Stone 588 (43 page)

There now, where the duct had been disconnected, was the ventilation grate in the ceiling of the vault. Ten inches in diameter. It was made of quarter-inch steel set down in and welded to the thicker, impregnable six-inch cadmium-steel ceiling. The uneven ridge of the seam where it was welded was plainly visible.

Strand handed the portable acetylene equipment to Scoot. It consisted of a pair of small capsule-shaped pressure tanks that weighed about seven pounds each. The paired tanks were connected to a mutual fitting. A built-in gauge indicated they were full. The contents of the tanks were premixed in the proper ratio of oxygen and acetylene.

Scoot threaded the flexible hose onto the fitting, tightened it firmly. Springer took a wooden match from a small waterproof container, struck it, and held it to the tapered metal nozzle of the torch. Scoot turned the valve that allowed the gas and oxygen mixture to flow.

With a potent plosive sound that was nearly a pow! the torch ignited. Scoot adjusted it, changed its flame from merely hot yellow to more forceful, hotter blue. Over his many years of swifting he had worked often with such torches. He directed the torch to the welded seam of the circular vent grating, kept the 3400 degrees Fahrenheit point of the flame just inside the circumference where the steel was surely no more than a quarter inch thick.

He cut through it.

All the way around.

The grate fell nine feet to the hard vinyl floor inside the vault, landing with a dull ring, like a frying pan being dropped in a kitchen.

Strand had the six-volt lanterns ready, tied by their handles to lengths of climbing rope. He lowered them into the vault one at a time, swung them, tugged, and otherwise maneuvered them to get them placed where they would provide the most light.

Springer looked down through the opening. Saw, on the left and the right, the vertical rows of drawers, not much different from how he'd pictured them according to what Strand had said.

Townsend's goods.

In one of those drawers. Springer thought, would be stone 588, or, as Springer saw it, in one of those drawers, only six or seven feet away but still beyond reach, was Jake's life.

They changed their gloves now, put on the surgeons' gloves.

Audrey got the foot-long lengths of quarter-inch pipe from Springer's vest. All twelve. And the ten straight connecting joints. They'd been wrapped in the red flannel to prevent them from clanging against one another. Audrey laid them out on the floor in the order they would go.

The male threads on the ends of the sections of pipe were well greased, so the female threaded connectors accepted them smoothly. Springer attached six sections end to end in this manner. What he had then was a shaft of pipe nearly seven feet long.

To the end of that he threaded on the flexible joint, and to that joint another section. Last to be connected was that section of pipe to which Scoot had welded the two-inch bolt. Scoot had also welded a steel eye to that last section, close to the end of it near the bolt. And similar eyes were positioned on the third section up from the flexible joint and the sixth.

Springer tied the picture wire to the first eye, making several sure, tight knots. He ran the wire up through the second and third eyes and that was done.

He tried it.

By pulling on the wire that ran up the shaft he was able to work the flexible joint and bring the lower sections of pipe up to whatever angle he wanted. It functioned like a human arm: the long shaft being the upper arm, the flexible joint the elbow, the shorter part the forearm.

Springer had gotten the idea for it by recalling the armlike extension that had held the television set in Jake's hospital room at Sloan-Kettering. While in the meadow in Sherman working out how it would function, they had come to call the device "the reacher," and that had stuck.

The reacher was complete now, ready to do or not do. Except for the one most important thing.

The magnet.

The woofer magnet was not an ordinary magnet by any means. It was made of SmCo6, samarium cobalt, the most magnetic substance known. It was round, three inches in diameter, one inch thick. Inset with threads on one side.

Springer screwed it to the two-inch bolt on the end of the reacher.

Now the arm had a hand.

Springer inserted it down through the hole, into the vault. One of his hands held the shaft, the other had hold of the picture wire. He pulled upward on the wire. The elbow flexed. He directed the shaft and maintained tension on the wire. The little practice he'd had in the bam in Sherman had helped.

Slowly, relying greatly on his depth perception, he guided the magnet toward the metal face of one of the drawers.

A crucial moment.

