Carter LeMothe opened the door and led them inside to the receptionist, announcing their arrival and their appointment with a Mr. Lau.
From their parking spot, Jack and Rusty watched a silver Aston Martin DB11 Volante convertible rocket down the long entry road and whip around the traffic circle at a speed that should have invoked centrifugal force. The car stopped just in time to not blow by the building. Not long after, a black Range Rover pulled up and parked in a space in front of the building. The trees, berm, and other landscaping broke up the sight lines so even though they were close, Reginald would have to walk around to Jack’s parking spot to recognize him.
“I’ve got Reginald, Vito, and two others,” Jack said. He watched the four of them walk up to the overly animated figure that crawled out of the Aston. Jack recognized the two other men as the heavies Reginald and Vito dragged with them everywhere, but they were done up to look like professional security guards. Smart. Jack assumed all four of them would be armed. Reginald stepped in and said something to the fifth guy, and he looked to calm down. They departed for the building, and the two goons waited out front, presumably for the armored car.
As if on cue, the red-and-gray WorldSecure truck turned off La Cienega and onto the entry road.
Enzo texted them both in their secure app to say that he was stuck at the light but was on La Cienega, about to turn.
The parking lots on the side and behind the buildings were not very full. Though, it looked like the primary occupants of two of the three buildings were schools for working professionals, so they probably didn’t get much business until after business hours. That was smart to put the meet here. Reginald was dealing with some savvy people. Worth noting.
The armored car pulled into the traffic circle and pulled around to the center building. The driver stayed in the vehicle. Jack didn’t see the others exit the vehicle, but two guards approached Reginald’s heavies, so there must have been a side door on the cargo compartment. They were carrying a strongbox; each had their left hand on the front and rear handle, respectively. Their right hands rested right next to their pistols.
A blur of motion in Jack’s vision pulled his attention away.
He looked over to the main road and saw an SUV and a car approaching a fairly high rate of speed, certainly faster than what most drivers would take on that road. Both of the vehicles were heavily tinted.
“Rusty…”
23
The SUV entered the traffic circle moving way too fast and turned hard, going in a counterclockwise direction. The driver slammed on the brakes and stopped between the Aston Martin and the armored car. Tires screeched in angry protest as the SUV skidded to a stop, hopping the curb. The car entered the traffic circle equally fast and took the clockwise direction. They were boxing the armored car in. The car stopped at an angle, blocking most of the road. If someone was going around it, they were going to have to drive on a sidewalk, which was protected by bollards, or go over a fountain. The driver and passengers were out before anyone could react.
The WorldSecure guards reacted the way they were supposed to. They broke for the armored car with their strongbox without a moment’s hesitation.
The gunfire started before Jack could even get a word out.
The trees in front of the car and the fountain made it difficult to have a direct line of sight. The action unfolded on the opposite side of the SUV and the armored car, but Jack and Rusty still had, more or less, a front-row seat. And that was not a good place to be.
Jack saw Constantino Fiore clearly as he emerged from the Escalade, his face gaunt angles and sharp lines, his suit equally sharp. Fiore was overdressed for a gunfight. Three gunmen jumped out of the SUV and three more from the car. The WorldSecure guards and Vito’s men were outgunned almost two to one. The armored car was blocking his view of the WorldSecure guards, but Jack saw Vito’s men returning fire. One of them dropped a gunman from the car before he fell himself. His partner wasn’t as lucky, and he was cut down right away. Apart from Fiore, the gunmen on either side appeared to be armed amateurs, given the number of shots Jack heard in a very short amount of time.
“They’re going to take the box,” Jack said quickly.
“Yeah, and they’ve got us two to one at least,” Rusty snapped back.
Special Agents Fuery and Reaves sat in a small office inside 208. They had a folding table set up with recording equipment and headphones that enabled them to listen in on the conversation happening in the conference room. That’s where that insufferable prick Carter LeMothe and his two sellers, Burton and De Angeles, were meeting with Chan Lau, aka Special Agent Victor Zhao.
The FBI had been renting this office space for some time, using it as a front for a much longer sting. That operation just concluded, but the government still had access to the rooms, so they were able to create the office space for Pan Pacific. Fuery and his partner chose this room because it faced the building’s front entry. Fuery was shocked as shit to learn they had an honest-to-God armored car. That almost torpedoed the entire thing. When Fuery and Reaves briefed their section chief, Supervisory Special Agent Linda Abbate, on the plan, she pushed back hard on the idea that diamond thieves would be able to get an armored car. She said these companies vetted their clients, did income verifications and the like. They would also have to verify the provenance of the diamonds.
Fuery had to hand it to his partner. Reaves dropped a respectful “not so fast” on her pretty quick.
Reaves had that investigator’s instinct to not inherently trust anyone until they’ve earned it. That went for everyone. Reaves had the foresight to call WorldSecure and attempt to open an account. He made up a legend that he was a high-dollar investor and was converting a lot of his holdings to gold because of “the world situation.” He didn’t even need to elaborate on what world situation that was. He was given a provisional account provided he could produce the gold and was assured he would be “thoroughly vetted.”
