The Chase

by Janet Evanovich

  “Mr. Grove is deeply concerned about U.S.–Chinese relations,” Alexis said to Bernbaum. “He feels there should be extra security on the plane, and he would like me to provide that security. How good are you at establishing a solid, verifiable cover in a short period of time?”

  “How short?”

  “Four hours.”

  He smiled. “Next time, give me a challenge.”

  At 8:30 A.M., the Dodge Charger Daytona with its huge spoiler sped across the tarmac at Dulles and raced up the loading ramp into the rear cargo hold of Stanley Fu’s A380 Superjumbo. A moment later, two black Suburbans pulled up to the front of the plane, parked beside the stairway to the cabin door, and disgorged Fu’s guests.

  Fu could have cared less about the guests. Fu was in the cargo hold, watching the removal of the car’s battery and seeing that the car was properly strapped onto a metal pallet. He flew with his cars all the time, but this was different. This was a new toy.

  Alexis made her way up the cargo ramp to where Fu was standing. She was wearing a crisp, businesslike pantsuit that fit her like neoprene. The Smithsonian’s official PROTECTION SERVICES patch was on the left breast pocket of the jacket. Her hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck.

  “I’m Alexis Poulet with the Smithsonian’s Office of Protection Services,” she said to Fu. “The Smithsonian would like to extend its good wishes to you, and offer whatever assistance you might need in providing safe passage for the rooster.”

  “I appreciate the gesture,” Fu said in perfect English, “but I can assure you it is unnecessary for you to accompany the rooster. The rooster is already secure in a safe in the cargo hold of my plane.”

  “Yes, but it’s not yet on Chinese soil. The Smithsonian wants to be absolutely certain that the rooster arrives in its rightful home safely after so many years on distant shores. I’d like to travel with you today and accompany the rooster to its final destination, wherever that might be in China. Before you decide, though, I strongly suggest you contact the Smithsonian on your own to confirm my identity.”

  “Is there a credible threat to the rooster?”

  “No, none at all, but we’d feel terrible if something happened and endangered the relations between our countries. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Very well, it’s the Smithsonian’s money to waste,” Fu said. “Assuming your story checks out, you’re welcome on board as my guest as long as you don’t interfere with the business being conducted.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I can assure you that I will be invisible.”

  “My staff will see to your luggage and your seat.” He nodded curtly at her and continued on to the front of the plane.

  She watched him go. He was in good shape and had martial arts training. It might take five minutes of vigorous exercise to kill him if she ever had to, but it would be fun.

  Nick and Kate had climbed into the Charger’s trunk at dawn. She’d gone in first, squeezing into the back where the trunk narrowed against the tops of the wheel wells. Then Nick got in and lay down on his side, facing the taillights. In order for them both to fit in the trunk, she had to put one arm under her head and press tightly against Nick’s back, her other arm draped around his waist. He pulled the trunk lid closed and they were alone together in pitch-darkness.

  They’d hidden the two cases containing the safecracking rig and the rooster in the compartment they’d created under the backseat. They’d discarded the stuffing and foam in a Dunkin’ Donuts dumpster.

  “I’ve slept in some uncomfortable places,” Kate said, “but this is right up there for first place.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Nick said. “It’s not freezing cold, and it’s not raining.”

  And he fell asleep.

  Kate dozed on and off, and awoke for good when the first mechanics arrived in the garage. She was braced for the moment when the trunk would be opened and they’d be revealed. She even had her story ready. They were innocent tourists who’d been kidnapped and forced into the trunk. Then, at the first opportunity, she’d run like hell for the door.

  She heard muffled talking, then after a while the driver’s side door opened and closed, the engine cranked over, and the car was rolling. The ride was relatively smooth until the car raced up the ramp to the cargo hold and Kate and Nick were tipped at an angle. More muffled talking. She heard the hood creak open, and after some time it was slammed shut. Obviously, the ground crew was securing the car for the flight.

