it starts right now, and here is the cnn special report "the $500 million question, who pull d edf the greatest art heist?" inside these walls, priceless works of art. but also a mystery that has lasted for 25 years. >> i would like to say it is boston's last best secret. >> on march 18th, 1990, $500 million worth of art stolen from a boston museum. the biggest art heist in history. >> this is the creme de la creme of art recovery. >> how did the thieves get inside and get away with 13 priceless pieces? and where are the paintings? >> once they leave, they were never heard from again. >> in his only television interview, hear from the security guard who let the thieves in. was this an inside job.

>> i'm the guy that opened up the door. they're obviously going to look at me. >> who else are investigators looking at, and will the artworks ever be recovered? >> whoever has them, just is waiting for the right time. >> it's the $500 million question, who pulled off the greatest art heist in history? i'm randi kaye outside the isabella stewart gardner museum in boston. this is where it all began, the night of march 18th, 1990. there was a house party at the building behind the museum. after midnight, some young men spotted a car with what looked like two boston police officers. they had no idea that these two men weren't really police officers and no clue that just a short time later these men would pull out the greatest art heist in history. >> i come in, clock in, there

would be two guards. >> rick was one of the night watchman on duty the night of the crime. until now, he had never done a television interview about what happened that night. rick was 23 years old back in 1990. he had been working at the museum for about a year. the guard's shift began at 11:30 p.m. a shift that most nighting was uneventful. >> boring. sit around, walk around basically. one guy would go up and start his round. and then when he came back, he would get behind the desk and the other person would go up. >> on this night, things would be far from boring. during the night shift, there's always one guard manning the computer at the security desk by the side door, the employee entrance, which is the only way into the museum at night. that door was locked. so anyone who wanted to get into

the museum would have to ring the buzzer. the guard on duty could see who was ringing that buzzer through a security camera perched outside right above the door. the camera is in plain sight. if there was trouble, the guard had just one way of alerting the outside world, a panic button at the security desk. but it wasn't so easy to reach. >> you know, the same kind of panic button at a bank, it was up on the underside of the desk. but it was a fairly long desk and the computer that you had to be at to do your job was all the way over to the left and it was almost all the way over to the right. so it wasn't just within arm's reach. >> still, rick never found any reason to use that panic button. that is, until the night of march 18th. that night was unusual from the moment rick arrived at work. he learned his usual partner had called in sick. they couldn't find anyone else,

so they paired him with a daytime gallery guard. >> when i got there, you know, my partner was there. well, i knew him. i didn't know him very well, i knew him from just around the locker room. he was i'm told the only person they could get. so i figured i would take the first round. >> that first round takes longer than usual. the fire alarm goes off for no apparent reason. so does another alarm on the fourth floor. after all that, rick returns. and the gallery guard takes his turn making the rounds. the clock reads 1:24 a.m., and rick is alone at the guard desk. suddenly, the night takes a dangerous turn. >> cops rang the doorbell. and i could see them on the outside camera walking down the

street. i thought they were just clearing drunks off the street. there were a lot of drunken people on the street that particular night. then they stopped and they buzzed the buzzer and i just leaned over to the intercom and i said "yeah." they said boston police, we got a report of a disturbance on the premises. so i buzzed them in. >> that decision to buzz them in is something rick has had to live with for the past 25 years. >> night watchman, against protocol, allowed them into the museum. >> anthony amora is the security director for the museum and an active investigator on this case. he says back in 1990, no one was allowed into the museum after hours. not even police officers. but rick, the security guard, says he routinely would buzz in museum employees after hours, even the director.

>> i was never verbally told that to the best of my knowledge. i know -- i'm sure there was a policy written somewhere, i'm sure it was in there, but it wasn't the culture of the place for the most part. people came in and out of there fairly regularly. i mean, at least once a night we let someone in. >> so it was not unusual for rick to hear that buzzer go off. on this night, rick says he had no doubt it really was the boston police at the entrance. >> they were standing there, in their hats and coats and badges. they looked like police and i buzzed them into the museum. one of them came right over to my desk and one of them stood in the alcove right there, just looking around, which didn't seem particularly odd to me. and he came up to me, the one guy, and they asked me -- he

