That done, Watts took notice of the time. He had just a little less than half an hour. He sat and relaxed with the newspaper.
At that moment Weaver was unlatching the horizontal door to the roof of number 13. He pushed it up, and the wind nearly tore it from his hands. Weaver and Maren climbed out onto the roof and found out how really bad the wind was. They stood with legs wide and tried to lean into it to keep their balance, but it was sporadic, blowing with varying intensities from one direction and then another so there was no way to dependably compensate for it.
Chesser came up with the end of the hose. Weaver took it and began pulling it up swiftly hand over hand. The wind caught the hose, and Chesser and Maren had to control it by pressing it down onto the surface of the roof with their bodies. When enough of the hose was pulled up, Weaver took the free end of it to the fence and secured it there. He bent open the section of fence.
Chesser told Maren, “There’s no need for all of us to go across.”
She glanced at the roof of number 11, at the drain gutter.
“Let’s go together,” she said.
Part of Chesser wanted to argue about that, wanted her as safe as possible. But another part told him that was the best way to go. Together.
Chesser went first. Maren was right behind him. He could sense her there, and it helped, just as it helped her to have him leading the way.
The wind was their enemy now, a deadly, unpredictable element that slapped against them like a powerful, invisible hand, pushing one moment, pulling the next, swirling and sucking, letting go all at once only to come smashing back again with renewed force.
They inched across the narrow drain gutter, making more progress during the intermittent lulls. A fall either way meant death. They didn’t step foot over foot, as they’d done before. Now they slid their feet along the drain, maintaining contact with it, front foot forward a length, back foot forward an equal distance. Slowly.
When there was a little more than a yard to go, Chesser had the desire to leap the rest of the way, just lunge and grab for safety. He didn’t because he thought it might cause Maren to lose balance, the suddenness of it. So he continued to slide his feet until he was across. He immediately turned and reached for her and she got his arm and he pulled her to him.
They held against one another. “I love you,” he said. He’d never meant it more than at this moment.
“I know,” she said.
A blast of wind hit them with reality. They kneeled together and began removing the bricks.
There was the pipe containing the five electrical conduits. Maren shined her flashlight to determine which of the corrugated tubes bore the adhesive strip marked with pink. They undid the tape from that one, exposing the pair of wires it contained. Chesser worked the wires up with his fingers until he had enough to grasp. He pulled hard. The wires came. Hand over hand he brought them up the corrugated tube, feeding them to Maren, who gathered them. Finally, there was the end of the wires, and with it the fish line that Watts had attached. Now they were ready for the hose.
The plan had been merely to lead the hose across the roof, but now the wind prevented that. Weaver improvised. While Chesser and Maren were busy extracting the wires, Weaver had searched the rooms of number 13 and found some adequately heavy twine left by the Marylebone workmen. Several pieces, which he knotted together. He tied one end of the twine to the hose and the other to a wrench. He knew he’d have only one chance. If the wrench fell short onto the roof of number 11 it would set off the alarm.
Weaver took a wide stance and whirled the wrench above his head. When it had enough momentum, he released. The twine played out. The wrench cleared the near fence, spun and fought the wind above the roof of number 11 and, by inches, cleared the opposite fence which separated number 11 from the next adjacent rooftop. Chesser retrieved it, untied it, and pulled the twine to him until he had the end of the hose in hand. He pulled the hose across, not without difficulty, because the wind snapped and twisted it erratically.
Meanwhile, with methodical caution, Maren disconnected the fish line from the wires.
Chesser removed the twine from the end of the hose and Maren secured the fish line in its place.
From her pocket Maren brought out a tiny brass pellet. She dropped it into the corrugated tube. Hopefully it would communicate a signal to Watts, seven floors below. It did. In a few seconds the fish line went taut. Chesser fitted the end of the hose into the corrugated tube. For some reason it wasn’t as snug a fit as it had been in rehearsal. It slipped in easily. Weaver played it across and Chesser and Maren guided it in and down.
Below, in the vault, Watts kept just enough pressure on the line to help bring the hose down. When the tip of the hose appeared in the hole of the wall socket, Watts guided it out and detached the line. He carefully gauged how much pull he should apply to the hose and, as it came to him, he arranged it on the floor in a neat coil, the same as he usually did at home with his gardening hose when he’d finished watering his lawn or roses.
After a while he decreased his pull, judging that he now had nearly all the hose they could allow him. And, yes, the hose soon went taut. Watts hoped he had enough. To determine that he picked up the end of the hose and walked it down an aisle to the farthest end of the vault. He found it reached, with some to spare. He put its open end against the palm of his hand. Nothing. He waited what seemed a long time and feared that it wouldn’t work, now, after all this. But then he suddenly felt the suction begin. He tested it again on the skin of his palm and it was strong.
Watts had a lot to do. He began at the far end of the vault, the top drawer first. Perfect white stones of highest quality, all of eight carats, give or take a point or two. Watts knew exactly how fine they were; he had classified them. They lay crowded in the wide drawer, completely covering its black-velour inner lining. Watts extended the end of the hose to the diamonds and sucked them up. Until the drawer was empty. He pushed it closed and proceeded with the next. And the next, and the next.
