The choice bewildered him. Although the rooster was worth twenty million dollars, it was hardly among the most valuable, beloved, or legendary pieces in the room. In fact, there were very few people who knew the real rooster wasn’t still on display in the Smithsonian. So why take the rooster and nothing else? Why take it at all?
Carter left the gallery, closed the secret door, and returned to the casino, settling in front of a slot machine.
Deposit the coin. Pull the arm. Let the wheels spin. Deposit the coin. Pull the arm. Let the wheels spin.
Carter repeated those actions robotically, establishing a mechanical rhythm that controlled his anger and allowed him to think clearly about the theft. Why the rooster? Why now? He could think of only one party that would want the rooster that badly. China. They’d recently found the missing bronze rabbit, and he was guessing they were determined to complete the collection.
First order of business would be to verify that his guess was correct. Second would be to determine the present location of the rooster. Perhaps he could somehow steal it back. Third order of business would be to make everyone involved pay dearly for their transgression. The full worldwide resources of BlackRhino would be devoted to it, starting now, until he had heads he could put on spikes.
It didn’t take long for Carter’s assistant, Veronica Dell, to get him the answers to his questions. A simple Google search turned up the news that Stanley Fu was in D.C. taking possession of his latest automotive toy, and would also be returning the treasured bronze rooster to China.
Twenty minutes later, Carter had one of his best operatives in the air, on her way to D.C. Alexis Poulet was perfect for the job. She was beautiful. She was smart. She was tough. She could kill without remorse. And she had the added advantage of being able to recognize the thieves, since she’d done surveillance on them when they were in Palm Beach. Carter would plant her on Fu’s plane, and she would have to figure it out from there.
Nick and Kate sat in Nick’s hotel room and studied Bolton’s files. Nick went over the schematics of the safe that held the fake rooster, and moved on to the floor plan of Fu’s A380 Superjumbo. It was a triple-decked wide-body aircraft with a wingspan so large, it exceeded that of a Boeing 747-8 by nearly forty feet.
Passengers entered the plane through a three-story lobby featuring a floating spiral staircase that led up to the second and third floors. It was just a taste of the opulence to come. Fu’s suite was on the top floor, along with four mahogany-appointed staterooms with private baths, a gym with changing rooms, and a luxurious guest cabin with thirty first-class seats that fully reclined into flat beds. The second level had a conference room, a library for quiet relaxation, and a nightclub with a giant video screen in the dance floor that mimicked transparent Plexiglas by showing the ground passing thirty thousand feet below. The lower level had a chef’s galley, a wine cellar, and a vast cargo hold that doubled as a flying garage for Fu’s Rolls-Royce. The cargo hold was also where the safe was stowed.
It was 10 P.M. by the time Nick and Kate had gone through all the material in the Walmart bag. Kate was working her way through a Snickers bar she’d found in her suitcase, and Nick was casually flipping through the auction catalog for Fu’s new car.
“I can see why Fu rushed over here for this,” Nick said. “The ’69 Dodge Charger Daytona was a beautiful beast, the original winged warrior.”
He held up a picture of the curvy two-door coupe, with its front end that tapered down into a shovel point and a trunk that was topped with an enormous, staple-shaped spoiler.
Kate finished off the Snickers. “That may be the ugliest car I’ve ever seen.”
“But it was the first car in NASCAR history to break two hundred miles per hour at Talladega. Chrysler only made seventy of these monsters with 426 CID Hemi V-8 engines, and this is one of them. It was a steal at three hundred thousand dollars.”
“It’s not stealing when you pay for it.”
“It is when you pay much less than an object is worth.”
“That’s called a bargain.”
“Otherwise known as a successful swindle.” Nick tossed the catalog on the bed. “There’s no way we can swap the fake rooster with the real one before Stanley Fu leaves D.C. But we can do it before he gets back to China.”
It was almost midnight when Kate parked in front of Gelman’s Haberdashery. The shop occupied the first floor of a handsome brownstone near Dupont Circle. Drapes were drawn on the bay windows, and there was no sign that lights were on beyond the drapes.