asked me if i was alone. and i said no, my partner was off doing a round. they said get him down here. so i called him on the radio. >> within seconds, rick's partner joined him at the security desk. >> the cop that was dealing with me turned to me and said, don't i recognize you? i think there's a warrant out for your arrest. can you step out from behind the desk? and i'm sitting there, and i look the way i look, i don't look substantially different other than i didn't have white hair then. and i had my berkeley college of music tie dye on. i was like, okay, i know how this looks. it looks like i put these guard clothes on over my street clothes. >> here rick makes another grave mistake. he steps away from the security desk and away from the panic button. his only way to contact the outside world. his only way to prevent what was

about to happen. >> so i came out from behind the desk and i gave him my driver's license and my security i.d. and i think i was like sarcastic about this, like i really work here. he said, up against the wall, there's a warrant out for your arrest. so i put my hands up against the wall, and he handcuffed me. he didn't frisk me, he just put a cuff on me. that's when i heard my partner saying, why are you arresting me the >> in a matter of moments, they were completely under their control. >> he cuffed me, cuffed my partner and said gentlemen, this is a robbery. denver international is one of the busiest airports

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may be able to get every month free. after two thieves dressed as boston police officers gained access to the museum, they had both night watchmen completely under their control within minutes. there was no time for either of the guards to call for help. and it seemed the thieves knew it. the priceless collection of art in the museum is now theirs for the taking. it's about 1:30 in the morning and it is time for the thieves to get down to business. >> he finished cuffing me and he cuffed my partner and very dramatically said, gentlemen, this is a robbery. just do what we say and you won't get hurt. i said we don't get paid enough to get hurt. that kind of defused the situation a little bit. >> rick abath laughs about this now, but as soon as he was tied up by the two thieves, he

realized how vulnerable he really was. >> i was panicking. i didn't realizes i was panicking but i was completely panicking. >> the thieves lead rick and his partner down to the basement to different areas. rick is taken to the boiler room and cuffed to an electrical box. his eyes and mouth were duct taped and he feared for his life. >> he was afraid that they were going to set the place on fire after they were done. maybe because i was right across from the boiler. but that was my predominant fear was, god, i hope they don't burn the place down. >> he couldn't see, couldn't hear and he had no idea what was happening upstairs. all he knew was that his museum was unguarded and about to be robbed. it all happened so fast, he never had a chance to hit the one panic button by the guard desk. he knew no one was coming to help. did thieves know that as well?

it appears they did, since they were in no rush to get out. >> it is interesting. they took the guards after they handcuffed them and taped them and brought them into the basement. about 24 minutes elapsed before we see them again. >> motion detectors place pd throughout the building picked up their trail for nearly an hour and a half. but that didn't matter. those motion detectors weren't connected to police outside. they only alert the guard sitting at the computer by the entrance. a computer that was now unmanned. >> it is in this hallway where we see the first motion detectors go off. that's how we know that it was 24 minutes. it is about 1:48, they're walking down this hallway together and enter the dutch room. from the dutch room they took six pieces. that's where -- >> including the rembrandts. >> the three rembrandts, the vermir -- the flenk and the

chinese vessel. in terms of dollar value, that's where the lion's share of the theft occurred. >> these all had to be taken down from the walls in the dutch room. the real work had begun for thieves. but as they get ready to remove rembrandt's only sea scape, a high-pitched alarm sounds. reporter steven kirkgen has investigated this case for the boston clo"boston globe" for de. abath told him the alarm was developed to keep visitors from getting too cross to the rem brandt. >> that sea scape, even if you look at prints of it now, images of it now, you will see an etching of rembrandt itself. odd experts, odd specialists, common folk knew that.

they would come up and put their finger close to, point out the image of rembrandt. if they got too close, the alarm would sound. >> he says the thieves then smashed the alarm. >> that was really a compelling little detail to me because it seemed like that worked. that -- if you got too close, the sound would go off. as i went through the rest of the security that was in place at the museum, nothing else was there to guard the museum's valuables. >> like the motion detectors, this alarm was not connected to the outside world. but did the thieves know that as well? because they didn't pack up and leave. they continued on with their crime and they took their time. one thief stayed behind in the dutch room and carefully removed some of the paintings from their matting and frames. although two of rembrandts were

simply cut out of their frames. the other thief headed out of the room, back down the hallway. >> through the italian room, the rafael room, all the while passing incredibly priceless, famous art. rafaels, important chinese pieces, frangelico. walks back through, through the short gallery, where the thief takes five sketches and a napoleonic finial from a top of the flag napoleon's first regiment carried. throughout his actions here in the short gallery he goes back and forth about a half dozen times, again passing things that any art expert would say, my god, these are two rafaels. small and portable. why wouldn't you take those? it is a great mystery to the theft. >> another great mystery is this painting by edward manet. the oil painting was taken from the blue room on the first floor. >> it hung right below manet's

