Flawless

by Scott Selby

  D’Onorio spent that day sitting in Notarbartolo’s office waiting until the sky turned dark, and with it, the room around him. He waited for hours, until he was sure that any late-working tenants had gone home for the night and that Jacques, the concierge on duty that week, was safely in his apartment in C Block. As he waited, D’Onorio thought about the details of his mission, pushing out of his head the knowledge that if something went wrong, he would be immediately sent to prison and the heist plot would be scuttled.

  When he was sure the building was settled in for the evening, he slipped on a pair of thin rubber gloves and shouldered his workbag. He crept quietly out of the office, locking the door behind him. It was only a few paces to the elevator foyer and he was soon in the stairwell, gliding quickly down seven flights of stairs, listening for the sound of anyone else moving through the dark building.

  When he opened the stairwell door into the vault foyer, D’Onorio found himself opposite the elevator doors, just as Notarbartolo had described. The large white Siemens video camera, dutifully recording the dark foyer, hung from the ceiling in front of the stairwell door. The room was not quite pitch dark; the red light on the video camera cast a faint pink glow into the silent space. Even though he counted on no one ever watching the videotape of what he was about to do, D’Onorio would have hooded the video camera with a plastic bag or some other material to obscure its view. There was always the chance that something would go wrong before he could remove the tape from the Diamond Center. D’Onorio didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks.

  With the camera obscured, he flicked on the light switch and winced while his eyes adjusted to the stark fluorescent lighting. The LIPS door was locked tight for the night, a deceptively passive-looking barrier that he knew had the power to land him in prison if he made any mistakes. Seeing the magnetic alarm in person, after having studied it so intensely from videotape must have been gratifying. He examined its components from all angles for a few minutes to be sure there were no surprises.

  From his workbag, he took the strange metal plate. It may have looked odd, but it was a central component of the heist. It was designed to fit perfectly across both magnets, positioned precisely between the upper and lower bolts that held the magnet to the door. It was a custom-made piece of metal that would keep both pieces of the alarm together while he worked to unbolt them. With a satisfying metallic clank, it stuck in place perfectly.

  Next, D’Onorio produced a wrench from the bag and carefully unbolted each of the eight bolts that held the contraption in place. It was hard work. His arms were over his head and the bolts were old. He had to be very careful not to yank too hard and risk dislodging one of the magnets, which would set off the alarm.

  If his work wiggled the magnets enough to break the connection and set off the alarm, D’Onorio wouldn’t have known it. There wouldn’t have been clanging bells or flashing lights, just an interruption of the signals transmitted to Securilink that D’Onorio wouldn’t be able to detect. He would know that he failed only if the stairwell door or the elevators opened and heavily armed cops spilled into the foyer. D’Onorio was used to dealing with the tension such work generated; deep in the bowels of the Diamond Center, subverting an alarm in the middle of the night, D’Onorio was in his element.

  One by one, the long and sturdy bolts came out. When the last bolt came free, so did the entire contraption. But, though separated from where they’d been anchored to the door and the jamb, the magnets stayed connected to each other, thanks to the metal plate. They dangled from the flexible steel pipe that led into the ceiling. This apparatus could be moved a few inches to the side, far enough to allow the door to open when the time came to do so. The magnets still had to be handled with care, though, to ensure that the connection between them wasn’t jostled in even the slightest way, or Securilink would be notified immediately.

  He had been successful in his first task, but D’Onorio was far from finished. So that the thieves wouldn’t have to repeat the laborious job of unbolting the magnets on the night of the heist, he used the hacksaw to shorten each bolt so that it would screw only into the magnets, and not their anchors in the door and the jamb. He then used heavy-duty double-sided tape to stick the magnets back into place where the bolts once held them. When he screwed in the shortened bolts and removed the metal plate, it was impossible to tell that tape, and not steel bolts, held the alarm in place. He’d been in the vault foyer for a long time, but he was satisfied knowing they wouldn’t have to take nearly as much time during the heist to get around the magnetic alarm.