Reaves’s theory was that WorldSecure wasn’t doing anything illegal, they weren’t knowingly trafficking in stolen goods, but they also dealt with the superrich and it wasn’t their job to ask a lot of questions. In fact, they even covered that in the paperwork they sent over to Reaves’s dummy business email. They simply provided a safe, secure, and insured place for high-dollar investors to store their treasures, and if said investor was storing stolen or otherwise illegal items in WorldSecure, it would result in immediate termination of account, referral to proper authorities, and the list of potential repercussions went on. But Reaves was also able to get from his “executive account concierge” that they got a commission based on the dollar value of items stored, so that first line of defense was incentivized against asking too many questions when bringing new clients in the door.
Abbate was convinced, at least enough to let them proceed.
Fuery was watching the window for the armored car and spotted it on the long approach to their building. He couldn’t see all the way to La Cienega from here, but he did have a good view of the main road. Fuery followed the WorldSecure car until it pulled up in front of the building and met a pair of private security guards that Burton and De Angeles hired. They’d have to stop that pair from entering the office; Pan Pacific policy was that there was no private security allowed on the premises. The receptionist was also an agent, and she knew what to do.
“All units, this is Fuery. I’ve got the armored car pulling up to the building,” Fuery said into his radio. The building fell within the jurisdiction of the City of Inglewood Police Department, so they had several units on standby to establish a cordon in the event that Burton and De Angeles decided to flee. Or that the armored car was actually a con. The extra police support was purely a precaution, and Fuery expected them to release the officers within the hour.
Fuery had just gotten back to the table and settled to listen on the wire when the first shots broke out. Fuery looked over to Reaves. The agents jumped out of their chairs and ran to the window to
confirm what they both suspected. An SUV and a car were positioned at opposite sides of the armored car, blocking a possible escape from either side. Fuery didn’t have time to count, but the gunmen clearly outnumbered the guards. The gunmen were not practiced shooters, but they targeted the WorldSecure personnel first and numbers took care of the rest. Both of the WorldSecure guards dropped almost instantly. The gunmen shifted fire to the two hired security, one of them took out a shooter, but both were down fast.
“All units, all units, we have shots fired! Repeat, we have shots fired. Respond immediately!”
Fuery saw a gunman fall as the units on the radio rogered his message and confirmed they were moving in. He hoped the guards could hold out long enough for help to get there and that this didn’t turn into the fucking Alamo.
“Let’s go,” Fuery told Reaves, turning from the window, but Reaves was already on his way out.
A second gunman dropped, one of the guys from the SUV, but Jack had no idea where the shot would have come from. Then he realized that the armored car’s driver was still inside the vehicle. He must have had a way of shooting from cover.
“We should get out of here,” Rusty said in a tone that was all edges.
“Not yet,” Jack told him, though that was a reflex response. Even as he said it, Jack realized how insane it sounded. They were fifty yards from a gunfight that was going fast in the wrong direction. There were ways out of this, but none of them good.
Then the situation turned again.
A police car, all lights and sirens, burst through the access road between the second and third buildings at the traffic circle’s nine o’clock, screeching to a stop behind the SUV. A second police cruiser tore around the building Jack and Rusty were parked next to, and a third came in from the access road at the traffic circle’s twelve o’clock. The gunmen’s car whipped around in reverse. Two shooters managed to make it into the back seat before the driver floored it. The police cruiser saw the escape attempt and tried to stop it by ramming the back quarter panel. The cop’s aim was off and he just grazed the gunmen’s car, but it was enough to break the vehicle’s momentum and knock it off course. The car’s rear end fishtailed like it was water-planing, and the driver fought to maintain control. He made the traffic circle exit and accelerated onto the exit road, still fighting for control of the car. The police cruiser was right on his tail. Jack followed for the amount of time he had to whip his head around and watch the car try to make La Cienega.
“Where the hell did those cruisers come from?” Jack asked, turning back around. He didn’t see them in the parking lot when they arrived. There was no way that they could respond that quickly—those things were here within thirty seconds of the first shot.
That meant they’d been waiting.
“Oh, Jesus,” Jack said. “This is a setup.”
The question was, for whom?
“Jack, we have got to get out of here, now!” There was real panic in Rusty’s voice.
The shooters had partial cover behind their SUV and were engaging with the officers that had taken up position between their open car doors and vehicle’s main body. Fiore was the only gunman Jack could see. Where did all of these guys come from? He couldn’t believe that Cannizzaro could afford to send so many soldiers all the way over here, or that they’d be so well equipped. They had to be getting local support somehow.
One of the mafia soldiers moved out of cover holding a machine pistol or submachine gun—Jack couldn’t tell and didn’t know weapons well enough to know the difference. The man sprayed it in a wide arc, back and forth, aiming for the gap between the SUV and the armored car. The cop in the car in front of Jack, on the other side of the landscaping berm, fell backward, hit. Several shots hit the berm in front of them, sending dirt flying into the air.
One of the gunmen ran across the open space, probably going for the strongbox.
Constantino Fiore was looking for targets. Jack could see his eyes as they tracked across, looking to make sure that his man took that cop out. Fiore looked beyond the bullet-riddled police car, finding a black BMW…and he locked eyes with Jack.
