There was never applause on the Vile Council, not even for the best ideas. Professor Gunnar Maelstrom still felt that perhaps his idea wasn't being received very well.
"Don't get me wrong, Maelstrom, I'm sure that it would bring out the color in your eyes, but what in the world exactly do you want with the Hope Diamond if not to sell it?" asked Eartha Brunt.
"I must agree that I don't much understand why you would want it. Certainly we can't get the 300 million it's appraised at on the black market. Not to mention, it's cursed."
"Ah my compatriots, that is exactly why I wish to obtain the Hope Diamond. Psychologically, a curse can be a very powerful weapon, and with it I can harness its curse to force the gullible to do my bidding."
Saira Bellum grinned from cheek to cheek. It was completely unscientific, but she had to admit that Maelstrom had a way with words. "Well, let's put it to a vote."
Brunt and Cleo voted yes, apathetically. It was no skin off their nose if this went south. Shadow-san reluctantly agreed, as every failure brought ACME closer to them.
"I assume you have someone in mind for this operation?" Shadow-san asked.
"Of course! I'm appointing Short for this operation. With his abilities he'll effortlessly blend into any school group and when the time comes, pilfer the diamond right out of the Smithsonian."
Oslo, Norway, being as close to the Arctic Circle as it was, had an excess of two things, cold food and colder weather. Zack could handle the weather, Boston wasn't exactly a tropical port of call, but nearly everywhere they went, fish was a main food staple.
"Fine, ya big baby," said his older sister Ivy, "more food for me then."
"Could you just not in polite company?" Zack asked.
"Who said you was polite?
Carmen, too was quite miserable. The Isle of Vile was a quarter of a world away, and always warm and tropical. But a master thief never let the heat bother them, nor the cold, though this was one time she was wearing her red coat for a reason other than showing off and looking cool.
The phone rang, finally, some action, maybe that'd get her henchmen to calm down.
"So what have you got for me, Player?"
"Hope you guys aren't getting too comfortable. I'm picking up VILE chatter on the dark web. It looks like they're planning a heist in Washington, DC."
"Washington DC? The entire city is basically a giant museum!"
"You're not wrong; the Smithsonian has 17 of its 19 museums in Washington DC. Eleven of these are on the National Mall. This long stretch was designed by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who also set up the streets of the city."
"Hey, where's J Street?"
"There isn't one. When drawing the layout for the city, the letters I and J looked so similar that J was skipped over to avoid confusion."
"That didn't exactly work did it?"
"It appears that VILE is going to attempt to steal the Hope Diamond from the National Museum of Natural History. The Hope Diamond has had a strange 353 year history. It was discovered in India by French Gem-Merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. Originally weighing in at 115.28 carats, the diamond was sold to King Louis XIV. In 1678 the king commissioned the stone to be cut and the result was a 67.125 carat stone called the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France, or French Blue for short. After the French Revolution the diamond was looted and wound up in England where it was cut in two and the larger of the halves is the Hope Diamond we have today. Its lustrous blue color comes from the presence of boron in the carbon matrix of the diamond, and impurity that makes it even rarer than a clear diamond of the same size."
"Isn't the diamond said to be cursed? After all, it didn't end well for the French Monarchy."
"There were many false rumors in the 19th and 20th centuries that the diamond was stolen from a statue of the goddess Sita, the wife of Rama, but there's no evidence that it was known before being dug out of a mine in the 17th century. However, 14 of its owners over the centuries have met with tragic ends, so the legend continues."
Carmen's private jet landed at Ronald Reagan international airport, as if there were a title song to make the segue from scene to scene smoother.
"I can't believe you're not excited to visit the capital of the US, guys." Carmen could never tell with Zack and Ivy what would or wouldn't impress them.
"Eh, you been on a fieldtrip to DC once, you been a thousand times," Zack said.
"Yeah, but how many times have you ever stolen something from the Smithsonian?" she asked.
"All the time if you're in a National Treasure movie," Ivy replied.
"Could just be a Nicholas Cage thing. Are we sure he doesn't work for VILE?" Zach asked.
