“Why don’t you stretch your legs?” the pockmarked man said to Nick, with a sweeping wave of his hand to express his generosity. “What can you tell me about this vault?”
“Just some useless trivia,” Nick said.
Nick got up stiffly, cracked his back, and began walking slowly around the set, shaking his arms to get the blood flowing again. Still wearing a red aloha shirt with a surfboard motif, khaki shorts, and flip-flops on his otherwise bare feet, Nick stood in colorful, casual contrast to his host.
“Indulge me,” the man said.
“The building was constructed in the mid-1970s and is occupied exclusively by individual diamond merchants who store their inventory in safe-deposit boxes in the vault, which is two floors underground.”
As Nick spoke and continued circling the room, three more men and one woman came in to listen. The men had the demeanor of thugs. The woman was young, graceful, and stunning, with natural blond hair and emerald green eyes. She would have looked elegant even if she’d been wearing a garbage bag instead of Gucci.
“The vault door weighs three tons, has a lock with a hundred million possible combinations, and can withstand twelve hours of sustained drilling, not that it would ever happen, since it’s protected by an embedded seismic alarm that will go off the moment the drill bit touches the steel. Even if you could get the vault door open, it’s protected by a magnetic field.” Nick pointed to a plate on the door that aligned with another, matching, plate on the wall. “If the field between the door and the wall is broken, the alarm goes off at the police substation, which is only half a block away.”
“That’s true at night,” the man said. “But during business hours, the vault is wide open so the merchants can get to their diamonds.”
Nick nodded his head. “But the interior gate remains locked. It’s opened remotely by security guards stationed in a command center upstairs who watch from a video camera mounted outside the vault door. After hours, opening this gate requires a special key that is impossible to duplicate.”
“The bars could easily be cut with a torch.”
Nick reached up and tapped a matchbox-sized unit on the ceiling. “Sure they could, but that’s not an option. The vault is also protected by a light detector as well as a combination heat and motion sensor.”
“So you don’t come through the door,” the man said. “You tunnel in.”
“The room temperature is maintained at sixty degrees Fahrenheit at all times,” Nick said. “An increase of more than five degrees in the ambient room temperature will trigger the alarm.” Then he added: “Oh, and there are also seismic sensors in the floor and the walls to prevent tunneling your way in.”
The man nodded, impressed. “You’ve studied this vault before.”
“It would be professional negligence if I hadn’t. I could lose my license to steal.” Nick winked at the woman then looked back at the man. “Frankly, I’m surprised you’re even interested in this. It’s not your style. You’re more of a smash-and-grab guy.”
“You know who I am?”
“It’s not a big secret. Your face is on the wall of every law enforcement agency from Stockholm to Perth. You’re Dragan Kovic, leader of the Road Runners, an international gang of diamond thieves who’ve pulled dozens of jewelry store robberies across twenty different countries in the last decade, stealing two hundred million dollars’ worth of diamonds.”
“Closer to two hundred and fifty million,” Dragan said. “But who’s counting?”
“Your gang’s trademark is driving a vehicle, often an Audi, through a storefront. You’ve also used a FedEx truck, a bulldozer, an ice cream truck, a motorhome, a cement truck, and my personal favorite from your repertoire, a police car. Then you smash the display cases with pickaxes, grab the diamonds, and speed off. You’re in and out of the stores in four minutes and out of the country within two hours.” Nick pointed to the vault door. “But this is different. You can’t drive an Audi through that.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Dragan said. “There’s at least five hundred million dollars’ worth of diamonds in that vault, and we’ve already got clients lined up, waiting impatiently for the stones. You’re the only one with the skills to get us inside. It’s taken us more than a year to find you, and we’re running out of time to pull off the job.”
Things weren’t adding up for Nick. Why would Dragan be interested in a heist that he knew was beyond his team’s skill level? He had been doing the same routine for the past ten years. Why change now? Nick was about to pose the question when a fifth man limped onto the set. His face was covered with stitches, making him resemble a scarecrow stuffed into loose-fitting Versace sweats instead of burlap sacks. His flat eyes looked like they’d been ripped from a doll and glued onto his face. It was the guy who’d attacked Nick in Hawaii, and been tossed through the coffee table.
The scarecrow made eye contact with Nick, did his best to ball his meaty hands into fists, and took a step forward. Dragan cut him off, placing a halting hand on his chest.
“Easy, Zarko,” Dragan said. “You can’t blame a man for defending himself.”
“I don’t blame,” Zarko said, staring at Nick. “I kill.”
“How did you find me when the FBI, Interpol, and just about everybody else on earth with a badge hasn’t been able to?” Nick asked.
“They would have much more success finding crooks if they were crooks themselves,” Dragan said.
The deputy director of the FBI had come to the same conclusion. That was why Nick was now secretly teamed up with Kate.
“We found the forger in Hong Kong who made the ‘Nick Sweet’ passport you’ve been using lately,” Dragan said. “He’s done a few of ours, too. He was an excellent craftsman.”
“ ‘Was’?”
“Sadly it took some persuasion to convince him to help us find you…persuasion which unfortunately left him incapable of forgery or tying his shoes again. However, in the end he was quite generous with his information.”
Nick sighed and shook his head in disappointment. “I’m a thief. Instead of abducting me and threatening me, did it ever occur to you to just politely invite me to participate in one of the biggest diamond heists in history?”
“I like leverage,” Dragan said.
“Five hundred million dollars in diamonds is plenty of incentive for me,” Nick said.
“That’s our money.”
“Minus my fifteen percent commission as a creative consultant.”
“I’m not used to negotiating,” Dragan said. “I’m used to taking what I want.”
Nick turned to the blond woman. “I assume you’ve rented offices in the building, posing as a diamond merchant.”
