Free Master Thieves by Stephen Kurkjian

there anyone else here with you?” the shorter of the two asked Abath.
    â€œJust one other,” Abath responded. “He’s on his rounds.”
    â€œGet him down here, immediately,” the short officer demanded.
    Abath grabbed his walkie-talkie and called Hestand to come back to the security desk.
    Just then Abath noticed that while both had mustaches, the one on the taller of the two seemed fake. In fact, it looked pasted to his face. But before he got to look more closely, the shortest of the pair leaned toward him.
    â€œYou look familiar,” he said accusingly to Abath, squinting his eyes. “I think we have a warrant out for your arrest. Come out from behind the desk and show us some identification.”
    Abath had had no brushes with the law and knew he had no warrants, but his immediate concern was that if he didn’t comply, he’d be arrested and have to spend the rest of the weekend in jail. If that happened, he knew he’d miss those Grateful Dead concerts in Hartford.
    He stood up and stepped away from the security desk. It would be Abath’s second grievous error in judgment. First he’d broken protocol by letting the officers into the museum. Now he was facing them, unarmed and outmanned.
    In a matter of seconds the shorter man had steered Abath to a nearby wall. He forced him to spread his legs and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him.
    Wait a minute, Abath thought to himself. He didn’t even frisk me.
    It was at that moment Abath knew the two men he’d let into the museum weren’t police officers. They hadn’t come to investigate a disturbance. They were there to rob the place, and he had allowed it to happen.
    Abath had his face to the wall when Hestand walked into the room and heard him ask why he was being arrested. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the taller of the two men had turned Hestand around and was putting handcuffs on him.
    â€œThis is a robbery, gentlemen,” one of the men said almost matter-of-factly. “Don’t give us any problems, and you won’t get hurt.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” Abath responded sharply. “They don’t pay me enough to get hurt.”
    The thieves quickly wrapped both men in large strips of the duct tape they’d brought in with them, covering even the watchmen’s heads and eyes. Then, without asking how to get there, the two men led the hapless guards to the basement. They seated Hestand beside an unused sink, which he was then handcuffed to. Abath was led down a long, narrow corridor to a workbench, where the intruders seated and handcuffed him as well.
    After relieving them of their wallets, the thieves told each man, “We know where you live now. Do as we tell you and no harm will come to you. If you don’t tell them anything, you’ll get a reward from us in about a year.”
    You people have no interest in doing anything for me now or a year from now, Abath thought to himself, as he tried to relax asbest he could, getting accustomed to being handcuffed to the sink with the duct tape still covering his eyes and face.
    While the thieves went about wreaking havoc inside the museum, Abath’s mental state went from boredom to terror. He knew these guys were serious and that they certainly didn’t intend to get caught. With that in mind, Abath figured they’d likely set fire to the place before they left, and he began to panic. He began to sing, almost chant, Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” over and over again: “So I remember every face, of every man who put me here.”
    Even so, when Boston police later asked him what the men looked like, Abath could provide only the sketchiest of details. One of the thieves appeared to be in his late thirties. About five feet, nine inches, slim with gold wire glasses and a mustache, though that was probably fake. The other looked to be in his early thirties, six feet tall and