portrait of his mother. it was an 8 x 10. it was in a gold guild frame and it was here. >> though the motion detectors pick up the thieves on the first and second floor, there are no records of anyone entering the blue room -- except rick abath who says he passed through the room that night on his regular rounds before the theft. rick abath says in the time he worked at the museum, the motion detectors never failed. but he also says it wasn't impossible to avoid the detectors. in fact, he knew exactly how to do that. it was a game he used to play at night to help pass the time on his rounds. >> you would walk in all kinds of crazy ways. by going -- some places you'd have to go around the perimeter of the room or right through the center. you'd have to duck down or you'd

have to kind of squat and waddle and do all this different stuff. >> it's something straight out of the movies. like this scene from "oceans twelve". the motion detectors at the gardner museum were not nearly as complicated as that, still, the thieves did seem to know how to evade them. but another question emerges -- why would they bother doing so only in the blue room where they took just one painting? the thieves made off with the printed records of the motion detectors. though they left the computer which saved all the information on its hard drive intact. meanwhile, all this time, rick abath is waiting in the pitch dark, scared to pieces, in the museum basement. as he waited for something to happen next, he suddenly realized someone was staring at him. >> either through the sweating or struggle or both, at some point the duct tape had slipped

down so i could see a little bit of duct tape like that. at one point somebody did kind of check on me. somebody was standing at the end looking down at me but they didn't say anything. and i -- it spiked me up again, i was freaking out again but, like i have to pretend i can't see this person because that would definitely not be good if they realize i can see them. >> rick says he lost track of time and wasn't sure when the thief came to check on him. that was the last he'd see of them. their job was done. but remember video camera perched outside the door with where they entered? the thieves must have known it was there and must have known where it was hooked up to be with because before they left the museum, they made one last move. to be sure nobody ever recognized them. >> there was a point where they kicked open a door, pried open a

door, broke it pretty badly and took the videotape we had. only evidence of what they from the security director's office. >> at 2:41 a.m., the door to the museum opens and closes. and then -- opens and closes again four minutes later. it must have taken the thieves those two trips, in and out, to load up the art. then, just as suddenly as they arrived, the thieves were gone. >> once they leave, they're never heard from again. >> never heard from again. and never caught. rick abath's fear that the thieves were going to burn down the museum proved to be unfounded. the museum was left largely unharmed. but 13 of the greatest works of art, worth about half a billion dollars, were missing. rick says he just remembers waiting and waiting and waiting. police found him the next morning. >> police came around the corner

with flashlight and the guy seemed surprised and screamed out, whoa, we got another one. and i was just like, cut me off this f'n box because my hands had fallen asleep a long time ago. >> reporter: rick was relieved to be found and to be alive, but he knew almost immediately that he was a suspect. >> i knew i would. i mean i opened up the door. you know? i mean once i sat down with the fbi, i think the first thing i said was, what do you want to know? because i knew. i mean i was like, well, i'm the guy who opened up the door. they're obviously going to be looking at me. >> reporter: the fbi certainly was looking at him. was it an inside job? how else could the thieves have pulled this off? and who else did the fbi suspect?

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dawn, and the damage was done. when security guards showed up for their regular morning shift and rang the buzzer, as they always did, they knew immediately something was wrong. they called their supervisor and soon the boston police and the fbi were on the scene. reality sunk in. $500 million worth of art was gone. there was no trace of the thieves. authorities got an idea of what

the bad guys looked like from the two night watchmen. the only ones to see thieves up close. but it all happened so fast. they were tied up and blindfolded within minutes. watchmen rick abath gave this description of the guards to a sketch artist. >> the guy who was dealing with me was kind of taller and skinny. and was wearing this gold-framed like round glasses, if i correctly. he had a mustache. and i remember before he arrested me, that it was -- it looked really greasy. i remember thinking that it was really -- he was using some funky kind of wax on that thing or something like that. it was probably a fake mustache. >> reporter: but the descriptions from rick and the other guard didn't satisfy the fbi. even rick admits the sketch they produced didn't really look like either of the two men.

