Текст книги "The Final Cut"

Автор книги: Catherine Coulter

Соавторы: J. T. Ellison
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

6

Over the Atlantic Ocean

British Airways Flight 117

Thursday, 9:00 a.m.

Nicholas barely made the 8:30 a.m. nonstop to New York. Flashing his Metropolitan Police credentials helped him jump the ridiculously long security line. Now he was on board and the plane was hurtling westward, the rows around him eerily empty.

The moment the flight attendants announced electronic devices were allowed, Nicholas had his laptop open and hooked into the plane’s wireless system. First stop was his email. There were three messages from Penderley, subject lines increasingly angry. Nicholas had hoped for more time before Penderley found out where he was headed. He deleted the messages; they could duke it out later, after Nicholas was up to speed on Elaine’s murder. Maybe.

An icon began flashing on his screen, a private instant message from his uncle, Bo Horsley, the American cowboy FBI agent Nicholas had spent his childhood idolizing. Now, as a man, and a law enforcement officer in his own right, Nicholas’s respect for his uncle had only grown. Bo was one of the smartest men he knew, one of the best men he knew. He also excelled at bowling, a particular American pastime he’d tried to teach Nicholas as a boy. Nicholas remembered his bowling balls usually ended up in the gutter. Was that the right word? He shook his head. He felt relief seeing the instant message. Bo would understand his motive for coming, and would help.

Nicholas clicked on the instant message.

Dear Nick,

I’m so sorry about Elaine. As soon as you can, Skype me at this number. Try for secure, too, because we have a problem.

Love, Uncle Bo

More problems. Elaine’s death wasn’t enough? He felt the now familiar punch of grief, the hard emptiness of it, and turned it off. He’d never see her down another Guinness, leaving a foam mustache on her upper lip, never tease her again about her tarot card readings, a weekly mainstay in her life. All he could do was find out who’d killed her, and why. Since Penderley had told him, he’d sworn to her over and over he would. But it wouldn’t bring her back.

He asked for a cup of tea from a redheaded flight attendant. His uncle Bo would smooth things between him and the FBI in New York so they’d let him work with them. He wondered when he got back to London if he’d still have a job with New Scotland Yard. He saw Penderley in his mind’s eye demanding his execution. The way he felt right now, he simply didn’t care.

He broke out his headphones, opened Skype, and dialed up Bo, who answered on the first ring. His face filled the screen, so similar to Nicholas’s mother’s. Bo looked tired. No, more than that, he looked beaten down.

“Nick, it’s good to see your face. I’m very sorry about your friend Elaine. She was smart and kind and worked well with all of us savage Americans. I remember she was wide-eyed at my office view of the city and the East River. I sent her right over to the Empire State Building to see the whole city. Everyone at the Met misses her.”

“Thank you, Uncle Bo. Elaine always wanted to travel to New York. She even spoke a couple of times of making a permanent move. She loved her time working there.” He paused, got hold of himself. “I can’t believe she’s really gone. Uncle Bo, do you know what she got herself into over there?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about her murder yet, Nick. Unfortunately, this isn’t only about Elaine anymore. Like I messaged you, we got another problem. Are you secure?”

“Hold on a moment.” Nicholas tapped at the keyboard, and a program he’d written several years earlier, a simple and elegant mobile encryption, kicked in. He gave it a second to overwrite the public wireless system he was using.

“Uncle Bo, I forgot to tell you. I’m midway over the Atlantic on my way to you.”

Uncle Bo merely smiled at him. “Your mom called me, told me what happened, that you were on your way. No surprise. I knew you wouldn’t be content to wait in London. Now, how secure are you?”

“I’m as secure as I can be without hurting the plane’s radio integrity. I have the row to myself and no one’s behind me; not many people are traveling after the Christmas and New Year’s rush.”

