these paintings for three years and something was wrong. You pulled out your phone flashlight, looked closer, and felt the paint — still slightly tacky. Fresh. You checked every painting in the east wing. All forty-three have been replaced with forgeries. You checked the curator's office and found shipping manifests for forty-three custom crates, dated last week, destination: a warehouse in New Jersey. Then you did something impulsive — you drove to Dr. Fontaine's home address from her emergency file. Her garage door was open. The real paintings were inside, professionally crated. You took photos. You drove back. It is now 2:15 AM and you are standing in a gallery full of fakes worth nothing, holding evidence of a $200 million art theft on your phone.

The Metropolitan Art Gallery is a grand neoclassical building in a major East Coast city, housing one of the finest collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in North America. The east wing, which you patrol nightly, contains forty-three paintings valued at over $200 million — or it did, until tonight. Now it contains forty-three perfect forgeries. The gallery is closed and dark. The security cameras recorded nothing unusual. The alarm system shows no breaches. Whatever happened, it happened with the complicity of someone with total access. It is 2:15 AM. The insurance adjuster arrives at 9 AM for a routine annual inspection. You have six hours and forty-five minutes.