“Let’s do this again sometime,” Starke said.
They shook hands and Boyd walked out. As soon as he was gone, Starke called Mr. Wayne.
“The deal is done,” Starke said. “You are now the owner of three new Rembrandts.”
Carter Grove was playing one of his vintage slot machines when Starke called with the good news and the address where the paintings were located.
“I trust you are absolutely satisfied that the paintings are authentic,” Carter said.
“I am,” Starke said, nervous despite his certainty. It was his life on the line. That was never explicitly stated, but he knew it.
“Stay where you are. I have people coming to secure the paintings.” Carter had kept an armed BlackRhino extraction team on call in Manhattan since last night to recover and transport the paintings. He had both air and ground assets in play. He was treating this as a military operation, no different than if he was kidnapping a terrorism suspect from Pakistan for the U.S. government. There was too much at stake if things went wrong. “Do not move until they get there, and do exactly as they say when they arrive.”
“Of course,” Starke said.
Boyd got into the backseat of the Escalade, and Willie drove off to pick up Nick and Joe at the Starbucks on West Broadway at Houston Street.
“That was the best part I’ve ever played,” Boyd said. “I’m sorry it’s over.”
“That’s because you got screwed all night by two five-hundred-dollar-an-hour hookers,” Willie said. “That doesn’t happen when you’re a talking pancake.”
“Of course not. Because it wouldn’t be in character for Percy Pancake.”
“Because you couldn’t afford those women and they wouldn’t do a guy in a pancake suit,” Willie said. “Then again, maybe they would if you paid them the fetish fee on top of their regular rate.”
“I didn’t have sex with those women. Al Mundy did. I was simply playing my part. I’m really going to miss him. I believe there are a lot more facets of that character I could explore.”
“Un-huh,” Willie said.
“You have no understanding of what it means to be an artist,” Boyd said.
They pulled up in front of the Starbucks, and Nick and Joe got in beside Boyd in the backseat.
Willie pulled away from the curb and glanced at Nick in the rearview mirror. “Where to, boss?”
“Four miles away in any direction,” Nick said. “You pick it.”
Nick had carefully sprinkled taggant on all three Rembrandts, allowing the paintings to be safely tracked from five miles away with the special gun. It wasn’t hard for Willie to follow them without being seen.
The paintings headed north on the Henry Hudson Parkway with a chopper following them. When the BlackRhino vehicles got onto the Sawmill River Parkway, Nick suspected they were going to Westchester County Airport to be loaded onto Carter’s jet. Willie followed them all the way, parking on the airport access road until Carter’s plane was in the air.
Next stop was LaGuardia to drop off Boyd and Joe. Their roles in the scheme were over. Joe took a flight from LaGuardia back to Los Angeles, where he was confident now that he could get lucky with one of the women around the pool. Boyd took a taxi from LaGuardia to JFK, where he caught a flight to London. He was planning to spend a couple weeks seeing plays in the West End.
Willie drove Nick and Kate to the private terminal at LaGuardia. They left the Escalade behind for the rental company and boarded a “borrowed” Hawker Beechcraft King Air for the flight to Owensboro, Kentucky.
Kate hesitated at the steps leading up to the plane. “Can Willie fly this?” she asked Nick.
“I hope so,” Nick said. “She’s the only one in the cockpit.”
“That’s not making me feel good.”
“I sent her to flight school,” Nick said.
“So she has a license for this plane?”
“Maybe not a license, but I’m pretty sure she’s got the instructional manual.”
“That’s it. I’m not going.”
“Hey, Willie,” Nick yelled into the plane. “Do you have a license?”
Willie stuck her head out the cockpit door. “A what?”
“License.”
“Sure.”
“She’s lying,” Kate said.
“It’s a short flight,” Nick said. “What can go wrong?”
Twenty minutes later they were in the air and Kate was able to unclench her teeth and loosen her grip on her seatbelt.