Nick was riding shotgun next to Kate, ending a call with the concierge at the Park Hyatt Shanghai. “Xièxiè ni wo de péngyou,” Nick said, and pocketed his phone.
“Well?” Kate asked him.
“Great news. Not only did I get my favorite ninety-third-floor suite, but the concierge got me a table at Ultraviolet. A dinner reservation there is harder to get than a Qing Dynasty bronze animal head.”
“I’m afraid we’ll be dining at Tilanqiao Prison if this all goes wrong. So tell me again why we’re visiting a tailor shop that’s closed for the night?”
“Washington, D.C., is the capital of the Free World. It’s also the city with the most spies on earth. So naturally there’s a robust underground economy that caters to their unique needs, which aren’t that different from mine. This is one of those black-market businesses.”
Kate followed Nick up the short walkway to the front stoop and waited while he rang the buzzer. Two short bursts, one long, and one more short. The door was opened by Zev Gelman, an old man shaped like a question mark, his spine curved forward by age, bad bones, and too many years spent hunched over a sewing machine. His big glasses made him look bug-eyed, he wore a mis-buttoned cardigan sweater and corduroy pants with breadcrumbs in the grooves. He leaned on a gnarled walking stick that could have belonged to Yoda.
“Nick Fox, international fugitive,” Gelman said. “You don’t look like a man on the run.”
“Have I ever?”
“That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re always relaxed. The Bing Crosby of thieves.” He studied Kate. “And who is this?”
“An associate.”
Gelman shuffled back a few steps and Nick and Kate came inside, closing the door behind them. The room they entered was richly paneled with wood and had a masculine old-world British feel. A wide assortment of men’s shirts, trousers, ties, and socks were neatly folded and stacked on shelves behind a central counter with bolts of fabric laid on top. There was a display case full of hundreds of different kinds of buttons, as well as a large mirror and two red-curtained changing rooms. Another red curtain covered the entry to the sewing room and the stairs.
“Bing Crosby? Really?” Nick asked. “That’s who you see when you look at me?”
Gelman gestured at Nick’s reflection in the full-length mirror. “Who do you see? Pitbull? Jay Z, maybe?”
“Do you even know who they are?”
“Just because I’ve had a hip replacement doesn’t mean I’m not hip. What can I get you?”
“I have to get into a safe. A Hemmler J507.”
“That’s a real nutcracker. The lock’s wheel pack is protected by a cobalt-vanadium hardplate embedded with tungsten carbide chips that’ll grind down most drill bits. But you don’t have to worry about that, because you’ll never get to it. The plate is behind glass as thin as Saran Wrap that will jam the lock with spring-loaded bolts if it’s broken. So you’re going to have to drill from the back of the safe to get at the lock mechanism from within. You’d better hope there isn’t a thermal sensor inside that’ll jam the locks the instant the interior is breached. Or you could just blow the safe open and hope you don’t destroy what’s inside.”
“All of that is too complicated, messy, and noisy,” Nick said. “I’m going to open it using the combination.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“I don’t have the numbers.”
“So you’re shopping for an autodialer
rig and the software algorithm to crack the combination. That’s top-of-the-line. It’s going to cost you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Nick took out his iPhone, went online, and with a few taps of his finger wired $150,000 to Gelman’s Antigua bank account. A moment later, there was an electronic chirp from the pocket of Gelman’s cardigan sweater. Gelman fumbled around in his pocket and brought out his own iPhone, along with a half roll of Tums and some lint. He glanced at the screen. The transfer was confirmed.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” Gelman said.
Gelman dropped the phone back into his pocket, shuffled up to the mirror on the wall, and pressed something behind the frame. Instantly a thin green beam of light shone from the glass and scanned Gelman’s right eye. A retina identification system was built into the mirror.
“I’ve got to get myself one of those,” Nick said.