“Understandable. Now, I’m not at the Met, Nick, I’m here in Chelsea with FBI agents Savich and Sherlock. They came to New York for two things, the gala tonight and to speak to a very convivial Russian art-loving mobster about a painting they think he stole. Savich, come front and center and meet my nephew.”

Nicholas knew the man’s face, had seen it in articles, in newspapers, on the Internet. It was a hard face, unsmiling at the moment. Who would imagine this big, muscular man was a computer genius? He had a swarthy complexion and cheekbones to cut ice, and nearly black eyes that could nail you to the spot. His dark hair looked damp, as though he hadn’t been long out of the shower. Nicholas decided Savich could face down both Nicholas’s grandfather and the Devil, and maybe win. No, not his grandfather, the old curmudgeon. He said, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Agent Savich. It’s a pleasure.”

Savich nodded at a man who could be his younger brother, and wasn’t that a kick? “And you’re Bo’s nephew. It’s good to meet you finally. This is my wife, Agent Lacey Sherlock.”

Nicholas looked into the face of a young woman with beautiful red curly hair, no, not really red, but for the life of him, he couldn’t place the color. Titian, maybe? White skin, summer blue eyes. It was like the Devil had captured his perfect opposite.

“A pleasure, Nicholas. Call me Sherlock, and let me tell you, Bo talks about you nonstop. He even claims you could be as good as Dillon in the next decade or so.”

Nicholas laughed. “It’s a pleasure to meet both of you.” And then he waited for Bo to tell him what was going on.

Bo leaned forward and said quietly, “We’re trying to keep this hush-hush for the moment. Both Savich and Sherlock are in on this, so you don’t have to hold anything back.” Bo took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing, Nick, the Koh-i-Noor diamond’s been stolen from the Jewel of the Lion exhibit.”

7

New York, New York

201 East 36th Street

Inspector Elaine York’s apartment

Thursday, 2:00 a.m.

Inspector Elaine York’s apartment in Murray Hill was nineteen stories of sturdy, well-maintained red brick in the middle of a good solid neighborhood for young professionals.

But not good enough.

Agent Paulie Jernigan of the crime scene unit was waiting for Mike when she arrived, standing in front of the building with the slightly bored, seen-it-all, Let’s get to work, I’m hungry for dinner look all techs had nailed, probably taught in tech school.

“You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Glad they have an elevator. Vic’s apartment is on the fifth floor; it would be a pain to drag all my equipment up five flights of stairs this late at night.”

Mike put a hand on her hip. “Hey, I could carry one of those little toothpick brushes you have stashed in your kit. Surely that would lighten your load.”

He laughed, and she followed him into the building. It was quiet, eerily so at this hour, and Mike had to resist the urge to whisper.

The elevator doors closed behind them with a metallic whoosh.

“You adjusting to the new SAC, Mike?”

“Yeah. I like him. Zachery’s a straight shooter. I miss Bo Horsley, of course. How could I not? But I’ve worked with Zachery before, in Omaha. He’s good people. He and my dad got along well.”

Paulie said, “That’s right, your dad is the Omaha chief of police. Zachery didn’t bigfoot him?”

“Not that Dad ever said. He did mention a couple of the local agents started to give him trouble, but once he gave them his patented ‘don’t make me hurt you’ look, they minded their manners.”

Paulie said, “Even so, I’ll bet the transition’s gonna be tough. Horsley trusted all of us implicitly.”

“Zachery will, too. Give him a little time to get settled and learn his way around. The New York Field Office is a different zoo than he’s used to.”

The elevator dinged and they stepped out into a wide hallway, silent as a tomb in the dead of night. No insomniacs on this floor. Elaine York had the end apartment.

Paulie unlocked the door. “I got the keys from the super while I was waiting. He went back to bed, no show of curiosity at all—a real New Yorker.”

She edged into the dark apartment, and the smell hit her in the face—the heavy, dead air, the beginnings of rot. Her hand went to her Glock.

“Step back, Paulie. We got trouble.”

