The Con Job

by Matt Forbeck

  “Of course I am,” said Nate. “This is not at all like him. Sure, I mean, he’s Hardison. He’s young and can be brash and impulsive, but honestly, never that irresponsible.”

  “We’ll find him.” Sophie said. “We’ve had close calls before, all of us. We always get through it because we work together. That’s the magic part about this little group of ours. Alone, any one of us would have long ago been doomed. Together, we’re unstoppable.”

  “You really believe that?” Nate said, knowing that she did. The woman never failed to impress him.

  “Of course.” She looked up at him with those big dark eyes. “And you know what our secret weapon is?”

  Nate shook his head.

  “You.” He started to wave her off, but she pressed on. “It’s not that you come up with the best plans or run a great con. It’s because you’re so damned good at improvising solutions. ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy,’ right? You’re always quoting that to me. Isn’t that Napoleon?”

  Nate smiled. “Helmuth von Moltke. He studied Napoleon, but he was chief of staff of the Prussian army, which was part of the Ottoman Empire. He also said, ‘Strategy is a system of expedients.’”

  “And that’s just how you treat a con,” Sophie said. “You see it not as a single plan but as a system of options, and you come up with new options on the fly. That’s why we never fail, Nate. Because you always have a plan, even when it looks like you’ve run out of options.”

  Nate grimaced. “Here’s hoping I come up with something in time for Hardison.”

  Nate rubbed his eyes and shook Sophie’s hand good-bye. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her at that moment, but he knew that they had to stay in character, especially inside the convention center.

  “You will, Nate,” Sophie said. “You always do.”

  With that, she turned and headed off in the general direction of Patronus’s booth. Nate hoped she was right—and he hoped he wasn’t already too late.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Sophie wandered around the convention hall for a bit, pretending to be someone who had places to be. If anyone had spotted her on one end of the hall, she would have looked like she was on her way to a meeting. If they’d followed her, though, they would have seen that she never actually got to a meeting but instead, reaching one end of the hall, moved down an aisle and came right back the other way.

  It wasn’t easy to move fast in the exhibit hall, especially in the middle of a Saturday. So many people spent their time shuffling from one booth to the next, not caring about who might be in a hurry behind them. Couple that with people trying to get through with things like walkers, wheelchairs, and strollers, and traffic slowed even further. Add in people stopping every thirty feet or so to get pictures of young people dressed in outlandish costumes—Hardison had called them cosplayers—and there were points where no one moved at all.

  Sophie wasn’t about to just stand there and wait for the people in front of her to start shambling forward again, doing a slow-motion two-step that made her want to scream. She walked forward with a purpose, saying “pardon me” and “excuse me” in a loud, annoyed voice. She decided that if she was playing a New York agent, she might as well act as rude and demanding as such a person might, particularly if that meant she could get through the crowd at a much more reasonable clip.

  After walking just a few aisles like this, though, she knew that the chances of her spotting Hardison were slim, even if she’d been sure he’d been in the exhibit hall. It was like hoping to run into someone at random in Piccadilly Circus on New Year’s Eve. It could happen, sure, but it was ludicrous to think that it would.

  She soon gave it up as a bad job and decided to stroll back toward Patronus’s booth. She was certain no one would have been able to follow her on her shortened quest, but she kept her eyes open anyhow, not only for tails but for Hardison as well. She wasn’t prepared to give up hope on him entirely—not yet and maybe not ever.

  When she reached Patronus’s booth, Sophie kept herself out of his line of sight. He was so busy chatting with people who wanted to ask him questions about the auction and the pieces in it that he had little chance of spotting her, even by accident. Even if he had, he would have been too engaged to come over and see her, she felt sure.

  And even if he managed that, she could tell him that she was just checking out the auction pieces in case she decided to make a bid of her own. That seemed like a natural thing for an agent to do, even more so because Patronus was her client and now her business partner. Why wouldn’t she want to come by and support him and have some of the money go to a great cause at the same time?

  Patronus didn’t even glance in her direction, though. He was so caught up being the center of attention—and in a good way, for what Sophie suspected was the first time in his life—that he didn’t look around much. The glory of it all had overwhelmed him.

  Sophie wondered just how the man expected to get away with all of this. She knew that a lot of the artists who’d given their artwork to Patronus to sell for them had pinned their hopes on this event as the chance for a big payday. That was a pipe dream, of course, a fantasy based on hope and desperation. If the man hadn’t paid them for all the things he’d sold so far, why would he change now?

  Patronus didn’t need to pay those people. He just needed them to stay quiet until the auction was over. Then he’d have their money, and there was little they could do except try to sue him.

  The irony was that if those artists had spoken up earlier, they might have been able to scotch the entire auction. No one who paid any attention to the industry—like the big-money collectors Patronus hoped to rope into his auction—would have anything to do with him. He’d be faced with either selling the items for a fraction of their worth or giving them back. He’d never return the artwork, of course, but at least the artists would have prevented him from acquiring nearly so much money out of it.