“They can be a pain in the ass. I got cataracts last year, and this damn thing locked me out. I couldn’t get in again until I had eye surgery.”
Nick heard a series of bolts retract behind the wall, which slid open to reveal a showroom clad in sheets of polished metal. An astonishing array of weapons, surveillance devices, explosives, locksmith tools, and many devices Nick had never seen before were displayed within staggered, individually illuminated cubbyholes of various sizes. There were four flat-screen monitors, with mice and keyboards, swivel-mounted on a glass-topped counter in the center of the room. Gelman, Nick, and Kate stepped inside.
Gelman pointed his walking stick at an aluminum briefcase in a high cubbyhole. “The dialing rig is in there. You run it with your smartphone.”
Nick pulled down the case. It weighed about ten pounds. “Convenient.”
“Give me your iPhone,” Gelman said. Nick handed it to him and the old man plugged the phone into the keyboard on the table and hit a few keys. When the safecracking app was downloaded onto the phone, a stream of code flashed up on one of the monitors.
“The Hemmler has a six-number combination,” Gelman said. “Even with the machine doing the safecracking for you, it will still take hours to determine the combination and get it open.”
“I’ve got the time, but I may be able to shave off a few hours by guessing a couple of the numbers.”
“You’ll be taking a big risk.” Gelman unplugged Nick’s phone and handed it back to him.
“That’s the best part,” Nick said.
Gelman looked at Kate. “And what do you think, missy?”
“Next time I get locked out of my apartment I’ll give you a call.”
Barer Classic Motorcars was on Arlington Road in Bethesda, Maryland, a block south of a Mercedes dealership, an Apple Store, and an Urban Outfitters. The dealership marked the spot where prosperity abruptly petered out. On the next block were a derelict gas station and a string of fast food joints.
Kate parked their rental car at the curb a few feet south of the Barer showroom. She and Nick wiped the car down for prints, left the keys in the ignition, and walked away, each carrying a silver case.
The Barer lot held about a dozen mint-condition Camaros, Mustangs, Firebirds, GTOs, and Cougars from the ’60s and ’70s, chrome and sheet metal lures for suburban husbands in the throes of midlife crisis. The showroom contained more of the same, but the really good stuff was locked away in the garage.
Kate followed Nick around the building to the garage’s back door and watched him pick the lock. They stepped into the pitch-black interior, and Nick turned to the security keypad on the wall by the door. The keypad was pulsing with light, counting down thirty seconds until the alarm went off. Nick typed in a code, and the light stopped pulsing.
“Nice work,” Kate said. “How did you know the code?”
“It’s a VeriSec 9000, the bestselling alarm system in the country for the last decade,” Nick said, closing the door and switching on the lights. “I worked as a certified VeriSec repairman just long enough to get the access codes that all the repairmen use to deactivate alarms for servicing.”
“What if it had been a different brand?”
“I’ve worked for a lot of alarm companies,” Nick said. “Everyone needs a hobby.”
The garage was as clean as an operating room, not a speck of grease anywhere. The tools and machinery gleamed almost as brightly as the three cars parked in the repair bays. One of the cars was the red ’69 Dodge Charger Daytona that was going to be delivered to Stanley Fu’s A380 Superjumbo in the morning.
“I’m having serious second thoughts about your plan,” Kate said.
Nick walked up to the car and opened the trunk.
“They don’t make trunks like this anymore,” he said. “If you take the spare tire out, there should be room for us. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s enough room for the two cases.”
Kate cut her eyes to the cases. “So?”
“So we’re going to have to remove the stuffing from the backseat and create a hidden compartment. It’s an old smuggler’s trick.”
“So old that everyone knows it. It’s the first place they’ll look.”
“Who will? The car is being loaded on the private jet of a highly respected businessman, not onto a commercial flight. It’s not going to be searched. And once we’re in the air, we’re golden. Nobody is going to bother us in the cargo hold. We’ll have eighteen hours of quality time to leisurely crack the combination on the safe, open it up, and swap the roosters.”