"That would explain so many of his roles," said Ivy.
The trio gathered their belongings and entered their escort from the tarmac. Their credentials would check out with the TSA, the Player made sure of that. There was literally nowhere they couldn't go without being noticed, by most authorities anyway.
"We have reason to suspect Carmen Sandiego may already be in Virginia, Agents." The Chief shimmered in the darkness, projected holographically from a pen. Her hair white with age and expression stern, she might have been the most serious person the two agents had ever known.
"Great, America, home of fake cheese and white bread. What would Carmen Sandiego even want here that she couldn't possibly find in a department store?" Agent Chase Devineaux had a hard time hiding his disdain for the American bourgeois.
"Intel indicates that VILE has sent a top agent to purloin the Hope Diamond, and no doubt Carmen Sandiego will be the one to nab it."
"Are we sure?" Agent Julia Argent asked, "It could be that she's trying to stop VILE from obtaining the stone."
"You and your crazy conspiracies, Jules! Do not be so naïve to think Carmen is somehow on our side."
"Agreed, Agent Chase," the Chief replied. "Carmen Sandiego has had plenty of time to come clean, and thus far she's continued to ghost us.
Julia sulked a bit having been told off by the both of them. Chase she expected it from, but it was hard when the Chief played favorites.
The Museum of Natural history has a most impressive foyer. Balconies from the second floor overhung the lobby, and its centerpiece, the routunda elephant. While Zack had seen elephants before, it was nice to see one up close that wasn't in danger of running him over.
"So how we playin' this?" Zack asked.
"We'll swap out the real one with a fake and drop the real one off in their storage. VILE will have no idea the gem they've got is worthless glass," Carmen explained.
"Uh, they might," said player over her earpiece. "Glass is much heavier than diamond and someone will definitely notice the luster being wrong eventually. But hopefully whoever they sent doesn't know much about gems."
"It's a good bet," said Carmen.
The trio made their way to the gem and mineral collection, where the Hope Diamond awaited their sticky fingers. However, in a group of students a bit further ahead, a VILE agent was planning his moves.
Jimmy Short was, indeed, quite unassuming. 88 pounds soaking wet, and barely reaching five feet tall, he was not the top of his class physically certainly, but he hid a secret. He broke from the school group he had infiltrated and turned immediately to the Hope Diamond.
Reflexively, Carmen shot him with her grappling hook, restraining his hand. "Gosh, there you are, Carmen Sandiego. I was beginnin' to worry you wouldn't show up."
"Jimmy Smalls," she replied. "Now what's a small time villain like you doing here?"
By now a small crowd had assembled, phones out, filming in irritating portrait mode.
"Jimmy Smalls, sure, but there's somethin' you never bothered to find out about me." The grappling wire snapped, as Jimmy's skin bristled and writhed. He grew suddenly, not taller, but larger, muscles toned and ripped, his clothing too. He growled, "They sometimes call me Jumbo Jimbo."
"Looks like Saria Bellum's handiwork."
"Of course! I'll let her know you approve!"
Zack and Ivy snuck around the pair. It wasn't a donut shop, but isn't a diamond just a really, really expensive donut in some way?
A stray punch smashed the glass, and alarms sounded, it would make their job much easier. "Ah, sweet," Ivy thought to herself. She pulled out a fake from her pocket, ready to make the switch quickly and effortlessly.
"I'll take that, thank you," called a voice. Ivy only briefly saw the speaker, a blur of red and blue, a voice with a buttery accent she couldn't quite place, and as the light came on, the jewel was gone, and a card remained.
The card read, "Arsène Lupin III."
Ivy dropped the fake and took the card. Jimbo saw his opportunity and stole the fake away. Not once did it cross his mind why Carmen and her associates stopped their pursuit. It was more important to seem like a competent henchman.
"He's getting away!" Ivy shouted.
"Yeah, with a fake." Zack replied
"Not the incredulous sulk, the guy in the red suit!" Ivy handed Carmen the calling card.
Carmen didn't immediately respond, but pocketed the card, "We need to go. Now."
