The Shell Game Read online

  Now the case was a lot more interesting to her. It wasn’t just a glorified security guard job. She was being entrusted with protecting the FBI’s reputation.

  “What makes you think there’s a risk of theft?” Kate asked.

  “To be perfectly honest, I think the risk of theft is small to none, but Klepper is worried, and he has the Getty worried. Klepper has hired Intertect, a private security firm. They’re going to oversee the transport of the antiquities. I wanted to brief you in private before you met the Intertect agent in charge of the operation.” Jessup hit a button on his intercom and buzzed the receptionist. “Send in John Drake.”

  John Drake was hard, lean muscle packaged up in a custom-tailored suit. He had beach-bum hair, a 007 attitude, and brown eyes that gave nothing away. Kate thought he was the hottest guy she’d ever seen up close.

  “Explain to Special Agent O’Hare why you think the collection is in danger,” Jessup said to Drake.

  “Mr. Klepper fears that Nicolas Fox has been hired by the Peruvian government to steal the collection. Apparently Mr. Klepper has an associate who was relieved of a great deal of money and believes Fox was behind it.”

  “Why did this associate think it was Fox?” Jessup asked.

  “It was a very clever robbery and Fox is known for being very clever.”

  Drake stated all this with authority since he was Nicolas Fox.

  Kate turned to Jessup. “What do we have on Fox?”

  “Nothing. Not a photo or a fingerprint. We know he’s out there, but he targets wealthy, powerful people who don’t say anything when he’s swindled or robbed them because they’re afraid they’ll look like idiots.”

  “The risk is minimal,” Drake said. “We feel confident we can protect the Klepper collection. There’s nothing beyond my client’s paranoia to indicate that Fox is planning something.”

  “I agree,” Jessup said. “I don’t think the collection is in any real danger, but the Getty has made a request and we’re glad to help our friends at the Getty. Agent O’Hare will work with you on the security arrangements and provide you with the appropriate resources.”

  Kate figured that appropriate resources was Jessup’s way of saying as little as possible. This meant she’d probably be the only resource the FBI was willing to provide.

  “I’d like to brief you on the security details, but I’m running late for another appointment,” Drake said to Kate. “I’m staying at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica. If you haven’t other plans we could have dinner at the hotel and run through the operation.”

  “Perfect,” Kate said. “I have a stack of files I need to clear this afternoon and then I’m free. I’ll meet you at seven.”

  Kate thought her blue jacket and tan slacks were perfect for every occasion. The shirt with the barbecue sauce on it, not so much. She made a fast stop at her apartment to change her shirt, slip her feet into dressy flats, swipe on some lip gloss, and she was good to go.

  The Bureau motor pool had assigned her a dented silver Crown Vic with three hundred thousand miles on the odometer. It wasn’t pretty, but it got her to Shutters. The hotel was built to look like a Nantucket estate. Kate loved the massive, rambling gray shingle building, but she thought it fit in with Santa Monica about as well as a Taco Bell in Chinatown. She took the elevator up to Drake’s sixth-floor suite, and restrained herself from gushing over the room. It was about the same size as her apartment. Unlike her apartment, though, it was beautifully furnished and it had a view.

  “Nice room,” Kate said. “The presidential suite wasn’t available?”

  “I didn’t want to overindulge myself.”

  She walked to the open veranda window and looked out at the Santa Monica Pier and the Ferris wheel. She listened to the ocean swells break on the sandbar, and she breathed in the sea breeze. She knew that on the beach below her there were piles of dog poop and signs warning swimmers to stay out of the polluted water, but in the encroaching darkness it was magical.

  The table was set for two and looked suspiciously romantic to Kate. Candles, champagne in an ice bucket, a small vase of fresh flowers.

  “Am I interrupting something?” she asked. “I don’t want to put a crimp in your date plans.”

  “No date plans,” he said. “Just a working dinner.”