“See,” Nick said. “We didn’t even crash.”
“Yes, and since we didn’t die, we need to talk,” she said. “There’s one part of this plan that really worries me.”
“I know,” Nick said. “It’s letting the paintings go and gambling that we’ll be able to find them with the radar gun at one of Carter’s properties. Of all the places he owns, I’m convinced his ranch in Kentucky makes the most sense. If we’re wrong, we’ll go to each one of his other places until we find the right one.”
Kate shook her head. “That’s not my fear. There’s three hundred million dollars in one of your bank accounts. That’s got to be your biggest score yet and an enormous temptation. Tell me you haven’t thought about taking off.”
Nick smiled and did the twinkle thing with his eyes that he knew all women found irresistible. “I know a beautiful island in Indonesia we could buy. We could live a carefree life of unrivaled luxury and total decadence in a tropical paradise on Carter’s money, and my substantial savings, in a country without an extradition treaty.”
“You know I could never do it, but it worries me that you easily could.”
“No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve developed a conscience. You’re a career criminal and this is the score of a lifetime. I know you don’t feel any guilt about stealing the paintings or taking Carter Grove’s money.”
“You’re right, I could live with that,” Nick said. “But not with what might happen to you, or your family, if you don’t deliver me to Carter. I know you’d try to take him out. And you’d have Jake working with you, but even if you succeeded, neither one of you would come out of the experience unscathed. You’d both pay a price and that would be my fault. I won’t do that to you.”
She knew Nick was a con man, that he was a master at manipulating people’s emotions and telling them what they wanted to hear, but against her better judgment, she chose to believe him.
“Okey-dokey then,” she said. “Does this plane have any Pringles?”
Carter Grove flew on a BlackRhino corporate jet into Ron Lewis Field, a tiny municipal landing strip in Lewisport, Kentucky, landing a few hours behind the arrival of the three Rembrandts on the same airfield. He was met by Rocco Randisi, who picked him up in a black Cadillac DTS and drove him the ten miles south to Carter’s ranch in Hawesville.
The ranch was Carter’s getaway. A hundred and twenty acres set amid rolling hills, green pastures, rocky ravines, streams, and thick forests of oak, poplar, and hickory, it comprised a unique variety of habitats that sustained exceptional populations of deer and waterfowl for him to kill.
A narrow country road spilled down a wooded hillside and into the plain where Carter Grove’s rustic eight-bedroom, seven-bath hunting lodge with a wraparound porch stood beside a picturesque five-acre fishing lake. The property also included a metal barn for storing vehicles, a six-stall horse barn and corral, a two-thousand-gallon gasoline tank and fueling station, a game-cleaning facility with meat processing room, and a secret art collection including some of the world’s greatest lost masterpieces.
Randisi drove up the gravel driveway to the main house, which was patrolled by armed BlackRhino operatives dressed in jeans and scuffed boots so they’d look more like ranch hands and less like mercenaries, though nobody in Hancock County was fooled.
Carter got out of the car, bounded up the porch steps, and dashed into the house, heading straight for the great room and
its massive stone fireplace. He pressed a particular stone, and a nearby built-in bookcase opened like an enormous door, revealing a staircase that led down to a storm cellar that had been converted into an art gallery.
The gallery was originally intended to showcase only a few select items, but now the whole collection was stuffed in there, including the three new Rembrandts, which were temporarily on easels in the center of the room. Even now, badly lit and haphazardly displayed amid what appeared to be the clutter of a billionaire hoarder, they were magnificent to behold. The sight actually brought tears to Carter’s eyes.
He respectfully sat down on a step and admired the paintings. It was moments like this that made all the wheeling and dealing, bribery, kidnapping, and killing in his business worthwhile.
Willie buzzed Carter Grove’s ranch before landing in Owensboro. Kate had satellite photos of the property, but she wanted to see it in real time. And Nick wanted to try out the taggant gun. Willie made a pass near the main house, and the gun picked up the taggant.
