Vengeance Is Personal (A Colton James Novel, Book 2)

by Thomas DePrima

  "That's very true. So they're okay with it also?"

  "Yes, I think so. I told them you would be back as soon as you could come back and I was staying here until then, and then we'd be going to Fiji before returning here. Right?"

  "Right."

  ~

  When the air-taxi arrived in the morning, I was all packed and ready. The entire family came out to the pad to see me off, and there was a great deal of hugging and kissing. It was a very touching moment for me, mostly because I'd had no family to see me off on a trip for a very long time.

  As the air-taxi lifted off the pad, everyone was waving. It made me want to hurry back as soon as I could.

  The flight to Athens was a bit boring because it was predominantly over water, so I sat back and planned my trip. Mostly my plans revolved around trying to find a place where I could use the gizmo with no danger of anyone learning of its existence. I hadn't used it at the Kosarros residence because there was no place I was sure was totally secure. I couldn't afford to have Mia come in while I was viewing the robbery, so it would have to wait until I was in the hotel in San Francisco.

  ~

  The air-taxi folks had arranged for a golf-cart ride to the main terminal, and then it was simply a matter of waiting two hours for the plane to begin boarding. While sitting near the gate I heard an announcement that two days hence there would be no flights into and out of the airport for twenty-four hours. One of the unions had called for the one-day strike to protest reductions from what they said were necessary staffing levels. The country was in a hell of mess, and the unions weren't making the situation any better by having such an impact on tourism.

  Nobody wanted to go to a place where they could suddenly discover that virtually the entire staff of a hotel was on strike, where the tourist destinations were all closed, or where their travel plans had suddenly been cancelled without notice. Local violence certainly didn't help either. I'd heard that Egypt used to be one of the 'must-see' destinations in the Middle East, with the country's economic stability coming mostly from tourist dollars, but few people reportedly went there anymore. Greece might be heading down that same path. I had hoped to view the famous sights such as the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens when I came to Greece, but Mia advised against it. She said too many tourists were being attacked and robbed in the city. The economic situation was reportedly worsening by the day.

  ~

  When the announcement came that my flight would begin boarding, I stood and walked to the gate. Another of the advantages for paying three times the ticket price paid by the customers in steerage was boarding first. While the coach-class folks were trying to squeeze their bags into the overhead bins and dropping things on the heads of unlucky passengers sitting in the too-small seats below, I was relaxing in comfort with a pre-departure complimentary glass of wine. Traveling with the sun, we would arrive in New York at about four p.m. local time.

  Once the plane had climbed to altitude and mostly leveled off, I put my head back and closed my eyes. I wasn't sleeping. I was merely thinking about the robbery in San Francisco. The lack of a secure place to view the event at the Kosarros estate meant that all I currently knew was the little info I'd gotten from Saul. I didn't even know where the robbery had occurred.

  The actual theft could have happened anywhere from Milan, Italy, to the City by the Bay. I hoped it hadn't happened in Milan after I'd traveled all the way back to the U.S. because I'd have to turn around and head back to Europe again. I should have quizzed Saul a bit more, but I'd already begun worrying about breaking the news to Mia that I was leaving. However, I was fairly confident he wouldn't have asked me to rush back to the U.S. if the robbery had occurred in Europe.

  Saul had told me the police had an M.O., which usually meant they knew how the theft had been accomplished even if they didn't know who had committed it. But he'd also said everyone was bewildered, which seemed to indicate they didn't know how it had been accomplished. They both couldn't be true. Could they? Well, I'd find out soon enough.

  It would be late by the time I arrived in San Francisco because I would have to wait for a connecting flight at JFK, then travel for six more hours. It would still be the same day, local time, only because I was traveling west. Saul's secretary had emailed the particulars about the hotel, so all I had to do was check in when I got there.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  As curious as I was to learn the known facts of the art theft, I was just too weary to begin reading the reports when I finally reached my hotel in San Francisco and settled in. The suite was spacious and well appointed. I was certain I would appreciate it more in the morning because the only thing on my mind at that point was a good night's rest. Still, I took a hot shower to relax the tenseness in my muscles before slipping into bed.

  I didn't request a wakeup call because I wanted to sleep for as long as my body needed it so I'd be alert when it mattered. I'd always had more of a problem getting my internal clock re-synched when traveling east to west. The bed was comfortable and the room was ultra-quiet, so I remembered nothing after laying my head down on the pillow.

  ~ ~

  It was after eleven in the morning when I awoke. I felt well rested and ready to start the day, but my first order of business was to order a pot of coffee and a steak-and-eggs breakfast. I took a shower and was just finishing dressing when the breakfast was delivered. I signed the check after adding a tip that made the waiter smile, then sat at the table to eat and read.

