The Chase (11 page)

Kate shook her head. “You’re a thief. What do you care if Carter Grove has a stash of legendary stolen art? In fact, I bet you have a secret room of your own somewhere. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re jealous. His secret room has better stuff in it than yours does.”

“That’s not it.”

“Okay, so it’s ego. You’re embarrassed that Carter wasn’t on your radar before.” Kate lowered her voice, in case the pilots could hear them. “And you’re angry that he never bankrolled one of your heists or bought any of the stuff you stole.”

“Carter has a one-of-a-kind collection of stolen art treasures. It’s got to be worth well over a hundred million dollars. It’s a huge score and he’s the perfect target, exactly the kind of guy I used to look for to swindle. Emptying his collection in a con like the one we staged today would have been one of my greatest heists ever.”

“You mean, if this was the good old days, before you got arrested and started working for the FBI,” she said. “This is about you missing your previous life.”

“It’s about doing what I do best,” he said. “The old Nick Fox wouldn’t have let an opportunity like the one we had today slip away.”

“The old Nick Fox got caught.”

“What about you? The Kate O’Hare who chased me all over the world wouldn’t have let Carter get away with this.”

“True. And when we’re done with this assignment, I’ll make the case to Jessup that taking down Carter Grove should be our top priority.”

“And if Jessup says no?”

Kate went bottoms up with the champagne. “That would be a challenge.”

They landed two hours later at the small regional airport in Manassas, Virginia, about thirty miles southwest of Washington, D.C. Nick chose not to land at Dulles since it was, perhaps, the most security-conscious airport in the nation, crawling with cops, FBI agents, U.S. marshals, military police, and all sorts of other law enforcement officers. Nick rented a car under one of his false identities, and he and Kate got separate rooms at the Manassas Holiday Inn.

Kate checked in to her room and contacted FBI Deputy Director Fletcher Bolton to let him know that the first stage of the mission was complete.

“That’s great,” Bolton said, “but we have a slight change of plan. Meet me at the Manassas Mall food court in one hour. Come alone, without the package.”

Bolton disconnected, and Kate stared at the phone. “What the heck?” she muttered under her breath.

Nick was on the same floor as Kate, at the other end of the hall. Kate knocked on his door and sucked in some air when he opened the door fresh from a shower. His hair was wet and he had a towel wrapped low on his hips.

“Jeez,” Kate said, staring at the towel, her mind running amuck over what the towel was hiding, unable to drag her eyes to Nick’s face.

“Is that a good jeez or a bad jeez?”

“It’s just jeez. Don’t you have a robe?”

“The room didn’t come with a robe.”

“Okay, so that’s why you’re wearing the towel. I can see that. Makes perfect sense.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Nick’s mouth. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“No! Gosh. Absolutely not.” Kate stared at the towel. She was pretty sure she saw it move.

Nick tightened his grip on the towel. “Kate?”

“Yep?”

“You’re staring.”

“I know. I can’t help myself.”

“Cute,” Nick said.

Kate squinched her eyes shut and wrinkled her nose. “Ugh! I hate being cute.”

“Cute is good.”

“It’s not. I’m an FBI agent. There’s no cute in the FBI. Cute is goofy.”

“I’d grab you and kiss you, but I’d lose my towel, and I’m afraid you’d faint at the sight of me naked.”

“I think I could handle it.”

Nick dropped his towel, and Kate yelped and clapped her hands over her eyes.

“You’re peeking,” Nick said. “You’re sneaking a peek between your fingers.”

He was right. She was peeking. “This is embarrassing.”

“Maybe you’d feel better if you were naked too. Then we could stare at each other.”

“I don’t think so. And why aren’t
you
embarrassed? You’re naked.”

Nick shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me.”

“Unh!” Kate said with another eye squinch. “Men!”

“Yeah, we’re pretty cool, right?”

Truth is, Kate was sort of jealous.

“I don’t mean to throw a damper on this social interaction,” Nick said, “but was there a reason for this visit?”

Kate thunked her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Keys! I almost forgot. I came for the car keys. Bolton wants to meet with me. Alone.”

The Manassas Mall was a single-level enclosed shopping center built in the 1970s. There was a Walmart on one end and a Sears on the other. Coin-operated kiddie rides and vending machines were scattered along a turquoise-tiled promenade of vacant storefronts and bottom-feeding retailers like As Seen on TV and Dollar Plus.

Kate, the only customer in the food court, prepared a sampling menu of two pretzels from Auntie Anne’s, two orders of fries from McDonald’s, and two slices of pepperoni pizza from Sbarro.

Fletcher Bolton showed up at 8
P.M.
sharp carrying a Walmart bag. He wore a starched blue shirt and crisply pressed brown slacks that were so stiff and wrinkle-free, they looked almost metallic. He was in his late fifties and very slim, with gray hair meticulously parted on the right.

He sat down across from Kate, set his Walmart bag on the floor beside the table, and regarded the food on the table as if it were a dismembered corpse. “I hope you ordered all of that so we’d look like two shoppers meeting for a bite.”

“I thought we’d eat it, too.”

“Let’s not go overboard,” he said, looking around. “Nobody is paying any attention to us.”

“I’m a stickler for maintaining my cover,” Kate said, picking out French fries and laying them out in rows across a slice of pizza.

“How did it go in Florida?” Bolton asked.

“Without a hitch. There’s a reason Nick is on our Ten Most Wanted list. We also made a big discovery. The rooster wasn’t the only stolen art treasure in Carter Grove’s collection. He’s got a secret room filled with them.”

“Forget about the other stuff.”

