by Mike Cooper
“Never.”
They sat at a bench near a row of open cubbies, most spilling jackets and backpacks and harnesses. Emily had a steel water bottle and an energy bar wrapped in wax paper. She held it out to him.
“Want some? I make them at home.”
“Really?”
“Oats, almond butter, and flax meal.”
He broke off a corner. “That’s … healthy.”
A guy walked by carrying a ladder and a rechargeable drill. Like three-fourths of the other men there, he had a beard, a wool cap, and very dusty pants. He nodded to Emily.
“You’ll send that dyno next time for sure,” he said.
“Sooner or later.” When he’d disappeared to the back wall, she said to Finn, “He sets the cleverest routes.”
They watched the other climbers while Emily finished her bar. Music played, a constant background of techno and mid-’80s nostalgia.
“So,” Finn said.
“Okay.” She flattened the wax paper, folded it up, and tucked it into a haversack with the water bottle. “Molybdenum. I’ve been thinking about your escapade.”
“Yeah?”
“The London Metal Exchange introduced futures in 2010. But before that, the big traders were still hedging with direct contracts.” She caught his frown. “Buying and selling in advance of delivery, that’s all. Like a promise—I pay you now, but you don’t have to give me the stuff until next July. See?”
“I guess.”
“The point is, there was a market. Opaque but fairly liquid—annual trading volume in the billions of dollars.”
“Well, sure. That’s why we could sell the ore.”
“How much was Wes’s share?”
“He would have gotten two hundred thousand. One-third. He put up all the front money, which was about thirty.”
“Not a bad return.”
“It was safe money,” Finn said. “But once we went down, he got zip.”
Emily stretched, rolling her shoulders and pressing her hands to loosen the forearm muscles.
“Without a lot of research, digging up deals and prices, this is half guesswork. But here’s how it might have gone: When news of the theft broke, prices would have fallen. Steep and sharp.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “It’s what you see. Disruptions in supply generally push the price up. But when something screwy happens, especially when lawbreaking is involved, a lot of players’ first reaction is to sell. Get out before something bad happens to them. I don’t know how speculative the molybdenum market was back then, but 2007, 2008, people were doing crazy stupid shit. It was news, right?”
“What was?”
“You being caught.”
“Oh, yeah.” Front pages, television, internet news—they were media celebrities for days. “It was everywhere.”
“So the price plummeted. If Wes was holding a bunch of short contracts, he could have made out like a bandit.”
“Huh? You said the price went down.”
“And if you’re short, the more it falls, the more you make.” Emily seemed amused. “Wall Street smoke and mirrors, yeah, but that’s how things work.”
She took a few minutes, explaining the maneuvers, and Finn kind of got it eventually.
“So how much could Wes have made?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Too many variables—contract sizes, what the price actually did, how much he committed. But a sure thing like that? I bet 10x wouldn’t be out of reach.”
“‘10x’?”
“Ten times his investment. Say he puts in a hundred grand, he takes out a million.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Emily put up a hand. “Hold on now. I looked, but the financial records from back then are all locked away in off-site storage. I’m just speculating.”
“It’s good enough for me.”
“No. I mean, sure, Wes could have done it.” She hesitated. “Be honest, I thought it was kind of odd he’d get involved for a low-six-figures payoff. This makes more sense.”
“Yes.” Grim.
“But so could anyone else—anyone who knew your plan ahead of time.”
“Jake? Corman? Asher?” Finn almost growled. “Jake might barely understand what you’re saying. Asher’s probably never had a bank account in his life. But more than that, if any of them had a hundred grand lying around, they wouldn’t have done the job at all.”
“They could have told someone else.” She waited a moment. “Some other investor. These hedge funds are always looking for an edge, trying to uncover that little nugget of inside information. I’m not saying they’re all like Wes—”
Finn’s certainty slipped into angry frustration. “We’re back where we started. Any of them could have done it.”
“Not quite.” Emily stood up. “Now you know why.”
Finn waited while Emily changed—fewer than five minutes in the locker room. She emerged in business clothes, well-cut dark wool and a subtle green silk scarf.
It matched her eyes.
Outside, Finn zipped his jacket against the November wind and shoved his hands into the pockets. Too damn cold up here. Down the block, a police cruiser was at the curb, lights flashing but no officers visible. He turned his back to it. Emily tapped her phone.
“I’ve got an Uber coming,” she said. “Drop you somewhere?”
“No.” He’d parked a few blocks away. “I have to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
He’d been thinking about the question for a while. A lot depended on her answer—including his willingness to continue with the entire project.
“Why are you doing this?”
“‘This’?”
“Helping us out. Helping me out. We’re not talking, I don’t know, selling a few dubious stocks. This is a Class B felony.”
A pair of climbers came out, pulling on their layers of fleece. Thin sunlight glinted from a passing windshield.
“You don’t know what I do for Wes normally,” Emily said.
“Jesus, what else is he into? Knocking over armored cars?”