8

British Airways Flight 117

Over the Atlantic Ocean

Thursday, 9:00 a.m.

Nicholas stared at his uncle. “Stolen? The Koh-i-Noor? I can’t believe it. That bloody stone is impossible to steal. And your security has to be unbeatable. So what happened?”

Bo shook his head. “I thought stealing the diamond would be impossible, too, but the fact is it’s gone. It’s been replaced with one of the two cubic zirconia replicas the palace allowed made some ten years ago. The good thing is we’re pretty sure we know when it was stolen—yesterday we had a power outage. All computers, all video feeds, all communications, everything was offline for five whole minutes, then just as suddenly it came back on. There was a thorough check of every treasure in the Met, and I personally checked the Jewel of the Lion exhibit room, but the crown jewels looked untouched. Everything was where it was supposed to be throughout the museum, so we chalked it up to a glitch somewhere in the system, nothing nefarious.

“Then the curator of the Jewel of the Lion exhibit, Dr. Browning, received a call from Arizona, a man named Peter Grisley, who owns the two cubic zirconia replicas of the Koh-i-Noor. The replicas had been stolen. Dr. Browning came to me right away, quietly, worried something was wrong. It was her idea to test the diamond, and sure enough, the tester showed the Koh-i-Noor to be a fake.

“Talk about a hit to the chops. We’re doing all we can, but to have this happen on American soil, during a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit? It’s more than a disaster. It might start another Revolutionary War.”

Not an understatement.

“Uncle Bo, worse than a war, the world media will crucify the U.S. Of course you know that no one on the outside could have done this. Have you pinned down possible staff not accounted for during the power outage?”

“First thing we did. They were all accounted for. There aren’t that many involved—only designated museum staff and the insurance people have access to the exhibit space where all the crown jewels are displayed. In addition, you know we vetted everyone and their pets three ways to Sunday, over and above the designated staff.” He paused, then said quietly, his voice heavy, “There was only one person we couldn’t account for during the power outage: Inspector Elaine York. And now she’s dead.”

Nicholas spoke carefully, seeing now where his uncle was headed. “Perhaps the diamond wasn’t stolen from the museum at all. Perhaps it was taken before it left England, or maybe during transit.”

“I wish. Dr. Browning and Inspector York and the indemnity insurance expert tested the Koh-i-Noor when it arrived at the museum. It was definitely stolen post–arrival at the Met.”

Savich said, “Whoever managed to switch out the diamond was very good and very fast. There is simply no sign of a break-in, no sign that anyone was even in the exhibit room, which means it was meant to go unnoticed. And it very nearly did, if not for the call to Dr. Browning from Peter Grisley reporting his missing replicas, one of which now sits proudly in the center of the queen mother’s crown.”

Nicholas asked, “Is it possible the power outage was for real and the switch was made at another time and not during the five-minute period?”

Bo said, “I can’t imagine how, Nick.”

“You all know how sophisticated the security is on the crown jewels in the Tower of London, the beefeaters are all ex-military and tough as nuts, so there’s no chance to steal the diamond there.”

“My security is like a police force, too. They’re all armed, and we’ve upgraded our measures even further since the jewels arrived on-site. We’re a well-oiled machine. I know these people, Nick, and I’m sure as I can be that no one on my security staff could have anything to do with this. But regardless, we’re checking again, going even deeper, if that’s possible, eliminating my people first, then their lovers and friends, and the remaining museum staff, any– and everyone we can think of to look at. Everyone. But bottom line—this was a master thief.”

Nicholas said, “Tell me about your security, Uncle Bo.”

It was Savich who said, “I consulted with Bo’s team on the installation of the biometric security systems. You need a palm print and two different pass cards to even access the exhibit room, and the cases have a rotating binary lock.”

