A Beautiful Heist

by Kim Foster

  At last everything gelled. It was time. I strolled through the club car, backward through the train, and slid the door open into the baggage car. The door clicked gently behind me, shutting out the noise of the dinner party, and I was in darkness. The train rocked gently beneath my feet and the only sound was the rhythmic clacking of the track. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I pushed my way back between plush coats, through the heady scent of leather jackets and luggage, toward the rear wall. The safe came into view, a small black-enameled iron box. I slithered on my second-skin gloves and reached out to put a hand on the safe.

  At this point someone—in a highly deliberate manner—coughed. I froze. My throat constricted as a figure emerged from the shadows. I made out an all-too familiar face.

  Jack Barlow.

  Chapter 21

  “Jack, are you kidding me?” I managed to croak, once my heart resumed beating. I stood my ground but my eyes swung wildly, looking for an escape route. Damn. How did he know I would be here? He was waiting for me. This was not good. Into my panic pushed a small, dark ache of betrayal. I knew he was FBI, but somehow I’d thought after everything we’d been through he would never actually bust me. He would turn a blind eye, perhaps, when the time came.

  The train was clacking quickly over the track, the horn sounding its muffled warning as we passed through a level crossing. The hanging coats swung slightly with the jostling of the train.

  Jack stood before me, holding his hands out in the gesture one might use to calm a wild horse. “Don’t worry, Cat. I’m not here to arrest you.” His voice was low and level.

  I narrowed my eyes. Was he telling the truth? Jack was never a great liar. He was watching me with patience, and something else. Concern, maybe? “Okay,” I said slowly. “Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m here to warn you. The FBI received a tip about a job happening on this train. Agents will be waiting for you at the Seattle station when we pull in.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Not what I was expecting. A warm spark filled that dark hole of betrayal. “That’s fine,” I said, shrugging. “Because I was never planning to be at the Seattle station anyway.”

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. “You weren’t?”

  “Nope.”

  He blinked and did that half-smile half-frown that people do when they’re intrigued by something. He then shook his head and closed his eyes. “Wait—don’t tell me any more. The less I know the better.”

  “Agreed.”

  Jack took a step toward me. “Cat, even so, it’s a big mess. They’ll have people all over it. Why don’t you give this one a miss?”

  I pressed my lips together and considered this. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was too risky. But to give up so early would not look good from the Agency’s point of view. I pictured the look of disappointment on Templeton’s face.

  “Absolutely not.” I turned my back to him and resumed working on the safe.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded behind my back.

  “What does it look like?”

  “Cat, you can’t ...” He trailed off. I rotated the wheel of the lock with the lightest of touches. I blocked out the outside world. The clicks of the contact points transmitted through to my fingers and an image began to formulate in my mind. It was a fuzzy, sketchy drawing at first, which began to sharpen as I turned the wheel.

  “How are you doing that, exactly?” Jack’s voice penetrated my concentration. I glanced at him over my shoulder. He was chewing on his lip and watching me intently, eyes wide, arms folded, trying to fight the crooked smile that was besieging his face.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to teach you?”

  His face swiftly rearranged into a scowl. “No.” I turned back to the safe to hide my smirk, and kept working. “Listen, Cat, this is not a good idea—”

  My shoulders dropped and I exhaled loudly. “Jack, I’m trying to concentrate here. So ... either bust me or shut up.” I took a sidelong look at him. His fists were clenched and his jaw was working. “Jack, if you want me to stop, you’re going to have to force me. Are you willing to do that?”

  He made an incomprehensible sound of exasperation, which I took to mean no. I returned to the task at hand while Jack watched. After several more minutes working my magic, I cracked the safe. The door sprang open with a soft thunk. I shivered with gratification—it was the most delicious sound in the world.

  I pawed through the various items inside the safe and found the treasure I wanted: the diamond necklace. I grabbed it, slipped it into my handbag, and closed the safe door.

  Jack made a peculiar sound. “You’re just leaving everything else? Just taking that one thing?”

  “Yep. That’s all I’ve been hired to do.”

  He frowned slightly, a pensive look on his face. “Is that how you always work?”

  “Always.”

  “How come we never talked about that?”

  I sighed. “You never wanted to know, Jack.”

  At that moment, I turned around and saw a uniform hat framed within the small square of glass in the baggage car door. The security guard was looking downward at the latch he was about to pull to enter the baggage car. My eyes flew wide. The guard wore a bored expression; he hadn’t seen us yet.

  But I knew it was too late to hide.

  Instantly, I ripped open my blouse. In the next beat I tore open the shirt of a very bewildered Jack. And then I heard the door unlatch.

  “Quick, kiss me....” I hissed urgently. Jack’s eyebrows sprang sky high. “Guard coming.”

  Comprehension dawned on Jack’s face. In the next second he dug his hands into my hair and pulled me close. With hands and lips and tongues entangled, we did an excellent job of impersonating a pair of illicit lovers.

  “Hey!” a male voice hollered. The sound pulled me, sadly, into the present reality. And then there was some grumbling and throat-clearing from the guard and he continued with, “Oh ... umm ... you—you aren’t allowed in here.”