Above, Maren and Chesser tended the hose where it emerged from the conduit, while Weaver was on the second floor of number 13 looking after the unit. The unit was much like a very powerful industrial vacuum device, except it was specially constructed to receive and discharge simultaneously. In that manner it was more like a pump. The hose that came down from the roof conveyed the diamonds into the unit. Coupled to the unit, on its opposite side, was the hose that evacuated the stones. This hose was directed out one of the second-floor windows and down to one of the dump trucks parked in the Mews. The truck was enclosed by canvas over a high frame. In the top center of the canvas was a hole through which the hose fed, and blankets had been spread on the bed of the truck to inhibit noise.
The first diamonds fell into the truck at precisely ten twenty-three P.M.
At two A.M. the diamonds stopped flowing. Weaver thought something had gone wrong, but then decided it was only because Watts was taking a break. That was correct. In ten minutes the flow resumed.
By six A.M. Watts was extremely tired. He had to take another rest. His legs ached, his arms and shoulders burned with fatigue. His eyes felt as though they were shrunk and asking too much of the muscles that held them in place.
He sat on the floor. He looked at some of the cabinets he’d emptied, their drawers now closed. He lay back on the floor, stretching, and tried to go limp. But he had too much tension. He told himself it would be all over very soon.
Less than an hour to go. And he still had a lot of work. He hadn’t labored this hard in years. He hadn’t thought it would require this much energy. He got up, stiff from having rested, and began on the drawer of a cabinet he knew contained unusual pink stones. Fancies, they were called. He saw them disappear under the suck of the hose, giving the illusion they were dissolving.
Watts was determined to finish. He hurried, but didn’t sacrifice efficiency. At five minutes to seven the hose sucked up the final diamond from the final drawer. He suddenly felt be
tter. He wished it were possible to take the larger stones. They were all that remained. The rest of the cabinets were empty. Ninety-five per cent of The System’s inventory had been cleaned out.
Watts fastened the fish line to the end of the hose.
At seven A.M. Chesser and Maren pulled the hose up and transferred the line to the wires. Watts pulled the wires down, untaped their ends, attached them to their connections, and bolted them into place. He rolled the used tape into a tight ball and wound the fish line over his fingers, knotting it compactly. He shoved both into his trouser pocket. He screwed the face-plate into position and plugged in the Diamondlite. Then he put on his suit jacket and sat where he usually sat.
Outside, the wind had gone, as though despite all its wild blustering it was afraid of the sun. Dawn was coming. The eastern sky was announcing it with some mauve.
Weaver pulled the hose across. Chesser and Maren replaced the bricks and came across the drain gutter, stepping swiftly now, confident as a pair of veteran performers. They bent the section of fence back and went down from the roof of number 13, latching the trap door, taking the hose and the unit down and out and tossing them into the back of one of the trucks.
Each of the two trucks contained about two tons of diamonds. Chesser and Maren got into the cabin of the lead truck. Weaver would drive the other. They started off. The rear end of Weaver’s truck cleared the corner and was out of the Mews just in time. Five seconds later an authentic Marylebone plasterer in an authentic Marylebone vehicle turned into the Mews at the opposite end.
Maren navigated. Using a map Chesser had marked in advance. They kept to major streets, where truck traffic was common early in the morning. By seven forty-five A.M. they were on the outskirts of London. They picked up the A-2 and headed south on it at a speed just below the limit. All the way to their predetermined turn-off. After another six miles of regular highway they got off onto a smaller road, and then onto one that hadn’t been used in over a year.
There it was. Their destination.
Where would one hide four tons of diamonds? Professional thieves, imitating themselves, would have probably made a get-away to an abandoned warehouse to keep constant watch over the haul. The place Maren, Chesser, and Weaver had selected was more original. It was, in fact, an unhiding place, right out in the open, where it was reasonable to assume no one would think of looking.
An abandoned sand and gravel pit. Which the National Department of Highways had used temporarily while constructing the M-3. It was isolated and very inaccessible. The only road to the pit was about a quarter of a mile long and so overgrown it did not appear to be a road at all. Low-hanging branches and clusters of crowding bushes naturally camouflaged it, and grass had grown up in its tracks. A short distance in, the road was interrupted by a narrow but formidable gully, making the pit even more unapproachable. On a previous day, Chesser and Weaver had brought in some four-inch-thick, twelve-foot-long planks and had laid them across to make a serviceable bridge.
The pit itself was just a gouged-out, gaping hole in the countryside, located five miles southwest of Hindhead, conveniently less than twelve miles from Massey’s West Sussex mansion.
On the floor of the open pit were several mounds of crushed rock, of various sorts, including some quartz which, except for size, resembled uncut diamonds. Not quite as transparent, but almost. Also there was a metal shack in the pit, dilapidated and rusted.
Maren got out to direct Chesser and Weaver, who maneuvered the trucks into a nearly tail-to-tail position. The rear gates were released and the hydraulic dumping mechanism put into operation. The diamonds came pouring out and down onto the ground, sliding, clicking against one another. A minor avalanche of twenty million carats, forming what appeared to be merely a pile of worthless, ordinary stones.