  D’Onorio took another look at his handiwork to be sure that nothing out of the ordinary would be noticed when the concierge came to open the vault for the day’s business in a few hours. Because they’d tested the holding strength of the tape, he wasn’t worried that the weight of the magnets would cause them to fall off from where they were anchored, but Notarbartolo would check nonetheless throughout the week to be sure they hadn’t moved. D’Onorio flipped off the lights, retrieved the shrouding material from the video camera, and slipped into the stairwell like a phantom. Only a careful inspection would reveal that he had not left everything behind him as he had found it.

  Still, his long night wasn’t finished. D’Onorio exited the stairwell on the main level, sticking his head cautiously out into the hallway opposite the elevators, scanning for any sign of the concierge. Nothing. The video cameras recorded him as he slipped across the hall and peered down the corridor that led to C Block. Again, the coast was clear, so he tiptoed silently to the door leading to the parking garage.

  As D’Onorio prepared to exit the Diamond Center through the garage, investigators would later theorize, he took a few moments to check some final details. He tested that the special key made in Turin specifically to open the C Block door from the parking deck worked properly. He confirmed Notarbartolo’s earlier observation that the key used to open and close the garage doors was permanently left in the opening mechanism.

  And, according to one theory, he also removed from his workbag a frequency scanner. This simple battery-powered transmitter was connected to a circuit board and used to test all possible radio frequencies for the garage door until it hit on the correct one. Because the frequency was based upon the on or off positions of twelve toggle switches inside the garage door’s circuitry housing, there were 1,024 possible combinations. D’Onorio would know he’d found the right one when the garage door opened; he would then keep track of the code so that they could use it again to open the door remotely on the night of the heist. He had only to sit where he couldn’t be seen if the concierge made an unexpected visit to the garage, and let the scanner do all the work.

  As much as he’d anticipated the noise the garage door would make, it was still a startling burst of sound; whether it was triggered by the scanner hitting on the right frequency or by the key opening it manually—the chain and pulley mechanism jolted to a start and the door began lumbering upward with a great metallic racket that ricocheted throughout the cavernous garage.

  D’Onorio grabbed his workbag and hustled to the garage door. He looked around to be sure no one was watching, then turned left on Lange Herentalsestraat and walked swiftly down the sidewalk away from where the police kiosk stood just around the corner to the right.

  Back at the apartment, D’Onorio was elated. His mission was a success on every front. While giving his report to the others, he tore the work order in his pocket into little pieces, along with a business card with his name on it. He’d been carrying both of these items in case he had been stopped while in the Diamond Center. He threw the remnants of both documents into the kitchen trash, where they scattered amid used coffee grounds and other household refuse.

  There were other preparations afoot in Antwerp that week. Most of the gang members had arrived in the city the weekend before the heist. They came to Antwerp in separate groups, just as they would leave. Notarbartolo had flown to Brussels as he normally did, but some of the others
drove, coming over Brenner Pass through the Alps between Italy and Austria on Sunday, February 9. In all, detectives believe at least seven people, and maybe more, were directly involved in the plot to rob the Diamond Center. Each had a different responsibility, from lookout to getaway driver. Not all of them have been identified.

  They took care to arrive at Notarbartolo’s Charlottalei apartment without attracting attention; for more than two years, he had been a nearly anonymous tenant who was quiet as a mouse. The men were careful not to draw unnecessary attention to themselves as they crowded into the miniscule elevator and trudged down the cramped hallways, burdened with their bags of clothes, food, and equipment.

  Police believe that some of the School of Turin members were tasked with perfecting their specialized safe deposit box tool in the days leading to the heist. They went to a few industrial areas on the outskirts of the city that were home to welding companies, machine shops, and scrap yards. Notarbartolo rented a car—not a flashy model like an Alfa, but a forgettable silver Peugeot sedan—because he planned that his baggage for the return trip to Italy would be far too valuable to risk bringing through airport security.