  Kate heard the men leaving and then the hum of the A380’s ramp closing, sealing the cargo hold. Nick didn’t stir.

  “Are you awake?” Kate whispered.

  “Hard to sleep with this thing rumbling up a ramp at a forty-five-degree angle.”

  “These are the worst seats I’ve ever had on a flight. I’m making the airline reservations on our next trip.”

  “That’s a deal,” Nick said.

  A few minutes later, the plane taxied down the runway and lifted off. When it reached altitude, Nick cautiously opened the trunk and peeked out, scanning the area with a small Maglite.

  “Looks like we’re alone,” he said, pushing the trunk the rest of the way open.

  “Great. Now if you could just get me out of here. I’m not sure I can uncurl myself without help.”

  “I know what you mean. I can’t feel my legs from the knees down.” Nick raised a leg and stretched it straight. He maneuvered himself over the edge of the trunk and hung there for a couple beats. “This seemed like a good idea yesterday. Right now I’m not so sure.” He rolled the rest of his body out of the trunk, went down to the metal pallet with a thunk, and lay there spreadeagle for a moment.

  “Are you okay?” Kate asked.

  “I’m old.” He stood and looked in at Kate. “Wrap your arms around my neck, and I’ll haul you out.”

  “My arms don’t work.”

  “Okay, then swing your legs over the side and I’ll pull you up.”

  “My legs aren’t working either.”

  “Is anything working?”

  “Yes. My bladder’s working. I need a bathroom.”

  “Honey, I don’t know if there’s a bathroom in the cargo hold.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is a long trip.”

  “I don’t have a problem with these things. I just need a jelly jar.”

  “I can’t use a jelly jar!”

  “Don’t panic. We’ll get you out of the trunk and we’ll look around.”

  Nick got Kate’s legs over the edge of the trunk, grabbed her under the arms, and tugged. Kate came out with a grunt, her legs buckled under, and the two of them went down to the metal pallet with Kate sprawled on top of Nick.

  “I always had you pegged for a woman who would want the top,” Nick said.

  “This was a stupid idea.”

  “I’m starting to like it … a lot.”

  “I can tell.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Nick said. “You’re lying on my flashlight.”

  “Sure,” Kate said. “I knew that.” She rolled onto her back and moved her arms and legs around. “Some feeling is returning.” She got to her hands and knees and stood. She took her own flashlight out of her pocket and flicked the beam around the windowless cargo hold. She checked out Fu’s Rolls-Royce Phantom, a thirty-one-foot jetboat, and two rows of the aluminum containers known as unit load devices curved to fit snugly against the contours of either side of the large hold. Three of the ULDs held luggage and whatever else Fu had picked up on his trip. The fourth ULD held the safe.

  A narrow space between the two sets of ULDs was just wide enough for a person to squeeze through and get to the access door on the far wall. Kate knew from studying the A380 floor plan that the door led to the landing gear compartment and, beyond that, to the rest of the lower level of the plane.

  “Sixteen hours and counting,” Nick said. “This is practically a vacation.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Kate went off to find a restroom, and
Nick went to the Charger. He opened the passenger door, tipped the front seat forward, and lifted the seat cushion on the rear bench seat, exposing the two silver cases hidden inside, plus a coiled power cord with jumper cables on one end.

  When Kate returned, Nick had the door to one of the ULDs open, revealing a dark gray safe about the size of a small refrigerator. Kate shined her light on the safe, and the silver combination dial gleamed.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” Nick said.

  He opened the case he’d gotten from Gelman, and Kate thought the device inside looked like a dismantled robot arm. The pincer-fingered “hand,” the cylindrical armature, the cables, the suction cups, and the servomotor were all neatly placed in formfitting foam cutouts.

  Nick set his flashlight on top of the safe and began to carefully assemble the pieces of the rig, which snapped together and were tightened with bolts he could turn with his fingers. The robotlike arm of the rig was surrounded by a skeletal sleeve that supported it and protected the delicate pincers at the end. Nick screwed suction cups to the front of the sleeve that encircled the pincers.