Sherlock said, “Add in the incredible physical security, the fact no one was out of place during the power outage, and no one Bo knows of could do this, and the theft and switch seems, well, if not impossible, then almost magical. But—”

Bo nodded. “Yes, but– Look, Nick, I don’t know if Inspector York had the expertise to pull this theft off, but she’s the only one of the primaries not accounted for.”

“I knew Inspector York very well,” Nicholas said, “her strengths, weaknesses, her talents. As far as I know, she doesn’t have the necessary skills.”

Savich said, “Nicholas, how much would you have to know to pull this off? She knew the setup, knew the diamond, certainly could figure out what tools she would need to make the switch.”

Nicholas was shaking his head as he said, “So she also flew to Arizona and stole the two replicas? Have you checked the airlines, Uncle Bo?”

“Yes. Elaine hasn’t left New York City, at least by commercial airline.”

Sherlock said, “She either flew to Arizona under the radar and we haven’t found out how yet, or she had someone to help her, inside the Met. Sorry, Nicholas, but I can’t see it coming down any other way. But the big question in my mind is why Inspector York was killed. A falling-out among thieves? What else could it be? You say you knew her very well. You say she couldn’t do this. How certain are you?”

“I doubt Elaine could bring herself to shoplift from Harrods on a bet. You know I wouldn’t have had her on my staff if she weren’t top-notch. She was there to mind the Koh-i-Noor, to make sure nothing happened, to protect the diamond, not to steal it. The idea is simply ridiculous.” Nicholas paused for a moment, then said flatly, “I trusted her with my life.”

No one said anything to that.

Nicholas said, “Maybe Elaine was murdered because she found out something about the theft.”

“Then she should have come to me immediately,” Bo said. “If she wasn’t involved in the theft, and she discovered something? Nick, think about it. She never came to me.”

Nicholas hated it, simply hated it, but still the arguments were solid. How could he convince them Elaine hadn’t been part of it? He looked closely at his uncle and thought Bo suddenly looked old and tired. All of them knew he would be the scapegoat, no matter who was responsible. Even if the diamond was found unharmed, Bo’s security firm would go down in history as the one who let the Koh-i-Noor slip away in the first place. Elaine and his uncle, both their names would be ruined.

Bo said, “Understand me, Nick, I don’t like throwing accusations at dead people. But there’s another thing. Yesterday morning, fifteen minutes after the electricity came back on, Elaine came to my office to tell me she was going home sick. It was a very out-of-character move for her.”

He could only try. Nicholas said, “Uncle Bo, there has to be a different scenario we haven’t thought of, with different players.”

“Nick, I promise we’ll keep considering anything that even sounds plausible. Look, I haven’t known Elaine all that long, but I can’t imagine her stealing the diamond any more than you can. Unfortunately, she’s the only one who can’t speak for herself. The insurance people are going to dive that way, and I can’t stop it. And you know as well as I do that you never really know another person.”

Nicholas nodded, feeling a bit defeated himself. “Is the New York FBI investigating both Elaine’s murder and the missing diamond?”

Bo smiled, a smile Nicholas recognized from his childhood. Naughty, that smile, and sly.

“What are you planning, Uncle Bo?”

“Well, you see, Nick, here’s the thing. We haven’t officially told anyone the jewel is missing yet.”

9

Nicholas stared at the three grinning faces on his laptop screen. “What? No one’s been informed of the theft? Uncle Bo, are you mad?”

“Maybe. Here’s the thing: the moment I tell the director of the Met the Koh-i-Noor is gone, he’ll order an immediate lockdown—that means no exhibit and no gala, the media will be loosed, and they’ll swarm all over us. The whole thing will go viral in thirty minutes.”

Sherlock said, “The moment word gets out, we lose our advantage and have much less chance of identifying our thief.”

Bo continued. “I want time, Nick, without having to worry that paparazzi will show up in the men’s room with cameras and recorders, time without the overwhelming media distractions. I want time so we can catch whoever did this and get the Koh-i-Noor back. I don’t want to tell the director anything, not until—well, until I’ve had my shot at resolving this.”

