Before Baron Julian von Vane could scramble out of the gray slush on the bank carpet, a violent crash shattered the crisp morning air next door.
The reinforced crystal display window of the Vane-Patek Grand Horology Salon—Lombard-Vane’s flagship watch boutique right beside the main bank—exploded outward onto the sidewalk in a shower of glittering glass shards.
Pedestrians on Rue du Rhone jumped back with startled cries as a twenty-one-year-old youth in a leather watchmaker’s apron flew through the jagged frame. He hit the icy cobblestones shoulder-first and tumbled three times through the snow before skidding to a halt at the edge of the bank’s heated red carpet.
Lin Mo stepped out through the brass archway of Lombard-Vane, with Sister Clara, Su Wan, Dr. Gu Qinghe, and Tie Niu right behind him.
On the snow-covered pavement, the young watchmaker groaned and pushed himself up onto his elbows. His knuckles were split, swollen, and bleeding dark crimson against the white snow, as though someone had slammed a heavy drawer shut on his fingers.
Even as his hands shook with pain, the boy lunged forward across the ice to shield a battered walnut-wood tool chest that had been thrown out after him.
Through the shattered boutique doorway strode a portly, silver-haired man in a velvet-collared waistcoat with a gold magnifying loupe clipped to his spectacles. Two burly boutique security guards flanked him, holding heavy brass-headed canes.