She smiled, like a child witnessing a magic trick. “How did you know that it was me occupying the office and not Borko, Dusko, or Vinko?” She gestured to the other men in the room besides Dragan and Zarko.
“The Road Runners always use a beautiful, seemingly rich woman to case the jewelry stores that they’re planning to hit, often months in advance,” Nick said. “Why would it be any different now that the target is a vault?”
Her smile widened. “You think I’m beautiful?”
Dragan rolled his eyes. “Litija’s been a tenant in the building for nearly a year. She can go in and out as she pleases during business hours.”
“I have an empty office where I do nothing but sit and watch House Hunters International and Love It or List It from America on my laptop,” she said. “I have a safe-deposit box in the vault that I visit at least twice a day, though all that’s in it is some makeup.”
“But it’s thanks to her that we’ve learned every detail of their security system,” Dragan said, “and were able to construct this accurate re-creation of the vault to try to devise a way in.”
“Impressive, but overkill. Getting in is easy,” Nick said.
Litija was skeptical. “You just told us all of the reasons why it can’t be done.”
“Let me kill him,” Zarko said.
Nick looked at one of the remaining men, who’d said nothing so far, and had a face only a turtle could love. “What’s your opinion?”
“I think we spent too much on your coffin. When Zarko is done with you, it will be easier to bury you in bags.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” Nick said. “What about you, Litija?”
“I’d really like to see you do it, because you’re cute, funny, and are the only person besides Tom Selleck who has ever looked good in that outfit,” she said, gesturing to his aloha shirt and shorts. “But I don’t believe that you can.”
Nick turned to Dragan. “I guess you didn’t share my résumé with them.”
“I don’t ask for advice on my decisions,” Dragan said.
“I’m relieved to hear it, considering the consensus of the room. So let’s make a deal, shall we? Think of me as a willing and eager participant. I’ll even overlook how you got me here.”
“Very gracious of you,” Dragan said. “It’s been a pleasure watching you try to turn this situation to your advantage. I can see why you’re a world-class con man, but it also makes me worry that I’m being swindled. So here’s my one and only offer. You will remain as our guest. If you get us into that vault and out safely with the diamonds, we’ll give you a ten percent cut. But if anything goes wrong, you die. How does that sound?”
“Fifteen percent would sound better,” Nick said. “But I’m in.”
“Excellent,” Dragan said. “What do you need?”
“A car, for starters,” Nick said.
“Cars are not a problem. That’s how all of our robberies begin.”
“I thought you’d appreciate being in your comfort zone.”
“What kind of car would you like?”
“One that can fit in Litija’s purse,” Nick said.
Kate’s dad, Jake O’Hare, was in shorts and flip-flops when Kate handed him his boarding pass.
“I’m going to Antwerp and I might need help,” Kate said. “We have just enough time to get to the airport.”
“Andy’s not going to like this,” Jake said. “We have a one o’clock tee time.”
“Since when would you rather play golf than execute an unlawful extraction?”
“You didn’t tell me the part about the unlawful extraction,” Jake said. “The answer is never.”
Kate had grown up as an Army brat, following her father around the world while he performed “extraordinary renditions” with his Special Forces unit. He was retired now, living with Kate’s sister in Calabasas, enjoying the good life and missing the old one.
“Are you traveling in those clothes?” Jake asked. “They look like you slept in them. Not that I mind, but the TSA might pull you out of line thinking you’re a vagrant.”
Kate looked down at herself and smoothed out a wrinkle in her navy blazer. She hadn’t slept in the clothes, but they weren’t exactly fresh either. She’d kicked through the dirty laundry on her floor this morning and chosen some clothes that looked the freshest.
“I just rolled in from Hawaii and didn’t have a lot of time to put myself together,” she said. Not to mention she wasn’t all that good at the whole pretty-girl thing. She didn’t have time. It wasn’t a priority. She had no clue where to begin. Her father had taught her forty-seven ways to disable a man with a toothpick before she was nine years old, but he hadn’t exactly been a fashionista role model. And clearly she was lacking the hair and makeup gene.
The ten-story Executive Merchants Building was a major repository of the world’s wealth. The building looked like just another 1970s-era concrete and glass box, a place somebody might go to have a cavity filled, a car insured, or a tax return completed. The complete absence of style was the style. The only ornamentation on the building was its array of big, boxy surveillance cameras.
The main entrance was on the southern side of Schupstraat, one of three narrow streets that comprised the “special security zone” in the heart of Antwerp’s diamond district and Jewish quarter. The three streets, Rijfstraat, Hoveniersstraat, and Schupstraat, formed a rigid “S” that began on the northeast corner of the district and ended on the southwest edge. Both ends of the “S” were closed to free-flowing vehicle traffic by retractable steel columns in the pavement that were lowered after vehicles passed police inspection at adjacent kiosks and then raised again after the inspected cars entered the secure zone.
On a Thursday at 11 A.M., three days after Nick’s abduction, Litija walked into the Executive Merchants Building. She sashayed through the marble-paneled lobby and blew a playful kiss to the elderly guard who sat in the control center behind a thick window of bulletproof glass. He waved back at her with a friendly smile as she approached the turnstile that controlled access to the first-floor offices, the elevators, and the stairwell. Litija swiped her tenant ID card over a scanner and walked through the turnstile as it unlocked.
She bypassed the elevator and took the stairwell. She paused on the landing just inside the door for a moment, listening for voices and looking around to make sure she was alone. There were no cameras in the stairwell. No footfalls of anyone else climbing the stairs.
She hurried down to the next landing, crouched beside an air vent near the floor, and took a screwdriver out of her purse. She quickly unscrewed the grill, reached into her purse again, and pulled out a radio-controlled red Lamborghini with a tiny camera taped on top of it.
Litija placed the car into the vent, and it sped off.