“You also didn’t think there would be security measures in Carter’s secret room.”
“Because I was going in completely blind and relying on guesswork. This time I know exactly what we’re dealing with. I have detailed schematics of the cargo hold and the safe, courtesy of the FBI. This is going to be easy.”
“We’re robbing a plane while it’s in flight to Shanghai. You call that easy? As far as I know, it’s unprecedented.”
“That’s the beauty of it. It’s grandiose and simple at the same time. It’s a shame that nobody will ever know we did it.”
“You realize there’s a major flaw in the plan. If something goes wrong, we’ll be trapped with no possibility of escape, arrested on arrival, and tried for our crimes in China, a country known for sentencing criminals to a lifetime of hard labor or execution by firing squad.”
“What could go wrong?”
“Everything.”
“Well, if you’re going to think like that, you’ll never leave the house.”
“There’s a big difference between walking out your front door and breaking into a safe at thirty thousand feet.”
“The difference is that this is a bigger rush,” Nick said. “This morning we were in Florida stealing a twenty-million-dollar artifact right under the nose of an ex–White House chief of staff, and now we’re in Washington, D.C., about to sneak onto a plane to Shanghai to break into a safe. What could possibly be better than this? Nothing. And you know it, too, or you wouldn’t have gone into the Navy or joined the FBI or agreed to partner up with me. You’re a thrill junky.”
“Okay, so I’m a thrill junky. That doesn’t mean I have a death wish.”
“We’ll be fine. Help me out by erasing the security camera footage while I gut the backseat, install a trunk release, and drill some holes so we can breathe.”
He’s right, Kate thought. As dangerous and insane as his plan was, it was also daring and incredibly exciting. Hot, even.
“Someone has to be the voice of reason,” she said, knowing even as she said it that it sounded lame.
Alexis Poulet arrived at Dulles Airport at two A.M. and was met on the tarmac by a young BlackRhino operative from the D.C. office. The man’s name was Bernbaum. He was an ex–CIA analyst, a desk-riding data cruncher and not an experienced field operative. And he wore his Ivy League education like a spray tan.
He’s soft, Poulet thought. I could kill him with my bare hands with less effort than it would take to wash them. This was an important assessment for Poulet, since sh
e judged everyone by how easy or difficult it would be to kill them.
Bernbaum gave her a warm smile, mistaking her appraisal of his potentially fleeting mortality for a different kind of physical interest in him, and began briefing her as they walked to the terminal from the BlackRhino private jet. A cold breeze redolent of jet exhaust whipped through their hair.
“We’ve been able to verify the news,” Bernbaum said. “The Smithsonian has given the Chinese their Qing Dynasty rooster back. A businessman named Stanley Fu is delivering it to Shanghai in the morning. That’s his private A380 out there.”
He gestured to a massive airplane parked on an outlying area of the airport. The plane was painted to appear as if an enormous dragon was wrapped around the fuselage and about to devour it whole.
“Nice ride,” she said. “Where is the rooster now?”
“On the plane, along with Fu and his entourage.”
“He’s on the plane now? But you said that he’s not leaving until morning.”
“He owns two five-star hotels in town, but he’d rather stay on his jet while he’s here. That’s how lavish it is. He’s waiting on some toys he bought here to be delivered, and for the arrival of a dozen senior executives from around the country who manage his U.S. real estate holdings. Fu is bringing the executives on board for a big business meeting he’s holding during the flight. The executives will stay overnight in Shanghai and then fly back to the States on commercial flights. First class won’t seem half as nice after riding on Fu’s flying cruise ship.”
Bernbaum knew only that his boss was interested in the rooster. Alexis knew that the rooster had been stolen from her boss, possibly by the two television producers, and that he wanted it back. How Fu and the Chinese government fit into the picture wasn’t of any importance to her. Nor was it important to her that there were possibly two roosters on the plane, one fake and one real. Her mission was clear. Find the real rooster and return it to Carter Grove.