>> i remember at the time thinking there's no way they're going to catch these people from this. >> unfortunately, that's one of the frustrating aspects of this case. descriptions that were given were very vague, very generic. >> reporter: jeff kelly from the fbi's boston office is the lead agent on this case. without a good description and virtually no other public information about the thieves' identity, the investigators begin to focus their attention on the museum employees. >> these guys had a very -- they had a level of comfort in that museum that really points to the fact that if it wasn't an inside job, they definitely had inside information. >> reporter: both the fbi and the museum security director are stuck on the fact that the thieves spent 81 minutes inside the museum. anthony amore says that is eight times as long as the typical art theft.

>> there was a covert button. just like you would see in a bank. thieves knew somehow that that had to be hit as evidenced by how much time they spent in the museum. >> they weren't at all concerned. >> clearly not concerned that the police were coming. so how they knew that the guard didn't hit that alarm is a mystery to me. >> reporter: but did did the thieves really know the alarms had not been set off? or could that be why they waited a while to start dismantling the art? remember, motion detectors didn't pick up the thieves' trail until 24 minutes after they entered the museum. >> apparently there was a half-hour between -- 20 minutes between when they tied us up and when they actually headed into the galleries to start doing it. i've seen a lot of people questioning, what were they doing? they were probably waiting to see if i did press the panic button. they were probably waiting to see if the cops were going to show up.

>> reporter: according to the fbi, nearly 9 of every 10 museum heists have an inside component. rick abath who let the thieves in was interrogated for days. he also took lie detector tests. he was never charged with anything. and when we talked to him, he maintained he had nothing to do with the heist. and what about the regular night watchman who called in sick that night? rick remembers after he buzzed the thieves into the museum, they asked him if he was alone. >> i wonder if that -- are you here alone? because there were provisions for are a single guard to be there. i have wondered if "are you here alone" meant, do they get anybody to come in? but i don't know. >> reporter: but that night watchman, the one who called in sick, was never charged either. in fact, no museum employee has ever been charged with anything in connection with the crime. though investigators say no one

has been completely cleared either. so with no apparent connections to museum employees, who else could have been involved? notorious art thief miles connor was already a known figure among art thieves in boston. in 1975 he stole a rembrandt from the museum of fine arts. but in 1990 at the time of the theft, he was in jail and no known connections were ever found. mobster david turner from boston also was considered a possible suspect. with various publications pointing out the resemblance between the fbi sketch and turner, but no definitive evidence linking turner to the heist has ever surfaced. whitey bulger, boston's crime boss, was also rumored to be involved. with speculation he stole the artwork in order to smuggle it over to the i.r.a., the irish republican army. >> certainly if you're looking

at boston, which is -- has a huge irish population, and it's not unusual or you wouldn't be incorrect in assuming that there might be some connection to the i.r.a. >> reporter: the justice department has publicly disavowed any link between bulger and the gardner museum. so the search for the thooet -- thieves continue. >> this is the creme de la creme of the art recovery. >> reporter: christopher marinello is an art investigator. he's waiting to see if any of the stolen art comes up for sale. anywhere in the world. after all, if the thieves are after money, they'll try and sell the art so he watches and waits. >> we'd probably be the first ones to know about it. we do explore a lot of leads. we pass on those leads to law enforcement and let them run with it. >> reporter: investigator robert

whitman says whether it comes to stealing art, the actual theft is the easy part. once they have the goods, they need to know how to sell it, without getting caught. >> that's the next step. they're thinking they can sell it just like a car. well, it is not like that. the market for these artworks is very small. >> reporter: according to whitman, nearly all stolen high-end artwork is eventually recovered. investigators continued with their search chasing down countless tips and leads. then, in 1994, a possible breakthrough. that year the museum director received a mysterious unsigned letter post-stamped from new york. the anonymous writer said he had access to the stolen art and would bart e them back for 1% of their value. >> the writer asks for two things. one was that the investigation

stand down. what he meant by that was, he was worried that those people who would help him facilitate the return would get arrested. and if he couldn't assure them fully that no one was going to get arrested here, then the deal was off. and the second thing he asked for was that an indication come from the museum that they were willing to engage the fbi and go for serious negotiations here. >> reporter: the indication the writer asked for was this. the number one printed in the "boston globe" sunday currency table. next to the italian lira. the museum complied and printed the secret signal, and then, they, and investigators, waited. >> a short time later they received a second memo. thank you very much. i appreciate the willingness to

engage. saw the "1." however, i must tell you, that we are still worried that they have not stood down, that the fbi has not stood down. >> reporter: the hot lead went cold, fast. the museum never heard from that person again. but another lead was surfacing. this one pointing straight to hollywood. hey pal? you ready?

