by Dale Nelson
Jack had to get that go-bag. If that fell into police custody, he was finished.
Jack paid his tab and left, making his way back to the safe house. A light, misty rain started while he was in the café, and though it put a chill in his bones, it did make for a convenient reason to keep the ball cap on after dark. Jack walked back in the direction of the safe house but kept his distance. Every block or so, he’d either double back, pause briefly, or employ another tactic to make sure he wasn’t being followed. There were several police cars and a van out front, and the building was cordoned off. Jack loitered in the far distance, walking around the surrounding blocks to get different vantage points and to change his position.
Anton called at quarter to eleven.
“When can you meet?”
“Not yet, but soon. Maybe two hours?”
“We don’t have that much time, man. There’s a short window here.”
“I understand, but there’s something I’ve got to do first.”
“What’s more important than freedom?”
“Making sure I keep it.”
“I can wait an hour, maybe ninety minutes, but no more.”
“I understand.” Jack hung up.
By eleven-thirty, it appeared that the police were wrapping up for the night. The van stayed parked out front, but several officers piled into squad cars and departed. Were any still inside? Jack had no way of knowing for sure. He wasn’t an expert on French law enforcement, though he remembered ruefully that he’d once read the French actually created the first crime lab. Though this was his first time operating in Paris, he’d spent a lot of time working jewelry scores on the Riviera, in Lyon and Marselle. He also knew that the tradition of thievery was alive and well in France, perhaps more so than any other country in Europe. There was a lot of wealth, much of it foreign, several locations that catered to the super-rich, and generally inefficient policing.
Jack’s phone vibrated once in his pocket, indicating that he’d gotten a text. He was going to ignore it, assuming it was just Anton being persistent, but he pulled the phone out and looked. It was a number he didn’t recognize.
Jack—We need to talk. I found it.
Then a second message appeared.:
Headmaster.
Jack stared at his phone for several seconds.
The Headmaster.
A name echoing to him through the years like a dark voice whispering over his shoulder.
Jack looked down at his hand. It was shaking.
The Headmaster meant only one thing.
Jack closed his eyes, hard, and took deep breaths to calm his nerves, though it did little.
Jack returned his phone to his pocket and tried to concentrate. He could delay it, but this would need to be dealt with—and soon. But for now, he had to worry about how in the hell he was going to get out of Paris.
He kept having a nagging thought. Is this phone compromised?
Pushing those other thoughts to the periphery, he tried to focus.
He waited another forty-five minutes after the police cars departed, just to make sure that they weren’t setting up for something. Also, to see if anyone else left the building. There was very little foot traffic on the streets now, and loitering would be noticed, so Jack continued his circles of the surrounding blocks. At ten to midnight, he stepped into the alley behind the apartment. It was inky dark in the shadows, the only light coming from the yellow-orange bulbs over the service doors of the buildings on either side and the eerie, bright glow hanging from the clouds overhead.
Jack walked up to the service doors on his apartment building and pulled. The door didn’t move, as he expected it wouldn’t. Still, he had to try. He quickly made his way out of the alley and around to the front of the building. The police van, a white Renault with a blue and red slash down each side, sat dark in front of the building. The windows were tinted almost to opacity, and it was impossible to see inside them from a distance. He had no way of knowing if the Paris Police left the van there as a matter of convenience or because someone was sitting inside and staking out.
Jack declined his head, ostensibly to hide it from the rain, and walked briskly toward the front door of the apartment building, giving every appearance of a man that deserved to be there. He cast a quick sideways glance at the dark van, waiting for police to jump out as soon as he opened the door, but nothing happened. Jack opened the door and stepped into the lobby. Now, he pulled out his phone and pretended to be looking at it as he walked toward the elevator. Then he thought better of it, deciding he didn’t want to risk being trapped in there with a cop. He put the phone back in his pocket and headed for the stairs. Jack climbed to the third floor and paused.
He could still turn back.
If the police had stationed a guard outside the apartment, he would see Jack emerge from the stairway, and there would be no way to bluff his way onto that floor. Any immediate turnaround he’d make would arouse suspicion.
But the calculated odds was easy math.
He could chance getting arrested now or be guaranteed to if he left the bag there.
Jack grabbed the doorknob and pushed. He was committed. He stepped into an empty hallway. The apartment was about halfway down the hall. He could see the ubiquitous crime scene tape from the stairwell door, but there was no cop outside. Jack listened before proceeding, trying to pick up if there was movement in the stairs or in the elevator. Detecting none, Jack padded quickly down the hallway to his apartment. There was an X of tape crisscrossing the door, but he could still access the lock. He unlocked it, opened the door, and ducked under the X. He closed the door softly behind him. Jack paused and listened again. If the French police were setting an ambush for him, they’d spring it now. Jack stood in the quiet darkness for a moment, the only sound was his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears. He tried to tell himself that his racing pulse was just from the three flights of stairs he took two at a time to get here.