  Otherwise, his job was simply to report to work in the Diamond Center as usual, and visit the vault daily to ensure that D’Onorio’s modifications to the magnetic alarm hadn’t been discovered. Had anyone at the Diamond Center been paying attention to his habits, they would have noted this as a huge change in Notarbartolo’s behavior. He’d visited the vault sporadically during the last two years, but in the week leading up to the heist he went to the vault twice daily. Notarbartolo was delighted to find that the Roman had done an excellent job; it was impossible even for him to tell that the bolts had been shortened and that simple tape kept the magnets in their place on the door and the doorframe.

  During one of his later trips to the vault, Notarbartolo waited until all the other tenants had left and he was alone. Standing outside the range of the video camera, he removed an aerosol bottle from his attaché case and sprayed the lens of the motion detector. He gave it a good thick coating that went on clear and hardened into a sticky, opaque film, and then slid the can back into his case. Masking the motion detector had taken only a few seconds.

  On subsequent trips to the vault, he examined the masked motion detector in addition to checking the magnets. He was relatively confident that it would go undetected, since neither the concierges nor the guards actually came into the vault, and the tenants were focused only on what was inside their safe deposit boxes. Still, he needed to be certain no one had noticed the film and scrubbed it off.

  Additionally, most diamantaires had other things on their minds that week. Valentine’s Day was the biggest romantic holiday of the year and retailers around the world had spent months marketing diamonds as the perfect gift to demonstrate one’s love. Although the wholesalers in the Diamond Square Mile were no busier that week than usual—retailers stocked up on diamonds and diamond jewelry starting in October for both Christmas and Valentine’s Day—the industry took the occasion of the holiday to showcase Antwerp as the center of the diamond trading world.

  Between the Proximus tennis tournament, Peter Meeus’s wedding reception at the Beurs voor Diamanthandel, and the early winter start to Friday prayers for the district’s substantial Jewish population—not to mention the fact that it was Valentine’s Day, meaning that anyone with a significant other would have plans—the Diamond Center would be all but deserted for the last few hours of the workweek.

  While Antwerp’s diamantaires used Valentine’s Day to celebrate the Diamond District’s place in the world of diamonds, Notarbartolo, D’Onorio, and the others spent that Friday preparing to pull the rug out from under it the next evening.

  For at least one of the thieves, Friday couldn’t come soon enough. Ferdinando Finotto remained holed up in Notarbartolo’s small apartment practically from the moment he arrived. Even though the attempted bank robbery charge for the 1997 failed KBC job in Antwerp had been settled as far as the courts in Italy were concerned, it was still a problem in Belgium. In fact, he’d been convicted in Belgium in absentia, and should he get caught anywhere in the country, he would go immediately to prison to begin serving his sentence. So he stayed inside, running over details, pacing the floor, and losing his patience.

  Finally, on Thursday, Finotto decided that if he couldn’t assist in the reconnaissance he could at least cook his colleagues a proper Italian meal before their big night. He thought it worth the risk to go to the Delhaize grocery store around the corner on Plantin en Moretuslei.

  Delhaize, a spacious and modern store, was about a ten-minute walk away. Once there, Finotto took his time wandering its aisles and filling his cart with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, packages of pre-tossed salad, pasta, loaves of bread, and Italian meats. He also grabbed a bottle of wine and some beer. His early afternoon shopping trip cost just over 53; he paid with a 100-euro note. As trained as he was to notice security features, he couldn’t have failed to note the video camera that recorded customers as they entered the store.

  If anyone was upset that Finotto went out in public, the anger couldn’t have lasted long considering the spread he prepared. With at least four people shoehorned inside an apartment made for one for the better part of the week, Finotto’s meal was one of the few times they could relax and enjoy themselves while indulging in the tastes of home.