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i like to say it is boston's last best secret. >> reporter: boston's last best secret. who stole the 13 works of art from the isabella stewart gardner museum? and where are they now? it is a question that continues to puzzle museum security director anthony amore. what is it about this case that keeps you up at night, that just doesn't sit right with you? >> there were lots of quirky things about it. every time you turn around there is a different interesting fact that you find. >> reporter: one of the biggest questions for amore -- why did did the thieves steal what they did? remember the path of the thieves on the second floor? when they went from the dutch room to the short gallery, they bypassed valuable works of art that were small and portable. and worth a lot more than some

of other art they stole. >> the two big rembrandts and the vamir, these three pieces account for 90% of, let's call it, $400 million, $500 million, of the value. >> reporter: another big question? why did the thieves bother taking the golden finial that sat atop a napoleonic flag. at first it appears they attempted to take the flag but it appears to get too difficult to take down. >> it appeared they wanted that flag real bad. and that's a clue that's been the most interesting. i know the fbi spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. visiting, talking to associations who are involved with napoleonic memorabilia to see was there a bounty for one of these banners? >> reporter: why did the thieves want that flag so badly? is it possible they were given a specific list of artwork to

steal by a collector who especially loved those 13 works of art? that brings us to another theory. one that has been made popular by hollywood. >> $1 million, mr. bond. >> do you think it is possible that they're in some private gallery owned by some eccentric billionaire somewhere like the dr. no type character? >> no. no. the whole idea that a collector's holding on to stolen magnificent works of art all came from that movie "dr. no." the james bond move from 1962. where james bond looks over and he sees a painting hanging on the wall. the painting had been stolen the year before. that actually did happen. in 20 years with the fbi and five years since then doing these investigations, i've never run into a collector who had million dollar paintings that were stolen.

>> anthony amore doesn't buy the dr. no theory either. >> my gut instinct is it is not far. typically when art gets stolen, it doesn't get moved very far. if i had to guess, i'd say it is still in new england. >> reporter: since 2003 the u.s. attorney's office has offered complete immunity to anyone who came forward with information on the paintings. and the museum is offering a $5 million reward. that's a lot of money on the table. so why hasn't anyone come forward? "boston globe" investigative reporter steve kirkgen offers this scenario -- that low-level gangsters were involved and because the fbi started investigating the crime immediately after it happened the thieves were too scared to sell the art. >> they're in a perilous busy. the fbi in the late '80s, early '90s were at war with each other. after they did the gardner, they have to bury.

they have to go back to work, robbing things, robbing people and coming into conflict with other bad guys. these guys don't go to court to settle the scores. they do it with guns. >> reporter: but there is another theory hanging out there. >> the other alternative -- it is a strong one -- is that whoever has them just is waiting for the right time and it is not a question of the $5 million or immunity. it is a question of this individual might get jammed up on some other unrelated crime and he or she might feel this is their trump card to get out of prison. >> reporter: stolen art can be a get out of jail free card for criminals, which is why the notorious whitey bulger was looked at with suspicion for a while. and more recently, authorities searched the home of alleged mobster robert gentile. they found no signs of the art work and gentile remains in prison.

some don't completely buy this theory. former fbi agent robert whitman is one of them. >> my personal opinion, just from experience, i think some of it has been dispersed in different places. i think it is still possible that the vamir and rembrandt could be in western europe. >> reporter: whitman's theory is on a 2006 lead the fbi called operation masterpiece. >> these paintings were surfacing in the south of france at that time and being offered for $30 million at that point. >> reporter: hoping to crack the case, whitman went undercover as an interested buyer. although the fbi recovered over $65 million worth of stolen art during that operation, not a single piece turned out to be stolen from the gardner museum. but that doesn't mean people offering the artwork didn't have it. in fact, they talked about

selling the missing rembrandt, the sea scape and the vemir. >> the case was close to possibly recovering some pieces. the reason i say that is because i worked in this field for almost 20 years at that point. through my experience i think that these people were talking in reality. they were talking about things they really had. >> reporter: but that was nearly nine years ago. and whitman fears the paintings could be anywhere by now. for art crime investigators, this gardner artwork has become the holy grail. >> i think everybody that knows about art theft and art recovery knows these 13 items. they've been widely publicized. i think these pieces are unsaleable in today's marketplace. >> reporter: if that's true, then what will become of them? how will investigators ever find them? with offers of immunity ignored, and the $5 million reward disregarded, the mystery only deepens. ♪