Jack reached for his phone and activated the flashlight, which he was careful to keep aimed at the ground. He made his way through the small apartment to the bedroom where he’d hidden his bag. Jack walked over to the dresser and set his phone down on top of it, light down, so he was once again in darkness. Then he grabbed both sides of the dresser and walked it toward him about six inches. He grabbed the phone and shone the light down to inspect his work. Satisfied that he had enough room, Jack knelt and found the part of the wall he’d cut out.
Normally, in an apartment building the framing for each wall would be concrete, but this was wood and plaster because it was just the small space between the bedroom and the bathroom. Jack popped the panel with his hand, and it moved. He’d originally used a box cutter to trace the line and then worked with a small handsaw to actually make the hole. He reached inside and pulled out the large, black ballistic nylon backpack inside. Jack opened it and quickly surveyed the contents—several days’ worth of clothes tightly packed, toiletries, another thousand Euro in a clip, a pair of shoes, a pair of high quality lockpicks, and a US passport. He removed a lightweight packable jacket and put it on.
Jack replaced the panel and pushed the dresser back into place, then left the apartment. On his way down the stairs, he thought about the picks. He never traveled without them, and when the inevitable questions arose at airport security, Jack simply explained—as Frank Fischer—that it he was a security software engineer and that it was commonplace in the hacker community to practice picking locks. It was an ironic badge of honor, he explained, to be able to do that in the real world. Of course, he always said with a laugh and leaned in as if to bring the TSA agent into the joke, they only practice on standalone locks, never actual ones. With the picks, though, he could get into the facilities room where he’d stashed the jewels. Jack could still walk away from this with something. Plus, he’d be able to split whatever Anton had taken.
Jack stepped out onto the main floor. He eyed the door to the facilities room on the far side. This was t
oo well lit. Better to approach from the alley. But as he stepped into the center of the lobby, dim now with just the lighting they kept on after hours, he could see the outline of the police van parked out front. Jack sighed, and the momentary elation he’d felt about being able to get away with it after all fled him. It wasn’t worth it. Jack slid the backpack off one shoulder so he could access the zipper and reached in and found the interior pocket where his picks were stored. Jack could explain everything in his possession if he ran into the police, everything but that. His line about hackers picking physical locks was true—he’d read about it in Wired—but the odds of a French cop buying that while staking out a thief’s safe house were too long to even contemplate. Jack walked over to a silver trash can and dropped them in. Ironically, the other pair he owned was in the bag he’d taken on the job, which was maybe a hundred feet from him … behind a locked door.
Jack went to the front door, pushed it open and stepped out in the cold, wet night. He turned right and began moving down the sidewalk when he heard the sounds of a door handle engaging and the hushed mechanical rolling of a panel down a rail, like when a van door opens. Jack picked up his pace slightly. Next, he heard the sounds of hard footfall on wet concrete.
“Monsieur?” a voice behind him asked in that way that wasn’t really a question.
Jack froze.
“Excusez-moi, monsieur.”
Jack turned and confirmed his fear, a policeman had emerged from the van. He wore a dark uniform with a thick, nylon bomber jacket that sported a blue and silver stripe across the midsection. He knew that stripe ended in a large blue box on the back that read, Police Municipale. Jack said, “Oui,” and the cop looked him up and down. He asked Jack for his identification. Jack reached for the money clip in his front pocket with an exaggerated movement so that it was very clear to the cop what he was doing. Then he drew the clip out and fumbled for the driver’s license, which was difficult given the combination of nerves and the gloves he wore. Jack handed the license over to the police officer, who inspected it with a penlight.
“Tu es Suisse?”
“American,” Jack said, this time in English. “Dual citizen.” Jack found that he was a quick study in languages and had become fluent in Italian and Spanish. His French was conversational, but he needed to consider his responses before he made them. He also noted that there was a distinct difference between the French spoken in Paris and the French spoken in the rest of the country. Jack was learning German, and the combination of that and French allowed him to get by in both Belgium and Switzerland, which certainly helped his alias. Still, the conversation with the French policeman, he wanted to have on his terms. “I’m sorry, I am still working on my French. Do you speak English?”
“Oui,” the cop said, still in French and making no attempt to hide his annoyance. “What are you doing here, monsieur?” The cop looked down at the driver’s license but said nothing else.
“In Paris? I’m a visiting professor. I teach computers and business at the NYU Paris campus,” and Jack motioned to the west, in the direction he was walking.
“No, I meant here,” the cop said, pointing down at the street.
“Oh, sorry. I was staying with a friend. I just arrived a few days ago, and a buddy put me up until I could find my own place. The school wouldn’t even spring for a hotel, do you believe that?” Whether the cop did or didn’t, his expression didn’t change. “Anyway, my first lecture is tomorrow, and this place was a little loud. I decided that I had to just spring for my own room until I find an apartment.”
“What is in the bag?”
“Oh, just clothes and toiletries.”
“May I see?”
“Of course.” Jack opened the bag to show the officer, but he just glowered again and motioned to have Jack hand it over. He did. The cop set it down on the van’s step, opened it all the way, and started rooting through it, using the van’s dome light to see inside. He found Jack’s passport, opening and inspecting it. He held it up in the light and compared it with the Swiss driver’s license. Both names said Russell Macaulay.