She smiled. “You don’t think you’re the only source he’s gone to for, ah, unconventional asset management?”
“I never really thought about it.”
“Inside information, like I said. The only real way to beat the market. Digging out secrets means, well, sometimes you have to digger deeper than the boring old rules say you’re allowed.”
“Breaking into offices, spying on competitors, that sort of thing?”
She shrugged.
“That’s him,” Finn said. “I’m wondering about you.”
Emily took her time, pulling out a pair of sunglasses, checking her phone again.
“Money,” she said. “Wes truly fucked up, buying all that rhodium. If it collapses, I lose my job, I lose my bonus, and no one will ever hire me again.”
“Okay.”
“Save the deal, you save him—and that saves me.”
“I guess that works,” he said.
“It better.” Emily checked her phone again.
That was all she seemed willing to say. Fair enough. Finn had similar motivations, in part.
“Speaking of money,” he said. “If we’re going to get this off the ground, Wes needs to pony up. We’ve got six weeks, and the expenses are going to build fast.”
“How much?”
“Ballpark? Fifty, sixty thousand.”
He said it wondering how Emily would respond. The figure was a little high, though not much more than a 10-percent overrun allowance. Lots of people seemed to figure, you’re a criminal, you’re gonna steal the fucking money, what do you need more for?
She smiled, crooked. “I’ll tell him.”
“Soon, eh?”
“Yo
u do your job and I’ll do mine.” A light blue Prius came silently down the street and pulled over when Emily waved to it. She looked back at Finn. “We’re all in this together.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Asher finally showed up, the others had been waiting nearly an hour.
“I got lost.” First words, shoving the motel room door closed behind him. “Who picked this dump?”
They were inside room 15 of the Glenville Motor Court, nine o’clock at night. Finn had paid cash earlier in the day, returned after dark, and sat in his truck until Jake and Corman appeared. The place had seen better days—in about 1964. Threadbare quilts, a twelve-inch cathode-ray television with cracked knobs.
“The Hilton was booked,” Jake said. “Wipe your boots off, for fuck’s sake.”
Corman stood by the wall holding a plastic bag of baby carrots, almost empty. He held out the last few to Asher, who gave him an incredulous look and dropped into the room’s only chair. Jake sat on the bed with a half-eaten, paper-wrapped Italian sub in one hand, the smell of salami and pepperoncini strong.
Finn kept station at the door. The last he’d seen Asher, he was being hauled into a New Mexico State Patrol Humvee, bruised and bloody after not cooperating fast enough to suit the troopers. Corman—the same, though he’d been sufficiently docile, despite his size, to avoid a beating.
Seven years. Hard years, someone comparing before and after might think. Asher in particular, the beard still cut to a point but scraggly, the rest of him even more gnarly.
Corman had gone completely bald, though his massive pro-wrestler’s build seemed undiminished. Only Jake was edging gracefully into middle age, still handsome, even dignified.
“All right,” Finn said. “Jake and I have been studying on this for a week.”
He unrolled a property map. Corman leaned forward, attention immediately drawn by the distinctive network of rail yard rights-of-way. Finn pointed. “There,” he said. “A hundred yards from the street.”
“Trains?” Asher, in disbelief. “We’re robbing a fucking train again?”
Jake laughed. “Not quite.”
Finn ran through it. He described the vault, what they’d seen. The high-tech security. Jake pitched in now and then. It didn’t take long.
He stopped and waited. Jake finished his sandwich, crumpled the paper, and tossed it vaguely toward the bathroom door. Corman stood impassive, looking at the map.
“So …” said Asher, “some rich guy wants us to rip off his pal’s gold supply.”
“Rhodium,” Finn said.
“And we’re not supposed to take anything ourselves. All that trouble—”
“Four hundred fifty large,” Jake said.
Asher shrugged. “A hundred each? Nice, but whatever; I could earn that in the oilfields.”
“Tax free?”
Snort. “You’re reaching.”
Finn nodded. “Once we’re inside, it might be kind of stupid not to take the metal after all. For ourselves.”
“Fuck yes!” Asher didn’t hesitate. “That’s more like it!”
Corman’s raspy voice was more measured. “I never dealt with rhodium before.”
“It ain’t radioactive.” Asher, suddenly an expert.
“Not what I meant.” Corman looked at Finn. “You?”
“No.” He thought he knew where the big man was headed.
“What’s the market?”
“What’d you say, two thousand dollars an ounce?” Asher said. “People paying that kind of money, it won’t be any problem finding buyers.”
“No,” Finn said. “Corman makes a reasonable point. Gold, silver, sure, we could fence it anywhere. But rhodium—I don’t know who buys it, who uses it, how willing the buyers are to consider, ah … alternative sourcing. Hell, I don’t even know what it’s used for.”
“So what do you think we can get? Twenty percent?”
“In there.”
“Fifteen? Twenty-five?” Corman moved his massive hands slightly, a small so-what gesture.
