Rollin checked his watch. "Jim will be talking to the Director now. Once we hear the guards go by on their first inspection, it'll be time to get you into place. It's alright if I'm seen, as they've been ordered not to see me until Jim arrests me, but you must be invisible."
Jack nodded. She peeled off her smart outfit to reveal her black gymnast's suit underneath, pulled down her black leggings to her ankles and black sleeves to her wrists, took off her shoes, which had been covering flexible black slippers, pulled on a pair of thick black gloves. Rollin rolled down the legs on his pants, turned his shirt inside out so that it went from a grey sweater to a black button-up, and wrapped his short jacket with everything Jack took off, along with her schoolgirl braids. He pushed it all down into a bucket, shoved dirty rags on top, and stood a mop up in it. Her blue and his black contacts all went into the bottom of a grimy, mostly-empty bottle of bleach. They both wiped off all of earlier's makeup, checked each other's faces to make sure it was gone. There could be no association between their final roles and the young Romanian sweethearts.
When they heard the guards' footsteps, they froze and didn't move until the steps disappeared.
"Ready now?" Rollin asked.
"Just about." She pulled a small black knapsack out of her schoolgirl satchel, which had served as a purse for her young Romanian. Rollin shoved the satchel down behind the mops and buckets and helped her secure the knapsack to her back so it couldn't shift. Lastly they synchronized their watches to the hundredth of a second.
They slipped silently out of the closet and made their way through labyrinthine corridors in the dark, following memorized plans. Only once they had to duck deep into shadow as a guard walked past; Rollin stood directly in front of Jack so that if the guard saw anything, he would only be seeing Rollin. He didn't see, however, and passed on. Just where Jim had told them it would be, there was a grate leading to a heating duct high up on the wall at the end of a corridor. Rollin braced himself and boosted Jack up onto his shoulders; she unscrewed the bolts holding the grate and handed it down to him, then pulled herself up into the black hole. He handed the grate back up, and she fit it into place. Giving his lopsided, encouraging smile in her direction and receiving a finger waggle through the grate in return, Rollin turned and went back the way they'd come.
There were no guards in the corridors now. He got to the last door leading into the main areas of the museum and flattened himself against the wall. He stood for ten minutes, just listening. It took special training to simply stand without ever shifting the weight, catching a breath. He had not got the impression that the guards had that training, so it was fairly safe to presume there was no one in the room beyond. He slipped out of the door and through the maze of the museum.
The most central room of the museum held treasures from the pre-Soviet era, items once owned by royalty, now serving as a testament to the power that had once defeated royalty all across Europe. In the very middle of the room, on a high pedestal, stood the ancient gold crown set with round gemstones of a great Herzvolakian king from the 14th Century, her only remarkable king, in fact. It was surrounded by a sensor grid very much like the one that would face Jack in the basement vaults. Rollin checked his watch. She needed ten more minutes. He crossed to a large statue, dating from the 15th Century, and tucked himself up high into a surprisingly small niche between it and the wall, in deep shadow.