“Your friend, he is a teacher too?”
“That’s right.”
“What is his name?”
“Kirk Weller,” Jack said. He’d thought this up previously and rehearsed it. He even had a slight backstory for Mr. Weller, with the kind of details you’d have for an acquaintance.
“Do you know a Raymond Carver?”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t, sorry.”
The cop studied him for a long moment. Jack said nothing, did nothing.
The cop put the driver’s license in the passport, folded both up, and handed them to Jack. Then he zipped the backpack and handed that to him. “You shouldn’t carry so much cash,” he said, referring to the large clip inside his bag.
Jack nodded and thanked him. He slid on his backpack, bid the policeman a good night, and continued on his way. He rounded the first corner he came to so that he’d break line of sight with the cop and accelerated his pace. Several times, he checked behind him to see if he was being followed. When he felt he was far enough away and was sure there wasn’t a tail, he called Anton.
“What the hell, man?” Anton said, annoyed. “I was about to leave.”
“Sorry,” Jack told him. “There was something I had to do.”
“Well, is it done?”
“Yeah. Is the offer still good?”
“Yeah.” He was annoyed. “Where are you?”
“There’s a bridge off Quai de la Tournelle across the river from Notre Dame. I’ll be there.”
Anton told him ten minutes, and Jack hung up.
Jack continued walking until he reached the spot. Jack crossed the Quai de la Tournelle and positioned himself on the corner of the bridge that led to the majestic cathedral that sat on an island in the Seine. Now that he was coming off the adrenaline high, his mood darkened quickly just thinking about the money he was leaving behind. Jack knew he shouldn’t have done a job like this with people he didn’t know, but the problem was that none of the guys he’d want on his crew were around anymore.
Enzo retired. Bart quit the life. Antonio had disappeared. The rumors were that his past had finally caught up with him.
The other problem he had was that now Jack had to not only source the network of contacts and insiders for leads and information about potential jobs, but he also had to fix the jobs themselves. Set up, plan, source the crews and the gear, everything. Used to be there was a fixer who’d find a backer to bankroll a job or had a network of possible leads. But Reginald was gone too, and there was no one Jack could trust.
To complicate things further, Jack had to balance this with his alter ego and legitimate business. It was nearly impossible to do both things with the level of precision that he demanded of himself, and Jack knew things were falling through the cracks.
It was small consolation, but at least he’d see something from Anton’s take—a few hundred thousand before the fence took his cut. It wouldn’t be a total loss, but it sure as hell wasn’t a victory.
A red Peugeot saloon pulled up to the corner. The rear window rolled down, and he heard Anton’s voice. “Let’s go.” Anton was in the back seat, which begged the question, who was driving? Jack got in, and the car took off immediately. “Is that it?” Anton asked, looking down at Jack’s backpack.
“No,” he said.
“What happened?”
“I had to stash it. I hid it behind a storage closet in the apartment building when I saw the police coming.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Then where’d you get that bag?”
“I went back to the safe house.”
“You did what?”
“I went back. It’s got a clean passport in it, and my fingerprints are all over it. I don’t have a way back into the States without it. Not an easy one, at any rate.”
Anton shook his head. “That’s a pretty big risk.”
“It’s a bigger risk for me if th
e police had found it. Those three idiots working crowd control would give me up first because I planned it.”
“Fucking amateurs,” Anton said. “Have you heard from Alonso?”
“They got him. I saw it on the news. I didn’t call him. Must not have known the streets very well because he was going the wrong way down a one-way street and ran into a police roadblock.” Jack was quiet for a moment, watching nocturnal Paris pass by through his car window. “Did you take a look and see how much you got away with?”
Anton sucked his breath through his teeth. Jack had never known that sound to precede good news.
“So,” he said at length. “My bag is at the bottom of the Seine.”
“What?”
“Roadblock. I didn’t cross the river as fast as you. Took a different route, and by then, the police had gotten there. I turned the scooter around and ditched it, got out, and made my way across by foot. I was walking across the bridge when I saw a police car coming. So, I bent down like I was tying my shoe and pushed the bag through the gap between those stone balustrades.”
“So, we’ve got nothing.”
“It would appear that way.”
“If we let things cool down, we can go back to the apartment building. Couple weeks maybe. Hope they don’t move those maintenance lockers too much.”
“Maybe,” was all Anton said.
They rode the rest of the way in silence. The driver had yet to speak, and since Anton didn’t introduce him, Jack simply assumed that the Romanian had some allies in the area. Forty-five minutes later, they were outside Paris and heading northeast on the N2. Their destination was clear. There was a private airport at Le Bourget. Sure enough, the car began to slow as the airport came into view. They turned off the N2 and pulled up to the entry gate. The driver leaned his head out and told the guard that they’d paid extra to depart after hours. The security guard checked his clipboard and found what he was looking for, so he raised the security barrier, and they drove through to one of the terminals.