Adrian felt suddenly the slightest bit sober. Maybe it was Hailey’s passion; maybe it was the fact that the adrenaline from the events at the museum had finally begun to fade, replaced by the more stoic elements of his personality. But for some frightening reason, this woman’s conjecturing was starting to make the tiniest bit of sense.

“It’s kept in a bulletproof glass pavilion, surrounded by security checks and X-ray scanners, dozens of cameras, with armed guards watching twenty-four hours each day.”

Hailey’s shoulders seemed to sag as she lowered the clapper. Adrian looked at her, opened his mouth—then closed it. He shook his head. Did he really want to continue this insanity? An image from inside Hancock’s trunk, a two-hundred-year-old eagle stolen from the Gardner Museum, Paul Revere and alchemy, the Liberty Bell.

Adrian shook his head. He was a scholar. An academic. Not like Charles, not some sort of treasure-hunting swashbuckler.

And yet, the thing in Hailey’s hands was real, a piece of history.

Finally, despite his most basic instincts, Adrian found his voice.

“There’s another way,” he said. “And we don’t need to go to Philadelphia.”

“There’s another Liberty Bell?” Nick asked.

“No,” Adrian said.

And then he smiled.

“There are fifty-five.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

The blue and red lights of a dozen police cruisers splashed like spray paint against the man-made embankment rising above the dark water of the harbor, intermittently catching Curt Anderson in their technicolor glow. Curt was seated comfortably on the top of the low wall, his legs dangling down against the stone. He was still wearing the tailored electric-blue suit, but he’d draped a dark gray overcoat around his shoulders against the mist and had pulled a black knit cap low above his eyes. The knit cap barely concealed the molded white wireless buds that rested comfortably in his ear canals. The buds on their own were not remarkable; more than a few of the odd predawn joggers that sped past along the wooden planked pathway winding behind where Curt was sitting sported similar devices, Bluetoothed to phones strapped to their wrists or swinging in the pockets of their jackets.

But Curt’s earbuds were not paired to a phone. The device in his lap, about the size of a mailbox, was a bit more conspicuous, if anyone had felt the urge to look his way. Though there were unidirectional mikes with smaller footprints available, Curt had always been finicky about the tools of his trade. If it wasn’t military grade—preferably American or Chinese—he wasn’t going to waste his time.