  The School of Turin sprawled out on the low black vinyl sofas or at the tiny dining table. As in Italy, the food was laid out on plates and spread out on the coffee table buffet style; the wine was poured and beer bottles opened. It was a few moments of enjoyment before they inevitably scrounged for space to sleep, whether on the floor in sleeping bags or curled uncomfortably on the small sofas; only one of them enjoyed the relative comfort of the apartment’s single narrow bed.

  The next day, Friday, would be their last chance at surveillance before the heist. They needed as much rest as they could get.

  Perhaps because the hardware store was located twenty minutes away, in Mechelen, or perhaps because his foray to the grocery store hadn’t resulted in police sirens and handcuffs, Finotto was confident enough to again venture out of the apartment in order to accompany D’Onorio on a supply run late Friday afternoon. They pulled into the parking lot of Brico, a well-stocked home improvement chain store, and made their way slowly through the tight aisles, equipped with a detailed list of provisions. They loaded the cart with tool sets, a two-foot-long crowbar, an emergency battery similar in size to one that would fit in a car or a boat, an AC/DC power inverter for running power tools off the battery, drills, a pipe wrench, bolt cutters, and other tools. In the insulation section, they found several different-sized Styrofoam panels, and in the cleaning section, they found a dust mop on a long telescoping handle designed to reach cobwebs high in the corners of a vaulted ceiling.

  This expedition cost 570. Again the men paid with big bills, a 500-euro note and a 100-euro note. The receipt showed that they paid at exactly 5:30 p.m.

  Meanwhile, back in Antwerp, Notarbartolo was at the Diamond Center, one of just a handful of people still working that late in the day. Jewish Sabbath services had begun and the Shabbat prayers had started at the Sephardic Synagogue on Hoveniersstraat. Notarbartolo sat in his office and ran through everything in his mind, visualizing the plot over and over. He waited as the building emptied of the last few tenants who were finishing business ahead of a romantic night on the town.

  Around half past six, Notarbartolo stood and looked around. The room was as empty as the day he had rented it. There wasn’t a single trace of what he’d plotted there over the past two years. He grabbed his attaché case, locked the door, and headed for the elevator, where he pushed the button for the bottom level.

  By now, his third time there that day, he’d grown accustomed to the cavernous hush of the vault and its bright white walls. He stepped to the day gate, eyeing the magnetic lock intently for any sign that D’Onorio’s modificatio
ns had been detected. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t. When the day gate buzzed open, he walked the few familiar steps to his safe deposit box and opened it. It too was as empty as ever of anything valuable, but he lingered over it, noting once again the features of its locking mechanism. He turned to look at the motion detector; it was still covered with a thin filmy crust of dried aerosol spray. Nothing had been discovered.

  The video cameras recorded him as the last tenant in the vault that day. After he made his final inspection, he then exited the building at 6:44 p.m., just sixteen minutes before the staff locked up the building for the weekend. If the concierges followed the same patterns as they had for the past two years, once they closed the vault, they wouldn’t even think about it until it needed to be opened sixty hours later.

  As Notarbartolo walked to his apartment that night, he passed diamantaires headed in the other direction, toward the reception at the Beurs voor Diamanthandel and one of the weekend’s many displays of lavish excess. Only Notarbartolo knew that the biggest show of all would take place far from the public’s eye, two levels underground.

  If ever any place looked like a den of thieves, it was Notarbartolo’s living room on Saturday, February 15, 2003. The floor was covered with tools and equipment laid out in orderly rows so that everything could be accounted for, checked, and double-checked. The bolt cutters, the pipe wrench, the power inverter, the emergency battery, and the big crowbar were arranged in a group. Scattered about were numerous pairs of rubber gloves, plastic water bottles, rolls of duct tape, electronic gadgets, power cords, and duffel bags. They had fake keys, lock-picking tools, fabricated aluminum parts, headlamps, spare batteries, and small bags of nuts and screws.