  In the end, the crew’s way would be best. She and the others would take Patronus for everything he stole, and then some, and give it back to the men and women who had actually earned it. She’d talked it over with the rest at the Field. Any extra money they happened to accrue would be donated to the Hero Initiative, anonymously.

  Sophie wondered, though, what Patronus must be thinking now. She and Nate had delivered his dream to him, but if he’d stopped to think about it, he’d have realized how horribly this might blow up in his face. If he kept up his Patronus identity and people discovered that he’d used money stolen from icons of the industry they loved to help set up a new publishing company, they’d tear him to pieces in the court of public opinion.

  Perhaps he thought he’d claim it was all a misunderstanding and try to lie his way through it. Or maybe he planned to work for the fictional company under a pen name. He’d probably tell Nate and Sophie—or Jeff and Jess—that he wanted to establish his credentials as an artist without using any of the fame that he’d accumulated for running such a successful auction. Then, once his deception was made public, he’d quietly hide behind the new name. That way, he could start over in the industry he really did seem to care about, once again.

  That was the most ironic thing about Patronus, of course. He could have made more money and been a better thief in another industry, but he loved comic books so much that he’d decided to rip off some of the most beloved figures in the business. Sophie found the illogic of it striking.

  She’d seen this happen before, and the people who committed these kinds of crimes always had a clever rationale. They often claimed they didn’t have any better options. They knew the industry they cared about better than any other and thought this meant they were in a unique position to exploit it. Some part of them maybe believed that it would all work out in the end and they’d be lionized for their successes, which they’d spin from crimes into accomplishments.

  These people were, without exception, amateurs. They let their emotions control their decisions, and they often exposed themselves p
ersonally in ways they didn’t need to, but that they found irresistible. That left them vulnerable to true professionals like Sophie and the rest of the crew.

  Sophie wandered around Patronus’s booth and examined the artwork on display. While she didn’t have the same passion for comic-book art as Hardison, she could appreciate the beauty of it and the craft that went into its creation. She’d made a fortune committing crimes in the world of fine art, which is one reason she could play the part of Jess Drew, New York art agent, so well, and while comic-book illustrations weren’t in the same class, she recognized their artistry nonetheless.

  Patronus had some truly stunning pieces on display. To figure out which ones would be the most valued, though, Sophie studied not the artwork but the people drooling over the individual pieces. She didn’t know Kirby from Kane, or any of the other names Hardison tossed around so casually, but she could spot which pieces the fans were crowding around—and which crowds seemed to have the most money to spend.

  She followed in their wake, like a shark swimming among schools of guppies, watching where they fed. As she examined some of the most popular pieces, though, something odd and horrifying struck her. The pieces she was looking at were fake.

  She peered at them each again, taking a closer look. Sure enough, the paper stock on which the items in front of her had been made was too new. It hadn’t yellowed a bit or cracked at the edges, although some of that could be explained if the owners had been experts in the preservation of such pieces. When she’d seen the pieces before, though, on Thursday, she’d noticed that many of them had shown signs of age and wear, signs that no longer existed. She was sure if she could get close enough to examine them with a jeweler’s loupe, she’d discover that the paper had been manufactured and bleached using modern methods not available when the pieces in question had been created.

  Sophie turned away from the booth and headed for the convention center’s lobby. She didn’t want Patronus or anyone working for him to hear what she had to say.

  “Something’s very wrong here,” she said into her earpiece. “Nate?”

  “Yeah, Sophie?”

  “The pieces on display here in Patronus’s booth? They’re forgeries.”

  Nate didn’t say a word for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  “I know a forgery when I see one,” Sophie said. “These aren’t even all that good. I mean, they’re good enough that most people wouldn’t notice when staring at them in a glass display case, but they won’t stand up to close scrutiny.”

  “That’s damned odd,” Nate said. “We know he has the originals, right? So what’s his game here?”

  “Maybe he wants to sell them twice?” said Parker. The tone in her voice told Sophie that even she didn’t believe that to be true. “He was an art forger to begin with, after all.”

  “If that was the case, he could just sell them privately, over and over,” Sophie said. “Why risk someone discovering that here? Many of the collectors I’ve seen wandering his booth seem to know what they’re doing. As soon as they get their hands on the actual pieces, they’ll know that they’ve purchased fakes.”

  “Unless he doesn’t plan to ever hand them over,” Eliot said.

  Sophie nodded. Just as she was about to leave the hall, she turned around and looked back at Patronus’s booth, the glass and silver cabinets sparkling under the spotlights focused on them from above. The burly men who acted as the booth’s security stood there stolid and passive, watching the crowd mill in and out of the area. If anyone stayed focused on a piece for too long, one of them would move in and loom over them until they moved on, made uncomfortable by the large man’s presence.

  As Sophie watched this happen, Patronus came over to chat up one of the people the guard had shooed away by his mere presence. Now that the woman in question wasn’t staring too hard at the artwork, he was happy to come over and chat with her about the work for sale. He wanted them looking, sure, but not too close, and he wanted them to come back for the auction.