The trio had regrouped in a room in the Watergate. Carmen thought it was fitting, but Zack and Ivy couldn't figure it out and stopped caring pretty promptly. Carmen knew she was going to need to give these two a crash course someday, though that was nearly everyday, honestly.
"There is no way in the world that it's really him. He hasn't committed a heist since the late 1970s. For that matter he'd be about 80!" Carmen said.
"Yeah, the guy I saw weren't in his 80s, no doubts there." Ivy replied. She was the only one who had seen the thief in person, but the security footage definitely showed The Wolf was there.
"I've been examining the calling card, Red, and there are two things I find interesting," the Player began. "First is this paper is quite a bit yellowed in places, meaning it was probably exposed to ultraviolet light for a long period of time. Second, the paper has an embossed watermark from the manufacturer Ranheim Papirfabrikk in Norway, which was bought out by Norske Skogindustrier in 1971. So either the culprit bought a lot of new old stock paper, or they happened to have a Lupin calling card on them."
"I'm assuming that's unlikely too?"
"Well, if they could steal the Hope Diamond in broad daylight, it would probably be pretty feeble to steal a piece of paper from a less well guarded museum. I'm just saying, you never know. The man could have fallen out of a wormhole after forty-five years."
"You hear that, Ivy? Player believes in wormholes." Zack chuckled to himself.
"Player, can you book us a trip to Cagliostro?"
"Cagliostro? Sure I can, but what's even there? It's just a small city-state in the French Alps."
"That's true, but the city was once a thriving part of the Roman Empire. After the Gauls sacked the area around it, a giant dam was constructed to flood the city and preserve it from the marauders."
"Fair enough, but hopefully you won't drive past it. It's the smallest and least populous member of the European Union followed by Malta."
"The King and Queen of Cagliostro also run an Arsène Lupin museum. If we want to find our faker, we're going to have to know as much as they do.
"I know how silly it sounds, but that is what I saw, Chief!" Julia defended.
"How do we even know?" Chase questioned, "Carmen Sandiego is probably just working with this... Carlos Santiago."
"Chase, I can understand your skepticism, but if you're right, and this is an accomplice of Carmen's, we might be able to find her by way of him."
"I think that's an excellent idea," said the Chief. "I'll leave the two of you to it."
Chase sighed and fell on his bed, "What a waste of time, but if you insist. We'll go to Lyon in the morning. I may have some information there."
"Honestly, have you never stolen a diamond before in your life? This doesn't even look like one!" Gunnar Maelstrom could be quite angry when the opportunity arose.
"Well no. This is my first heist." Jimmy Smalls explained.
Gunnar sighed, "No you're right. This is not your fault. It is my fault for believing in you." Jimmy stared at his feet, like the kid he, really, honestly, was. "You say the interloper was Lupin the 3rd, but you and I both know that's impossible. Did you flunk your Evil History class?
"Look, I know what I saw, okay? If it was him, it sure enough looked like him," Jimmy defended.
"If we are dealing with a rival thief," Shadow-san began, "We should send our best."
"I suppose you think that's Tigress?" It wasn't really a question Gunnar Maelstrom asked, but more of a pointed statement.
"No. I shall go myself."
"I don't think that's really necessary."
"Then we shall put it to a vote. Those in favor of me tracking this false wolf?" Brunt, Bellum, and Cleo had no problem with this. Shadow-san could really put a damper on any beautiful day, it might be relaxing to not have him around.
"Hrmp, very well. I think I shall accompany you. Those in favor?" Again the vote was four to five. Not having Maelstrom around meant a lot less psychological warfare.
"What is it were hoping to find here, Chase?" Julia asked. He'd been rather quiet the whole flight, uncharacteristically so.
"We need to see their files on The Wolf. This copycat I guarantee is a pale imitation, but anything they know, we need to know, and that will bring us one step closer to capturing «Le Femme Rouge»." The two continued further up the steps of the Secretariat. Entering was no trouble. All they had to do was flash their ACME badges and the attending security waived them through. A bit of waiting and an Interpol officer arrived to greet them.
"Chase Devineaux, how good it is to have you back."
