The Art museum in Turin was a fortress and it was impossible for anyone to penetrate it.  Zack Cavali the curator of the museum oversaw the security arrangements and it was nearly 9.00 PM when the security guard drew the last latch in place.  The invisible beams came up inside the museum and even if a rat were to cross the beams, the bells pealed.  It was a nuisance but Cavali decided to go with it than lose a painting worth millions of Euros.  Zack prided in himself for having one of the best Art museums in Italy and maybe even the whole of Europe.  No other place had some of the finest paintings his museum had and he knew what lengths other museums would go to lay their hands on these priceless gems.  In fact for Zack the museum was his temple, his home and he spent all his waking hours in the museum.   He had collected each one of these paintings lovingly and painstakingly over years.  The Turin museum was heavily funded by the Italian government and Zack was the master bidder who attended auction houses and bought these beauties at prices which no one could even dream of.   Zack was also proud of the fact that he could spot a fake from a distance.   He knew the painters and the palette that they used.  He knew every nuance of their work and the way they wielded the brush. 

Carlo Crivelli’s painting Annunciation with St Emidiu, Madonna and Child, Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a young Man, Rosary Madonna, A Venetian woman in the guise of Lucretia, Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Potato Eaters, Vase with Twelve Sunflowers and paintings like The Last Supper and the Vitruvian Man by the master painter Leonardo Da Vinci himself adorned the museum walls.  Apart from these painters Zack’s museum also had modern painters – for example, the abstract paintings by Rudolf Bauer, the Adaga series of paintings by John Beard, Alexander Bogomazov’s Fire in Kiev, Stropping the Saws and many more modern paintings thronged the Museum walls. They were all beauties and each of them vied for space in the Museum’s long brown walls.

The paintings were placed cheek and jowl with sculptures by famed sculptors especially with those of Michelangelo’s works like the sleeping Cupid, St. John the Baptist, Bacchus and many others.   Zack thought about the hard day ahead of him as he hit the sack.  It was the day for the restorators to work on some of the paintings that needed some touch ups.  Zack did not like to tamper with the paintings, but then he had to go with the Director’s orders. 

Next day dawned nice and bright and Zack was at the museum on dot at 7.00 AM.  He barked at the security “ Switch off the beams, take your places and ensure that the video cameras are working”.  The security guards ensured that the CCtvs were all working and switched off the beams; the burglar alarms were checked for bugs.  The museum was buzzing with activity.

Norma acted as the head of the group of restorators who landed at the museum’s doorstep at 9.00 AM.  She met Zack and introduced herself “ Hi Mr. Zack Cavali, my name is Norma Thiebe and we have been assigned to the museum by our company Zetterman Restorators”, and showed him their ID cards and the letter from the company.  Zack checked the ID cards and letters and then made her sign the necessary papers and after security check, proceeded to the long hall where the paintings were kept and took her to the corner of the hall, which was to be used for the restorative work.  This area was cleared and many easels and tables were placed for the restorators to do their work. 

Restoration work was to be done on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Potato Eaters, Madonna and Child and a few other paintings.  Norma gave her group instructions “ Start work immediately, Agnes you and Eric can start work on the Potato Eaters, Brian and Chris you can start work on the Madonna and Child, I will take care of the Sunflowers”. Saying this she and the group removed their backpacks and removed the paints and brushes and set to work.  The security guards brought the paintings and handed them over to the group while another one kept a hawk like eye on the group.   Another guard also joined the two guards and between the three of them they kept an eagle watch on the proceedings.

The men who were outsourced by Zack from Avon Agencies mopped the halls at regular intervals.  They kept moving around with long mops and buckets of water.  After every 3 paintings there was a security guard, in fact the joke was that the Turin Museum had more security guards than paintings, but Zack was not bothered.  For him guarding these precious works of art was as important as living.  According to him art was meant for everyone, he did not like the idea of someone buying these paintings at sky rocketing prices and keeping it in a Swizz locker or it adorning a mansion or palace. 

Around 12.00 noon just before lunch, a busload of tourists landed at the museum.  The babbling tourists moved from one painting to another and as they moved towards the corner of the hall where the restoration work was being done, each one jostled to see the work in progress.  It was a new thing for them and they babbled and milled around the restorators.  In the process, one of them pushed the easel and another one fell on one of the restorators who was carrying scrolls of paper and everything fell on the floor with a loud bang, which brought Zack running.  “What are you doing? Help the tourists to their feet’? yelled Zack at the guards as the restorators, the tourists and the guards went on their haunches to remove the scrolls, which had fallen down.  

Norma quickly picked up the scrolls of paper, and the guards helped the tourists to their feet and the restorators got back to their work. The group broke for lunch, but they did not leave the premises.  They ate in the courtyard of the museum with the guards tailing them.  Zack went to check on the group and the noises made by the birds above in the huge oak tree made him look up and he saw a kite flying low.  He wondered about the kite, but then later forgot about the bird.     After lunch the restorators resumed their work and everything was peaceful.  The men from Avon continued to clean the halls with their long mops.  Towards evening Zack was relieved that the restoration work was done. The paintings were all kept on the easels to dry; they would go back to their frames and boards only the next day after the paint dried.

Norma and her team were thoroughly checked with metal detectors before they were allowed to leave in the evening.  The museum emptied out in the evening, the men from Avon were checked and sent out. Their cleaning tools and appliances were thrown in the van, which came to collect them every evening. 

It had been a hard day and it was late in the night.  Zack decided to look at the paintings one more time.  He had seen it when the restorators were working.  He went over to his favourite painting ‘The Sunflowers’.   The master painter used to exaggerate his colours, the yellow was bright, but this was not.  His heart skipped a beat.  He knew immediately that this was a fake.  He rushed to his room to call Norma.  But the call to Zetterman never went through, he got a message saying that the dialed number was out of order.  He drove to their office and found the office locked.  He wondered how the restorators could have taken away the painting without any alibi.   He quickly headed to the police station, they cannot get away, the police can nab them at the border he thought. 

And a little far away from Turin, Norma and Bates the man from Avon were celebrating.  The kite that gave Norma company during the lunch hour was in her hand now; even as she rolled the Sunflower painting in a scroll and tied it to the bird’s legs a second time and let him fly.  He would fly to his destination to the nearby Swizz Alps and hand it over to the multimillionaire who collected these paintings.  Norma and Bates were rich by about one million Euros. 

It had been so simple to steal the painting.  As the easels were knocked, and the scrolls fell and the guards and the restorators went on their haunches to pick the scrolls, Norma quickly exchanged the original for the fake which was given to her by Bates and Bates covered the CCTV even as he shoved it down the pipe of the thick long mop. It was a specially designed mop with a cylinder to hold the thin painting.  It all happened within a fraction of a minute even before Zack ran over to the restorators.  The mops were never ever subjected to scrutiny and they were carried by the Avon van and Bates who was in the van quickly removed the scroll as the van cruised to  their office in the evening.  The kite, which hovered over Bates, received it from its master and flew over Turin to the destination that they usually met.  Norma and Bates had escaped detection and their victory spurred them to plan and discuss their next project.