  The food was excellent, and I felt sated when I was done. I took my coffee over to the sofa and continued to read through the reports from the police and the insurance company investigators. Mostly there was boilerplate-type stuff used to bulk up the report, but from reading between the lines the situation appeared to be that all parties were bewildered. They didn't know who had committed the theft or even how. So to hide their confusion, the police had shadowboxed with the truth by saying they recognized the M.O.

  I decided to start from the beginning and evaluate each step along the way where the paintings traveled from the Milan museum to the San Francisco museum, creating an image in my mind from the information in the reports written by the insurance company investigators.

  According to the reports, the museum in Milan had had an independent, fine arts evaluation expert verify the paintings were genuine just before they were loaded into cases for their transportation to San Francisco. The cases were the standard cases designed for transporting valuable paintings and artwork. They were made of plywood sheathed by aluminum on the inside and stainless steel on the outside, with a stainless steel framework. Offered in a variety of sizes by the company that manufactured them, the insides were designed to be completely removable and could be adjusted to accommodate whatever size and shape painting or picture was being transported. The adjustable wood internal frames and foam padding would protect the artwork from anything short of having the outside case completely crushed, and it would probably take a plane crash to do that.

  Once verified by the expert, each painting was sealed inside a separate case and the air evacuated using a small vacuum pump. Each case had an RF unit built into it, which could be set to a different code so the movement of the case could be constantly monitored and instantly located if it went astray. A piece of braided steel wire was passed through the hasp, and a flat lead seal with a special design prepared especially for this shipment was clamped onto the wire, sealing each case. They wouldn't stop anyone from breaking in, but any tampering would be immediately obvious.

  Officials from the museum and the insurance company watched every movement of the verification expert and the packers. When the twelve cases were ready for shipment, each case was weighed and the precise weight recorded. A squad of museum guards and two representatives of the insurance company then remained with the cases until the armored truck arrived. The cases had also been under constant video surveillance by museum cameras from four angles.

  When the armor
ed truck arrived, one museum guard and one insurance official rode to the airport inside the rear compartment, while the others rode along in vehicles ahead of and behind the armored truck. All three vehicles were in constant radio contact.

  At the airport, the three vehicles entered the airport area near the freight hanger. One of those large cargo containers that were preloaded and then put inside the body of a plane had been set aside for just the painting cases. After being placed inside and secured, the cargo container door was closed. The cargo container received the same steel wire and lead seal treatment as each individual artwork container.

  The armored truck was allowed to leave, but the museum security and the insurance people stayed until the container was loaded into the plane and the cargo doors closed and sealed. The museum guards actually stayed at the airport, never taking their eyes off the plane until it rose into the sky. The cargo area wasn't heated, so no one could remain there, but there was a passenger area up near the cockpit capable of seating about a dozen people. That's where the insurance people had gone after the cargo container was loaded. They would fly to Newark airport with the cargo.

  At Newark, the cargo container was removed from the plane and examined by the insurance people. The lead seals were intact and the RF signals were strong. A customs official checked the paperwork and approved the container's entry into the country. From that point on it was the insurance officials and a new team of security guards watching over the container until it was time to load it into a freight plane bound for San Francisco.

  Hours later, the container was loaded aboard the new plane and the insurance people took their seats in the small passenger section for the six-plus-hour trip to San Francisco.

  Once the plane landed, the cargo container was checked for tampering, then opened. The twelve cases were removed and put into an armored truck for transport to the museum. The small convoy made its way through the city without incident, arriving at the museum a little after eleven p.m.

  When the containers were off-loaded at the museum and the seals had been checked for tampering, the containers were transported to the museum's work and storage area by museum personnel. Once the cases were inside the secure area and they had been weighed to ensure their precise weight was consistent with the weight recorded in Milan, the museum curator signed for the delivery and the insurance officials left.

  The cases wouldn't be opened until the next day when a fine arts evaluation expert was on hand to verify the authenticity of the paintings. In the meantime, the cases were left in full view of several video cameras and museum security would be watching them all night.

  At nine the following morning, the evaluation expert arrived and was escorted to the high security area where the cases had sat all night. A museum person opened the air valve slowly on the first case to allow air to flow back in. When the pressure had been neutralized, the wire seal was cut off. The case was lifted onto a table and opened so the adjustable wood frame inside could slide out. As the first priceless masterpiece was revealed, the museum officials and the expert were aghast. The precious painting had been substituted with a cheap piece of virgin canvas mounted in a coarse wood frame. Without waiting to verify the others, the museum curator immediately phoned the insurance company and the police, in that order.

  The remainder of the cases had not been opened until the police detectives arrived. Then, one by one, it was revealed that each of the other original paintings had been removed and replaced with a blank canvas in a rough, unfinished wood frame. Since the evaluation was taking place in a secure area of the museum, the original discovery had been captured by no less than three cameras. The police immediately requested copies of the security system video discs for every minute of time since twenty-four hours prior to the arrival of the artwork.

