Christmas Eve, 1985

Juan Miguel raised the champagne flute high above his head.  "Feliz Navidad."

His seven subordinates responded by raising champagne flutes high above their heads and echoed his holiday proclamation.  "Feliz Navidad."

If Juan hadn't been the shift supervisor that night he never would have been able to convince the other security guards to join him in a holiday toast.  His gaze shifted effortlessly from one security guard to the next as his smile widened.  "Here's to working on the worst night of the year for a security guard.  We should be home with our families awaiting the arrival of jolly old St. Nick instead of wandering the vacant halls of a museum nobody even cares about."

Juan lowered his glass of champagne into the center of the small circle of men in their dark maroon and grey uniforms.  "Here's to making the best of a bad situation."

The guards responded by bringing their glasses together at the center and creating their own miniature rendition of the carol of the bells.

"Bottoms up boys -- and that's an order."

Juan Miguel had been a security guard for Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology for eleven years and had been a supervisor for five of them.   His seniority with the museum would have made it easy for him to get tonight of all nights off.  But this was a special night and Juan made sure that he was on the schedule.

It also meant that the other security guards trusted him completely and none of them noticed, as they drained their champagne flutes, that he did not drink with them.

In less than fifteen seconds all seven guards were on the floor, their champagne flutes still gripped tightly in their hands.  Juan carefully set his glass on the desk, walked over to the security control panel and pressed a button.

#

The brand-new gray Mercedes 300 D Turbo Diesel idled softly in front of the loading gate of the National Museum of Anthropology.  With a sudden scraping noise the gate rattled back on its wheels as it slid open.  The Mercedes rolled forward silently through the gate and pulled around to the side entrance.  A single door was held open by the lone figure, backlit by the light spilling out from inside the museum.

As the Mercedes rolled to a stop the passenger door swung open and a woman with dark flowing hair down to the small of her back stepped out alone.  She was dressed in a skintight black cat-suit and looked more like a sexy dominatrix then someone who'd masterminded the break-in of Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology.

She smiled an easy and open smile at the man who held the door open for her as if she were meeting him at a Christmas Eve party instead of using him to gain access to the museum.  Once inside she looked around her before finally settling her gaze on the security guard.

"You must be Juan Miguel.  I trust everything went smoothly."

Juan swallowed hard but didn't respond.

"What's the matter Juan?  Cat got your tongue?"

He looked down at his feet and wouldn't meet her eyes.  "The champagne -- they look dead."

"I made a promise to you Juan that nobody would be dying tonight."

Juan finally got the courage to look her in the eyes.  "They fell down so quickly."

"I assure you Juan they are asleep.  Everyone will wake up in a few hours with the worst hangover they've ever had and will remember nothing about what happened."

"What about me?"

She gave him her warmest smile.  "The reason I am so successful at what I do Juan, is that I keep my promises.  Now that I'm inside you'll drink your champagne and wake up with everyone else in the morning.  In one month you will receive a letter with the access and security code to a numbered Swiss bank account containing two hundred and fifty thousand American dollars."

Without so much as a thank you Juan hurried off into the darkness of the museum.  She'd never expected a thank you, he was far too nervous.  But he'd done everything she needed and the payment of a quarter million dollars was a small price to pay for his silence.  She always made it a personal goal to refrain from killing everyone that came in contact with her.  It was messy and almost always unnecessary because no one person had enough information about her to be of any use to the authorities.  Besides, even if he did talk, Juan had no idea what was really taking place tonight.   In her organization the left hand almost never knew what the right hand was doing.

She stepped outside the door and motioned to the Mercedes.  The engine stopped and four men got out.  Two of the men were decidedly much smaller than the others and appeared exceedingly tense.  They were also the only two who carried medium-sized suitcases.  As they approached she addressed the two nervous men directly.  "Gentleman you have exactly 20 minutes to fill those cases with as many artifacts as you can carry.  You must then leave on foot and I never want to see either of you again."

The reason for the short time frame was not because of any alarm system, which hadn't functioned in the museum for nearly three years, but because it was important that the left hand never found out what the right hand was doing.

In thirty minutes the Soviet-made Mil V-12, the only helicopter capable of carrying a twenty-four metric ton load, would be bringing an exact replica of the only reason she was here tonight.

As the men quickly removed panes of glass from display cases the woman clad all in black stared up at the only artifact the museum thought was safe from theft, if only because of its sheer size and weight.

It was not easy to convince the Mikhail Leontyevich Mil helicopter plant near Moscow to let her borrow one of the only two Mil V-12 helicopters in existence.  But with the increase of the Soviet military focus in Afghanistan, and a few million rubles provided to the owner of the helicopter plant, she was now able to steal  something that the world was convinced could never be stolen.

As she stared up at the sparsely lit artifact, Hannah knew that her mission was nearly complete.  With the Aztec Calendar Stone in her possession it wouldn't be long before she extracted the treasure encased inside.