"Well, if it isn't my good friend Cole Gannon." Chase replied, "Shouldn't you be behind a desk somewhere crunching numbers?"
"Someone had to pick up your slack and who better than Interpol's best agent?"
"Perhaps now that is true."
Julia, perhaps hoping to facilitate a more diplomatic stance, interrupted the genital waggling, "Detective Gannon, we were hoping you could help us."
"Ah, yes, of course Agent Argent, please follow me," and so they did. Cole continued, "You'll have to forgive the messiness, we're still in the process of digitizing."
"Wait, are you to tell me all of Inspector Zenigata's files are?" Chase began.
"In the same boxes they've been for the last 40 years. Well, you two have fun." Cole signed the two into the records department, a damp and dank and mildewy basement room, where the only thing of interest was a television, too small or old to do much other than mildly entertain the archivist. The man was in his late 50s, and had been here when the building opened, and was quietly waiting for retirement, either by age or Interpol getting organized enough to digitize all the papers in the archives.
It was fortunate that the files were, more or less, organized by date mostly, but in another way, also by case number. Like an old Dewey Decimal system, all that the duo needed to do was locate the file with the corresponding number to Arsène Lupin III, 071019-67 in this instance.
Hours passed, "I cannot find these files. Where in the world are they?" Chase asked.
An idea struck Julia, and she nearly hated herself for not thinking of it sooner. "This building wasn't constructed until 1989."
Chase stopped in this path, "Zut-alors! Inspector Zenigata died in 1981. His files must still be in Vienna." He ran out of the archives, knowing full well that he'd have to wait for Julia anyway. On his way through Cole spotted him, "Oh hey, did you find—".
"No I did not, thank you very much you American bonehead. You could have told me the files were not here."
"Why on Earth would you care about some 40 year old cases anyway?" Gannon asked.
"Because they are necessary to find an accomplice to Carmen Sandiego."
"Ah, yes, Carmen Sandiego. You know, it was easy enough for Interpol to transfer that case and you to them. Honestly, we're a lot more efficient now, out there solving real crimes and bringing actual villains to justice. It's much easier without you here playing Inspector Javert." Julia and Chase stared at him coldly. "You'd best go, Jean Valjean is getting away with every moment."
Chase and Julia began to leave, but not without Gannon saying one more thing, "But you, ma'am, you're welcome here any time."
"Inspector Gannon, you may very well be the brightest mind in all of law enforcement. However, you've very little moral character," Julia replied.
Closer than Chase would have expected, a tricked out muscle car pulls up through a border crossing between France and Cagliostro.
"So," the guard said, with a pencil and clipboard, "what's the nature of your visit to Cagliostro?"
"It's our anniversary," Zack flashed a wedding band he'd pilfered ages ago from someone he couldn't even remember. The guard looked in the backseat at a plump older lady with long platinum hair. Zack began to sweat a little. "Yeah, that's my mom."
Ivy nodded her head a bit, acting like she didn't understand French.
"Well, we hope you enjoy your visit," the guard returned their identification and raised the striped gate to let them through.
Shortly after the gatehouse was out of sight, Ivy punched Zack from the backseat. "Why do I have to be our muddah you little turd?"
"Don't look at me," Zack yelled. "I didn't want to be one of those losers who brings a sibling along on their anniversary!"
Player wasn't wrong, most of Cagliostro could be totally appreciated from a high enough hill, a village down in the valley, and the royal family's castle, shimming white like a diamond in the forest. They couldn't drive directly there, nor was it particularly accessible. Down in the lake surrounding most of the dutchy, the Castle de Cagliostro, now the home of the museum that could give them all the answers they'd need.
"It's resplendent!" Ivy and Carmen looked at Zack, not out of confusion, precisely, but something akin to it, "I just wanted to say the word out loud. I wanted to hear how it sounded."
"Alright Zack, focus," Carmen said, "the road gets pretty narrow up ahead, and this isn't a scuba car, try not to pull a Devineaux." The siblings laughed, but Carmen wasn't quite satisfied. She looked again at the calling card, "Who are you really?"