All their efforts might be for naught.

Everything depended on the faces of the drawers, what kind of metal they were made of. If they were stainless steel, nickel or chromium-based steel, the magnet would touch and slide off, unattracted. However, if the faces of the drawers were iron-based steel . . .

It was one of the things Strand couldn't possibly have known, that would just have to go their way.

Springer maneuvered the magnet still closer to the face of one of the drawers. Now it was only eight inches from it. Then three.

When it got within two inches Springer felt a sudden tug on the reacher, like the striking of a trout. He also heard a single definite chunk

The magnet had hard hold of the face of the drawer.

Springer breathed easier and thanked whoever had early on impressed Townsend with frugality. These drawers had been saved from the original vault. Had Townsend chosen to spend for an entirely new vault outside and in, the faces of the drawers probably wouldn't have contained a trace of iron.

Springer now reversed the direction of the reacher and at the same time kept tension on the wire. He had to go a lot by feel. It was somewhat like playing a fish.

The drawer slid out a few inches. Then, with more pressure from Springer, it came completely out of its slot. It was one of the smaller drawers. It weighed about five pounds.

Scoot took charge of the wire, maintained tension on it, as Springer drew the reacher upward, section by section. Held fast by the samarium cobalt magnet, the drawer was brought up to the ceiling of the vault and the mouth of the hole.

Audrey reached down in and removed its contents.

Watches.

Diamond-embellished wristwatches of various styles by Piaget, Le Coultre, Audemars Piguet. About a dozen altogether, lovely and valuable but under these circumstances unwanted. They bore serial numbers on the backs of their platinum or gold cases, were thereby traceable.

Audrey took them over to the workbench to Strand. That was the system they had settled on beforehand. Springer and Scoot would operate the reacher. Audrey would pick up from out of the drawers and relay to the workbench, where Strand would decide on what would be left behind. It had been agreed they would take only loose stones and not even any of those that by their large sizes or special cuts might be identifiable.

After the merest look Strand tossed the watches to the comer of the floor to the right of the workbench. Rougher treatment than they deserved.

Springer reached down in and pushed at the empty drawer, attempting to separate it from the magnet. More than a push would be required to break this magnet's hold. He ended up having to punch at the drawer sharply. It dropped and clanged to the floor of the vault.

The time was eleven thirty-seven.

They had about four and a half hours to work the vault. The sun would rise at a few minutes after five. To be on the safe side they had to allow at least an hour to get up those ropes and across the roofs, and even that might be cutting it a bit close. There were a hundred drawers: ninety-nine now, to be exact. Allowing only three minutes a drawer. Springer still wouldn't have time to get to them all. He probably wouldn't have to, he thought. Stone 588 could be in one of the first few drawers he brought up.

Inspired by his own optimism, he went fishing for another drawer. Not randomly. The drawers closest to the floor had to be first, otherwise, later on, when the empties piled up in the vault, he wouldn't be able to get to them.

He knew now that he had to be precise with the magnet. If it latched onto anything immovable such as the metal frame that formed the slots for the drawers, he might not be able to pull it free. Carefully he maneuvered the reacher, manipulated the wire. The magnet chunked solidly onto the face of one of those bottom-most drawers.

Springer drew it out and up.

This was one of the larger drawers. It weighed ten to twelve pounds. In it were several shallow leather boxes, gold-stamped with filigree and initials. Springer recognized them for what they were: Vintage boxes of the sort leading jewelers such as Cartier, Schlumberger, and Chaumet once used to present their better merchandise. Each box especially made to fit a particular piece.

Audrey gathered them up and carried them over to Strand, and now he had something to get busy on.

Nestled comfortably in the silk lining it had impressed with its exact shape for sixty-some years was a ruby and diamond parture: necklace, bracelet, ear clips, and brooch. The necklace consisted of twenty cushion-cut rubies of seven carats each and a centered, featured ruby of fifteen carats, all intricately surrounded by diamonds, both round and marquise cuts. The rubies were unmistakably Burmese, of finest quality; the diamonds matched and were equally fine.