“Jackpot,” Nick said. “We’re in business.”
“Now comes the fun part,” Willie said. “As soon as I can find the airport, I get to land this thing. Everybody hang on.”
Kate tightened her shoulder harness and bit into her lower lip. The plane swayed side to side on thermals at the low altitude for what seemed like forever to Kate. She squeezed her eyes closed and vowed to learn how to fly so she wouldn’t have to rely on Willie ever again. The wheels touched down, the plane gave a bone-jarring bounce and smacked back down onto the runway, and Kate felt Willie put the brakes on.
“Next time I’m parachuting in,” Kate said.
They rented a Ford Explorer, and Kate had Willie drop her and Nick at the side of the road near Carter Grove’s estate, in a wooded area. Kate had seen an elevated hunting blind from the air and thought it would be a good place to get the lay of the land. It was a half-hour trek to the blind, following a fire road. They reached the blind, climbed the rickety stairs, and looked out at the countryside.
“Carter picked a good spot for his hunting lodge and outbuildings,” Kate said. “He’s put a hundred yards of open field and a lake around them. You can’t get near that house from the woods or the road without being out in the open.”
“True,” Nick said, “but I have a plan.”
“You always have a plan. Where do all these plans come from?”
“This one came from you. When we were in Camarillo you wanted to toss a grenade into Carter’s house and rush in disguised as firemen.”
It had been more of an offhand remark than a plan, but now that she heard it again, she saw the potential, as well as the considerable risk.
“Do you think it could work?” Kate asked.
“I think it’s brilliant. Let’s run with it. You’re in charge now.”
“I’ve always been in charge.”
“Right,” he said. “What I meant was that now you’ll do the planning and organization, and I’ll do the criticizing, worrying, and doomsaying.”
Kate surveyed the property again, as if something might have changed significantly about the topography and security measures in the two minutes since she’d last looked. No such luck.
“If the three of us try this alone, we’ll be killed.”
“Whoa,” Nick said, holding his hand up. “That’s my line now.”
“We’re going to need backup.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any mercenaries on my speed dial.”
“I do,” she said.
They left the blind and retraced their route to the road. Kate called Willie to pick them up, and minutes later they were in the Explorer. Their hotel was twenty miles away, conveniently located off the highway between a military surplus store and a strip club. As soon as Kate got into her room, she gave her father a call and briefed him on her plan.
“We can be boots-on-the-ground in Hawesville, fully equipped, in about twelve hours,” Jake said.
“We?” she said. “Who is we?”
“There’s me, of course, and Walter ‘Eagle Eye’ Wurzel, the best sniper I’ve ever worked with. You remember him. He gave you some shooting lessons while we were stationed in Guam. You must have been eight or nine.”
“I remember Walter. I thought you told me he had cataracts.”
“That was ages ago. I’m sure he’s had them removed by now. But even with them, he could still shoot the whiskers off a kitten from two hundred yards away.”
“He shoots kittens?”
“It’s an old expression. Very popular in Korea. Maybe it hasn’t worked its way over here yet. The other guy is Clay Mandell.”
“You’ve never mentioned him before.”
“Because officially he doesn’t exist and we never worked together. We did some black ops work in the Balkans in the nineties. He’s become a survivalist out in Tennessee, preparing to survive the nuclear winter, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever else comes along. He’s got all the weapons and tactical equipment we’ll need.”
“Is he sane?”
“Reasonably,” Jake said.
“That’s comforting. How much is all of this going to cost?”
“Nothing. They’ll do it as a favor for me.”
“Are you sure? Assuming we get out of this, I don’t want one of these guys calling in his marker and getting you to do something stupid and dangerous because of me.”
“Stupid and dangerous are my specialties.”
“I’m serious, Dad.”
“I’ve trusted these guys with my life many times. All they’d ever ask of me is the same thing I’m asking of them. To help me protect my family from harm. And that’s something I’d gladly do in a heartbeat for any man I’ve ever served with, no questions asked.”