  “Fu trusts this safe to guard items that he holds dear. He and that box share a big secret, the combination, something he won’t share with anybody else. We can use that knowledge to improve our odds of cracking the combination.”

  “I thought the machine you’re putting together is supposed to do that.”

  “Oh, it definitely will.” Nick attached the robotic arm to a small tripod and extended the telescoping legs beneath it so the rig was level with the combination dial. “The safecracking software will try every possible combination, using those pincers to spin the dial and sensors to detect the subtle click whenever a tumbler slips into position. It could take two minutes or two days. You never know.”

  “You’re telling me that you don’t know how long it will take to crack the safe?”

  “It’s mathematics, the process of elimination, and chance. You can’t accurately put a timer on that.”

  “I wish you’d told me that before we started this caper.”

  “You wouldn’t have agreed to do it.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Because where I come from, ‘you never know’ is not favorable odds.”

  “We can significantly improve those odds if we know a couple of the numbers in the combination.”

  Nick slid the armature against the safe so that the pincers clutched the dial and the suction cups were flat against the door.

  “That’s like trying to guess the numbers in the lottery,” Kate said. “What happens if we guess wrong?”

  “It could take even longer to open the safe than if we’d relied only on pure luck and the software’s algorithm.”

  There were little tabs on the suction cups. Nick pressed the tabs, and the arm stuck firmly against the safe. He plugged one end of the power cord into the machine and ran the rest of the cord, the one with the jumper cables on the end, out to the battery that had been removed from the Rolls-Royce.

  “We know that Fu is a successful Chinese businessman with a dragon painted on his plane,” Nick said. “Dragons have enormous symbolic power in Chinese culture. A dragon is also the logo of his company. That leads me to believe that Fu is superstitious, since dragons represent power and good luck in Chinese culture.”

  Nick took out his iPhone, plugged it into a socket on the safecracking device, and tapped a vault-shaped icon on his touch screen, activating an app. “If I’m right, then his combination will be comprised of numbers ending in two, six, eight, and nine. Those are very lucky numbers to the Chinese. Even numbers are usually considered better than odd ones, so we can rule odd numbers out. Traditionally, two represents harmony, six equals success, and eight symbolizes prosperity and high social status, which is why the Beijing Olympics opened on August 8, 2008.”

  “Nine isn’t an even number.”

  “It’s an exception. Nine represents permanence and security. Four is also an exception, in a bad way. It means death.” He gestured to the keyboard on his iPhone screen. “So should I tell the app to favor numbers that end in two, six, eight, and nine?”

  Kate sighed. “Go ’head.”

  Nick tapped the numbers into the iPhone, and the robotic arm came to life. The pincers immediately began spinning the combination dial with remarkable speed and agility. The unit emitted a smooth electric whirring sound and a clickety-clack as its robotic joints moved.

  “Now all we have to do is wait for the door to open,” Nick said.

  Alexis remained in her seat for the first couple hours and casually watched the other passengers move about the plane. None of them had introduced themselves or tried to engage her in small talk. In fact, nobody seemed to notice her at all. That’s because she didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and her body language screamed not interested in any human interaction. She might as well have been wearing Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility.

  The two fake producers didn’t appear to be on board, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have an accomplice or two among the passengers or the crew. Nothing jumped out at her as suspicious or unusual about anyone’s behavior, so she eventually decided to get up and explore the plane along with everybody else.

  She peeked into the gym and changing rooms that were aft of the passenger cabin. There were five executives marveling over the showers and taking pictures of themselves standing in them. The airborne showers didn’t interest her at all. Her attention was drawn to the emergency door to a stairwell that led down to the two lower levels. Someone could use the stairwell to sneak down to the cargo hold, though she suspected that opening the emergency door would set off a warning light on the instrument panel in the cockpit, alerting the pilots.