  I turned toward the guard, looking up bashfully from beneath tousled hair that I knew hid most of my face. “Oops,” I giggled. “Guess we’ve been caught, honey.”

  Jack cleared his throat and muttered a “So sorry, officer.”

  The guard glanced at my exposed bra and averted his eyes, flushing furiously, and hustled us out of the room with more gruffs and grumbles. I rebuttoned my blouse as we exited.

  To my irritation, I found that I was having difficulty walking in a straight line. I could still feel the heat of Jack’s hands on my neck, my face. We returned to the cocktail car. As my head gradually cleared, I could see that we had a big problem now. Jack and I moved to a quiet corner of the car, by the window, and I turned to him with urgency.

  “Listen, are you a registered passenger?” I demanded in a low voice. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

  He shook his head. “I snuck on, just like you. I’m off duty.”

  I tugged hard on my earlobe. “Well, that decides that.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to come with me now.”

  “Excuse me?” He took a step back and looked at me like I needed urgent admission to the nearest psych ward.

  “We’re getting off this train. Now.”

  He laughed. “No way.”

  I stared at him and I was not smiling. “Think about it, Jack. When the train arrives in Seattle, the necklace will be gone. The police will be questioning everyone. It won’t be long before they make the connection. They’ll find that you weren’t registered. And when that guard gets a good second look at you, he’ll be able to say that you were the one in the baggage car at the time. But I’ll be missing. You’ll be the guilty party.”

  “Cat, forget it. I’m an FBI officer.”

  “Who was present at the scene of a crime. In a highly compromising position with the probable thief. That will make you an accomplice.”

  His jaw contracted.

  “Face it, Jack, you’re screw
ed. Either way.”

  It occurred to me then, as I stood staring at Jack, exactly how much of a risk he took to be here. He really was a hero.

  Which was something that drew me like gravity. Probably because it was the exact opposite of what I was. I might have been many things, but who would ever have mistaken me for a hero? A dark, ugly thought whispered in my ear: what sort of hero lets her baby sister die?

  Jack was thinking hard, as we stood close together in the club car. The train rattled over the tracks, cocktail glasses clinked inside the car. A white-jacketed attendant bustled by. “I can cover. I’ll be able to explain,” Jack said.

  I looked at him uncertainly. “Explaining might mean turning me in.”

  He hesitated. During which time my stomach clenched in terror. “No. I won’t have to do that,” he said firmly.

  I quietly exhaled. “Listen, that guard didn’t get a good look at our faces,” I pressed on. “He was too embarrassed. He probably won’t be able to identify us—but only if we disappear. Your only chance is to get off this train with me now.”

  He paused and a few more seconds passed. “Fuck,” he said, at last. “Fine.”

  We squeezed ourselves through the door and into the space between the cars, wind whipping and tearing at our clothes and hair. The rhythmic chugging of the train thundered in my ears. I pulled on my night-vision goggles and checked my watch. We were due to arrive at the bridge in about seven minutes, so we were going to have to book it.

  “Just so you know, this is not what I intended when I got on this damn train,” Jack said, looking severely pissed off but resigned, as we climbed up to the roof of the train car. We gripped the cold iron bars of the ladder and hoped that eighteenth-century metalworkers took pride in their work.

  “Hey, me neither,” I said through my teeth. “This job would have gone perfectly fine if it weren’t for your meddling. And now we’re going to be lucky to get out of here.”

  “Meddling? I was trying to save your ass!”

  “Who asked you?” I hurled. “For Christ’s sake ... let’s get going. This isn’t going to be easy.”

  I handed Jack my backup harness and we strapped ourselves in. I knew that Jack had never done this before, so we’d have to do a tandem jump. I fastened the back of his harness to the front of mine at four points, then attached the parachute pack to my back. The straps dug into my thighs. The cold, rushing air made my eyes water.

  Okay, there it was. A deep canyon. This was our one chance. It was the only spot high enough for a BASE jump. The train hurtled toward the bridge. I steadied myself and made sure all straps were pulled tight.

  “Ready?” I yelled into the wind. A grunt was all I received by way of a response.

  We pitched ourselves out and away, off the top of the train.

  Chapter 22

  We hurtled down through the black sky. But there was no time for free fall. With a jump this low, we wouldn’t make it. The static line I’d set deployed the chute instantly, the drogue released, and then the parachute unfurled, snapping us up. We sailed down through frosty air. The wind was a torrent in my ears. My stomach was doing back-handsprings as we fell toward the earth. It was exhilarating. But beneath the exhilaration lurked a core of terror. Many of the things I did in this job brought me close to death. And I would have liked to say I wasn’t afraid. But I was.

  For a moment, sailing through the night sky gripping tightly to the parachute handles, I imagined a life without this stuff—without the proximity to death. A life of peace. And I had to admit, there was something deeply appealing about that. But I automatically forced myself to stop thinking about it. Truth was, I didn’t particularly deserve a life of peace.

