The Chase (10 page)

Kate put them on and looked out at the room. The glasses allowed her to see beams of red light crisscrossing the room from floor to ceiling. The pattern of the lights shifted every few seconds. They’d never be able to get past them. And if any of the beams were broken, the alarms would go off.

She took the glasses off and gave Nick a sidewise look. “I thought you said there wouldn’t be any security in here.”

“I didn’t know about all of the extraordinary art treasures that Carter has or that he’s a generous patron of the greatest thieves on earth. If I’d known that, I would have done a lot of things differently.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We need a distraction,” he said. “Obviously, Carter flipped the switch for those areas where the film crew would be operating but left some of his security in place. Let’s hope the roof is still wired for impact.”

Kate put her hand in her pocket, found the tiny transmitter, and pressed the button.

Both Joe and Boyd heard the conversation and knew what was coming. They’d been briefed on “the distraction.”

Boyd was in the casino with the two cameramen and Carter. Carter was explaining that all of the 1960s light fixtures in the room were genuine.

“Only the carpets from the Sands had to be re-created,” Carter said. “Everything else is authentic.”

“Do you pay out slot winnings in 1960s dollars or have you adjusted for inflation?”

Boyd slipped a nickel into a slot machine and pulled the lever. The wheels of fortune spun.

Joe sat at a table in the trailer. In front of him were four computer monitors. The first screen showed live video feeds from every camera on Carter Grove’s property. The middle screen showed thumbnails of all the prerecorded footage that Joe had on tape. And the third screen showed him what the security guards were seeing on their monitors in the command center.

He clicked his mouse and enlarged the video feed from the surveillance cameras that covered the beach side of Carter’s estate. He could see a speedboat cruising across the water, pulling a man through the air on a parasail. Suddenly the line to the
boat snapped loose and the freed parasailer began a rapid descent toward Carter’s estate.

In the casino, Boyd rolled cherries on all three reels of a slot machine. Bells rang, and coins spilled into the metal tray with a loud clatter. Boyd let out a whoop, and Carter Grove clenched his teeth hard enough to give himself a headache.

“Do I get to keep this?” Boyd asked.

The jackpot was pure luck, but what happened next was planned with precision. Jake O’Hare landed on the roof of Carter Grove’s mansion, setting off alarms that were so loud they shook the building.

The instant the alarms blared, Nick and Kate made a mad dash across the floor of the secret room to the rooster. Nick lifted the rooster carefully from its pedestal and handed it to her.

“Take this,” he said. “I need my hands free to grab the Degas and that Rembrandt over there.”

“This isn’t a buffet. We came for the rooster, that’s all we’re taking.”

“Everything in here is stolen. That Rembrandt alone is worth much more than this rooster. We can’t just walk away from all this.”

Kate understood his temptation. She felt it too, only it wasn’t the urge to steal that she was fighting. She wanted to immediately arrest Carter Grove for aiding and abetting the theft of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of art treasures. But since she’d discovered the crime while searching the house without a warrant, and in the company of an international fugitive she was supposed to be chasing, she’d be the one sent to prison, not Carter.

“We have to go
now
,” she said, “before the alarm stops ringing
and we get caught down here. And if you take anything other than the rooster I’ll personally shoot you as soon as I lay my hands on my gun.”

“It’s a crime leaving all of that behind,” Nick said.

“You and I have fundamentally different ideas about crime.”

“That’s the story of our lives.”

Carter abandoned Boyd and the film crew and ran straight for the command center. The militaristic-looking young BlackRhino operative manning the console stood up as soon as Carter entered.

“What have we got?” Carter demanded.

The operative pointed to the monitors. “There’s an old guy on the roof.”

“What the hell?” Carter pushed the operative aside and looked for himself. Sure enough, there was an old guy in a bright yellow life vest up there. He was all tangled up in the rigging of a parasail and trying to get free.

“I don’t believe this,” Carter said. “Where did he come from?”

“He broke loose from a parasailing boat. There is a water sports outfit that runs them.”

“Damn tourists. Get someone up on the roof to bring him down,” Carter said. “And turn off the alarm.”

“Yes, sir,” the operative said. He flicked a switch and the alarm stopped ringing.

Carter turned around to see Boyd and the cameramen standing behind him. Boyd clutched a vintage plastic Sands bucket full of coins.

“Cut!” Carter said, waving his hands at the cameramen. “This isn’t part of the tour.”

“But it adds so much excitement to the show,” Boyd said.

“Stay here,” Carter said. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready to shoot again.”

Back in the theater, Kate straightened the sconce, closing the doorway to the secret room, while Nick went to a metal equipment case that was beside one of the lighting stands. He opened the case, gently placed the rooster inside, and closed it. Then the two of them walked out of the theater and peeled off their gloves.

Kate didn’t like leaving the rooster, but it was too risky to try taking it with them now. They’d retrieve the case when the tour was finished and the crew packed up. At that point, carrying an equipment case out of the building wouldn’t attract attention.

“We’re clear,” Kate said, notifying Boyd and Joe.

It took ten minutes for Carter’s guards to find a ladder, set it up in the yard, and climb to the roof. Jake stood and held out a disposable camera to the first man who showed up.

“You’ve got to take a picture of me,” Jake said. “Or my wife will never believe this.”

Nick and Kate joined Carter, Veronica, and a handful of BlackRhino operatives in the yard to meet the uninvited guest. Jake came slowly down the ladder, holding on to it for dear life as he went along. His bright yellow life vest was open now and showed the white I
T
’
S
A
LWAYS
S
UNNY IN
F
LORIDA
T-shirt he wore underneath. He had on a pair of Bermuda shorts, white tube socks, and running shoes that closed with Velcro straps. Sunblock was smeared heavily on his nose. Once his feet touched solid ground, Jake turned to the gathered crowd with a big smile.