  Alexis walked back through the cabin toward the front of the plane and along the wood-paneled hallway that separated the four staterooms. The hall curved past the closed double doors leading to Fu’s private suite and ended at the grand, winding staircase that went down to the first-floor lobby.

  She went down the stairs to the second level, encountering two of Fu’s statuesque young Chinese flight attendants carrying trays of dim sum and tea. She made her way past the doors of the conference room and through the elegant library to the nightclub. Several passengers were gathered around the nightclub’s dance floor and gaping at the windowlike video display under their feet. It was a cheap thrill for people who’d never experienced any real danger, she thought. Only a genuine hole in the floor might have interested her. Even then, she wouldn’t gape.

  A door opened at the far end of the room, and a flight attendant emerged carrying a tray of assorted dim sum, fresh from the galley. Alexis peeked into the galley at the white-coated chef. He bowed in greeting and smiled. The galley was small but looked efficient. Elevator doors opened next to a prep area, and a second white-coated chef stepped out carrying a plastic container of food. Perfect, Alexis thought. The pantry was in the cargo hold. This would be her access point to the lower level.

  She backed out of the galley and returned to her seat. She hadn’t seen anyone yet who’d set off any instinctive alarm bells, but a pro probably wouldn’t, and there were still a lot of crew members she hadn’t laid eyes on. That was okay. She had more than fourteen hours to see if there were any thieves on board. She’d wait until the big meeting began, and once most of the passengers were behind those closed doors, she’d see if anyone tried to pay a visit to the safe in the cargo hold. And if someone did, he would find her there waiting for him with the stiletto that she called her “conversation starter.” She’d found that people were a lot more forthcoming with her when she was slowly peeling their skin off.

  And when she was certain she had a little time to herself, she’d take a good look at the safe, although she suspected it would be easier for her to steal the rooster after it was offloaded from the plane.

  Kate was asleep in the backseat of Fu’s Rolls-Royce, her head on Nick’s shoulder, when a bump of turbulence woke her up. She lifted her head
in the darkness.

  “Is the safe open yet?” she asked.

  “Afraid not,” Nick said.

  Kate stretched, running her fingers along the car’s cashmere headliner and then over the creamy chestnut leather seat. “Who knew that flying in the cargo hold could be as elegant as first class?”

  “This is much better,” Nick said. “We’re sitting on Bavarian bullhide. Everyone else uses cowhide for upholstery. Rolls-Royce won’t, because cows get stretch marks.”

  “I can relate. That’s the same reason I insist on vinyl seats in my cars. There’s nothing worse than a car with stretch marks. How long was I asleep?”

  “About four hours.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “We didn’t bring food, but the food storage area is on this level.”

  “I’ll make a supply run,” Kate said. “I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

  “The wine cellar is down here, too. I understand Fu has some excellent Bordeaux. A vintage Pétrus would be nice.”

  “I wouldn’t know a Bordeaux from Hawaiian Punch.”

  “Just grab a bottle of anything red. Some cheese would go well with that. Crottin de Chavignol if they have it. Maybe some chocolate, too.”

  Kate got out of the Rolls, turned her flashlight on, and squeezed through the narrow space between the ULDs to the access door at the front of the cargo hold. She opened the door and walked down a long, dark hallway to another door at the far end. It was pitch-black. Without her flashlight, she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.

  She stopped, pressed her ear to the door, and listened for any sounds of people or activity coming from the other side. She opened the door a crack and peered out.

  The lights were on. There was an elevator to her left and a hallway that led to a housekeeping storage area. Judging by the size of the door, the elevator appeared to be just wide enough to hold a person and a refreshment cart. Directly across from her was the pantry. A porthole window in the pantry door allowed her to see the bread, candy, cookies, and cans of food secured in cupboards with thick wire mesh to keep items from flying out during turbulence. She didn’t see or hear anyone, so she stepped out, crossed to the storeroom, and slipped inside.