  “My idea of a working dinner is a Domino’s Pizza, buffalo wings, and a six-pack of Coke served in a windowless conference room.”

  Drake opened the champagne and poured two glasses. “I asked for a windowless conference room when I checked in, but they didn’t have any available.”

  Kate took a glass of champagne from him and chugged it down.

  Drake grinned and refilled her glass. “I like a woman with a healthy appetite.”

  “Yep, that’s me,” Kate said. “I’m all about appetite.” She took a sip of champagne. “And the job.”

  “You take your work seriously,” Drake said, settling the champagne bottle back into the ice bucket.

  “I do. I was an army brat, and I inherited a sense of pride in a job well done from my dad. I firmly believe in the American flag, apple pie, and upholding the law of the land.”

  “Good to know,” Drake said, picking up an iPad up from the coffee table. “Let me show you the route we’ve planned.” He tapped the iPad and brought up a satellite map of L.A.’s west side. “The antiquities are arriving at LAX on a private jet. They’ll get in at eleven A.M. on Monday at one of the freight terminals along the Imperial Highway.” He pointed to a line of warehouses along LAX’s southern runway and the road that paralleled it. “We’ll transfer the crates under armed guard to an armored truck. The armored truck will travel east on the Imperial Highway and up the northbound 405 freeway to the Getty. Once we’re on the Getty property, their security team takes over. The Getty is basically a hilltop fortress, minus the cannons, so I don’t have any worries at that point.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Kate said. “But I’d like to check out the route for myself and think about how I’d take the shipment from you.”

  He set the iPad down. “You can think like a thief?”

  “I can think like a soldier.”

  “They don’t think alike.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A soldier’s strategy is all about achieving the mission objective, using blunt force and cold precision. But for a con man and thief like Nicolas Fox, it’s also about expressing himself through the cleverness and audacity of his technique. The value of the prize itself is almost secondary.”

  “Theft as performance art? Who’s the audience?”

  “You are,” Drake said.

  There was a knock at the door, and Drake let the room service waiter into the suite. Conversation stopped while the food was set out. Kate was relieved to see steak and french fries. She’d been worried that a guy looking like Drake might have ordered raw fish or snails or duck liver.

  “This looks great,” she said to him, taking a seat. “Tell me about your company, Intertect.”

  “We’re very good at what we do. If I told you more than that I’d have to kill you.”

  Kate paused with her fork in her hand. “That’s usually just a clever thing to say.”

  Nick refilled her champagne flute. “In the case of Intertect it would be death by boredom. We’re not a flashy company.”

  Nick watched Kate march off to the elevator. She was cute, he thought. Earnest, refreshingly unpretentious, full of energy, too determined to be professional to flirt with him. And she was as dedicated to upholding the law as he was to breaking it. She was exactly what he needed in his life. She was going to be fun. He returned to his suite and phoned his three drivers to confirm that the evening’s activity was a go.

  An hour later, Nick and his crew gathered outside the chain-link fence that surrounded the parking lot of Picture Car Universe Inc. Picture Car was in an industrial area of Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley. The fence was topped with razor wire, and the lot was filled w
ith hundreds of vehicles of all kinds.

  Wendy squinted into the dimly lit lot. “What is this place?”

  Nick opened a utility box attached to the chain-link fence and pulled a couple wires. “It’s where Hollywood studios go to rent vehicles for their shows. Fake taxis, police cars, hearses, school buses, ambulances, anything on wheels. You name it, they’ve got it.” Nick closed the box and nodded to Evaristo. “The alarm is deactivated.”

  Evaristo put his bolt cutter to the fence and went to work. “The security is pathetic.”

  “That’s because most of these vehicles are props, cheaply dressed up to look like the real thing,” Nick said. “The rest are retired vehicles on their last legs that were bought on the cheap. They don’t have any value unless you’re a movie maker putting on a production.”

  “Or a con man trying to trick somebody,” Artie said.