“You don’t understand, sir. These aren’t little knickknacks. We’re talking Rembrandts, Picassos, you name it. If we arrest Carter and get him to talk, we could close the files on dozens of the world’s most famous unsolved thefts.”

“Are you familiar with the concept of fruit of the poisonous tree?”

“It’s a metaphor used for evidence that’s thrown out of court because it was obtained illegally.”

“Then you know that we can’t prove Carter Grove has stolen art without revealing how we obtained that knowledge. Therefore, we have no grounds for a search warrant or for an arrest.”

“So we’ll find another way, a con of some kind. He’s exactly the kind of crook you teamed me up with Nick to catch.” She broke off pieces of the pretzel and placed them between the rows of fries on her pizza.

“Carter is a former White House chief of staff and runs a
security company that is a military contractor. If we arrest him and expose his crimes, it will create a massive scandal with serious geopolitical ramifications. That is exactly what we are trying to avoid here.”

“Is that our new job description, saving the government from embarrassment? Because if it is, sir, I’m out. You can find someone else to babysit Nick Fox. I’m in this strictly to nail bad guys.”

Bolton looked around the empty food court and then set his eyes on her. “So am I. But Carter is not a typical crook. If we move against him, it will generate a lot of scrutiny. We have to carefully consider all of the possible ramifications of our actions before we do anything, or we could all go down with him. I will think about it. Right now, though, we have far more pressing matters with the Chinese to deal with.”

“That’s as good as done,” Kate said. “If you leave a door unlocked for us at the Smithsonian, turn off the alarm, and ask the guards to look the other way, we’ll swap the real rooster for the fake one and then we can start thinking about going after Carter.”

“Making the switch is not going to be that easy.”

“I know that, but surely you can smooth the way for us a bit. We’re doing the Smithsonian a favor here.” She folded the slice of pizza down the middle, trapping her new toppings inside, and took a bite.

“That’s disturbing,” Bolton said, watching her eat.

“I call it the Fast Food Combo.”

“It’s even more disturbing that you’ve given it a name.”

“About the change in plans …”

“Stanley Fu arrived two days early from Shanghai, and some overly helpful functionary at the Smithsonian already gave him the rooster.”

A piece of pretzel spilled out of the folded pizza onto Kate’s shirt. “You just found this out?”

“Obviously not, but Jessup and I felt that attempting to contact you in Palm Beach would have jeopardized your operation down there. Fu is one of China’s
bao fa hu
, ‘the explosive rich.’ He’s only thirty-five, and he’s already made a ten-billion-dollar fortune in real estate. He treats the United States as one big shopping center. Fu comes here to buy hotels, restaurants, speedboats, racehorses, and American muscle cars. Apparently, there was a rare car that suddenly came up for auction yesterday, and he had to have it.”

“How much longer is Fu staying in D.C.?”

“He’s leaving tomorrow morning, as soon as his car is delivered.”

“Where is the rooster now?” Kate asked.

“In a safe in the cargo hold of Fu’s private five-hundred-million-dollar Airbus A380, which is parked on the tarmac at Dulles. It’s imperative that you make the switch before he leaves for Shanghai.”

Kate looked incredulously at Bolton. “How are we supposed to do that?”

“I’ve compiled detailed dossiers for you on Fu, his plane, his activities since he arrived in D.C., and the security measures at Dulles.” Bolton slid the Walmart bag over to Kate’s side of the table with his foot. “At this point, I think it would be prudent to remind you that if you are caught, you are entirely on your own. This meeting never took place, and I will denounce you as a rogue agent.”

Kate wiped her hands with her napkin. “What happens when Nick looks at this and says there’s no way we can pull it off?”

Bolton stood up. “That won’t happen.”

“The rooster is in a safe in the cargo hold of an airplane that’s behind the fence of the most heavily guarded airport in the United States. It’s eight thirty-five
P.M.
and Fu is leaving tomorrow morning. It can’t be done.”

“That’s why Nick Fox won’t be able to resist it,” Bolton said, and walked away.

She knew he was right.

Carter Grove sat on a stool in his casino, patiently feeding nickels into a vintage slot machine and pulling the lever. The mindless repetitive action was relaxing and helped him think through thorny problems, like plotting the military overthrow of a government or the kidnapping of a suspected terrorist from an enemy country. Tonight he was just enjoying the routine after the hectic day of filming in his house.

Rocco Randisi, an ex–army commando who was now a BlackRhino operative, joined Carter. Randisi had spent the previous day keeping an eye on the television producers and was now beginning his normal night shift heading household security.

“I hear you had some excitement today,” Rocco said.

“You’ll be able to watch most of it on TV soon. But if you want to see the outtakes, like the idiot who landed on the roof, you’re welcome to scan through the security camera footage.”

“I’d like to do that, sir, but it’s not there. That’s why I came to see you. I thought maybe you’d offloaded the video for some reason.”

“Why would I do that? It’s got to be on the hard drive somewhere.”

“I looked. The whole day has been wiped from the archive.”

Carter stopped feeding nickels into the machine and stared at Rocco. “Why wasn’t I told of this sooner?”

“It wasn’t noticed. There was no reason for it to be reviewed.”

“Are there any other anomalies?”

“No. We’re just missing a chunk of time systemwide.”

“I want you to comb the house for bugs and explosives.”

Rocco left, and Carter calmly and deliberately walked to the theater. He twisted the sconce that opened the hidden door to his secret collection, stepped into the room, and took inventory. All the major pieces were still there. It took him a few moments to realize the bronze rooster was missing.

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.