“I hear you.” Jake joined the thread. “The payoff’s not as good. Finn’s guy is willing to pay us clean. Versus having to haul out God knows how much metal, plus the trouble—and risk—of selling it.”
“Seventy pounds.” Finn had done the math already.
“What?”
“Seventy pounds of rhodium, nineteen hundred an ounce, at an eighty percent markdown. That’s all it takes to net us the same as Wes is offering.”
“Seventy pounds?”
“About.”
“That’s all?” Asher didn’t need to hear anything more. “I could carry it out myself.”
“And,” Jake said, “it appears to me there’s no reason to stop there.”
“Right.” Corman seemed almost to smile.
“How much is in there?” Asher said. “Total?”
“Minimum seven hundred fifty kilograms.” Finn let them start to figure the arithmetic themselves.
“Motherfucker.”
Grunt—an impressed one.
“Of course, some of it’s fake,” Finn said. “But our client is convinced his neighbor in the vault has at least enough to make up the difference.”
That’s all it took. Even Corman.
“Need a heavy truck to get that out, though,” he said.
“We’re not going to drive in.”
“Then what?” Asher frowned, his dream of easy riches suddenly balked. “No way we can tunnel, they’ll have motion sensors every two feet around the walls and floor.”
“No.” Jake leaned forward to point at the plan. “It’s inside a rail yard. A hundred trains a day go in and out of there. Big, heavy, long trains …”
“Hah.” Corman made a surprised sort of laugh.
“Right,” said Finn. “Rumbling the ground around the clock. Vibration sensors would be useless.”
“I’ll be fucked.” Asher looked more closely at the plan. “What’s the scale?”
“Three-sixteenths.”
“A hundred twenty-five meters from the warehouse to the vault,” Jake said.
“The road,” Corman said. “And two sidings. In between.”
“That’s right. The tunnel would run under all of them.”
“A long-haul locomotive weighs two hundred tons.”
Jake leaned back again, hands behind his head. “We’ll shore it. Heavy timbers, maybe concrete pipe. We can manage.”
More questions, most still unanswerable. Corman said little.
Finn wound it up. “We won’t do it if it’s not possible. Like always.”
“No motion sensors,” Jake said. “Other monitoring equipment, though. We need to find out exactly what’s in there.”
“Sure.” Finn nodded. “But, again, like always, cameras and computers and whatever else are only as good as the people watching them.”
“Yeah.”
“They’re humans, and humans make mistakes.”
“We’re humans, too, you know,” Jake said.
“Not us,” Finn said. “We never make mistakes.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Someone made a mistake? Is that what you’re telling me?” David met Sean outside the vault’s truck entrance. Sean’s cruiser was parked crossways to the ramp, lightbar strobing. It was dark at four thirty in the afternoon. The heavy sky smelled of snow. Sean had called him right before shift end, and he’d driven over directly from the dispatching center two minutes earlier.
“Not someone, no.” Sean wasn’t wearing a coat or hat or gloves but didn’t seem to mind the cold. “Let’s go talk with Pete.”
They walked down the sloping truck ramp. Deliveries in and out of the vault were made underground, out of sight, in a white-painted concrete space more brightly lit than a normal truck bay. Next to a simp
le loading dock, a bullet-resistant glass window overlooked the entire space. Sean gestured to the guard inside, who stood to open a heavy metal door then relocked it behind them.
“What’s up, Pete?” David’s knee pinged and he tried to ignore it.
“He’s inside.” The guard hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Clerk’s office.”
“New guy?”
“No. Been assigned here, oh, four or five weeks at least. His name’s Teller.”
“Okay.” David took a moment to examine the bank of monitor screens above the guard’s desk. They showed the familiar interior of the vault: hallway, wire enclosures, lockbox racks, a fisheye of the main room. No one was visible inside. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s been a normal day. A few deliveries, the usual orders to move freight around inside.” Some customers moved items in and out; other transactions were between parties who both rented space in the vault or handlers who would simply shift material from one owner’s locked rack to another’s. “The day guys left a half hour ago, and Teller went in for a walkaround. He’s in there ten seconds, and the alarm goes off. The computer flagged him as a threat.”
David looked at Sean. “Threat?”
“It didn’t recognize him. Facial recognition. Remember? We put in the upgrade last year.”
Security in the vault was ultimately David’s responsibility, but corporate bean counters had insisted on contracting out his personnel. They made it sound like a standard precaution—don’t let anyone get too cozy, avoid the risk of inside jobs—but he figured it was more about replacing his fully salaried employees with cheaper temps. In any event, the result was a constantly changing cast of guards, delivered from Stormwall Security Solutions, who were also responsible for all the monitoring.
“Facial recognition?”
“Stormwall’s techs scan everyone into the database who’s authorized to be inside. When the cameras see someone not in the database, they send up a rocket.” Sean shrugged apologetically. “I had to follow procedures.”
“I know.” David looked again at the video screens, which remained completely uninteresting. “But you said this guy, ah, Teller, he’s been here for a month already. Sounds like a simple mistake to me.”