  “Still, they could have made an effort,” Evaristo said. “A few armed guards or even a couple vicious dogs would have been nice.”

  Artie gave him a look. “You enjoy fighting for your life?”

  “How else do you know you’re alive?”

  “Try breathing,” Artie said. “That’s usually a good sign.”

  Evaristo made the last cut, a big chunk of fence fell onto the ground, and everyone stepped through the opening and into the parking lot.

  Nick led them past ice cream trucks, army jeeps, gasoline tankers, and fake Model Ts.

  Wendy stopped to admire three identical space-age cars with sleek, aerodynamic lines, bubble-topped cabins, gull wing doors, rear fins with propulsion rockets, and two elaborate laser cannons mounted on their front grills. They were prop cars from Future Spies, a short-lived science-fiction TV series.

  “Let’s take these,” she said.

  “Not going to happen,” Nick said. “We’re after the four armored trucks that are lined up in front of you.”

  Nick had two mechanics waiting in a Culver City warehouse to modify the fake armored trucks to meet his special requirements. The mechanics would then pretend to be Intertect agents on the day of the heist.

  “You’re no fun,” Wendy said. “Can we at least take the laser cannons?”

  “You know they’re fake, right?” Nick asked her.

  “Yeah, but they’re cool.”

  “True,” Nick said. “You can take one. Just one.”

  On Monday, Kate pulled her Crown Vic into the LAX terminal lot and saw that the armored truck was already in place. The sky was bright blue and cloudless, and the morning sun was quickly burning off the remnants of a marine layer. Kate was wearing a field uniform of running shoes, jeans, white T-shirt, and Kevlar vest. And she’d proudly accessorized the outfit with her brand-new navy-with-yellow-lettering FBI windbreaker.

  Drake was beside the armored truck, waiting for her. He was dressed in a dark suit and dark dress shirt and tie, and was flanked by two men who looked like agents from Men in Black. The two men wore black suits, impenetrably dark sunglasses, and matching Bluetooth earpieces.

  Kate parked and approached Drake. “Looks like we’re good to go.”

  “All we need is the plane.” He smiled at her. “We appreciate the FBI’s support.”

  “Thank you, but I doubt you’ll need it. Your team looks competent.”

  Kate understood that her presence was symbolic rather than critical. Klepper had his own crack security team, and it was hard for her to get worked up over this mysterious Nick Fox. She’d even had a brief thought that she was getting punked, but she’d immediately discarded it. She didn’t think she was important enough for the FBI to waste their time playing a joke on her. Even knowing all this, she felt a twinge of nervous excitement. This was the first time she’d been out of her cubicle for something more important than a coffee run. On the off chance that Nicolas Fox was real and stupid enough to make a move on the armored truck, she didn’t want to screw up.

  Everyone turned and watched the midsize private plane touch down and taxi to a stop in front of the terminal. Drake climbed behind the wheel of the armored truck and drove it to the plane while his men in black kept their eyes on the ground crew.

  The back door to the armored truck opened, and two more men in black came out. They exchanged a few words with Drake, and helped to form a security perimeter around the back of the plane. The ground crew opened the cargo hold and unloaded metal cases, not much larger than suitcases, into the rear of the armored truck. The last of the cases went in, two of the men in black climbed into the back of the vehicle with the antiquities, and the doors were closed and locked.

  “Showtime,” Drake said to Kate, as he climbed back behind the wheel of the armored truck. “See you on the other side.”

  Kate ran for her Crown Vic and followed Drake out of the lot, heading east on Imperial Highway. They took the on-ramp to the eastbound 105 freeway. Traffic was light for the next two miles, and the transition to the northbound 405 freeway was easy. There were six lanes on the 405. Drake and Kate stayed in the fifth lane, the one to the left of the slow lane, keeping their speed at a leisurely fifty-five miles per hour.