“They may have some, though. What are you going to tell them we’re doing?”
“Nailing the bastard who threatened to kill me, my children, and my grandchildren. That will be all they need or care to know.”
• • •
Kate met Nick and Willie at the lobby bar, which didn’t cater to hotel guests so much as to weary beaten-down locals. Nick and Willie were having hamburgers and beers.
“How’d it go?” Nick asked.
“He’s in,” Kate said, helping herself to a bite of Nick’s burger. “And he’s bringing a couple friends.”
Kate took a list of necessities out of her pocket and put it onto the table in front of Nick and Willie.
“This all looks reasonable to me,” Nick said.
Willie tapped an item on the list. “How are we going to get two sets of official county firefighter’s gear?”
“Arson,” Nick said. “We’ll set fire to a dumpster.”
Willie checked her watch: 9:30 P.M. Nick and Kate had been gone for thirty minutes. Enough time for them to get into place. So she emptied a canister of gasoline into the dumpster behind the hotel, lit a newspaper on fire, and tossed it inside.
Then she went back to the bar and had another beer.
Nick and Kate were parked on Cedar Street, behind the fire station, when the trucks rolled out, sirens wailing, responding to the dumpster fire. Kate drove the Explorer into the parking lot and up to the back door, positioning the SUV at an angle so it blocked the security cameras’ view.
Nick picked the lock on the door and they slipped inside, made their way to the equipment lockers, and helped themselves to a driptorch and two sets of firefighter gear, including masks, helmets, axes, and regulators. They were in and out of the fire station in less than five minutes.
“Stealing equipment from a small-town fire station is such an easy, petty crime,” Nick said. “It feels anticlimactic after starting the day in New York selling three stolen Rembrandts and outwitting the FBI.”
“We could break into the International Bluegrass Music Museum,” she said. “I hear that it’s the Louvre of northwest Kentucky.”
That got Nick’s attention. “What have they got to see?”
?
??I was kidding! I was being sarcastic.”
“Sarcasm isn’t one of your strengths,” he said.
Kate woke up at 7 A.M., showered, dressed, and made her way to the atrium, where free biscuits and gravy were being served poolside. Willie and Kate’s father were already seated at a table. Jake was casually dressed in a bowling shirt, jeans, and Top-Siders and didn’t look like a man who’d just traveled halfway across the country in twelve hours.
“You got here fast,” Kate said to her dad.
“I got a friend to fly Walter and me to Nashville last night. It’s only about a four-hour flight. We met up with Clay and drove straight here. But if you’d told me that Willie Owens and a plate of hot buttermilk biscuits would be waiting for me, I’d have got here even faster.”
“I like that kind of talk,” Willie said.
Kate wanted to throw biscuits at both of them. She’d woken up feeling grumpy, and they were way too cheerful.
“Where are the guys?” Kate asked.
“Clay is in the pool,” Jake said.
Kate turned and saw a bearded old man who looked like Santa Claus six months into a liquid diet. He was rail thin and swimming laps in his tighty-whities.
“He’s swimming in his underwear,” Kate said.
“You’re lucky I was able to talk him into swimming in anything at all,” Jake said. “Walter is over at the buffet.”
Walter was in his late sixties and wore a pair of large-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses and a white patch over his left eye. He was dressed in cargo shorts, white tube socks, and leather sandals with Velcro straps. An untucked short-sleeve shirt did nothing to hide his big belly. He was busy collecting biscuits, stacking them onto his plate like poker chips.
“That’s Eagle Eye the master sniper?” Kate asked. “The guy with the thick glasses and an eyepatch?”
“He’s having some thyroid problems that give him double vision, so he’s got to wear the patch,” Jake said. “But his good eye is fine.”
“How do you know which eye is his good one?”
“It’s whichever one isn’t patched,” Jake said.