Even at fifty or sixty yards, Jack could clearly see that cold, emotionless gaze.
Jack’s mind flashed back to that bank in Rome. The Pink Panthers gave him a pistol because they wanted everyone else to think he was in on it, but it was empty. When Constantino Fiore emerged from his office to put a stop to the heist, Jack got the drop on him and bluffed his way to Fiore lowering his weapon, kicking it over to Jack. There was red hate there when Fiore realized he’d been had. But it was nothing like the look that passed over his face when the cop that was supposed to be on the Cannizzaro payroll just up and let Jack walk.
The recognition was there.
Fiore raised his pistol and started walking forward, ignoring everything else around him. Jack could see in his eyes that he was going to settle it.
Then Fiore’s head snapped back.
It looked like a series of still photos.
His body jerked.
His arms flailed out to his side, gun flying, like he was electrocuted.
Fiore stumbled once, was hit twice more, and fell.
Two men in suits stood just outside the building’s doorway, both of them in a perfect shooting-range stance.
Jack couldn’t hear what they said, but he could see their mouths move.
The police turned the plaza into a killbox. They’d surrounded the gunmen on both sides, like the two arms of a V. Jack saw a couple of rounds go through car windows, the men behind them drop. But it was the two guys in suits that turned the tide. Once they saw Fiore drop, the rest caved pretty fast.
Guns thrown down, hands went up. Police moved out from behind cover and went to secure the shooters. One went over to check on their injured officer.
Two more police cruisers arrived on scene, and Jack could hear helicopter blades ripping the air above them. It orbited the scene once and then took off at a high rate of speed. That car must have been giving a pretty good chase for them to divert air support that fast.
The police officers started lining up the remaining gunmen. Jack didn’t know how many there were total, but he could make out two from where they sat. The cops had them on their knees with hands behind their heads. The two guys in the suits were barking orders, motioning with their free hands because their weapons were still out. They would be securing the scene shortly.
“We should get out of here,” Rusty said, resignation draped heavily on his words.
“Not just yet,” Jack said and opened the car door.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s go. I’ll take the lead, and you just back me up. This can still work.”
“What can still work?” Rusty asked, his eyes tracking across the scene unfolding, police officers securing the gunmen and trying to make sense of what in the hell had just happened here.
“Our original plan,” Jack said, irritation seeping into his own voice. There was a very small window to pull this off, and he didn’t have time for debate.
Rusty studied him for a moment. Words were on his lips, but he didn’t speak them.
He’s giving me an out, Jack thought. When this all started, Rusty and Enzo thought Jack was hedging. It was Rusty who pushed him, saying that he couldn’t have a foot in both worlds. If he was going to do this, he was going to have to be a thief. Later, Rusty seemed to have had a slight change of heart. He understood that Jack was at greater risk than the two of them and had much more to lose. Rusty suggested that maybe Jack shouldn’t be here for this part, for the take, because they needed him to move the diamonds afterward.
Now, Rusty seemed to be giving him a chance to walk away entirely.
Jack understood. What he had in mind was dangerous and there was no safety net if it collapsed, no way out. It relied on the chaos and confusion of the moment, both factors he could not control. And he would have one chance. But Jack knew people, more importantly, he knew people that were
part of systems and how that could be exploited.
This would really have been better with two people, but Rusty wasn’t up for it. Jack understood now that all of Rusty’s activities that flew well south of the law were all things under his control and with layers of security that he himself had set. Rusty only dealt with other criminals, and they were people who relied on him, needed his services, so the threat was relatively low. Jack didn’t understand how someone who’d been a counterintelligence officer operating undercover against the Russians in the post-9/11 era, a world with perilously few rules even for that game, could lose his nerve on a jewelry heist.
But then again, maybe he did.
As an FBI agent, Rusty had a safety net. The US government was always there to back him up.
Until they weren’t.
Jack thought he knew what was going through Rusty’s head. Were they ever? That was an understandable shattering of confidence, and maybe he needed to give his friend a pass.
Whatever the reason, the window on these diamonds was open just a sliver and closing fast. Jack knew if they still had a shot at them, he was going to have to do it on his own.
“Give me the warrant you typed,” Jack said.
Rusty reached into his jacket and pulled out a few pieces of tri-folded paper.
Jack pulled out his phone and dialed Enzo. He said, “Noi non potremo avere perfetta vita senza amici.” Then he hung up.
“What the fuck is that?”
Jack held a beat. “It’s a distraction,” he said. “Buy us some time to get away. Might involve running a red light and accidentally hitting a police car. People hear it on an open radio, they think you’re talking about a band.” Jack held up his hand. He was committed now, and he wasn’t interested in opinions. Rusty was out of his element, and maybe bringing him along as part of the crew was a mistake, but they could sort that out later. “Meet me on that long street that runs north-south, parallel with the parking lot,” Jack said, pointing to the west, beyond the building. “We have to get out of this parking lot before they seal it off, and that road is the only way out.” Jack glanced back over his shoulder to the tree-lined street that led out to La Cienega.
Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3) Page 24