It was a disaster waiting to happen. No, the disaster had already happened.

Savich said, “We’ve come up with a plan, and we want you on board, Nick. I’ve seen the real Koh-i-Noor. It’s a massive diamond, over one hundred carats. It’s so big it looks fake anyway.”

Nicholas said, “I’ve seen it as well. Many times.”

Bo said, “This replacement diamond? It’s an exact replica. Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference. The size of it makes it look surreal.”

Sherlock continued. “Here’s the plan, Nicholas: we carry on with the big gala as planned. All the guests can ooh and aah over the fake Koh-i-Noor and not know the difference, and all will be well in the kingdom, at least for tonight.”

Bo said, “We believe it’s audacious, but doable. What do you think, Nick?”

Audacious was an understatement. Nicholas said, “I like it, but there’s one thing. Uncle Bo. You’ve got to tell the director, and you’ve got to sell him on what we’re doing, tell him we’re the ones who need to control the situation, not let the media grab it and run with it to the good Lord knows where. Your biggest selling point? His bloody job.”

Savich said, “He’ll go along when you remind him the Met will have to pony up the indemnity the museum paid for.”

Bo said, “I may be able to sell it to the director, but I’ll have to swear on the head of my sainted mother that I’ll get the Koh-i-Noor back. He’ll buy keeping it quiet for the time being; he’ll realize it would ruin him as well as the rest of us. And if Elaine wasn’t involved, the thief could possibly show up tonight. If we manage to keep it quiet. He won’t know we’re aware the diamond’s missing.”

Sherlock said, “The thief has to be someone intimate with all the security systems you have in place, Bo, who knows any inherent weaknesses, the triggers, everything. Someone close to the exhibit, and close to you. Someone you trust. Will he show up tonight? Very possibly. To deflect any suspicion, to give him more time to do whatever it is he plans to do with the Koh-i-Noor. Or he’s long gone as we speak.”

Savich said, “And if Elaine York was murdered for her involvement, then there is indeed someone else involved, someone dangerous, someone who’s already committed murder.”

They all took that in, then Bo said, “We don’t want to tip our hand too early. I’ll need something to explain why all three of you are here.”

“Uncle Bo, you can tell the Met staff and your people that you’ve been surprised with a new foreign dignitary coming to the gala tonight. That will explain the FBI’s presence. You can explain my presence with the truth: I’m here to find out who murdered my inspector.”

Bo rubbed his square jaw for a moment. “That will work. The key to this is to watch everyone close to the exhibit who shows tonight at the gala. If anyone doesn’t show, then we’ll know they’re involved, and can take immediate action. I’ll tell you, I’m ready to track the guy to the ends of the earth.”

Sherlock said, “Either our thief is also a murderer or he isn’t. Either he’s long gone and doesn’t show for work or he thinks we’re idiots and wants to come see the show.”

Bo no longer looked like he wanted to shoot himself. He was rubbing his hands together. “We can do this. Nick, I’ll have someone at the airport to meet you and bring you directly to the Met.”

Nicholas closed down the call and shut his eyes. How much time could they buy? Things like this got out even when you’d swear they wouldn’t.

One of his uncle’s phrases stuck in his mind, replaying itself on a loop. It was a master thief.

A master thief who’d managed to get through Uncle Bo’s security checks. Elaine as a suspect was ridiculous. He’d never believe it, never, but a master thief, someone either hired to pull off a theft of this magnitude or acting of their own accord to try and sell the diamond on the black market, yes, that made more sense. No run-of-the-mill sort of thief, either. This was the work of a pro. A legend.

He had a place to start. Find the thief, clear Elaine. It became his mantra.

He was due to land at JFK at 11:10 a.m. He reset his vintage Breitling to eastern time, calculated that the flight had a bit more than two hours left. Plenty of time to develop a list of the top thieves in the world.