  As an undergraduate, I had taken a class on ancient Greek mythology. One day the professor was lecturing on the underworld and the souls being punished there. For his sins, Sisyphus was forced to push a boulder uphill and once he got it to the top it would roll back down again. For eternity he would do this. I remember sitting in the back of the darkened lecture room, staring at the illustration of Sisyphus illuminated on the screen. I’d been rooted to my seat.

  Is that what I was doing? Endlessly repeating the same task—stealing—in hopes of someday receiving forgiveness for what happened to Penny? But was it all in vain?

  The ground was growing closer. I steered the ram-air parachute with hand toggles, and we landed on the hard rock of the canyon.

  When we touched down, Jack was breathing heavily. With the terror removed, the adrenaline rushed through me unconstrained and gave me a supreme feeling of victory. Dark thoughts of the underworld crumbled away like ancient pottery turning to dust. I detached our harnesses. Jack struggled away from me and flopped down on the ground. He looked up at me, face flushed and hair windblown.

  “Okay, that was wrong,” he said. “Very wrong.”

  “But fun, no?” I said, with a huge smile.

  His face cracked into a grin bigger than mine. “Hell, yes.”

  I briefly struggled with one of the straps. Jack reached over to help me. He was very close, intoxicatingly so. The palm of his hand—rough and warm—brushed mine as we grappled with the straps. I could feel myself reaching the approximate temperature of a volcano. In an instant, I was back in the baggage cart, pressed up against Jack, clawing at his shoulders and tasting his mouth....

  Standing in the canyon, I noticed that Jack’s eyes were slightly out of focus. I wondered if he was thinking about the same thing I was. At once, abstract, fairy-tale visions of a future with Jack sprang involuntarily to mind. Fantasies I’d stupidly indulged in when we were a couple. Those ideas had been squashed months ago. But at that moment—there was something about the way Jack was looking at me that made all those gauzy images come into sharper focus.

  “Cat,” he said gently.

  “Yes?” My voice came out Marilyn-Monroe-breathless.

  There was a long pause. He raked his hand through his hair and seemed to be struggling over something. Then he looked down and started packing up the parachute. “So, anyway. Did you get the invitation to the golf tournament Nicole is hosting?” he asked briskly.

  The string section that had previously been performing in my head came to a screeching halt.

  “It’s just ...” he continued, avoiding eye contact. “I know she wants you to come. It would be fun. You should come....”

  I blinked, at a loss for words.

  The stone room beneath the masquerade mansion flickered with wall sconces. I was seated at a table with Sandor and his people. All eyes were on me and despite the damp chill in the room, I was sweating under the scrutiny. I shifted in my seat to improve my comfort level. Not effective.

  “Miss Montgomery,” Sandor said, “we need you to tell us how the job is coming along.” Okay, so they needed an update. Probably some reassurance. Fine. I could do that.

  It was peculiar—this evening Sandor looked much less like the benign schoolboy I met in the diner that night. Somehow he looked like a much older man, much harder. I swallowed. “Well, I’ve got all the information I need about the security,” I said.

  “Good. Go on.” Sandor’s gaze was unwavering.

  I tried to keep my tone confident. “Of course there’s some equipment I need to gather. There’s a particular piece that needs to come in through my supplier.”

  When I’d gone home after my little expedition with Ethan, I’d pored over all the information. After reading everything, I felt comfortable about my ability to deal with most of the security technology. With one exception.

  That noxious gas. I’d researched Kolokol-1. It was designed to only render its victims unconscious, but still, I was not fond of the possibility of being gassed to death. So I called my tech guy, Lucas, yesterday, to get a gas mask.

  “Nope,” he’d said. “Regular gas mask won’t do the trick.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s this pesky Kolokol-1 stuff. Very rare. Very noxious.”

  “Is it true th
ey used it in that hostage thing in Moscow?” This was what Ethan had told me.

  “Yep—believed to be.”

  “And,” I said, “what about the rumor that a lot of hostages were killed by the stuff? That’s not true, is it?” I gave a light, nervous laugh.

  “Totally true.”

  I stopped laughing.

  “Of course,” Lucas continued, “that was probably because the dose was way too large. In your situation, the dose won’t be as large. Most likely. It’s fascinating, actually. Some sources believe it to be carfentanil, an aerosolized narcotic, but it’s difficult to manufacture, a very secret chemical composition—”

  “Lucas,” I said firmly. “Focus, please?”

  “Right,” he said, clearing his throat. “Point is, we need a mask with a very specific filter that will protect against Kolokol-1.”

  “Can you get it?”

  “Sure can. But ... it’s gonna take a little time.”

  “How much time?” I winced, waiting for the answer.

  “Well, we need to order it in from Minsk.”

  “Minsk?”

  “Minsk.”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed them with my hand. “And that’s going to take how long?”

  “Few days, hopefully. Maybe more. Hard to say.”

  In the stone room beneath the masquerade mansion, I smoothed my skirt and looked around at Sandor’s people. “Don’t worry, it’s completely in hand,” I said with a serene smile.

  At this point, Sandor’s assistant, Gilda, a wiry woman in her sixties with short, steel gray hair, walked in and said, “Sir, they’re here, asking to talk to you.” I noted a slight emphasis on the word they’re.