The trucks were pulled forward and their engines cut. Chesser and Weaver jumped out, eager to see.
There were many things they could have said at that moment, but nothing was adequate. So they just stood there, all three speechless, shocked numb by their total success. It was difficult for them to accept what they’d done. As Maren had prophesied, they’d made criminal history, pulled off the greatest robbery of all time.
Delighted as she was, Maren couldn’t help also feeling a considerable letdown. The concentrated risk, the intense stimulation, was over.
Weaver’s thoughts transcended the diamonds. He saw all the black hands that had scratched them from their own earth. And how he could now, finally, pay them back.
Chesser was trying to convince himself that what he was seeing wasn’t an illusion. Look at all those fucking diamonds. Repeat. Look at all those fucking diamonds …
Chesser broke the spell by rushing forward and climbing up to sit on the summit of the twelve-billion-dollar heap, assuming what he had always resentfully visualized was Meecham’s unique position. He got diamonds in his shoes. He felt them hard and gritty under the cheeks of his ass. It made him lightheaded.
Chesser had heard often enough that one’s status in this life depended greatly upon where one sat. At that moment, Chesser was on top.
It was nine A.M. The door to the subterranean vault at number 11 performed all its electronically timed intricacies. Its alarms were deactivated, and the door itself swung slowly open.
The plan had called for Watts to make his exit from the vault as soon as possible. He was to take the elevator up to the second floor and then come down the stairs to the main foyer, where he would sit reading the newspaper, as though he’d just arrived. More often than not he got to work early and had to wait for the vault to open before going down to it. So his behavior this day wouldn’t be considered unusual. He would merely be running a few minutes behind schedule, and was supposed to set his watch back to explain that.
Because Watts was normally the first one down in the vault each morning, he would discover and report the robbery. They wouldn’t suspect him. His loyalty was taken for granted by The System and his consistently mild deportment placed him, so to speak, beneath suspicion. No, they wouldn’t suspect Watts. If they considered him at all, they would consider him incapable of such a thing.
Watts wasn’t to pretend excitement or act extremely upset when he reported the robbery. Rather, he was to inform Meecham in his customary understated British manner. If he was nervous, that would be understandable.
That was the plan.
But it was impossible.
Watts had known all along that it was impossible, because whenever he arrived at number 11, early or not, he had to be checked in by Security. No exceptions. Security was even more conscientious about checking in than they were about checking out. Watts had chosen not to reveal that restriction to Chesser and Maren. He felt it was his prerogative not to do so. He reasoned that he was scheduled to die soon anyway. So it wasn’t much of a sacrifice, really. When his watch said eight thirty, he removed a small blue capsule from his vest pocket and placed it in his mouth. He had difficulty swallowing it. His throat was dry, wanting to reject it. He managed, though, to get it down.
He’d been told it would be relatively painless and would take twenty minutes to kill him.
That information was correct.
One of the classifiers discovered the dead Watts and notified Meecham. Meecham was astonished and annoyed. He immediately informed Coglin and hoped this incident wouldn’t interfere with the important sights that were scheduled for that day.
By the time Meecham arrived down in the vault, Coglin was already there with several of his specialists. Watts’s body wasn’t covered. It was stretched out on the floor. Meecham tried not to look at it.
“Suicide,” was Coglin’s opinion.
“Why the hell didn’t he stay home and do it?”
“He was in the vault. When it opened this morning he was already here.”
“Impossible.”
“He must have been in here all night.”
“He was checked out yesterday afternoon, wasn’t he?” asked Meech
am.
“He was checked out,” replied Coglin, subdued.
“Your section fucked up.” Meecham was very upset. He never swore, except under the most intimate circumstances.
Coglin took the blame with a nod.
Meecham pressed his advantage. “The least you can do now is see this mess is handled discreetly. I assume you can get the police to cooperate?
“Of course.”
“Today of all days,” Meecham continued, “we’ve got packets to make up.” In his mind he was already appointing the next most senior classifier to fill Watts’s position.
“You don’t know all of it,” Coglin said.
“What do you mean?”
“The inventory is gone.”
“Please don’t be ridiculous.”
Nevertheless, Meecham pulled out one of the drawers of the nearest cabinet, and saw it was empty. He didn’t believe it. He pulled out another, and then went from cabinet to cabinet, his hysteria increasing as he saw they were all empty. He rushed up and down the aisles, grabbing drawers open, cursing their emptiness, slamming them shut. Finally he turned his anger on Coglin. “You incompetent son of a bitch.”
Coglin couldn’t deny it. He told Meecham, “I personally checked out the electronic log.”
“Like you checked out Watts.”
“All alarm systems were functioning last night, all night, continuously.”
“What does that prove?”
“No one got in through the vault door.”
“I don’t give a damn how they got in. It’s what they got out that’s important. Every carat, the lot. Incredible.”
“The time locks on the vault door are not retractable,” said Coglin, and shook his head sharply as though to clear it.
“The inventory just evaporated, is that it?”
“I don’t know how it was done. Not yet.” Coglin glanced over at Watts’s body.
“This could ruin The System,” said Meecham, realizing the potential consequences for the first time.
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