  An armored truck merged from the Jefferson Boulevard on-ramp into the right lane. The armored truck was identical in every way to the one in front of her, including the license plate.

  A shot of adrenaline burned through Kate’s chest. It would be weird enough to have two identical armored trucks in front of her. Two identical armored trucks with identical license plates were impossible. The intel had been true. There was going to be a robbery attempt on the armored truck carrying the Peruvian antiquities. The second armored truck was going to be used to switch and confuse. She grabbed her phone and called for backup.

  “Agent needs assistance,” she said, and she gave her location.

  Nick swerved into the next lane, as Wendy Rhee, in the second armored truck, took his former position in front of Kate. They were now at the merge point where the traffic from the westbound Marina Freeway spilled onto the 405, and Nick could see that Artie Sondel was right on time.

  Artie merged into the slow lane and quickly took his position beside the other armored trucks. There were now three identical armored trucks traveling side by side in front of Kate on the northbound 405.

  Kate looked at the armored trucks in front of her and knew there were two possible scenarios here. The first was that Drake was being boxed in by the identical armored trucks. The second was that Drake was part of the crew. Either way, she needed to do something to mark Drake’s armored truck before it was lost in the shell game.

  She lowered her driver’s side window, pulled out her Glock, held it as steadily as she could in her left hand, and opened fire on Drake’s armored truck. Her aim wasn’t great with her left hand, but that was okay, the armored truck was a big target, and she accomplished her goal. She’d shot out a taillight and put some pocks in the body of Drake’s armored truck, marking it so she could tell it apart from the two decoys.

  She dropped the gun onto her lap and made a second call to dispatch.

  “Robbery in progress on the northbound 405 freeway at the Marina Freeway interchange. Suspects are driving three armored trucks.”

  A fourth armored truck sped onto the freeway from the eastbound Marina Freeway on-ramp and joined the armored truck herd.

  “Make that four,” Kate said to dispatch. “Agent in pursuit.”

  Nick and the drivers of the three other armored trucks began to weave so that they straddled multiple lanes, creating a traffic blockade. It was a carefully choreographed maneuver. In a quarter mile, or about sixteen seconds, they would hit the Culver Boulevard exit, and then in another three-quarters of a mile, or about fifty seconds, they would hit the Washington Boulevard exit. And then it would all be over.

  Nick called the other drivers.

  “Give me smoke,” he said.

  Wendy, Artie, Evaristo, and Nick flipped the switches that had been installed the night before, and thick billows of gray smoke poured out from beneath
the four armored trucks.

  Blinded by the smoke, Kate reflexively hit her brakes for fear of rear-ending the armored truck in front of her. She could hear cars all around her coming to screeching halts and the metallic crunch of multiple fender benders.

  She lifted her foot off the brake and moved forward cautiously. There were flows to the smoke, which briefly cleared in spots and gave her fleeting, hazy glimpses of the armored trucks and the road ahead. The armored trucks were weaving, switching lanes with one another.

  The shell game had begun.

  An armored truck broke from behind the cloud and took the Culver Boulevard exit, but Kate ignored it. It wasn’t the armored truck marked by her bullets. Drake’s armored truck was still on the freeway. The three remaining armored trucks continued weaving and putting out smoke, but Kate continued to dog the truck driven by Drake. Even with the smoke hanging over the road, she could pick out the truck with the broken taillight.

  Nick had a fix on Kate in his side mirror. He suspected he’d underestimated the junior agent. He’d know for sure in thirty seconds if she followed him off the freeway at the Washington Boulevard exit. If that happened, he had a backup plan. He always did.

  He called Artie. “Are you in position?”

  “Almost,” Artie said. “Are you gonna need me?”

  “I think so,” Nick said. “But be gentle.”

  Kate watched as two of the armored trucks abruptly peeled off the 405 freeway at the Washington Boulevard exit. One of them was Drake’s. She followed him, letting the third armored truck go because she knew it was a decoy.