Strand knew he was looking at four million dollars. The fifteen-carat ruby alone was worth a million and a half. No time to count profit, he told himself, and brought down in front of his eyes a double-lensed magnifier that was attached to a headband. It left his hands free to take up the necklace and a pair of small, very sharp snippers. Magnified three and a half times, the prongs that held the rubies and diamonds in place were easily visible. Strand clipped the prongs away as though he were pruning roses. It was something he'd done countless times. The rubies and diamonds dropped from their settings, tattooed upon the bottom of the Bendel shoe box Strand had found beneath the workbench. When he'd shorn all but the incidental small diamonds from the parure, he tossed the platinum mountings into the comer, the potentially incriminating mountings.

Audrey had already brought him over a case that held a dozen five-carat diamond rings. He had to get going or he'd fall behind.

Up and out of Townsend's vault in a steady flow came the precious things, piece after piece, new and antique, art nouveau and art deco. Diadems and tiaras, lavalieres, tremblantes. Strands of 15 millimeter South Sea pearls, even two strands of that size that were natural black. Opera lengths of Chinese imperial jade. Colombian emeralds, Kashmir sapphires, chrysoberyl cat's eyes and alexandrites.

Hundreds and hundreds of briefkes contained loose goods of various sorts and sizes. Diamonds of every conceivable cut. Some fancy colored diamonds, especially rare and accordingly more precious. One, an intense pink of six carats, was surely worth over a million; another, even more rare, more valuable, was distinctly red. There was lot after lot of diamonds ranging in sizes from one carat to four carats. With those, Strand had merely to unfold the briefkes and let them slide down the crease of paper and into the shoe box.

Every now and then there came a larger diamond. These, Strand knew, were Townsend's most coveted goods, the ones he held back, doled out to favored clients as though at any price he was doing them a favor. Townsend called these stones his sleeping beauties. Although the agreement had been to not take any of these larger, identifiable stones. Strand held them aside. He got two of the bricks they'd removed from the wall and placed them end to end off to his left on the workbench. On the flat surface of the bricks he put the larger diamonds: a forty-seven-carat marquise cut next to a sixty-six-carat pear-shape next to a thirty-five-carat round next to .

Audrey thought Strand was probably putting them there just to appreciate them. She enjoyed the progress evidenced by the increasing amount in the shoe box. She considered it an accomplishment when the bottom of the box was covered with a blazing layer. That layer now was at least an inch and a half deep.

But, as yet, no stone 588.

Springer was working at a furious pace with the reacher. The floor of the vault was strewn with emptied drawers. He'd been at it for almost two hours, and his shirt was as drenched now with perspiration as it had been before with rain. He hoped with each drawer he brought up. This one will have stone 588 in it, he told himself. It had gotten so he glanced to Audrey at the workbench each time she and Strand were going through the contents of a drawer. He anticipated hearing her say, Here it is!

Springer straightened up and stretched his back, rotated his head to release some of the tension that had knotted in his neck. Audrey thought he appeared tired, strained. She sensed his desperation. "Take a break," she suggested caringly. She had a box of Good & Plentys in her shirt pocket. Once, at a much lighter moment, they had decided that the white ones were the goods and the pink ones the plenties. Now she put one of each into his mouth. "At least stop and take a couple of real deep breaths," she told him.

At that instant two floors below Gilbert Townsend had just entered the building. He'd left his limousine up near the Plaza because the streets were still closed to traffic. The policemen at the barrier had let him through on foot only after he'd convinced them of who he was.

Fifth Avenue was no longer a stream. The Water Department people had closed a valve up the line so no water could reach the rupture. A Con Edison crew had pumped out the chamber where the explosion had occurred and was now assessing what would have to be done. Townsend asked when electric power would be restored and was irked when a Con Ed workman told him it would be a day or two. A new transformer had to be installed and all new cable pulled. Townsend was glad to see there were still plenty of police around. In fact, two officers in yellow slickers and boots were standing in the rain just outside the entrance to his building. They were helpful with their flashlights when Townsend unlocked his outer gate and the heavy glass entrance door.