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Locked.
    Damn. Not perfect .
    Fiona still had his pick set, though even if he’d brought a spare, there probably would not have been time for him to mess around with the lock. There was a reason he had allowed her to use the picks earlier, and it wasn’t to give her more experience. She was a natural with locks, faster and smoother than he would ever be.
    Fine , he thought. There were other ways to deal with locked doors.
    He drew back a step, lowered his shoulder and started to charge…but then stopped short. Bashing down doors always looked easy in movies, but something told him that real life might not be so accommodating. A second look at the door revealed three sets of hinges; the door opened toward him. He could have thrown himself against it all night long and the only thing he would have to show for it would be a bruised shoulder.
    He glanced back down the corridor. The stairs were starting to seem like a much better idea.
    Okay, if I can’t pick the lock and I can’t break it down…what can I do?
    There was a sliver-thin gap between the door and its frame. With a blade, or even a credit card, it might be possible to jimmy the lock open, but he had neither.
    Note to self. In the future, always carry a knife .
    What he did have was the black box device, and that was almost as good as a blade. He took it out and placed it against the door, between the knob and the strike plate, and then hit the button to activate the induction field. There was a click as the electromagnet engaged and pulled the device tight against the metal. Something moved against his shoulder, and before he could even think to be surprised, he felt something strike the back of his hand.
    His satchel, or more precisely, its contents—the Phaistos Disc—had been drawn into the powerful magnetic field.
    That’s interesting .
    But there was no time to explore the mystery. Ignoring the satchel, he gripped the black box in both hands and slid the device toward the door knob. As the electromagnet moved, it pulled the metal latch bolt clear of the strike plate, and the door popped open.
    “Top that, Dr. Jones,” he said.
    As soon as he switched off the device, the satchel fell away, but Pierce barely noticed. He stuffed the device back into his pocket and ventured through the door onto the rooftop, above the museum’s first floor. The low wail of police sirens greeted him. Close but not yet too close.
    Pierce ran to the edge of the rooftop, trying to get oriented. He could just make out the harbor off to his left, a couple of miles distant, at the base of the slope upon which the city of Heraklion had been founded. That meant he was on the east side of the museum complex. If she stuck to the plan, Fiona would be leaving from the south, only a few hundred yards away. Pierce would have preferred a route that led him further away from her, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He looked down, focusing his attention on the more immediate problem of his own escape.
    Because the museum was built on a hillside, the ground was a lot further away than he had anticipated—at least a forty foot drop. The wall below was smooth concrete, with no windows or ledges.
    Note to self, addendum: Also bring rope . He growled in frustration. Forget Indiana Jones. He was going to have to start wearing a utility belt like Batman...if he actually made it out of this without getting killed or arrested.
    He switched on his MagTac and shone the beam along the low parapet at the edge of the rooftop. A square shadow caught his eye and revealed a small opening that fed into a metal downspout that ran down the exterior wall.
    Pierce stared at it for a few seconds. He could think of at least a dozen reasons why trying to shinny down that pipe was a foolish idea, but the one argument in favor of it was even more compelling: he had no other choice.
    The sirens were getting louder.
    Biting his lip, he hoisted himself onto the parapet and swung his legs out into space.
    Oh,