The jewel is already in Valerie’s hands when everything unravels.

At first she notices movement across the hall - yes, a figure. She steps back into shadow watching and sees Silver, her buyer's watcher - what the fuck is he doing here, fucking idiot! She watches him cutting across the gallery floor with the confidence of someone who believes the building belongs to him. Her blood runs cold. That corridor isn’t on any of the blueprints - she had to pay her informant to get the information about the infra-reds over there. That Idiot's going to set them off! She steps out of shadow and waves, "Stop, stop" she mouths, but the idiot just grins and keeps on moving.

Exasperated now, she calls in a loud whisper “Stop, infra-red” he hand goes up sharply signalling him to halt.

Silver looks at her perplexed, hesitates just long enough for the security patrol to round the corner. He sees them, swears, rushes... and the sensors scream to life.

The alarm detonates through the museum.

Valerie doesn’t freeze. She moves. The jewel drops into her pocket as she pivots and runs vertical, boots finding purchase on decorative stone and maintenance seams that she memorized weeks ago. Shouts erupt behind her. Three guards break after Silver. Three more chase her. She hears a gunshot and a scream but she doesn’t look back. Looking back gets you caught.

She bursts out into the night sky runs to the edge of the high building and looks over ready to begin abseiling down but there's a wall of red and blue. Police everywhere and so fast. Too many. The perimeter already closing. Valerie's options are down to one back across the roof the way she came and down the back face of the building. No chance to drop down on Mionne from the roof of the Hotel. She reaches the pavement and cuts hard toward the riverside quarter, breath burning, feet pounding stone, the city suddenly hostile and loud. Sirens, drones and armed police. There’s no clean exit anymore.

She brings her comm to her mouth with shaking hands. “Peach,” she breathes. “Pickup is burned. Meet me on City Bridge. I’m coming up from the river.”

She vaults the railing without slowing and hits the water feet-first, shock punching the air from her lungs. The icy water, cold and black. Valerie swims hard, low and silent, letting the current carry her toward the shadowed piers beneath City Bridge.

When her fingers finally find stone, she clings there, gasping and soaked to the bone. She feels the chill from the river setting in her bones and begins to climb.

Then she kills the channel and starts moving.