“Woo-wee, what a wild ride that was. Sure got my fifty bucks’ worth.”

Carter stepped up to him. “Who are you?”

“J. W. Saltz from Baxter Springs, Kansas. I own the Chevy dealership in town. Come by and I’ll make you the deal of a century on the Impala of your dreams.”

It was hard for Kate not to laugh.

Jake shaded his eyes with his hand and scanned the ocean. “Looks like Pedro headed back to Cuba after my line broke. Can’t really blame him. He probably thinks I’m tangled in a tree with a broken neck. Hell, I’m surprised I’m not. I’ve never steered a parachute before. I just pulled this and pulled that and made a bunch of promises to God that I hope he doesn’t expect me to keep.”

“What are you doing down here?”

“Thirty-seventh wedding anniversary. My wife wanted to browse at the consignment stores, so I dropped her off and went to the beach. She loves those stores. Lots of filthy-rich old people die down here and that’s where their stuff ends up, dirt cheap. Nobody at home knows Myrtle is wearing a dead lady’s clothes. They think we’re loaded.”

“I meant, why were you parasailing in front of my house?”

“I slipped Pedro an extra twenty to take me for a spin over the big haciendas. I wanted to get some pictures from a bird’s-eye view. We don’t see homes much larger than a double-wide where we’re from.”

One of the operatives stepped forward and handed Jake’s disposable camera to Carter.

“I got a great deal on that,” Jake said, tipping his head toward the camera. “Two for ten dollars at Walmart.”

Carter dropped the camera on the ground and crushed it under his foot.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Jake said.

“Consider it the price of trespassing.”

“It was an accident. You ought to be thankful that I didn’t have a heart attack and die on your roof. My ticker isn’t what it once was, and this has been a big shock to my system. You really don’t want to give me any more stress. I could drop dead right here.”

“Then we’d better get you off my property before that happens.” Carter gestured to one of his men. “Give Mr. Saltz a ride back to his hotel.”

Kate O’Hare had been trained by the military to be patient, and to endure many forms of torture, but nothing had prepared her for sitting through the next three hours of filming. It wasn’t Carter reveling in his outrageous excesses, or Boyd’s overacting, or Nick’s comfort with his crime that was eating at her. What she couldn’t stand was remaining at the scene of the crime after the heist was done. She desperately wanted to grab the rooster and run. The hardest part came near the end, when Carter showed off the home theater. It felt to her like the case with the rooster was glowing and radiating heat.

Carter and Boyd came out of the auditorium and were trailed into the lobby by the two cameramen. Boyd stopped and shook his head in wonder.

“You’ve got a small-town movie theater, an authentic English pub, a re-creation of the Sands casino with vintage slot machines, and the Grand Salon of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Who else has all of that
in their house? It’s incredible. Thank you for showing us all what it’s like to live in one of
the most spectacular homes on Earth
!” Boyd gave Carter a big smile, then they shook hands and remained in that stilted pose for a long moment.

“Cut!” Nick said.

The cameramen lowered their cameras and relaxed. Kate turned to the crew, who’d been waiting in the hall, and announced, “That’s a wrap. Let’s break down the lights and clean this place up.”

Nick hurried over to Boyd and Carter. “Outstanding,” Nick said.

“Thank you so much.” Boyd bowed theatrically.

Crew members swarmed in and began unplugging cables and taking down the lights, and Kate went into the auditorium with them.

Nick left the theater with Carter and went into the hall to get out of the crew’s way. “I think you’ll be pleased with this,” Nick said. “I think it went really well.”

Kate hauled the equipment case out of the theater and edged past them on her way out of the house.

“When do I get to see the first cut of the episode?” Carter asked Nick.

“Probably next week. I’ll give you a call when it’s ready.” Nick shook Carter’s hand. “Thank you again for letting us inside your home, Mr. Grove. It’s truly amazing what you have behind these walls.”

Joe drove his van to Carter Grove’s house, picked up Boyd, and they drove straight to the airport, where they caught separate flights back to Los Angeles.

Neither Nick nor Kate could risk taking a commercial airline
to Washington, D.C., with a twenty-million-dollar Qing Dynasty bronze rooster in their luggage. So they went instead to the general aviation terminal, where a chartered business jet was fueled and waiting for them on the tarmac.

Once they reached cruising altitude, Nick went to the plane’s refreshment center and brought Kate a tray with a glass of champagne and an assortment of appetizers.

“You plan for everything,” she said. “Even the after-heist refreshments.”

“No detail is too small. Actually, they came with the price of the plane.”

She sipped the champagne and studied him. “You seem very low-key when you should be reveling in your success right now.”

“Success would have been emptying that secret room,” Nick said. “Leaving with just the bronze rooster is like breaking into Fort Knox and only stealing the paperclips.”

“Not if the paperclips are what you broke into Fort Knox for.”

“Who would break into Fort Knox for paperclips?”

“You know what I mean. We had a mission and we accomplished it. We should celebrate. We can figure out how to get Carter Grove later.”

“We’ve missed our best shot. Once Carter discovers that the rooster is gone, he’ll know his secret is out and he’ll take extra security measures. He might even move the stash to another location. If I’d known ahead of time what else he had in that room, I would have taken an entirely different approach.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would have swapped a fake rooster for Carter’s real one.”

“What would we have gained from that?”

“Time. We could have stolen the rooster from Carter without him knowing it was gone or that his dark secret had been discovered. That way, after we’d swapped his real rooster for the fake one in the Smithsonian, we could have come back and made a play for everything else he has in that room without him being prepared for it.”