  The packet of papers sent to me even included the initial police report filed by the first officers to respond. It only included the date and time, their names, and the facts as related by the museum curator. The subsequent reports, filed by the detectives assigned to the case, indicated that the police were unable to determine when and where the theft had occurred. They had determined that there were no fingerprints on any of the replacement canvases or support framework. The outside cases were covered with fingerprints, but most could be associated with the people who had responsibility for handling the cases. An unidentified thumb print was later attributed to the customs official at Newark airport. The curator and fine arts expert had worn white cotton gloves when handling the cases and phony artwork.

  There was still some coffee in the pot, so I refilled my cup and sat down at the desk to think about the robbery. I had to admit to having a small admiration for the people who could commit a robbery such as this one without hurting anyone. The smash-and-grab crooks were a dime a dozen, but this robbery took someone with intelligence and imagination. I was still going to do my best to find them and see that they were punished for their misdeeds, but I didn't have the feelings of animosity I had towards people who hurt other people. Of course, the people who committed the art theft in The Netherlands that I'd solved didn't hurt anyone during the robbery either. But that hadn't stopped them from trying to kill me— repeatedly.

  The first thing to do was find out where the theft actually occurred, and how, so I took out the gizmo and stuck it to the wall over the desk. I went to the museum in Milan first and tagged four of the art pieces. Then I jumped to Newark when the customs official was checking the shipment. The paintings were still in the cargo container. Next I jumped to the San Francisco airport at the time when the twelve cases were being loaded into the armored truck. The four paintings were not in the cases being loaded.

  "Okay," I said to myself, "So now I know the paintings were taken while the plane was en route from Newark to San Francisco. But that's a bit difficult to do while twenty to thirty thousand feet up. So how did they do it? And who did it?'"

  Since I had tagged four of the paintings, it was easy to jump to where they were located after the plane had landed. They were inside a different container. So the switch was made in the air. At this point I didn't know if the entire shipping container had been switched simply by changing the outside identifications on the containers, or if the artwork had simply been moved to a different container. And question number two: why didn't the RF units in each individual artwork transport case alert everyone to the swap?

  Setting the time on the gizmo to three hours into the six-hour flight, I jumped to where the paintings were. The light was a bit dim in the plane's cargo hold, but I could make out two men working to transfer the art cases from one container to another. I backed up the gizmo to where the men first appeared, zoomed in to see better, then sat back to observe the theft.

  As I watched, the entire top of a cargo container rose on hinges and a man climbed out. Most air cargo containers were built to be accessed only from the side. All of the containers in this plane were constructed that way. That is, all except one. When a container was loaded aboard a plane, it was pushed into position and locked down to the deck so it didn't move around in rough air. That would make it impossible for anyone hiding in a container to escape unless there was no other container blocking their access point. By hinging the top, they could get out easily no matter where they were loaded, as long as there was room overhead. There was actually quite a bit of overhead space left in this plane while the cargo deck was fully loaded with containers.

  The man who climbed out was wearing a rebreather mask and special clothing to protect him from the cold. A second man appeared almost immediately, and they began searching among the containers for something, which I assumed was the cargo container with the artwork.

  When they located it, they began moving all of the containers, blocking access to the side door of the one with the artwork. Beginning at one end, they 'unlocked' a container from the deck, slid it to a new position, then locked it down again. They seemed very well practiced at doing it, and it took them just a short time to ga
in access to the container holding the cases with the paintings.

  While one of them cut the wire seal and opened the side of the cargo container, the other man had returned to his original container and carefully began pulling out art transport cases identical to the ones used in Milan. Each of them had a yellow tag on the handle.

  The first man removed all twelve cases from the genuine container and put a red tag on each handle. Then it was simply a matter of matching up the cases by size. Where there were multiple cases of identical sizes, the thieves used a small, electronic, kitchen-style scale to determine the weight of each. When twelve pairs of cases sat on the deck, one of the men produced a piece of electronic equipment and read the RF frequency from a box with a red tag on the handle by pressing a red button on the device and holding it for several seconds. He then placed his electronic box next to the same-sized case with a yellow tag and pressed a yellow button, which he also held for several seconds. I assumed he was encoding the frequency of an RF unit inside the replacement case to match the original. Then he returned the device to the original transport case and depressed a black button for several seconds. I assumed this either deactivated the original signal, or changed it to one no one would recognize or be monitoring.

  Lastly, the yellow tag was removed from the phony transport case and it was placed into the museum's cargo container. They used a picture the first man had taken with his cell phone to place the box in the correct location within the container. The case with the red tag, the original, was then put into the cargo container with the hinged top. It took them just half an hour to swap all of the cases.