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for 25 years, these empty frames have hung on the walls of the isabella stewart gardner museum, but they are more

evidence of a remarkable crime, they are a sign of hope, place holders for when the paintings return. all of these years, one thing that investigators have not been able to figure out besides where the artwork may be, is how did the mastermind of the art heist may know where the security may be. two watchmen, one panic button, and motion detectors that could be dodged and one motion detector outside. did the thieves have help from inside? would they have been able to pull it off without inside information? suspicion still surrounds the men on guard that night. night watchman rick abbott says that while he does not know of anyone in the museum who would have knowingly tipped the criminals to the lax security setup, it is a topic that he and the other guards spoke about often. >> we talked about not if the

place would get robbed but when it would get robbed. the security was very much a concern. we knew there were no alarms on the paintings, there were no alarms outside of the place except for the panic button. it was definitely a concern. >> reporter: a concern that he and others would speak about in public. >> if you learn about a vulnerability in the security system, and you can tell that, that's what i think happened here. someone who had interest in art made known to the criminal underworld to a gang that he or she was familiar was information that this museum's security system is abysmal, and this is the components of it. and how that person learned of it, whether he or she had a relationship with one of the guards or picked it up at barroom conversation, that is yet to be determined.

and there's another concern. rick says he opened the door for the two tvs at 1:24 a.m. thinking they were cops. but records show he opened and closed the doors 20 minutes before that. he said he was just making sure the door was properly shut, something he routinely did. but that's not part of the training for the guards. could it have been a signal to the thieves to come in? he says no. investigators are also still trying to determine why the thieves took what they did. and a more tantalizing question. >> two doors down was a michelangelo. they walked by a raphael, a 500-year-old bodacheli. to think these were bypassed

when they had amped opportunity to take them. >> and why the golden fenial? unless that's a connection to the lead investigated by the fbi in 2006. that tip originated in the south of france, which could mean the mastermind behind the crime was interested in acquiring napoleonic artifacts, as well as the art. so many questions, so few reliable leads. but the trail may not be as cold as you think. >> we do find there's those two polar extremes. one is a very quickly after the theft we'll locate the work because it's being offered for sale by a criminal or a handler. or art will go underground and we won't see it for a decade. very little in between. >> reporter: christopher

recently recovered a painting stolen 25 years ago. he believes the gardner paintings will resurface. so does anthony amore, who has worked tirelessly to get the artwork back. do you think you're close? >> i do. i've been saying that for a couple years now and people are going to start to wonder about me. it's a slow process. we liken it to a needle in a hey stack, but we're trying to make the hay stack smaller. >> reporter: and it is getting smaller. 25 years after the crime, investigators say they finally know who was behind it. but their revelation leads to more questions than answers. most of the products we all buy

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the identity of two men who stole $500 million worth of art from boston's gardner museum in 1990 remains a mystery to the public. but the fbi now says they know two the two brazen thieves are, members of a criminal organization based in new england and the mid-atlantic. still, even that crucial information suspect enough to find the artwork. >> we have reason to believe the artwork has changed hands several times. >> the fbi won't name their 179s but told us the stolen manet painting was at one point seen in an apartment of reported friend of david turner, who was once singled out for a resemblance of one of the thooe thieves. george reesefelder is now dead,

turner in prison. and no definitive evidence has linked either of the men to the heist. but the fbi tells us no one, dead or alive, has been dismissed as a respect. and the manet remains missing. so securities continue their search. they just want them back in good condition. if the paintings are stashed somewhere, perhaps hidden in an attic or behind a basement wall without the right temperature or humidity, they could be ruined. it's a scenario investigators hate to talk about, because that ending to the story would mean 13 masterpieces are gone forever from public view. but the story is not over. and boston's last best secret is still waiting to be told.

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com benjamin netanyahu opens his lead as the final votes are counted. >> and the u.s. air force veteran accused of trying to join isis. >> starbucks brews up a debate with its latest social experiment. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm zain asher. >> great to have you with us. i'm john vause. this is cnn newsroom. it is 7:00 a.m. right now in israel where new vote totals show prime minister benjamin netanyahu's likudar