  “He’s working too hard for him to be planning anything before the auction,” Sophie said. “I’ll bet if I came over and asked him about the forgeries, he’d claim that he’d installed them as a security measure, to make sure the convention staff didn’t walk off with anything in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s a good cover story,” Nate said. “If he’s that clever. I’m still not sold on that.”

  “They weren’t forgeries before, though, Nate,” Sophie said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Now, that is odd,” said Nate. “Maybe he wanted to show the goods to the top collectors early in the show. You know, the people who could spot the fakes easy. Give them a private preview even, make them feel special.”

  “Right,” said Sophie. “And then he moves them out of here last night and replaces them with the fakes. It’s simple enough.”

  “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to,” said Parker.

  “Unless,” Nate said, “he doesn’t think he’s going to get caught.”

  “But how’s that going to work?” Eliot said. “He’s got to hand over the goods after the auction, right?”

  “Not until the next day,” said Sophie. “A lot of things can happen to a valuable piece of artwork between auction and delivery.”

  “Right,” said Nate. “A lot. We need to find those originals if we can.”

  “What about Hardison?” said Parker.

  “He’s first priority, of course,” Nate said. “We shouldn’t have to worry about the originals until after the auction. Find Hardison first, then find that artwork.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Parker and Eliot strode into the Hyatt and walked straight up to the front desk. There was a line of people checking in, but they cut right past it. Parker fished out her false badge and waved it at the manager—a tall Asian woman—who came hustling over.

  “Special Agent Hagen with the FBI,” Parker said. She flashed her identification at the manager, whose name tag read Grace, then flipped it closed and slipped it back into her pocket in a polished move. She gestured toward Eliot. “This is Special Agent Fontane. We’ve had a report of a kidnapping here in the hotel last night, and we’d like to review your security tapes.”

  “Of course,” the manager said. She did a double take, glancing at the way Parker and Eliot were dressed. “Pardon me for saying, but you don’t look like FBI agents.”

  Eliot put a hand on the counter. “We’re under deep cover at the convention, ma’am, in a top-secret operation. They called us in on this assignment because we were the closest agents in the field, and time is of the essence.” He gave her a grim smile. “I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course,” Grace said again, letting her eyes roam over Eliot. His long hair and scruffy whiskers might not scream FBI agent, but she seemed to like them despite that.

  Parker repressed an urge to roll her eyes at the woman. Instead, she knocked Eliot’s hand off the counter, getting the woman’s attention. “We need to see those surveillance tapes right away, ma’am. Please.”

  Surprised, Grace collected herself and gave Parker a sharp, efficient nod. “Of course,” she said, moving off to the right behind the counter. “Right this way.”

  She opened an access door for Parker and Eliot and allowed them behind the counter. From there, she led them into a back-office area. Soon they stood in at the doorway of a brightly lit office without any windows. Instead, one wall of the room was lined with a dozen flat-screen monitors that rotated among a number of views throughout the hotel and its environs at regular intervals.

  A man in a security officer’s uniform—navy slacks, blue shirt with navy epaulets, and an unimpressive silver badge for a name tag—sat up from where he’d been slouching in front of the monitors. He brushed crumbs from the front of his shirt. He struck Parker as an athlete who had once taken his job and his fitness seriously but had become bored with maintaining both.

  “Hello, Walt,” Grace said in a hostile tone. “These
people need your help.”

  “What’s up?” he said, suddenly fully alert.

  Parker couldn’t tell if he was more nervous about seeing her and Eliot or about having Grace pop into the room unannounced. She suspected the night shift got most of the action around here, especially during a convention as large as this. Things must generally be dull enough during the day that a man could learn to slack off to the point that the manager didn’t care much for him anymore. She supposed it didn’t matter, as long as she could get what she needed.

  “FBI,” Parker said. “We need to see your surveillance tapes of the Top of the Hyatt last night.”

  “What happened?” The man’s curiosity was up now.

  “We have a report of a kidnapping of an African American male, tall, thin, midtwenties,” Eliot said, his voice far more clipped and efficient than Parker could pull off without concentrating. She’d played Agent Hagen before, several times, but usually with Hardison as her partner, Agent Thomas. This made her miss him more than ever.

  “He was last seen in the Top of the Hyatt about eleven last night,” Parker said.

  Walt reached for the keyboard and mouse in front of him and brought up footage from a black-and-white camera on the monitor in front of him. The movements on the screen were choppy and fuzzy, but it showed the ticket taker in the Star Trek uniform standing in front of the entrance to the elevator that led to the Top of the Hyatt. The camera had been placed over his shoulder at the elevator doors, which meant that they could see the faces of anyone leaving the elevator.

  “Hold on,” Walt said. “This is the proper feed, all right. We just need to scan through it then until we find your man. Assuming you have your details correct.”

  “We do,” Parker said. Her tone dared the man to contradict her. The look on his face told her he wouldn’t.

  Without a word, Walt moved through the images the camera had recorded. The fact that last night’s event had been an exclusive party with high-priced tickets worked in their favor. Parker suspected that on most nights there would have been a lot more traffic in and out of the high-rise bar, but yesterday’s guests were well-dressed fans, including a number in full-on Star Trek costumes.